Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Televangelists

* In an effort to encourage my writing, I will be adding shorter posts from time to time. This is one of them.

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver recently did an episode on televangelists:

I'm certainly not denying scriptures like Luke 6:38, but those scriptures can be abused when taken out of context of the larger gospel. When you give only to get you will not reap -- that's greed, AKA the love of money (which is the root of all evil, 1 Timothy 6:10).

This is what I love about the Sacred Romance -- your *heart* in the matter makes the difference, not just what you *do* (Matthew 6:1-2,5, 15:8).

     Money is one of the places where Christianity shines, I think. The world says, "Chase money. Money is your security." God says, "Chase Me; I'm your security."
     The point, I think, is not to be obsessed about money. I don't really think about money that much. I think about being productive, being fruitful, being a man, working hard -- and trusting God to take care of us.
     I think this is what Jesus meant when he said, "Don't worry about money. Focus on God and His way of doing things, and He will take care of you." (Matthew 6:19-20, 24-34)
     How we look at that -- what we believe about that -- changes everything.
~ John Eldredge

Although I don't believe that God *wants* people to be poor ("you can't *help* the poor if you *are* the poor"), saying God wants you to be rich isn't exactly right, either

The difference?

Followers of God focus on others; the rich focus on themselves (by buying “parsonages” for $6,500,000).

READ THE FINE PRINT!

I've had the same Verizon Wireless monthly plan for over 4 years:

• 450 minutes
• unlimited text
• 2 GB of data

I use autopayment, so there's no real need to look at my bill.

And I never really use all of it, so there was no reason to change.

Until I accidentally downloaded 1.5 GB's of music with the Amazon Music app (their user interface is awful!).

In a panic, I called Verizon to see what my options were.

I could pay $10/GB over, or I could change to a 3 GB plan that would cover my data-download anomaly.

I anxiously changed plans with the hope that my old plan would be there when the billing cycle was over.

And yes, the old plan was there.

But my heart sank when I realized that the grandfathered $20/month discount was gone.

I 've spent a couple years wondering why people left Verizon for carriers with lower bills; I consistently paid under $70, so I wasn't really complaining.

However, for the duration of my 2-year plan, losing the irrecoverable $20/month discount will cost me $340.

All because I made a hasty, rash decision without being familiar with my bill and the details therein.

Conclusion:

1. Read the fine print.
2. Go over your bills every month, even if it's just to maintain (2 Peter 1:12) knowledge of what the charges and credits are.
3. And verify the consequences of your financial choices before you make them.

But this isn't the only hasty decision I've made that will cost me a couple hundred dollars:

An incident recently occurred whereby I could've saved over $800.

However, in the midst of the moment, I was so overcome with shame -- I thought the incident was my fault -- that I didn't do anything about it.

Conclusion:

• Stop;
• Breathe;
• Think through the situation; and
• "Speak the truth. Always. Even if it leads to your death."

Besides, if I had stopped and prayed about the plan change, I doubt God would've told me to go through with it.

Looking back, it would've only cost me $10 anyway.