Growing up as a young Christian, Christians were not known to be whiners. These days we spend all the time whining and crying. In those days, we took the Gospel to where the gospel had never been to. We went everywhere to ensure that the Gospel was spread. For the records, it was the Nigeria Christian Corpers that took the Gospel to the Koma people in Adamawa in Northern Nigeria. It was a huge sacrifice. Some of these brethren had to strip themselves naked in order to be able to access the village. I writing this, remember when we visited a village in the deep Northern Nigeria and we were told not to preach and that if we did, we will be raided at night, all the brothers stood guard overnight and we preached in that village for 3 days. I remember sleeping on bare springs in a school somewhere in Wase village to preach the gospel. That was in the 80s.
Now fast forward to the 90s and 2000s. Christians have chosen to challenge each other in the cities with the sizes of their Cathedrals and models of their pastors’ cars. We steal members from our various churches. You find Christians these days that have traversed many churches. We advertise for members as if we are selling Blue Omo detergent. We fix loads of programs to stop our members from going to the program of others.
We now celebrate year after year with the latest aircrafts given to our GOs, and the sizes of homes just built for them. We have extended our escapades to building Schools, Hospitals and Universities that could only be attended by the rich that will not respect God. We have therefore created a vacuum. When we refused to go, we created a vacuum. Instead we began to compete over the number of ministers we have sent to Canada, the United States of America, Scotland, Germany etc. as if these people needed our ministers. We were not sending missionaries to these places but ministers. I want to tell you confidently. Stop sending ministers to these countries. They do not need your ministers. We have not been able to get many of them to the Lord anyway in spite of the number of minsters we have sent. Instead we have turned our Nigeria biased churches to hang out enclaves for Nigerians on Sundays and on party days. So if you need a place to socialize with people that understand your culture, please go to a Nigerian Church in many of these countries. Many in these churches have no clue about God. It is interesting that the same sister who attended the program the last time the ‘GO’ was around is also the one organizing for the African program biased towards African gods. Perhaps our main reason for sending our minsters overseas was to safeguard our human/financial investments that have gone overseas. I.e. so that we may retain our ‘almighty tithe’ base. We seem to be more interested in the Dollars and Pounds from these places to fuel our greed for big mansions, cathedrals and airplanes than the Gospel. We want people to prostrate before us when we visit them overseas. Meanwhile there are still villages around Lagos and in many places in Nigeria where the Gospel has not been heard till date. We are not interested in such places as we have declared them ‘non-viable’. Our unwillingness to ‘go’ created a vacuum in Nigeria and this vacuum is been occupied by others. Honestly you can never leave place empty as others will step in to fill the vacuum created. Instead of us to find out what the problem is, Nigerian Christians are whining “The Muslims are coming”. Let me quickly tell you. The Bible says occupy till I come (Luke 19:13). Since we have refused to occupy, more religions are finding their way into the system. We may scream Muslims now. We may continue to scream the Muslims are coming or like we often say these days ‘they are Islamizing Nigeria’. Thank God for the man of God who said it is because we have refused to Christianize Nigeria that they are Islamizing Nigeria. Let me quickly let us know that it is not only the Muslims that are coming. Many other religions and vices are coming. We have left the vacuum and others have to occupy them.
Enough of these whining and crying; Fold up your sleeves, wear your shoes, bring out your bibles and let’s go back to where we missed it. Let righteousness reign. Let the poor receive help from your schools and hospitals. Let us go into the places and preach the gospel. Do not create any doubt that you are an ambassador of Christ. If meat will make people stumble, please stop eating meat. Stop crying like losers and stop writing fake news asking everyone to share. We are not politicians but Christians. We walk by faith and not by sight. Stop behaving like the unbelievers who work and believe in propaganda. You cannot beat them with their weapon. The weapon of our warfare are not carnal but mighty THROUGH GOD (not through propaganda or writing fake news on Facebook) to the pulling down of strong holds. We now lack the power to cast down imaginations because we want to join them and use their weapons. Enough is enough.
Pastor Nosa Idahosa
Senior Pastor ACCM Calgary.
