Glitter Gospel E-Book

Omanchi-Job Agbo

• Herausgeber: WS
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 187

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Glitter Gospel is a call to faith, christian maturity and holiness. Satan in Luke chapter 4 said to Jesus: "bow (submit) to me and in exchange take the world" (paraphrasing). To today Satan's guile isn't changed, he presents many still with this same offer. Does God prosper men? Is there a line between greed & prosperity? Is God mindful of a Christian's health? Where is the place of Holiness in the life of a Christian? Glitter Gospel explore these questions and more.
It is a two part ebook consisting of eleven chapters. Topics covered include:

1. Health and Healing
2. Understanding Greed
3. How Serious?
4. Increase - Evidence of Success?
5. Sensual Saints
6. Inferred Faith or Real Faith
7. Still On Time
8. Prosperity Vs Purity

Leseprobe

Glitter

Gospel

Omanchi-Job Agbo

The thoughts expressed in this manuscript are solely the opinions of the author. The author has represented and warranted full ownership and/or legal right to publish all the materials in this book.

Unless otherwise noted, scripture quotations are from the King James Version of the Bible. Copy-right 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson Inc., Publishers and The Holy Bible, New International Version. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society, used by permission of Zonder-van Publishing House.

Glitter Gospel

All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2023 Omanchi-Job Agbo

v3.0

This eBook may not be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in whole or in part by any means, including graphic, electronic, or mechanical without the express written consent of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

WaterBird Books

ISBN: 978-1-4787-5815-0

Transcribed and Revised from the 2015 Outskirts Press edition by Omanchi-Job Agbo, email: [email protected]

Acknowledgement

To my mother - Mrs. Agbo Sarah Enyayigwe, you gave and continue to give so much of yourself. You are such a great mother, the best any could ask for; thank you Ma. To my siblings too numerous to mention individually - family is always family, thank you all.

To great men gone ahead, men whose writings and messages my heart & life have hugely been blessed by, men whose words help reaffirm my own convictions as well - to Williams & Aida Spencer, Pastor Juan Carlos Ortiz, Gary L. Greenwald, Rick Joyner, Debra White Smith, Bishop T D Jakes, Michael Griffith, George B. Duncan, Charles Spurgeon, George Burnham & Lee Fisher, Max Lucado, Dr A W Tozer, Gary Inrig and others. I thank God for His grace on your lives, and thank you.

To God the Father - Great and Mighty, who loved me so much as to send His one and only Son to die for me; Jesus the Son - Compassionate and Kind, Merciful & Loving; who accepted to die in my stead, taking all the pain and shame and guilt notwithstanding my person, just so I could have a place with Him eternally; and the Holy Spirit - Giver of gifts, who has graciously endowed me with many gifts of which this (writing) is one. To the Almighty be Praise and Glory and Splendor and Dominion, now and always - forever, Amen.

To my late father

Onazi Innocent Agbo

You gave me life and taught me how to live

Proverbs 23: 22

PRELUSION

CONFLICTED! Will that be your one-word description of the present age and time? A generation like Sodom where men swiftly and boldly perpetuate wickedness? A time where we scarcely flinch at the sight of evil and untrue becomes true? Men are inundated with the rewards of salvation while caring very little about the responsibilities of the call. A time in which with brashness men mock the Lord, or so they think, and they just do not know to live right - in the midst of all these bedlam though is the Church.

THE CHURCH - The salt of the earth, mandated to season and preserve the earth from its many rots; the light of the world to brighten the narrow path to the Savior and light up the world from the darkness that ever so envelops it. The question however is, “is the Church living up to its calling”? Are we living out our mandate or have we traded it out for something else? Is the Church preaching Christ’s gospel or its own gospel? Is our offering “the gospel” or “another gospel”?

ANOTHER GOSPEL - Glitter gospel is another gospel, it is a gospel made perfect by the flesh. It says, “give me the crown but take away the cross, give me all the gains but don’t add any pain with it”. It is a man centered gospel, it magnifies the benefits of righteousness while diminishing the business of the Kingdom, it glorifies man and belittles God. It appeals to man’s greed by emphasizing the blessings associated with the call while saying very little about the obligations of followership. “I am successful” it says, “because I have plenty of cash and material possessions”. It is a Me gospel not a Him gospel. To see clearer we must break beyond the veil, to swim free we must paddle past the shallow banks to open waters and now more than ever we need to dig deeper to strike gold. It is with great pleasure therefore that I invite you to join me.

JOIN ME - In these pages as we ask questions, seek answers to these questions and challenge ourselves to live out God’s ultimate purpose for our lives. As free-born that we are, let us preach the gospel – “His gospel”. I write these pages with great joy, I hope it gives you an even greater joy reading them. Welcome!

Omanchi-Job Agbo

August 2023

Part One

Glitter Gospel

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by grace and are turning to a different gospel, which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ.

Galatians 1: 6 & 7 NIV

~ 1 ~

INCREASE – EVIDENCE OF SUCCESS?

“What hast thou that thou hast not received? Now if thou dids’t receive it why dost thou glory as if thou hast not received it?”1

“Because thou sayest I am rich and increase with goods and have need of nothing”2

I am staying in a rented apartment with no house of my own and glitter gospel says I am not yet successful; there is no car to boast of and glitter gospel says, “I am not prosperous" just yet. But not only did Joseph not have a car (chariot) when he was term prosperous in Genesis 39:2, he was at the time a property (slave) owned by a foreigner in a foreign country. The question to ask then becomes: "is our definition of prosperity faulty? Is what we (the world) term prosperity really that? Listen: there is the "ways of this world" (that is, the ways or pattern in which the world perceive and do things - Ephesians 2:2 NIV); and there is also the "ways of the Kingdom." These are at variance one with another, the two are oppose to themselves. Two worlds, two realms: the fire (light) realm and the dust (earth) realm - this is realism and a sureness every Christian must come into.

The rich fool’s land brought forth plentiful and he thought within himself saying, “what shall I do because I have no room where to bestow my fruits (increase)”3. Like this rich fool many in church today are hoarding money and possessions for themselves. When we read the parable of this rich man in Luke 12:16-21, we quickly excuse ourselves saying we are nothing like him, but if we dare to take a closer look we will discover that most Christians of this generation are no different from the rich fool. Note that when Jesus began the parable in verse 16, he said “the ground of a certain rich”, he didn’t say a “certain rich fool”. He didn’t say whether or not the man is a believer either, but what you will notice from verse 17 is that this rich man’s concern was himself. Me, myself and I, - such that with the “increase of his fruits”, because he said “I have no room where to bestow my fruits”, he decided to pull down his former barns and build greater (bigger) ones so that he can store for himself and the reason is so he can spend the rest of his life in pleasure4. In the same way today with increased income we dispose of our former cars, houses to buy or build greater, bigger, more expensive ones. Perhaps we think the bigger (more expensive), the more pleasurable. Why do we store up for ourselves? Is it not so we can live in pleasure, live with ease and stress free as it were? But you know Jesus never promised us that, at least not in this world5. And when Jesus concludes the parable in verse 21, he said: “so is he that layeth up treasures for himself and is not rich towards God”. Here being “rich towards God” is not the paying of tithes and giving of offerings, sowing seed of faith in Church or to give to one great man of God somewhere, that’s only a splinter of it. Why? Because if you go down to verse 33 Jesus said, “sell that ye have and give alms”, he also said “in as much as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me6”.

“We have been nurtured in a society that seduces with the promise of affluence”, wrote Gary Inrig, “and measures worth on the basis of possession and positions”7. Thus my success can only be measured by the number of cars I have and whether I am popular the world over, it doesn’t matter if I compromise the standard of God to gain acceptance and favour from men, even if I exploit and oppress to get it, glitter gospel says I am still successful. A pastor once said “you won’t have joy if you are not successful”8. I still wonder how true this is because if as a Christian your joy is dependent on how successful you are then of all men you’re most miserable, plus that’s not joy, happiness maybe but certainly not joy. Joy depends on Jesus; it is happiness that depends on happenings around you. So even when you have not increased according to man’s standard, because you have Jesus you are joyful. Moving on he said, “joy is one of the fruits of success and that you must be abundantly supplied to guarantee your success”. There was applause and shouting from the congregation, but I want you to know this - Joy is the fruit of the Holy Spirit and He alone can give it9. A Christian filled with the Spirit of God will have Joy irrespective of the situations and happenings around him, and the unsaved with all his wealth and success will lack the Joy that the Spirit gives.

Prophet Habakkuk understood this perfectly well when he said: - “Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruits be in the vine, the labour of the olive shall fail and the field shall yield no meat, the flock shall be cut off from the fold and there shall be no herds in the stall, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation, the Lord is my strength and he will make my feet like hind’s feet and he will make me walk upon mine high places”10. From the above passage it can be seen clearly that joy is not tied to anything physical, even when every physical thing fails to respond, joy is there because the Spirit that gives it has not departed. Williams and Aida Spencer put it this way - “properly speaking this real joy is the assurance of salvation, it does not depend on our life situations. It is our response to God’s unmerited favour towards us”11. I remember a certain pastor who said that God has been blessing and prospering him and that for each day God blesses him, and a pastor friend of his came to him and requested for one of his suit, but he said he refuse to give his friend the suit. Do you want to know the reason for his refusal? That the other pastor doesn’t preach prosperity so if he gives him the suit he will not appreciates the message of prosperity. Now I ask this question: is this the Spirit of God? Some say, why I want to gather much is so that I can give to others, but do you know that the work to which we are called does not need you to amass wealth or gather so much? No! What it requires is a willing, caring heart and giving hands. Giving is not so much about having much; it is more about having love for others. Some of the most miserly men I’ve met are supposedly rich; I know this because I’ve worked with three of such men, one of them a close relative. Even for the penny salary agreed upon, it hurts them to release it at the end of the month, they see it as a favour to you not considering the services you have rendered and the irony of it all is that these three pride themselves as “preachers of the gospel”. It is Jack London who said, “a bone to a dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog”. Know that if you cannot give out of the little you have now, even when you have much you won’t give, because the bible says, “he that is not faithful in little, would not be faithful even in much”12.

Consider the Macedonian Church, who despite their deep poverty gave to the needs of others. This pastor has many suits, as a matter of fact the few times he came around to minister in the fellowship prove that he has so many yet he wasn’t able to give one out. The bible says, “as hell and destruction are never full, so the eyes of man are never satisfied”13. The more you see the more you desire to have, the more he gets the more he will yet crave for it and this is absolutely true of man. A man that rides a bike today desire to have a car tomorrow, in the same way he that rides a Rolls Royce tomorrow desires to have a limousine or fly in a private jet the day after.

I am not saying that these in themselves are bad, but it should be clear that material possessions are not the yardstick for measuring success. It is not before God, it shouldn’t be to us as Christians too. The world says they are, but they are not. Before God therefore, a servant can be more successful than a billionaire, in the same way a quiet unpopular missionary can be more successful than a renowned bishop or televangelist (Heaven's idea of success is not the same as man's, pls know this). The story was told of a millionaire who gave one of his friend some money to execute a business, the friend did and got a profit of one million naira and the friend said to the millionaire, “I did the business and I got this profit, so let’s share it equally”, but the millionaire said, “No! I gave you the capital, so you can only have 10% of the profit which is a hundred thousand naira”. They dragged the case to court, withdrew it again from the court, the end of the story was that the friend who couldn’t bear the unending saga any longer attacked and killed the millionaire and committed suicide – “the eyes of man are never satisfied” - right?

The passage in Luke 12, where Jesus gave the parable of the rich man: he admonished Christians not to take thought of what to eat, what to wear, or what to drink, he went further to give illustrations with the ravens and lilies, how they are successful without having to gather for themselves in barns, he talked about seeking God’s kingdom, then in verses 32-33, he said: “Fear not little flocks for it is our father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom, sell that ye have and give alms, provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupt”, and in verse 34 he said, “for where your treasure is there will your heart be also”. Whereas Jesus and the Apostles encouraged men to sell and give to the needy, we say sell but first give to the man of God - ‘quality gift’ of course, then consider the ‘house of God’, not the people in it (Church) - this still enters the man of God’s pocket, after that if anything is left you can then think of others. Whereas we ought to be teaching men how to relate with God, and with each other in love and sincerity, we are busy for our own sake teaching them how to relate with men of God. And one of the ways to do it is by giving them “quality gifts”. Jesus never taught men to give Him ‘gifts’, He didn’t have to. Prophet Elisha never did either - as they passionately go about the business of the Kingdom not caring to meet even their own basic needs, men saw and were moved to support them. Notice the Shunammite woman’s words to her husband, “I know that this man who often comes our way is a holy man of God let’s make a small room for him ……”14. I think the reason we teach men to give us “quality gifts” is because we put our greed first and forward then the business of the Kingdom afterwards, we come first, the Kingdom comes second. There’s also what some call the “beauty seed” - whatever that means, still others take it up a notch, they’ll tell you to “up your giving game.” Imagine that, to them the whole thing is just a game, you know, pretty much like poker - you want to win big, you need to stake big. Funny right? No it isn't. Many preachers preach sermons on verse 32, “…… it’s your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom, the kingdom of God is within you, the Spirit of God is on the inside of you, he lives through you, Oh! Rejoice in the Lord, praise his Holy name - on and on and on”. We hear that every now and again, but so very few men talk about – “sell that ye have and give alms to the poor”. Nobody wants to hear that, nobody wants the selling and giving part, much less "giving to the poor;" we want rather to receive and hoard as much as possible (far beyond even what is necessary).

Even when you hear about giving today, you only hear stuffs like “give to the man of God and you will receive the man of God’s reward, sow into the life of the prophet and God will embarrass you, give to God by sowing into our fertile ministry”, we have quickly forgotten the words of Jesus: “and the king shall answer and say unto them verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me”15. Just like the rich young ruler in Mark 10, we grieve and are sad whenever we hear, “sell and give to the poor”, but Jesus said in doing so we will lay for yourselves treasures in heaven. Who pays the greatest interest you think - God or dividends? Heaven or earth? Hello? Proverbs 19:17 says, "He that giveth to the poor lendeth to God" and God's interest is sure & plenteous, nothing like the world can ever muster Mister. But the question is: how many Christians still want their treasures in heaven? No, we no longer want our treasures in heaven, on the contrary we want to have them here and now, exactly why you hear some say, “let's bring heaven here on earth”. Our efforts however at bringing heaven on earth are fleshly. Sin doesn’t reign in heaven, yet on our streets, on every side sin reigns and is pampered. Even in the congregation of God's people, we try to label and make light of it. Therefore when we talk about bringing heaven on earth we are only talking about pleasure and attempt at gratifying our fleshly lusts and ambitions, worst of all we use scriptures to defend our positions. Debra White Smith wrote, “you can prove almost anything or theory you want with the Bible by isolating scriptures and ignoring passages that contradict the theory”, according to her, “people do this to justify a wide array of sin and this is exactly what the Pharisees did”16.

So with increased goods (prosperity) our hearts long no more after heaven, no ambition to be there. We say then to ourselves, why not? Let us duplicate heaven on earth to party away and squander what we have amassed. Afterall there’s no taking them to heaven right? A pastor said “life is so sweet we cannot afford to die now but we must live to enjoy life to the fullest.” I know you are not surprised at such statement, you probably have heard same, yeah? Where is his heart? His treasures are here, clearly his heart is also. He has increased in goods, as such he is not willing to die, he must live so as to enjoy all that he has laboured for. The rich young ruler was grieved because the Bible says, “he has great possessions”17. We cannot imagine giving out what we have laboured to gather over the years, right? Abraham was a man of great substance, God increased him greatly, but of him it is said, “becausehe looked for a better city whose builder and maker is God”, and knowing that the earth is only a temporal place and as such his treasure must be in heaven, “he dwelled in tents”18. Not in mansions, he never rode on mighty chariots (the big cars of his time). David was a poor man and little known, with not even money enough to marry him a wife yet the Bible describes him as a successful man such that even the sitting king was afraid of him19. What do we say of Jesus our Lord and Master - the epitome of success, we never saw in scriptures that he lived in mansions or have material goods stored up for himself. Infact when a certain scribe ask to follow Jesus he said, “the birds and foxes have their nests and holes but the son of man hath no where to lay his head”20. Eventhe colt with which he rode into Jerusalem is another's yet He is the quintessence of success21.

The men that built the tower of Babel did so chiefly to ‘make a name for themselves'22