The Audacity of God's Grace: 10 Strategies To Living Your Best Life Now (11 page)

In (1 John 4:2-3NIV) John the beloved wrote: “This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every Spirit that acknowledges [confesses] that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God and every spirit that does not acknowledges [confess] that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God, for this is the spirit of Antichrist.” What apostle John was trying to disperse among the believers of Christ in the early church was the teachings of Dualism, engineered by Neo-Platonism. Platonic systems of philosophy slashed the spiritual world from the material world and branded the material world unholy, and the spiritual world holy.

The Church Got Trapped

Unfortunately, most church doctrines, church and religious education and upbringing and even the curricula that produced many pastors and church leaders knowingly or unknowingly followed the Greek or Hellenistic philosophies. The church got trapped into the tapestry of Hellenistic thought and systems of philosophy. For instance, dualism influenced many people whereby on Sunday, Wednesday, or Saturday, they go to Church (the holy place) and then draw the line of what happens outside the church to be only worldly or secular. To fully put Neo-Platonism into practice, church and religious doctrines taught us to separate the spiritual from the material or worldly, and gave us the definitions of those things which they are. This is why for numerous traditional churches even until now, prosperity teachings—living well, the principles of wealth creation and acquisition, living in great health, having a passionate or fulfilled sex life with one’s spouse or sex education in particular etc. are secular or worldly things that does not belong in the place of church or to be discussed around the church neighborhood.

Unfortunately, many church people get these informations from the wrong places most of the time, since their church is unable to provide them with part of what they need to live a fulfilled life on earth before Jesus returns. These teachings over time barricade our minds into segregating our spiritual world and life from our normal everyday life and living that life. For some people, on the day of church attendance, they must appear holy before a holy God in a holy Church or Mosque, but then, on a Monday or day of work or business trip, holiness, righteousness, fairness, and spirituality must be deactivated, for they do not belong together. The summary of the Neo-Platonic teachings or Gnostics system of philosophy evident in dualism and still very popular today in most religious doctrines of the Church is this:

• Believers should avoid the world and have nothing to do with the world.

• Anything that feels good or pleasurable should be avoided (this is how and one of the key reasons apart from the economics of why the Catholic Church stopped their reverend fathers from marrying and having sex, since sex is dirty, sinful, pleasurable and worldly, and must not belong to holiness. Prior to this practice, Catholic reverend fathers use to marry, and have families and children in their parish.

• You should not enjoy anything that is culturally entertaining, like cultural music, cultural shows, secular music etc. for they are worldly and do not belong to the spiritual world or to Church people—God’s children. How can you reach the world if you barricade yourself from the world? Why will Jesus need to come and be born of a woman—like every other child, suck on the breast of Mary as any other child would be breast-fed, and do the normal daily routine of humans in order to be engaged in the world, become one of the citizens of the world, and save all worldly inhabitants who believe (John 3:12-17)?

• Women should not wear ear rings, use artificial hears or wigs, wear pants (trousers) and should not use make-ups of any kind (like those of Avon or Mary Kay etc), because they are not spiritual, they are sinful, and are too worldly or belong to the material world. This is why many Born Again Christians in the past in places like Nigeria, Ghana, or Zimbabwe use to be so un-kept, some smelling—because they will never use body spray or perfumes and scented ointments or creams, and others looking so unattractive to their subjects who they are zealously condemning to burn in hell fire for wearing trousers (females) or using make-ups, or wearing ear rings etc. Where is it written in God’s holy word that people using these things will burn in hell fire?

• Anything that is not spiritual is not good for the child of God. The implication of these excesses is that a person and most church-goers were immersed into believing that being spiritual means avoiding joy, pleasure, and real things that make people happy in their everyday life and pursuit of happiness.

Indeed, it was Neo-Platonism and Gnostic teachings that made many church leaders, pastors, or religious people not to play with their spouse or to starve their wife or husband sex when they ought to fulfill that obligation because sex is unholy during “ministerial duties or assignments.” Some of these teachings made these religious leaders to neglect taking care of their own children’s personal affair or needs; mentoring them on a one on one basis; going to sports with them, supporting them in their school homework, doing recreational or outdoor activities and/or paying attention to them when they needed to be there because, these religious leaders were busy mentoring their congregation to become spiritual and leaving their first disciples—their own family members behind. Others have been taught in seminaries to separate what is worldly from what is spiritual or they were too busy for the spiritual work of God and ministry. Unfortunately, many of these pastors or religious people who neglected their wives or children for “God’s work” are no longer in service today. The families they neglected, which should have been their first ministerial assignment brought them disgrace, divorce, painful disasters, or an end to their ministerial careers.

What Resulted From These Teachings

A careful cross-examination of most teachings surprisingly disappointed the adherents. It created double standard and placed the populations into psychological imprisonment. Such religious teachings helped to brain-drain the theological elites in the continents of Africa and elsewhere, specifically in places like Nigeria where I was brought up, Burkina Faso where I once worked, Ghana and South Africa etc. In most of these places, committed Christian believers where bared for years from going into local, state, or national politics or some strategic appointments and positions on a national scale to help elevate the people’s lives, by their religious organizations because these positions were too worldly for the believer. In Nigeria for instance, the fate of almost 200 million people rest on the hands of a very small and yet, mighty group who are so corrupt and sadly religious. One of the major problems that led to this apart from many years of military misrule was that before now, political careers were taught to be not meant for the children of God or committed Christians or believers who were deem to be very spiritual.

The implication is that, Nigeria, a country with diverse and multiple natural and human resources, oil, natural gas, manganese, coal, tin ore etc. endowed by God have had to experience great loses to the pockets of a few corrupt leaders—thieves that has been estimated according to the World Bank to the tune of more than four hundred billion ($400b US dollars) from 1960 when the country gained independence from Britain until 2010. The Nigerian nation and its populations have faced stunted growth in almost all the sectors of the economy due to the corruption of few “religious people” and mismanagement and looting of the national treasury by these political elites.

The youths and adults with great potentialities who should have lacked nothing to enhance their human capital development and their ability of living at their best are being disgraced and disenfranchised from developing their potentials, with the exception of the children of the political elites. Majority of them are killed like chickens in thousands, raped and their communities Balkanized and dwarfed with tribal and religious tension by major politicians to avoid uniformity of the poor masses while subjecting a generation of smart and ambitious Nigerians to systematically evacuate (Brain Drain) the country they loved or stay behind and accept their fate and/or hardship as a way of living for most people. For many of the Nigerian youths and adults who could not bear the disproportionate burden of poverty and difficulty placed on them by unemployment after the Nigerian Youth Service Corps (NYSC)—a mandatory one-year service to the country for those who graduated from the Nigerian universities under the age of 30 (i.e. if they are lucky to get there), a number of these unemployed graduates or those who could not finish their university or college education decided to take arms by means of organized scheme called 419 or internet scam. Others became political thugs who protect the mighty politicians and are rewarded with looted funds from the tax payers’ money or political appointments by their political godfathers.

Meanwhile, some others joined the Niger Delta militant groups; while others became bandits and the Kidnappers who will later terrorize Abia State and majority of the Eastern states and across the nation in recent times. In the Northern Nigeria, poor religious teachings and PTS in general have continued to subject the youths into psychological imprisonment, economic and intellectual coma as they were barred from receiving western education which ordinarily would have prepared them to develop their potentials and their human capital development in general. Unemployment in these areas and many years of mismanagement have easily given the Boko Haram group, linked to Al Qaeda a boost in recruiting these jobless and mostly uneducated youths who have been terrorizing Nigeria in recent times.

Some of these youths and adults either from the Nigeria’s East, the South, West or the Northern part of Nigeria have been causing mayhem to the nation. Many of such people have been brutally killed like goats or chickens which caused serious youth mortality that will last for a long time in the affected areas. As we turn on the TV set around the world, we see droughts of poverty, floods of suffering, earthquakes of crime, and violence that could have been prevented; and devastating diseases ravaging people and making them inefficient to maximize their fullest human potentials partly because of the greed of the “religious ruling class and the capitalists—the exploitation group who are effectively using politics and policies or multinational cooperation’s as a tool for neocolonialism. The bottom line is that people and the populations, no matter their country of origins or demographics will have difficulty to rise up to their potentials and live their best lives now when our religions, our cultures, our politics and economic conditions and accessibility to good affordable healthcare and basic amenities are poor or greatly compromised to favor only a segment of the populations.

Avoid Having an Unemployed Mind

Whether it is in Haiti or Nigeria, in Darfur or Burkina Faso or even the United States where i reside, at every corner of the street, we are greeted with “falsity” that perpetuate corruption due to greed, poverty, hunger, homelessness and the poverty of the mind which all coincides into disgrace of many citizens making it almost impossible for numerous people to live their best life now. Because most committed believers with the “anointing of the Holy Ghost” and poor people have been taught not to help shape the destiny of their own lives and people; barred from participating in national and local political policies where effective and strategic planning and policies are effected to lead the nation, the leadership of many countries and Nigeria as our case study have gone to the “dogs” who profess to be religious too, but having a form of godliness and denying the audacity of grace thereon to provide transformation.

To compound this, too many believers went into the extremities of delusional utopia where they deny that they are no longer poor while claiming and confessing positively that it is well. How can someone claim that it is well when there is no stable electricity for the generality of the Nigerian populace except if they own noisy generators which produce intense carbon monoxide and subject the population’s health further into danger? How can millions of the Nigerian faithful’s and religious leaders sit comfortably with their followers and do almost nothing other than to pray when good drinking water, good road networks and good healthcare infrastructure and access to good healthcare are almost non-existent throughout majority of the country? Why are people dying every day because of road traffic accidents (RTA) and unequipped emergency rooms in the hospitals due to mismanaged resources? How can a Nigerian Senator receive an annual wage and allowance that is worth more than $400,000 (Four hundred thousand U.S. dollars) per year while the minimum wage of most Christian or Muslim believers who are in the civil service are N25, 000 or less, just a little above $150.00 (One hundred and fifty U.S. dollars) per month for more than 70% of the country’s general population? Who made these policies? And where were these believers when their fates which will necessitate their ability to live at their best were decided? In a media report written by Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai, at Elombah.com in 2011 titled: “Nigeria: Rich Country, Poor People” which I was granted permission to use by Elombah.com while completing this book, we are bombarded with some troubling descriptive statistics and analyses presented with facts and figures on the gross misappropriation of the Nigerian resources by the corrupt policy makers and the political class.

El-Rufai observed in the article, that even though Nigeria’s population is three times that of South Africa, the Nigerian economy has remained second to theirs. Accordingly, Nigeria as at 2011 was ranked the 37th largest economy in the world, and the 11th largest economy in the lens of labor force (about 48 million, according to 2010 estimates). Looking at these, it baffles the mind when conceived that Nigeria has remained one of the most impoverished countries in the continent of Africa and the 25th poorest country globally. With the permission of Elombah.com online media agency, I have included the excerpt of this news article written by Ahmad El-Rufai to educate you. Below are the excerpt used by permission of Elombah.com: