Writing to Christians in a Macedonian city of Philippi, Paul writes: “For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ...” (v.18). People don’t like this message, don’t want anything to do with the cross of Christ. No surprise. Who of us wants to mess with death and suffering? Why, it’s just common sense.

Cross-bearing goes against the grain of what pop culture in America tells us about life. It goes against the grain of our desire for instant gratification. After all, we’ve been taught to follow our dreams, to let nothing get in the way of personal goals.^[1] This is what the prosperity gospel of today is all about.

We want prosperity because things are not that good in America today. A CNN/Money e-Trade 2016 poll found that more than half of us (56%) think things will be worse in America…