You Might Already Be a Winner!

The flyer’s cover achieved my attention:

Congratulations. Your Rewards Are Here!

Because it was sent from our bank, I believed the mail to be legitimate, and so tore it open in search of my rewards.

Peeling back the first flap heightened the excitement:

Your Rewards Certificate is Inside! You’ve already started earning points toward great rewards. All 8 prize levels are full of perfect rewards that are perfectly within reach.

Removal of the tri-fold’s final flap revealed the featured item – a five piece set of luggage for just 800 points – and the temptation of awaiting goodies:

Congratulations! By using your convenient debit card, you have earned point toward a free gift! Below is a certificate you can enter into your rewards account. Once you receive 100 points you can select a prize!

My eyes moved to the top of the flyer where were pictured items such as watches, air travel, televisions, and audio systems, all free of charge to earners of sufficient points. . . . If thrills could kill!

Turning to the only flap I had not reviewed, I discovered a decorative certificate, reminiscent of a bank check, the report of our particular rewards. There in the middle of the flap, in bold print and accompanied by an impressive 32 character ID code, were our points: 1.

More than zero, but less than any everything else, we have earned one point. Only 799 to go for the luggage. Only 3,999 before one of the TVs comes our way. I can taste that second point already. . . . Though I really don’t know what we did to earn it.

The flyer mentions a debit card, which we own, but use exactly once a week at a local grocery store. If it took just five years of grocery store visits to produce our first rewards point, we’ll be packing fresh suitcases by the year 4002. (Though we may have to negotiate with the bank, since the flyer reports our reward point expires in 2009.)


One of the few things my fellow followers of Jesus can do that will raise my ire is to promote a rewards-based Christianity, an assertion that appropriate actions — usually sacrificial financial donations to the ministry promoting the rewards program — result in predictable and beneficial consequences. One Christian television network devotes much of its programming to preachers and other theological pundits who, with fire in their eyes and screeches to their voices, attempt to persuade viewers to call in...and win.

I’ve heard promoters call it seed planting or harvest offerings. “God is waiting to unleash a blessing in your life,” shouts the preacher. “But first you must show your faith. Call the number on your screen. Plant the seed. Show your faith. Then wait for the harvest.”

Captivated audience members wave arms and faces to heaven in apparent agreement, perhaps testifying to their own experience, but more likely energized by a desperate hope that the preacher’s right.

My encounter with the teaching of Scripture is that what awaits participants in this faith-faced shell game is a lot like the rewards flyer I described earlier. I envision the excitement produced as program players tear into their colorful rewards flyer.

“Congratulations! Your rewards are here!” announces the cover.

“Your Rewards Certificate is Inside!” says the second pronouncement, a bit deeper into the flyer, its print jiggling wildly in the players fidgety fingers.

Almost unable to contain their enthusiasm, with sugar plum fairies break dancing in their heads, the rewarded players rip open the flyer’s final flap to discover a certificate that is both less colorful and more attractive than the one described above.

“I am with you to the close of the age.”

Vainly the players search for a rewards points update, an account number, a personalized ID code, something, anything to certify their progress toward the promised blessings. But there is nothing else on the page.

Having located receipts for their gifts, the distraught players call the ministries with whom they had planted their seeds, but discover that those ministries are all out of business. Jesus’ is the only business still open, and he’s offering only one rewards program:

You preach, teach, tell, and baptize in my name. I’ll be with you.

And as for those preachers who proffered that other approach to rewards? That’s for another essay.


Pray with me:
God, in Jesus you changed the world; sadly, we don’t always let Jesus change us. Help me figure Jesus out. Help me both understand and practice surrender to him. Do something with my need for things, as I do something today to prove I no longer need any other reward than your company in his name, Amen.