Religiosity Versus Spirituality

THE ALTERNATIVE

By Reno Omokri

Try this physical experiment. Plant two seeds. Water one daily, then pray on it. Pray on the other one daily, but don’t water it. Then see which one grows.

The result will teach you a spiritual principle established in Genesis 8:22-“As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.”

If you want your life to grow, stop relying on prayer alone. Plant a seed of effort. Then pray.  God always ensures that effort, plus prayer equals success.

The reason I just asked you to try this exercise is because Nigeria has become an increasingly religious society, yet, we are a very carnal nation. We hardly have any spirituality.

If you go through the statistics of paternity fraud, gay and straight pornography, online fraud, and money rituals, you will find us at or near the top. Yet, at every other corner in Nigeria, there is a church or mosque. Nigeria is a very religious nation that is also uber-carnal.

In fact, the only times many Nigerians ever fast, is when they want God to deal with their enemies. Not only will they fast, they will meditate and sow seeds. They plot. And pray in tongues over their plots. But our people, with exceptions, tend to be unwilling to apply the same effort for God to help them deal with their poverty.

Recently, an African-American preacher named Creflo Dollar, admitted that he had been in error over his teachings on the issue of tithing. He not only made the admission, he also asked those who had bought his tapes and books on the subject to bin them.

This comes two years after the famous televangelist, Benny Hinn, made a similar public admission. In his case, he lamented that he had spent his career largely teaching the wicked prosperity Gospel.

In both instances, the Nigerian evangelical and Pentecostal churches hit back with such vicious ferocity. As I observed their ferocity, I wondered where it was during the Deborah Samuel affair.

I have literally gone round the world on my own dime (if anyone has given me a penny, speak now or forever remain silent) pleading for world leaders to help me put pressure on the Buhari government to secure the release of Leah Sharibu, the Christian girl abducted by Boko Haram from Government Girls’ Science and Technical College, Dapchi, on February 19, 2018.

How many of these men of God who were vituperating when Creflo Dollar threatened their bread and butter have spoken up for Leah Sharibu?

Yet, Christ said:

“When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’-Matthew 25-39-40.

And then we wonder why Nigeria is the world headquarters for extreme poverty. Can Scripture lie?

What does Scripture say in Proverbs 14:34?

“Righteousness exalts a nation, But sin is a reproach to any people.”

Japan is 1% Christian. But the Japanese are some of the most righteous people on Earth. They are notoriously honest and hard-working.

Prince, the late singer, once talked about how he performed a concert at a 30,000-seat stadium in Japan, and being the eccentric that he was, he insisted that a tambourine be placed on each seat, so the crowd could play along with his song, Tambourine. After the concert, not one tambourine was missing.

I do not know of even one Christian nation, with perhaps the exception of Ethiopia, where this can be possible.

Can you forget your phone and return back to get it in many of today’s mega churches? Their mega is maga!

The Japanese reflect righteousness, not religion. And that is why God has exalted them.

Scripture says: “for when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves. ”Romans 2:14.

Christianity that has both morality and prosperity is the ultimate. However, a Christianity that has morality, even if it lacks prosperity, is preferable to a Christianity that has prosperity, and lacks morality.

We cannot keep gaining the world and losing our souls. But, whether you pursue morality, or prosperity, do not forget eternity!

Recently, I had to counsel a Christian who claimed he was being haunted by his village people. I asked him why he felt so. He responded that a bird usually comes every night and makes weird noises on the roof of his house.

He has been binding and praying.

But all over Nigeria, forested areas are being deforested at a ferocious rate and state governments are doing nothing about it. Where do we think birds live? Largely in forests.

And when we destroy their habitats, where do we expect them to live?

When I explained this to him, his response was ‘but why must it make weird noises?’

The truth is that the noise from a human will be weird to a bird and the noise from a bird will be weird to humans.

Many Nigerians do not even read Scripture. There is nothing in Scripture about witches or demons turning into birds. Belief in such comes from pre-Christian African and European superstition.

You go to the average Nigerian church, and you will find that members have read all the books written by their founding pastors, yet, have not read Scripture from beginning to end. So, when the pastor goes off script from Scripture, they all follow along unquestioningly, because he (or she), has become their standard, rather than Scripture!

Yet, Acts 17:11 says:

“Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.”

The greatest idolatry in Nigeria does not happen in a fetish shrine. It happens in Nigerian Pentecostal and Evangelical churches where people worship men of God, instead of God. We no longer call on the God of Scripture. We instead call on the God of the pastor so and so!

Am I lying?

Some persons may respond and say but Elisha called on the God of Elijah. Yes. That happened once. But have you considered that Elisha called a bear to kill youths who mocked him (2 Kings 2:23-25)? Would that be okay by you today? Elisha, unlike you and I, did not have DIRECT ACCESS to God because the Messiah had not come-John 16:23.

The enemy does not care how you commit your idolatry, as long as you commit it.

This does not mean that we should do away with the Old Testament. Far from it.

The Old Testament should not be scrapped. Rather, it should be adapted to the New Testament. When they clash, the teachings of Christ ALWAYS prevail.

Just imagine a High Court and a Supreme Court. In the RARE event that they clash, the ruling of the Supreme Court will prevail. Not because the High Court is or was wrong. But rather because the knowledge available to the Supreme Court is more than that available to the lower court. We see this in Isaiah 28:10.

Scripture makes a very big distinction between religiosity and spirituality. 1 Corinthians 2:14 says:

“But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” 

Without going into too many details (because I do not want to offend members of certain denominations), a lot of doctrines that many ‘Christians’ believe today are not even of Scriptural origin. And when they were first introduced, people who refused to believe them were killed in the most horrible manner.

It was not faith that made the remaining people believe them. It was fear. The fear of being killed. What mainstream Christendom (different from Christianity) did to propagate these beliefs (which are really of pagan origin) is worse than any Jihad ever carried out in the Islamic world. Please research this.

Forget about Reno Omokri. Forget about your church denomination. And get Scripture in the original language and read it yourself. Let me shock you. The King James Version was not even translated from the original Scriptures. It was largely translated from the Latin Vulgate, and other TRANSLATIONS. Mind you, Latin was not used in any of the original Scriptures.

That is just like making a photocopy from different photocopies, instead of the original. The challenge with Christians is that we are largely not ready to put in the effort to study Scripture in the original languages.

I was moved to study Scripture in the original language after seeing a girl (not a woman, a girl!) recite several surahs of the Quran in Arabic, from memory, in Sokoto in 1994.

And from that time till today, my spirituality has deepened, and my religiosity has loosened.

Except you do that as a follower of Christ, you might inadvertently spend your life following men, and or church denominations, and think you were following Christ.

Reno’s Nuggets

Learn From Davido. Use your influence and money to support your family. Build each other up. Don’t tear each other down. Don’t wash your dirty linen in public. Do not even let your wives or husbands come between you and your BLOOD family. Unite. Don’t divide. Be greater together. Don’t let the hater be the victor. Congratulations go to the entire Adeleke family!

Senator Adeleke won partly because of Davido. Going forward, Davido will win more because of Governor Adeleke. But look at your family. Whatever energy, money, and influence you have is dedicated to pulling each other down. Learn from the Adelekes!

How many celebrities could have done for their families what Davido did for his? Some even publicly fight their blood brothers. Others fight their own birth parents. Moral of the story: One family member who is committed to you is better than millions of fans who are interested in you!

#RenosNuggets #OsunDecides2022 #FreeLeahSharibu #TableShaker