Modern Day Religious Manipulations

So sometime recently my mum came to meet me, and said one pastor said everyone in my family should come together and pray for three hours every night for one month or so. She said something like the theme is ‘moving forward.’

So we looked at each other, and burst into laughter. I said three hours?

How are supposed to gather EVERYONE for THREE HOURS, EVERY NIGHT?

She said she told the person it won’t be possible, that she will pray what she can pray, and tell me, so I can do the remaining, since I pray for long hours every evening, anyway.

I asked my mum. “So, if we don’t do up to three hours, God will not answer our prayers?”

Needless to say, this was where the conversation died.

I have come to the level where all these ‘spiritual manipulations’ disguised with good intentions on the road to breakthrough don’t move me one bit anymore. I have too much experience for all that crap to work on me. If you find yourself been bounced around by all these hullabaloo, even as a Christian, it is not because you are bad or weak. It is just a sign of a troubled and restless spirit.

Trust me, I have been there.

Gone are the days when religious manipulators came in celestial white garments, and ask you to drink and bathe in holy water. That is just old school. No one would ask you to go to bar beach again. Fashola and Tinubu have reduced their market with the whole Eko Atlantic Beach thing. The 7 Broomsticks-beating times are over, as it doesn’t appeal to the elite. It is a whole new game now.
The spiritual manipulators of these times are very cunning. They are in every church, and they prey on the weak and troubled. And they can catch anybody, no matter how strong.

Here goes my own personal experience.

There was a time in my life when everything around me was crumbling. I lost things most important to me, and I basically thought I could not move on without recovering them. I was weak, tired, and just wanted my life to be over. This is that period in your life when your friends and family just keep looking at you and praying for you to recover because they know there’s basically nothing within their power they can do to help you get back up again. Even my pastor kept praying for me and encouraging me. Still, it wasn’t enough. I wanted a quick-fix solution.

That’s how I went to look for trouble when I agreed to see one of my aunt’s pastor in a redeemed church. She said he’s a prayer warrior, and very effective. I went to see him. In fact, the drama in the church that day made me laugh so much that I immediately wrote this post, The God of Visas, and blogged about it. Read it here. Anyway, I finally got to meet this pastor. I should have suspected him because it looked he was just a worker in the church. He immediately scolded me for questioning God, and asked me to start fasting again for 21 days (I had just concluded a personal fast). He said he will be sending daily prayer points, bla bla.

After about 10 days, I sent him credit because my aunt said I should send him credit since he is sending me prayer points. I sent him 1500 twice in the period of 21 day. Even though a text message costs N4.00, it was nothing to me. I mean he was specially interested in me, right? Never mind that I already had hundreds of prayer points and declarations I had prepared for myself. After all, I was the one looking for fast solution.

Anyway, after the 21 days was over, this pastor will call and pray for me well, and ask me to send him credit. The first time, I did it, but with raised eyebrows.

One morning of a week day, he called me and asked him to send him credit. Unfortunately, I was in Nnewi, in a remote area. The company my firm had sent our team to go and clean up their accounts temporarily lodged us in one of the CEO’s guest houses, and we were surrounded by bushes. So I told the pastor I couldn’t get credit, explaining the situation of things to him.

He kept insisting I go out and buy the credit, or find someone to send to get the credit, because he doesn’t understand how someone like me won’t have access to credit. I was irritated, and immediately decided to cut him out of my life.

Source

I stopped picking his calls, apart from one time I picked by mistake because he called my second line.

I told my aunt what happened, and she apologised saying she didn’t know he was like that, and would report him in the church.

So these are the signs of such people

They are very manipulative, starting and ending calls with prayers God did not send them to pray for you. They never run out of prophesies.

They will usually send you prayer points, and tell you they are praying for you too.

They will make you dependent on them totally. This is a strategy, because if things begin to turn around for you, you will always attribute it to the fact that “That pastor can pray o. Ha, he is a powerful man of God.” And then you will eventually turn the pastor to your God, and start giving him whatever he asks for.

If you meet any pastor who doesn’t encourage you to study the word yourself, and find God yourself, RUN!

They usually don't have any full time job or full time ministry, and prey on mostly the working class society.

Most times, they are formulaic/numerical in their approach. Fast for 21 days. Pray by 6pm and 11pm everyday. Pray for 2 hours. Shout Hallellujah 7 times for 7 days at the 7th hour. They lack creativity, and their approach doesn't give room for the Holy Spirit to do His thing, seeing He cannot be confined to formulas and numbers.

They are in every church, EVERY CHURCH - Catholic, Pentecostal, Celestial, Redeemed, Winners, Baptist, CAC, Methodist – you name it, you will find them there.

Beware of them. I believe I was able to see him for who he was because I was already strong spiritually before I got into trouble, but only got caught in my weak moment. Some people are not so lucky, and end up being lifetime victims of the greedy posers in the kingdom of God.

On the flipside, don’t stop going to church because of these wolves in sheep's clothing. See my reason below