I BELIEVE IN THE CHURCH; BUT I HATE RELIGION – (Winning Wisdom, Episode 009)

Why do I still need to tell people that I believe in the church? It is because of my hatred for religion. Some people who are yet to understand the difference between playing church (which is religion) and the real Christ-like life tend to think it is the church you are against when you are actually against religion. The church of the living God still remains the only hope for the perishing world.

Please if you don’t gain any other thing from this write-up today, never lose sight of this – THE CHURCH IS THE PEOPLE. THE CHURCH IS NOT A PLACE. The church is not the sanctuary. The church is not the synagogue. The church is not the building. THE CHURCH IS THE BODY OF CHRIST.

Don’t let anyone fool you that until you are in a particular place, you are not serving God. Most of such people are either the blind leading the blind or they are using you for selfish purposes. The church is not a congregation of babies who are always in need and in want of things from God but cannot get it from their Father without the assistant of a pastor. The church is not a nursery school where we spoon-feed people eternally; the church is supposed to an association of Kingdom giants.

Anyone who does not acknowledge the gift of God in you enough to start showing you how you can use it to bless your world should not be your pastor. Anyone who tells you that your gift is only mostly useful in a building or in a place of worship is a religious fanatic; please don’t follow him.

Greatness is the heartbeat of God for every of his children. Your greatness should not be limited only inside your congregation. As a matter of fact, a good leader should show you how you can be a blessing to your world in a grand style. A good leader should teach you how to think big and not think small. A loving leader should show you how you can use your gift to expand God’s Kingdom in your sphere of influence. This is what is referred to as empowerment. Empowerment is not fasting and praying for months so that you can expect to get a new job in the New Year. True empowerment is receiving the ability and the Grace to fulfill your destiny in a glorious way.

George Washington Carver was a man that heard the voice of God in an unprecedented manner. Through his relationship with God, he was able to do unimaginable things. If he had been caged in a building, and inflicted with the pulpit spirit, his destiny would have been largely limited by religion. He would not have been such a tremendous blessing to his world, and earned so much respect and dignity for the black race who were once condemned to be slaves.

The gatherings of the saints of God should be for the purpose of bringing down solutions from heaven to solve the problems of mankind; it should not be for unproductive religious practices. George Washington Carver would several times lock himself in the laboratory or forget himself in the Garden just to make the will of God done on earth as it is in heaven. He asked God to teach him about the peanut. And God gave him more than 300 applications of the peanut that we are all benefiting from till today. That is a good way to make our God proud.

God does not feel proud if all we do is spend several hours in prayer and bible study without coming out with practical steps to transform our society. Prayer and Bible are not for us to feel good as serious religious Christians. God is interested in our results (fruits), not our activities. Yet, most people are now celebrating their activities instead of results. If you have been involved in this kind of life, please stop deceiving yourself. What God wants to see is your fruits. What God is interested in is seeing how much of Kingdom influence you have been able to bring to your society and to your world.

Again, I like to make it clear. The church is the solution to the problems of mankind, and NOT RELIGION. What most people are busy doing in their auditoriums is religion. Religion is the reason why pastors are more interested in identifying those who are paying tithes rather than those who understand the meaning of tithes. Religion is the reason why pastors prefer to tell you to be very active and faithful in the sanctuary but they don’t emphasize to you that you are a gift to the entire body of Christ and to the world. Religion is the reason they think you are on your way to hell if you miss church on a Sunday morning or you miss any of the ‘important’ services. Religion is the reason why they emphasize how well you must give money but forget to teach you how to make money. They keep telling you to give but they never reiterate in your ears that you should let money start working for you so that you are no longer a slave to money. Religion is the reason why all they want to do is to prepare you for heaven, and make you largely irrelevant on the earth.

I hate religion with all my heart. Religion is one of the major causes of the backwardness of the black race. Religion does not teach you how to live for people; it teaches you how to live for the sanctuary. Religion is what makes you think that you need to get to a particular auditorium or sanctuary before you can meet with God. If you claim to be a Christian, when did God stop living inside of you? Jesus made it clear that true worshipers do not need to go to any mountain (place) any longer to have an encounter with God. True worshipers worship God in spirit and in truth.

Religion is what makes people say Holy Spirit lives inside of them, yet they refer to themselves as sinners. If you call yourself a sinner, stop saying you have the Holy Spirit. He does not abide in a sinful place.

Religion is an instrument of the devil to steal, to kill, and to destroy. God has called me as a bullet in His gun to kill every from of religion that is limiting His people. Religion is what emphasizes law (do’s and don’ts) but does not show you how to believe in the nature of Christ in you in order to live a victorious life.

Religion is what tells people to serve God for what they can get, and not tell them to serve Him with what He has given them by Grace. Religion is what tells people that God blesses them based on what they do instead of telling them to do great things because they are already blessed.

Religion is what makes a pastor tell you to believe God to do something for you without telling you to believe in what God has already put inside of you. It is religion that emphasizes spiritual things to the point that you begin to lose your common sense.

Please, if you notice any form of religion in my life, kindly show me some love by letting me know so I can make amends as soon as possible. I encourage you to express your hatred for religion as much as possible. God hates it so much. Because it is against His nature. He is called the truth, the way and the life. Choose to live for the TRUTH instead of religion. Religion is a lie of the devil. Choose to lead someone in the right WAY. Refuse to allow religion take away people’s glorious LIFE from them. And great will be your reward on earth and in heaven.

SUNDAY AKINBOWALE,
KINGDOM FOCUS INTERNATIONAL MOVEMENT