SPIRITUALITY: A CAUSE OF POVERTY AND HUNGER?

Introduction

Today, one of the commonest excuses that young people make for spirituality is that it brings about poverty and hunger. Perhaps they are right for believing this to be true seeing that simoniac ministers have become more visible in the Christian community as well as in the cyber space. Simoniac ministers are motivated by profit to proclaim the gospel. In effect, they are into gospel industry instead of gospel ministry. Their primary interest and goal for serving the gospel is to make profit rather than to glorify God. For simoniac ministers, godliness is a means to financial gain—godliness is not the gain itself. They are the ones who go about seeking anointing just so that they will draw large crowds and make huge profits. The youth seems to believe that spirituality is manifesting higher dimensions of the gifts of the Holy Spirit and his anointing. 

Understanding spirituality

In this message we will distinguish between religion and spirituality. 

Religion is a system organised around the belief in the existence of God or gods, and such belief is expressed through rituals, rites and ceremonies intended to be means of showing relationship to God or to the gods. In this wise, it is unacceptable to refer to Christianity as a religion. This is because, in Christianity, rituals, rites and ceremonies are not means of showing our relationship to God. We relate to God by his life within us. In Christianity, we express the life of the Spirit through faith manifesting itself by love and holiness. This brings us to spirituality.

Spirituality may be defined as sensitivity to the Holy Spirit and to spiritual values. In Christianity, we know the Holy Spirit to be the third person of the Holy Trinity. The Holy Spirit is God. He gave birth to us through faith in Jesus Christ, the holy Son. We relate to the Father through the Spirit. Our relationship to the Father is not indirectly through rituals, rites and ceremonies but directly through the Holy Spirit who himself is God. 

Spirituality is to be born again by the Holy Spirit through faith in God's word. Every human is born naturally by human parents but spiritually by God, the Spirit. Unless you are born again by the Holy Spirit, you are dead spiritually, and have no true relationship with God. You may relate indirectly to God through religious rituals, rites and ceremonies, but those things do not give eternal life. Eternal life flows from the Spirit to God's children who have believed in Christ and are regenerated. 

Spirituality is to manifest the fruit of the Spirit. Our union with the Holy Spirit results in a new life with a transformed character like that of Christ. The fruit of the Spirit is predominantly divine love and shows out in various moral and attitudinal qualities and dispositions such as joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness and self-control. There is no divine law, customary law or constitutional legislation against such attitudes and dispositions. 

Spirituality is responding to the stimuli, impulses, promptings, urges and leading of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is a person and he speaks to us and drives us to do the pleasure of the Father. A spiritual person is one who yields to the Holy Spirit's leading. Such a person shows that he is born again, he is awake and in-tune with the Spirit. 

Spirituality is manifesting the gifts of the Holy Spirit. The gifts of the Holy Spirit are extraordinary abilities given to us by the Holy Spirit to do extraordinary works for God. These abilities are supernatural, cascading into us from the Holy Spirit rather than through the DNA of our biological parents. The gifts are used to serve men and to glorify God. The intent for the gifts is that believers will be strengthened in their faith all the more and unbelievers will encounter God as we use the gifts of the Spirit to serve them. Then they will glorify God. So the end-result of the gifts of the Holy Spirit is the glory of God. 

It is unfortunate that some believers have capitalized on the gifts of the Holy Spirit to make profit for themselves neglecting to give glory to the source of these gifts. This has influenced many of the youth to misconceive spirituality as the manifestation of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. The gifts of the Spirit are given to us to serve the body of Christ and unbelievers, and to glorify God, not to amass wealth for ourselves.

Since some Christians have preferred to use the gifts of the Holy Spirit for profiteering purposes and so, are not interested in showcasing the character of the Spirit so as to transform lives to be Christ-like and Christ-centred, it has created the impression that spirituality concerns only the gifts of the Holy Spirit and using the Spirit for financial gain. Those whose spirituality is centred on the gifts of the Holy Spirit also equate Christian faith with financial success and overemphasize positive confession and giving as means to financial success. Thus, to many a youth, being spiritual is interpreted to mean giving bountifully to a spiritual cause, spending many hours in church services, praying for long hours for one's breakthrough, and fasting continually for divine favour. This notion of spirituality has brought about transactional Christianity where acts of worship that were originally intended for the glory of God are now intended for gain. For instance, Bible teaches that giving is a form of worship to God, but today, simoniac ministers teach that giving is a means to financial success. Almost every act of worship including praying and fasting is intended for financial success. 

Is spirituality a cause of poverty and hunger?

I have witnessed several young people comment that spirituality is a major cause of poverty and hunger among Christians in Africa. Some young people in Ghana particularly, have gone further to state that spirituality is the main reason why Ghana and for that matter, Africa, is still a poor country and continent respectively. We seek to address this matter in this session. 

The people who believe that spirituality is a major cause of poverty in Ghana and for that matter, Africa, have a distorted understanding of the term. They have misconceived spirituality to mean when one is praying too much, fasting too much, speaking in Tongues too much, giving offerings in church too much, spending too much time studying the Bible, organizing too many church programmes, attending church programmes too much and working too little among other things. 

Firstly, let us understand that fanaticism is not spirituality. People who practise their faith to the extreme are not spiritual necessarily. Some do the things they do out of ignorance. Apostle Paul wrote, "For I can testify about them [the Jews] that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge." Some believers are fanatical about their beliefs, and most fanatical believers do not have accurate knowledge of the faith that they profess. They receive every statement made by their leaders and do not care to investigate it to find out whether or not it is accurate.  

Secondly, spirituality is the expression of the life of the Spirit through faith. The Spirit is a person. He has knowledge, he reasons, he speaks, and he teaches the truth. Some believers act based on their emotions and intuitions but not based on revelation from the Spirit. Observing some of the gimmicks and youthful exuberance that are displayed during prayer, the extremity of giving to a spiritual cause, and the spontaneity of decisions that are made for missions work, I have come to discover that some actions of believers are influenced by their emotions and intuitions rather than by the Spirit, hence they do not constitute spirituality. The end result of these emotional, intuitive and spontaneous actions may be disfavourable.  

Out of these observations and deductions coupled with the biblical evidence, I dare to say that spirituality is not a cause of poverty and hunger. My reasons are furnished as follows:

1. God did not call any of the fathers of the faith to make them poor and hungry. God did not call Abraham to make him poor. Did God call Abraham to make him poor? No! He called Abraham to make him father of many nations—a blessing to many nations and peoples in the world. Gen 12:1-3

2. Poverty and hunger are not expressions of spirituality. God's word has said that "your beginnings will seem humble, so prosperous will your future be." (Job 8:7) This means that in God, you may start poor and hungry but you will end up a blessing to your world if you consistently trust and obey him. 

3. God's word teaches that he gives wisdom to produce wealth and power to live healthy. In Deuteronomy 8:18, God says that it is he who gives ability [idea, skill] to produce wealth and to confirm his promises. Again, according 1Corinthians 1:24, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God—wisdom for divine wealth and power for divine health. Then according to 3John 1:2, God wants us to prosper financially even as we prosper mentally, psychologically, emotionally, spiritually and physically. Therefore, prosperity is God's will for us according to the Bible.  

4. If God were happy about his children being poor and hungry, he would not have instructed his affluent servants to feed the hungry, cloth the naked and give to the poor. Bible teaches that "every time you give to the poor you make a loan to the Lord. Don’t worry—you’ll be repaid in full for all the good you’ve done." (Pro 19:17 TPT). Compare Deu 15:7-11; Mat 25:31-46.

5. God will not take all your life-savings from you just to render you poor and hungry, so beware of simoniac ministers who prophesy to you to empty your bank accounts. Likewise, God will not take all your time so that you will not be able to work and produce wealth, for he has said that he gives wisdom to produce wealth. So then, beware of simoniac ministers who engage you in church activities all day, all night, and additionally, force you to give all that you have to support the church. God is all-powerful, at the same time, all-wise. Trust in divine wisdom as much as you trust in divine power. 

Conclusion

These and many other biblical and spiritual reasons convince me that spirituality is not a cause of poverty and hunger. God did not call you to make you poor and hungry. He did not call any of the fathers of the faith to make them poor and hungry. Beware of simoniac ministers whose formulations and structures,  communications and actions, tend to render you poor, hungry and naked. They are not from God and act contrary to God's wisdom and perfect guidance. 

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