A Love Letter To Oprah
by James Robison
Let's pray for Oprah Winfrey and everyone she influences.
Dear Oprah,
I remember when you first launched your daily talk program throughout the country. My wife and I have watched with amazement as it has grown. I know you have been gratified by its broad acceptance and popularity.
My wife Betty and I have been praying for you since Gene Self (my former staff member and close friend of Stedman's) began to tell me about the relationship you had with his friend. On numerous occasions I thought we were going to be able to get together and just talk based on comments Stedman made to my associate. This never occurred, but we have watched your television programs and especially the talk format grow until they have worldwide impact.
Betty and I also host a daily television program, LIFE Today
which airs around the world. I also founded the ministry of Life Outreach International. With the help of countless supporters, Betty and I have been sharing the life and love of God in word and deed in the U.S. and abroad. We focus heavily on Africa, feeding more than 400,000 children each month and drilling hundreds of fresh water wells.
I am writing out of a sincere love and concern for you. I have heard some comments recently, visited the "New Earth" and witnessed the influence of Eckhart Tolle. Some of your statements concerning your beliefs and the direction you are going actually brought tears to my wife's eyes. She was stunned to hear your views of Jesus Christ, eternity and the Bible.
You are a true example of the opportunity and success that America offers people who have had difficult challenges. I can relate, because I am the product of a forced sexual relationship on a 40-year-old woman. As I child, I spent time in a foster home, then with my birth mother and a stepfather who could not read or write. Later, my violent, alcoholic father came back into the picture. It ended when I pointed a gun at him in self-defense as he threatened to kill me. By the grace of God, I did not have to pull the trigger. A couple of years later, I committed my life to Christ and God changed me, established my life, and gave me a future. My wife Betty and I recently celebrated our 45th wedding anniversary. We have three children and 11 grandchildren.
We have witnessed the vast influence you have been afforded. There is no question that you sincerely care about people. Your outreach in Africa and your personal response to the suffering you have seen reveals your genuine interest in the well-being of others. I believe you truly care about others.
You have become popular because you shared your own challenges, your own questions and your own failures. You have shared your battle with weight and tried to help people improve their own health. Anything that helped you, you passed on. I appreciate that. I sense that you believe in God and want the best for all His people.
What breaks my heart is that somehow we, as Christians, have failed to effectively communicate the greatness of our God to you.
I cannot express how much I want you to fully experience the grace that God freely shares through Jesus Christ, as well as the supernatural enabling He provides "to live appropriately and victoriously in the now," as you eloquently put it.
We both know that life can be difficult, but God Almighty has provided a helper through the person of His Holy Spirit to walk through the valleys and also enable us to experience success without our gain becoming idolatrous addiction. He offers us the very things that you claim to be discovering in a mind-boggling journey wrapped in New Age philosophy and relativism. The Apostle Paul warned against the human tendency to justify ungodly ideas by "changing the truth of God into a lie" and allowing our own appetites and desires to control us rather than the proven principles of the Bible.
Here is my great concern. You have obviously seen good Christians whom you admire, such as CeCe Winans and Nicole C. Mullen. I know both of these wonderful women and I am sure they shared the reality of a personal and deep relationship with Jesus Christ. But where have we, as Christians, either in our prayer life or in our example, failed to connect with you and inspire you so you could see Jesus as He really is? Many have seen limited portraits of God, such as the extreme suffering depicted in Mel Gibson's The Passion of Christ. But you may not have been able to see the power of the comment Jesus made to his mother when he fell beneath the weight of the cross in that movie. He commented, "Mother, I came to make all things new."
Oprah, He is the one who enables us to rightly live in the now. Only Jesus Christ can free us from past problems, present pressures and future pursuits that can become idols.
Rather, we look back on the past, thank God for the lessons we have learned, trust Him for grace to deal with painful experiences, and provide present abiding power to count it all joy when we face temptation and trials, knowing that He will walk with us not only in the presence of our enemies and accusers, but even through the valley of the shadow of death. He is our ever-present spiritual and personal Shepherd. Think about this: He said it was necessary to leave and send "another of the same kind" -- the Holy Spirit, His Spirit living in us in order for us to live life fully and freely.
Surely you have seen the reality of this eternal truth. The fact is He not only covers the past and provides for the present, but He also promises to secure our future. We are, in fact, eternal beings. We are not creatures of the day. It breaks my heart to hear you say that a sentence from your pastor concerning God being a jealous God caused you to reconsider your entire belief system. You misunderstood what the pastor intended and the reality of God's jealousy. He is not jealous of us, He is jealous for us - in the sense that He does not want to see anything foolishly captivate us and take us as prisoners. God does not want you to miss the supernatural fulfillment that He freely offers. It is like a wife being jealous not because her husband associates with other women, but because she knows that he might be captivated by a false relationship and taken away from his first love and his family. Godly jealousy is an expression of love and concern for our best interests -- not a petty human emotion of fear, but concern that we might miss the very essence of life.
Oprah, you are gifted. You have been so blessed and I know you recognize and appreciate it. I believe that you want to share the best you can discover with others.
But Oprah, can I encourage you to please sit down and go a little deeper and discover something that will also truly enable your friend Eckhart Tolle and others caught up in his teaching to see that God has given us Himself in the person of Jesus Christ, who not only lived and died, but now through the power of His Spirit is available to live in us if we open ourselves to His indwelling presence?
This is not mere religion, it is relationship with the living God and an unconditional love for others.
You are an honest seeker and sincere in your desire to help others. Please give us as Christians another chance to clearly communicate the matchless, amazing grace of our great God and give Jesus, the One who has never in any way failed, the opportunity to become the fullness of life for you and those you care about. He will enable you to deal with the past, live fully and meaningfully in the now, and secure your future, so that whatever challenges may come, you will have a Friend and Father who never leaves or forsakes you.
As believers, Betty and I are praying for you and encouraging every person with faith in Jesus Christ to lift you up in loving prayer before the Lord. You are a special person and it is my prayer that you not miss anything God has to offer. I pray that your journey will inspire all of us to examine our lives and become more consistent, compassionate, effective witnesses for Christ.
Perhaps each of us as Christians should feel some weight of responsibility for not more effectively demonstrating the great message of hope found in Christ. Those who have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ will never be disappointed in Him.
God loves you so much, as well as everyone you sincerely seek to inspire.
Praying His best for you and those you love,
About the author: James Robison is the founder and president of LIFE Outreach International, a Christian media ministry and mission relief organization. He and his wife, Betty, host of the television program Life Today; He has authored numerous books, including The Absolutes: Freedom's Only Hope and True Prosperity.
Media Contact: Randy Robison, editor@jamesrobison.net <mailto:editor@jamesrobison.net>
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Our Weapon
"Do not be deceived: "Evil company corrupts good habits."
1 Corinthians 15:33
Recommended Reading
2 Peter 2:1-3
It seems like everywhere you look these days, someone is pushing a new philosophy—one that won't offend anyone, exclude anyone, or make any absolute claims about anything.
According to some, all paths lead to heaven, and there are no eternal consequences for our actions. Others believe in karma, the idea that what goes around comes around. Unfortunately, these beliefs are not just floating around on the pages of an obscure alternative book or in a few clips of a late-night television show; they are in our face. There are popular sitcoms based on these beliefs and bestselling books making these false claims. They are inescapable but not unconquerable.
As Christians, we have to be careful what we read, listen to, and watch on TV, for Satan's deception through false teaching is ever so subtle and cunning, even able to capture the mind of a believer if he is not grounded in Scripture.
The Bible tells us that in order to stand strong against this deception "you must continue in the things which you have learned . . . the Holy Scriptures" (2 Timothy 3:14-15). We must keep ourselves grounded in the Word of God, for it is our weapon against the philosophy of the day.
In the midst of the deception, there is the Truth.
No Other Name
"There is salvation in no one else! God has given no other name under heaven by which we must be saved.”
We must continually watch out for statements that assert that all religions are the same, for when they are repeated over and over again, and by seemingly sincere people, we can be brainwashed into accepting them.
In 1966, when the first multi-faith service was held in an Anglican church in London, in which Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, and Christians took part on equal terms, some Christian newspapers described it as a "betrayal of the faith."Nowadays there is hardly a mention of such services although they take place regularly in different parts of our nation and also in other countries.
People seem to have given up the idea of syncretism - the idea that all religions can be fused into one - and are focusing more on pluralism - the recognition of each faith as being of equal value.
I take my stand with Dr. Visser't Hooft, who said: "It is high time that Christians should rediscover that Jesus Christ did not come to make a contribution to the religious storehouse of mankind, but that in Him God reconciled the world unto Himself."
The words of our text for today were displayed outside a church in London until the minister was told by the local authority to take the poster down as it offended some local inhabitants who were adherents of other faiths.
"It is not the best way to love one's neighbor as oneself" was how one critic put it. But how can we love our neighbor as ourselves if we make no attempt to share with them the knowledge of salvation in Jesus Christ?
Daily Prayer:
O Father, in an age when the faith once delivered to the saints is being watered down, deepen my understanding of it so that I may contend for it without being contentious. In Christ's name I pray. Amen.
