These religious Nigerians!

Have you ever heard phrases like "Nigerians are too religious" or "in Nigeria, there is a church on every street" or even "Nigerians are gullible when it comes to giving money to their pastor?" Please don't pay attention to such nonsense. The devil wants you to condemn yourself for desiring to know God so he tries to make it look like "your own is too much" with such statements.

His agents flood the comments sections of posts on social media blaming every weird thing that happens in "churches" on "being too religious" in a bid to make us believers look to ourselves for our needs and doubt our need for our Saviour - we who by ourselves have no idea or control over what will happen in the next minute! If we did, no one would ever make a mistake!

Believers, the devil will never try to deceive you looking all evil and scary in fiery red underwear and carrying a black pitchfork. He and his agents come as angels of light, pastoring churches, making people do things like eat grass and bathe in the sea in order to be saved and generally telling people that they need to obey the Ten Commandments or do certain things in order to get right with God, with the full knowledge that no one can get right with God by keeping the Law according to Romans 3:20. Galatians 5:4 says keeping the law in order to get right with God is how to get cut off from Christ.

Developed countries don't have churches on every street corner because there are regulations guiding such things but they also have their fake churches and fake pastors. Besides, your neighbour would sue you for noise pollution, etc if you put up an illegal church structure beside his residence. Not so much in Nigeria:)

People from these developed countries also regularly accuse pastors of fleecing their congregation so it's not just in Nigeria that we have these issues of alleged fleecing. Some people are even being sprayed with insecticide and eating grass in the name of church in some countries. Both true and fake pastors exist everywhere so don't let anyone hoodwink you into thinking that you are making a mistake by trusting in our Lord Jesus. Focus on Him and not what others are saying or doing (even this we do by His grace alone).

But one thing is common to us all - we are all loved by God and created in His image, so the only One that we can be "well pleased" in is our Lord Jesus Christ! It is only natural that our heart seeks for that One but many are seeking this "well pleased" in the wrong places - other gods and churches where the Law of Moses (do good, get good; do bad, get bad) is being preached. There is no "well pleased" in such places. No rest; just an endless cycle of doing things to get God to bless you when Romans 8:32 says He gives us all things FREELY with Christ-

Romans 8:32 - "He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?"

Believers, our righteousness is found in Christ, not what we do or do not do. It is a gift from our Lord God. In Him we are held together.

Believe Right and you will Live Right!

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