Gamblers And The Altars of Poverty.
By Rev Fr John Oluoma
He came to my office after Saturday morning mass and was visibly excited. Yet any discerning eyes could see the misery those belaboured laughter tried to hide in futility.
To cut the long story short, he said he knew me when I was assistant parish priest at Holy Rosary Catholic Church Wuse, Zone 2 Abuja. That’s about 18 years ago. He enthused about how I and some other priests positively affected his life then.
Some years later, he left the Catholic Church and joined one of the trendy and trending churches( name deliberately withheld). Now he wants to return back to the Catholic Church.
He complained of hardship and how I should please pray for him for breakthrough. He is a plumber and was doing well until some years back. I asked what happened?
He said he used the money he had to build an altar for his new found church, it cost him about 300k then, and he had to even get more from his wife. Concealing my anger, I calmly asked why he would use all his money to build an altar in a church? He said he believed building the altar would bring him prosperity as they were taught there.
The Holy Spirit had to convert my anger to pity and mercy, I didn’t raise my voice. I told him that it is wrong at any point in time to use your business money to sow seed in any church. Well, he didn’t need me to teach him that truth, his persistent poverty after using all his savings to build an altar is already teaching him the harsh truth. There are thousanss like him in Nigeria who are silently licking their wounds of disappointment after giving all their savings to one prophet or the other for prosperity. There are many altars of poverty wreaking havoc on gullible Christians in Nigeria today.
Dear child of God, stop gambling in the church. Every time you give to “hammer” in any church, you are gambling. Every time you neglect your business or career in pursuit of miracles, you are gambling. Everytime you spend productive hours of the day, days of the week and weeks of the month attending one marathon prayer or the other for financial breakthrough, you are gambling. Gamblers go broke, whether in the church or in casinos.
Any altar where you are motivated, induced or imcentivised by miracles, prosperity, breakthrough or any other material benefits to give money is an altar of poverty, and you are the victim.
