The church is a place where Christians
worship, praise and pray to God. The early Christians after the departure of
Jesus Christ to Heaven came together under the Holy Ghost anointing to form the
first church; where they worshipped and praised God in one accord.
Apostle
Peter, one of the first converts of Jesus Christ, Apostle Paul and other
disciples of Christ whose names were
recorded in the new testament of the Holy Bible played great and significant
roles just to ensure that the gospel of Christ
spread to all parts of the world. Some of
the early Christians apart from giving everything they had for the advancement
of the gospel, paid with their lives and today they are regarded as saints.
Hundreds
of years after the death of the early Christians, the gospel of Christ was
brought to Africa by the Europeans. These European missionaries with the
support of their home countries were able to build schools, hospitals and
churches for their converts. Their humane, humble, sacrificial, and spiritual
ways of life made many Africans,
particularly Nigerians to join the new faith which is Christianity. And that
also informed the presence of Catholic, Anglican, Presbyterian and Baptist
churches, in Nigeria, which today have branches in different parts of the country
The
early Nigerian churches were known for their discipline and spirituality
.Reverend fathers and pastors were not proud and materialistic. They feared God
and through their actions and words taught others to do same. Few persons who
were clergies at that time passed through serious Bible training and screenings
before they were qualified to preach or conduct services in the church. Their
major goals were soul winning and rendering of assistance to the needy.
Students who passed through the schools built by these early missionaries,
still share their good experience which according to them helped to shape their
future lives. Although not many Nigerians were willing to go to school then,
the few that went were greatly impacted by the mission schools. Discipline was
the order of the day and children were not difficult to raise by their parents.
Today,
reverse has become the case as most churches in Nigeria with reference to Ika
nation have deviated completely from the message of Jesus Christ. Some of them
in their bid to outshine others are going contrary to the instructions of Jesus
Christ. They are not only materialistic but also encouraging immorality through
their mode of dressing and ways of lives. We have had instances where pastors
boast of the quality and worth of their
suits, shoes, cars and the number of five star hotels they have slept in,
anytime they go out to preach forgetting that Christ once told his disciples
that he had no place to lay his head. To them, God is not poor and so all who
worship Him must be rich. They fail to
understand that even though God promised His children riches, He does not want
them to boast of it or demand for it at the wrong time. Jesus Christ, the
savior of the whole world had the opportunity to display wealth while on earth
but He did not because that was not what He was sent to the world to do. During
His three and half years ministry on earth, Christ had no place where he called
his own, yet, He catered for both the rich and the poor, He healed the sick and
raised the dead. His good legacy before He ascended to Heaven helped His
disciplines to overcome most of the odds against them. This is exactly what
true Christianity entails.
Again,
it is said that the modern pastors are not only flamboyant in their operation
and approach, but are also going the extra mile to promote evil by going to
native doctors to acquire powers. The surprise is that, worshippers in these
modern churches are no longer bothered about the activities of their pastors,
all because they want miracles.
The
situation has become so bad now that a particular church in Ika land has been nick named PDP church where
people go to seek the faces of politicians and not the face of God any longer. Yet both the ministers and worshipers of such
church claim to be Christians. What a shame? Do we take God for a human being
or as a person who we can deceive? Are
we not warned in the bible not to play with the name of our heavenly Father?
Today, we have many bishops, pastors, etc, in Ika land who have now turned to
what people call prayer contractors, and who because of their quest for wealth
are ready to accept fat envelopes for prayers. The greatest problem with these
pastors turned prayer contractors is
that when they go out for such prayer contracts they do not bother preaching
repentance to their clients who contract them and who they know have skeletons
in their cupboards, because of the fat
envelopes they will give to them, what a shame?
The
end point of their dirty act has been daily increase in immoral acts despite
the growing number of churches in the society. The church seems to have
lost focus as fake prophets now abound.
Even the unrepentant and failed politicians, who have amassed wealth at the expense
of the masses are now opening churches and people are trooping in their
hundreds to worship in such churches.
The
church of God instead of being a place for worship and prayer is now full of
fraudsters, criminals and their cohorts who at regular intervals and mostly in
crusades hire young boys and girls to pretend that they are cripples or
possessed whereas they are not.
The society will continue to suffer set
backs until the church is purged of all these filthiness. Church leaders should
not pretend that everything is right in their churches, instead they should
preach the word of God undiluted and boldly too. In this way the church will
grow and the society will be a better place.
Every Nigerian should surrender their lives to God and stop patronizing
fake pastors and prophets.
It has now become very, very necessary
that we should all pray earnestly so
that these pastors turned prayer contractors will not bring Ika nation
in particular and Nigeria in general to the level of Sodom and Gomorrah
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