Josh Samarco

There are many sayings out there that “Christians” tend to use that aren’t true. These sayings are misinterpretations of Scripture and a misunderstanding of God. I hope this post clears some of these sayings up. Check them out:

“God gives his hardest battles to his toughest soldiers.” Where did this come from? It’s not true. We all have hard battles. Life is hard. Who decides who God’s “toughest soldiers” are and why would God handpick certain individuals to carry the hard battles? Will certain people in this world not carry hard battles?

“God will never give you more than you can bear.” Things Jesus never said. There are going to be in fact many burdens that you cannot bear. There are going to be many storms in life that completely break you, make you feel desperate and of no power to move forward. It’s not about what you can bear anyways. May we get to a point that we begin to say, “I have some burdens that I cannot bear and I need to hand them over to You Lord.” – See Matthew 11:28-30

The sufferings that we face are not apart from God nor were we created to suffer alone. Our sufferings help us encounter God and place our hope and trust in Him.

“God wouldn’t have given you this trial if you couldn’t get through it.” Maybe you are in this trial so you can stop depending on your “self-sufficient power” and actually depend on God’s all sustaining power. Maybe you can’t get through the trial so you can come to the realization that you cannot do it on your own.

“The Lord helps those who help themselves” – Things Jesus never said. Where is this in the Bible? If you could help yourself then why would you need a Savior? The Lord helps because He is a loving, generous, all – sufficient God of compassion.

“Jesus is my co-pilot.” My friend, Jesus is not your co-pilot. He doesn’t need your help. He is God all by Himself. Let Jesus work through you like He wants to. You don’t have to help Him drive the ship. – See John 1

We rob God of His glory when we try to do it ourselves and our way. Don’t be a glory thief!

“You have to speak in tongues to be saved and/or you don’t have the Holy Spirit if you don’t speak in tongues.” Things Jesus never said. Bruh salvation comes from God and God alone, not a gift. You are given the Holy Spirit at the moment of conversion and regeneration. (when you are born again and made alive in Christ. This cannot happen without the Holy Spirit.) – See Ephesians 1:13-14

“If I pay my tithes and give my money to God, He is going to bless me.” God is not your spiritual genie. Can He bless you? Sure, but “blessings” are usually equated to material items when used in this context. How about we are blessed by the simple fact that God died for our sins and rose again so that we can have His power living inside of us?

These are all dangerous sayings that cause damaging thinking. These sayings lead to putting a lot of self blame on ourselves when life gets hard. These sayings will have us thinking we are to be blamed, we are being punished and we have to bear the pain all on our own.

The Gospel is not a self help Gospel. Christianity is not about making you good. Christ came to make dead people alive.

My prayer is for all of us, myself included, to let go of these “cute bumper sticker” sayings and actually begin to learn and search the truths about God and His Scripture. These sayings are all just bad theology, and theology matters on how we view God, others and ourselves.

P.S. I am sure there are more sayings out there but these were the few that came to my mind. By the way, I use to think like this… Thoughts?