If you become a Christian, can you expect wealth and health?

Not a chance.

Paul says as much to the new Gentile believers in the book of Acts, "Through many hardships we must enter the kingdom of God."

Jesus says, "Anyone who does not take up their cross daily cannot be my disciple."

Sometimes I feel pretty fortunate that my only hardships pertain to sickness. Can't really imagine what life would be like in the shoes of some of the 1st century Christians. Time and chance happen to them all.

Although I suppose, in a sense, you can expect health and wealth if you convert. Just be patient...when you die, my goodness, you'll have Thomas Aquinas' beatific vision, Augustine's intellectual/spiritual worship of the Trinity, Luther's "show us the Father!" and N.T. Wright's "New Creation" all packed into one. The claims latent in the revelation of eternal life are staggering. But first, the misery!