Debunking MORE Of Steven Furtick’s Teaching!

Stephen Furtick’s Claim That Your Thoughts Determine Your Future

Hey guys, Colin here, and welcome back to the channel where we bring you Christian commentary about the things that matter. As ever, please know this video isn't a sinful attack, but rather a Biblical critique.

In today's video, we're going to be talking once again about Stephen Furtick, specifically his sermon entitled, My Maker is My Mirror. This message was practically filled to the brim with textbook, man-centered false teaching, the kind that we always see at Elevation Church.

And today, we're going to watch two more clips from that sermon as we compare them to Scripture. This will once again demonstrate the false teaching that has become so deeply ingrained into Elevation Church.

Watch this first video.

It's not how God sees you that determines where your life ends up. If it had been, Moses wouldn't have died in the wilderness. It's not how God sees me, it's how I think.

God sees me that determines where I end up. So here Stephen says that it's how you view yourself, not how God views you, that determines where you end up in life. This is unbiblical for several reasons.

First, it denies the sovereignty and ultimate power of God. Psalm 115 verse 3 says, quote,. Our God is in the heavens. He does all that He pleases, end quote. God is sovereign and in divine control of everything and everyone.

You do not get to individually manufacture with a guarantee where you end up in life depending on your thought process about how God sees you, as Stephen Furtick suggests. You see, Stephen says that by changing your view of how God sees you, you can somehow change how your life ends up.

But the Bible specifically warns us about this kind of thing. Proverbs 16, 9, it says, quote,. The heart of a man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps. The Bible clearly tells us that God is in control of our lives, like it or not.

Proverbs 21, 1 says, quote, The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord. He turns it wherever he will. So the truth is, you can plan your life all you want, and you can use your imagination to concoct all sorts of things that God might think about you in order to change where your life ends up.

But the inconvenient fact still remains. God is in control, and you don't get to change that. God will decide where your life ends up by His sovereign will. When Stephen Furtick tells thousands of people that they can change the trajectory of their life by thinking different thoughts about how God sees them, and that they can do this somehow independently, that is seriously dangerous.

And it is really reminiscent, very similar to the popular change your thoughts, change your life, Joel Osteen narrative type of Christianity. The main issue, though, is that Furtick is denying the centrality of the will of God and really replacing it with the thoughts and musings of mankind.

The exact opposite of his statement is biblically true. It is God who decides where you end up, not your own thoughts. Make no mistake about it. But with that said, we need to now consider Furtick's biblical evidence for his point here, if it can even be called that.

If you recall, Furtick said, quote,. It's not how God sees you that determines where you end up. If it had been, Moses wouldn't have died in the wilderness. This is a baffling point. According to Stephen, the reason that Moses died in the wilderness is because he did not change his thoughts about how God saw him.

If he had a different way of thinking about how God saw him, then I guess Moses could have entered the promised land. That's the implication from Stephen Furtick. But this is quite simply not reflected in the biblical narrative, at least not in any easily discernible way.

Now we know that in Numbers chapter 20, Moses was commanded to speak to a rock, and water would come out of the rock for the people of Israel. Instead, Moses deliberately struck the rock with his staff two times, and while water still came out, it was clear that Moses did not follow the Lord's command exactly.

As a result, the Lord personally tells Moses precisely why he will not enter the promised land. In Deuteronomy 32, God says this, quote,. And die on the mountain which you go up, and be gathered to your people, as Aaron your brother died and was gathered to his people, because you broke faith with me in the midst of the people of Israel at the waters of Meribah Kadesh in the wilderness of Zin, and because you did not treat me as holy in the midst of the people of Israel.

For you shall see the land before you, but you shall not go there into the land that I am giving to the people of Israel, end quote. So the question has been answered directly by God. Moses disobeyed him and did not treat him or his command as holy.

Therefore, Moses was not able to take the people into the promised land. The answer is right there. God gave it himself. Yet somehow, Stephen Furtick says that it was actually how Moses thought about how God saw him that made Moses die in the wilderness.

Again, there is really no possible way to naturally read the text and come to this conclusion. This is Furtick's idea, but it is not coming from the biblical narrative. It's entirely his opinion. So with all that said, let's watch the second clip where he continues much in the same way.

Watch this.

John 1:1 and James 1:23-24 Are Not About Seeing Yourself in a Mirror

All the way from Genesis chapter one. Remember, let us make man in our image. It's how you see it. It's how you see yourself. James said something curious. He said, if you listen to the word and don't do it, you're like a man who looks at himself in a mirror.

In the beginning was a word and the word was with God and the word was God. My maker is my mirror.

So in that clip, Furtick quotes a passage from the book of James. The passage talks about a man who looks into a mirror. And in Furtick's view, that mirror has to do with us being like God. Specifically, Stephen looks into his Bible right in front of his face while he's preaching as if it was a mirror and then says the words, quote, in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.

This is actually John one verse one, which is one of the clearest passages we have with reference to the deity of Christ. We can see through this that Jesus is eternal. He was there at the beginning and the passage even says that he is God himself.

It's very clear. So in summary, Stephen Furtick thinks that when we read John one, one about the word being with God in the beginning and being God, that's like, we're looking into a mirror of ourselves.

There are serious problems though, with both of the passages he offers as evidence here. First, John one, one is about Jesus, not about you. The passage says that Jesus is eternal. We are not. John one, one says that Jesus was with God in the beginning.

We were not. And John one, one says that Jesus is God himself. And of course we are not. In other words, this is a passage that should make us worship Jesus as God in the flesh, but it is not a passage that provides a mirror image of ourselves as Stephen Furtick claims.

Not even close. To suggest that this text is somehow a mirror for humans to look into and see ourselves is very dangerous. It implies that we too are either eternal or divine to some extent, just like Jesus, when in reality, nothing could be further from the truth.

We are made in the image of God. That's true, but we should not take that to mean that John one, one is like looking into a mirror. This is a bridge too far, and it will certainly lead us into a false understanding of ourselves and of God.

But the other issue here is the passage from James. You see, James one, 23 through 24 says this quote, for if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror, for he looks at himself and goes away.

And at once forgets what he was like and quote, the meaning of the passage is quite clear. We must hear the word of God and also do the word of God. We must hear the Bible and carry out what it says to simply hear the word and forget to do any of it is like looking at yourself in a mirror only to completely forget what you look like.

When you walk away, the analogy has nothing to do with seeing ourselves in John one, one, nothing at all. Rather, it has to do with following the Bible's commands. It really seems as though Stephen Furtick has picked his trendy sermon title of my maker is my mirror.

And then he seems to have gone about picking and choosing various passages that somehow fit with that title. That is the extent of the exegesis being done here, which of course isn't really exegesis at all.

Stephen read his manufactured sermon message into numbers, chapter 20, Deuteronomy chapter 32, John chapter one and James chapter one. Every single point of biblical evidence that he offered had nothing to do with the point he was trying to make.

In summary, Stephen says that your thoughts control your future, but the Bible says that God controls your future. Furtick says that John one, one is about you being a mirror image of God, but the Bible says that John one, one is about the fact that Jesus is God.

And finally, Stephen says that James one, 23 through 24 is about how you perceive yourself, but the passage is actually about following God's word. Again, the fact that the Bible does not agree with Stephen Furtick is a testament to the fact that Furtick's teaching is not biblical.

We must lovingly mark and avoid him as a false teacher. As Romans 16, 17 commands us. I pray that this has been a blessing to you. And please know this. I do not offer any of this correction from a high and mighty position.

I am nothing but a wretched sinner saved by the grace of Jesus Christ. So let's pray for Stephen Furtick and for Elevation Church that they would stop this man-centered deceptive false teaching by God's grace and turn to the truth of God's word.

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