These Lies Must Stop LIES ABOUT FAITH MONEY AND PROSPERITY: LIE NO 7 PART 2: LIE NO 7: Financial prosperity is prime evidence that God is pleased with you. Mat 6:24 No man can serve two masters… Ye cannot serve God and mammon (KJV) THE TRUTH: Except we put money/mammon in its place we cannot serve God acceptably; we cannot please Him. While money is useful and valuable, it is not a measure of whether God is pleased with a person or not. There are many poor Christians that God is pleased with just as there are also rich Christians with whom God is pleased. There are many rich Christians that God is angry with, just as there are many poor Christians that God is unhappy with. The weight of our wallet does not determine where we stand with God and should not determine our standing, position and role in church. Gain should not be equated to godliness. Sadly, this is not the case. This unbalanced prosperity gospel is a gospel of greed. It has produced a breed of Christians who feel no remorse in joining the multitude to do evil in the quest to make money. Nigerian Christians, from the pulpit to the pews, hardly ever lift the tip of the tiny finger against corruption. And God hates compromise with Mammon. But Nigerian Christians have embraced it. Many Christians are leaders of organisations either as Executives or Owner/Managers. One practice that has become prevalent in several such organisations in the last 20 years is the regular corporate prayer sessions and corporate devotions; daily in some. But for most of them, that is where the honour for God ends. As soon as the devotion ends, it is business as usual. These businesses chase contracts and execute business on the same corrupt terms as any other. They employ and exploit on the same terms. The only thing Christian about them is the 15-minute daily devotion, not their corporate ethos. In most Nigerian organisations, including those led and owned by Christians, integrity and ethics is often a part of the advertised corporate values. It is a lie. Most of them are swimming with the Nigerian tide of bribery and corruption, not against it. A balanced prosperity gospel is good and ordained of God. But this prosperity gospel of Nigeria is evil. It has produced a poor nation, one of the poorest in Africa. It has produced a few jet-owning pastors in a nation where 100 million live in destitution, 62% of the country’s entire population and more than 8% of the world’s destitute population (World Bank). It has produced Christian schools and universities which the widows and the poor who paid tithes, gave offerings, and sowed seeds towards their construction, cannot afford. Rich pastors and poor members; rich pastors of a poor nation; this is not Jesus, this is not The Bible. Given the corrupt business culture of Nigeria, being a Christian in Nigeria should be very difficult, very challenging. But alas, it is so easy to be a Christian now, even a deacon or a pastor. This evil prosperity gospel has made Christianity a faith without standards; one in which the adherents get on so easily in the “Nigerian Way.” The church crowd is large not just because of the miracle of the captivating presence of our Lord, our Master, Our Saviour, conceived, bred and killed in such humiliation for our sakes; but because the Nigerian Christian Way is not narrow at all, it is very wide; very, very, very, wide. So wide it accommodates clerks who steal from their employers and pay tithes and seeds of millions to an unquestioning church, but rather rewarded with a commendation. So wide it accommodates people who pay bribes to win contracts; so wide it accommodates bankers who sleep around to meet targets; so wide it accommodates Policemen who are not different at the checkpoints and police stations; so wide it accommodates Customs Officers who are not different at the Ports; so wide it accommodates bank executives who fail the scrutiny of the nation’s law, a code yet inferior to those of our Lord and the scriptures. But Mammon has so taken root, and so blinded us, that even with public humiliations; we proceed without taking heed, making no changes. God has shouted so loud that all is not well, even so recently, but we continue with church as usual, which is really business as usual. Dear reader, please don’t be deceived. If in the current day Nigeria, you are not experiencing any conflict in the conduct of your business or the advancement of your career, you should check again. A Christian committed to God’s standards, determined to make heaven, and intent on pleasing God, should have regular conflicts because the “Nigerian Way” is at substantial variance with the “Bible Way”. Contend against such standards in your churches, fellowships and gatherings; and if they refuse to change, withdraw from them. 1Tim6:5 useless wranglings of men of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain. From such withdraw yourself. NKJV If your Pastor is more concerned about your name being recorded in his Book of Tithes than he is about your name being in God’s Book of Life, take heed. 2 Peter 2:3 These teachers in their greed will tell you anything to get hold of your money. But God condemned them long ago and their destruction is on the way. Living Bible (Please note that we are not condemning tithes, tithes are scriptural) To rescue many who may unwittingly be on a course that may attract eternal damnation; to restore the church so it can truly be Salt and Light; for Nigeria to be transformed so it can fulfill its destiny, this evil prosperity gospel must be renounced, denounced, repudiated. Jude 3-4 3 Dearly loved friends, I had been planning to write you some thoughts about the salvation God has given us, but now I find I must write of something else instead, urging you to stoutly defend the truth that God gave once for all to his people to keep without change through the years. 4 I say this because some godless teachers have wormed their way in among you, saying that after we become Christians we can do just as we like without fear of Gods punishment. The fate of such people was written long ago, for they have turned against our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. Living Bible The situation of Nigeria is a disgrace to the gospel. A nation with such a mushrooming of churches and Christians should not be experiencing the kind of corruption, moral decadence, poverty and suffering prevalent in Nigeria. This evil prosperity gospel is one of the root causes. If the church forsakes these lies and accepts the truth, not only will the church be restored, Nigeria will experience transformation and speedily achieve its destiny as the point of reference for the African race, demonstrating that the Negro is not inferior to any other. Prov 14:34 Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people. NIV. (“TheseLiesMustStop Translation”: Nigeria is in a disgraceful situation of distressing unemployment and pervasive poverty because the people have accepted bribery and corruption, immorality and other evils as a way of life. More sadly, rather than be God’s change agents as salt and light, the church is completely conformed to the Nigerian way of life”). SCRIPTURES 1 Tim 6:9 But people who long to be rich soon begin to do all kinds of wrong things to get money, things that hurt them and make them evil-minded and finally send them to hell itself. Living Bible Matt 19:23-26 And Jesus said to His disciples, Truly I say to you, it will be difficult for a rich man to get into the kingdom of heaven. 24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to go into the kingdom of heaven. 25 When the disciples heard this, they were utterly puzzled (astonished, bewildered), saying, Who then can be saved [from eternal death]? 26 But Jesus looked at them and said, With men this is impossible, but all things are possible with God. Amplified Bible
Posted on: Tue, 03 Dec 2013 20:10:20 +0000
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