JOHN 14

"in my father's house are many mansions if not I would have told you I go to prepare a place for you"

It has been said the word mansions is a mistranslation in the King James. Actually, it is more a denotation. A mansion denotes the dwellingplace of a person with authority. Thus, in Heaven, we will sit in these places, or seats of authority with the Father.

"Jesus saith unto him I am the way the truth and the life no man cometh unto the Father but by me"

Note Jesus did not say "I am one way, one truth and one life."

"verily verily I say unto you he that believeth on me the works that I do shall he do also and greater than these shall he do because I go unto my father."

This verse has a couple meanings.

First, we will do greater works than Jesus in that we will do the same works with greater impact. Where Jesus could only speak to crowds of thousands of people, Christians can now reach millions of people through means such as radio, television and the internet.

The second meaning of "greater works" is just what it says. As I have gotten closer to God in the past few years, I am starting to believe more and more that, when he said we could tell a mountain to be cast into the sea and it would be done, that means we are actually going to have to cast a mountain into the sea someday.

"and whatsoever ye shall ask in my name that will I do that the Father may be glorified in the Son if ye shall ask any thing in my name I will do"

Prosperity preaching is condemned by many and rightly so. Most of the people who pay attention to the bigtime prosperity preachers are too spiritually bankrupt to receive anything from the Father. If they got money, they would only spend it on their own pleasures. If they were cured of all their ailments, they would only use there new-found vitality towards vain self-satisfying pursuits.

However, we can not ignore verses in the Bible that say God wants us to prosper and be healthy. Many preachers will say it isn't true God wants this for us. After all, religion is the opiate of the people, designed to annesthetize people to their [problems and how bad things are.

Maybe, in certain cases, prospering is always having what you need. Maybe, in certain cases, being in good health is having a better day than others.

Let us consider this subject from yet another angle. How much more prosperous would people be if they didn't spend money on things like getting drunk, cigarettes and gunning for the 130-some million dollar lottery? How much more money would people have if they weren't always concerned about having the latest tech toys or other material goods the world tells them they need to have in order to even come close to amounting to anything?

How much healthier would people be if they didn't get drunk, smoke or use drugs? How much healthier would they be if they weren't always acting like every personal slight was a huge affront to them? How much more good health would they have if they weren't bitter, worried, anxious, or fearful?