The Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) has slammed Nigerian Christians who are poor as sinners and cursed by God, claiming all Christian adherents should be rich, accusing some of falling into penury because they fail to pay tithes.

One of the church leaders, a professor and pastor of RCCG, Solomon Bello, was quoted in a statement to have said this on Wednesday while delivering the lead paper at the Business Summit of the Redeemers Men’s Fellowship of the LP71, Divine Connection Zone.

Mr Bello, the pastor in charge of Lagos province 71 (LP71), described prosperity as “a birthright of Christians while poverty is a curse.”

“Poverty is not for any true child of God. As long as men continue to sin against God, they will continue to struggle,” the Redeemed pastor claimed.

Mr Bello, who is also a lecturer at the University of Lagos, listed the major factors that brought about poverty as sin, laziness, curses, ingratitude, extravagance, and procrastination.

“Cursed and blessings are the results of the obedience or lack of it on the part of a man. The Bible informs us that poverty is a curse. It was the resultant effect of man’s separation from God in the Garden of Eden,” the RCCG cleric further asserted. “As long as men continue to sin against God, they will continue to struggle. It takes two to succeed, you and God.”

On gratitude and obedience, Mr Bello said that any Christian who knew how to obey and show appreciation to God was destined for great heights.

“An ungrateful man cannot go far in life. Gratitude will open the doors of breakthrough and success to you at any time,” he claimed. “Appreciation of God’s goodness leads to an appreciation of your blessings and worth before God and man.”

Mr Bello also mentioned that appreciating God would lead to success in life. 

“It is the shortest cut to victory. If you want the heavens to be opened for you, if you want to be made whole, then you must be ready to appreciate Him. When you return to give glory to God,” the Redeemed pastor asserted. “He will return to make your life worth living. Divine upliftment comes in the place of gratitude. Every disobedience has a retribution attached to it. When you obey the commands of God, blessings follow after, but when a man disobeys, the blessings are withheld.”

The Redeemed Church leader, who warned against procrastination, added that “devourers” had also been assigned against people who do not pay tithes.

On the route to prosperity, the cleric listed 11 steps (wisdom, diligence, labour, mystery of giving, the way of thinking, anointing, obedience, natural gifts and endowments, blessing of right placement, praises, and breakthrough by the blood).

“The road to prosperity is a straight one if you can only understand it. God has already made every provision for comfort and upliftment. There are certain things you can do to unlock the heavens for yourself and your family,” he said.

Corroborating Mr Bello’s claims, Segun Adeleye, the coordinator of the Redeemers Men’s Fellowship, Divine Connection Zone, said, “Christians are crawling when they are supposed to be flying.”

The Redeemed Church leader said it was strange that Christians do not “know that they are poor as long as they can afford one fairly used car and struggle to put food on the table.”

Buttressing his claim that Christians should be rich, Mr Adeleye explained, “But Philippians 4:19 says, “And my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus. Do we bother to ask what God’s riches are? According to Haggai 2:8 ‘The silver is Mine, and the gold is Mine,’ says the LORD of hosts.”

He reasoned that “if the silver and gold belong to God, then the logic should be that we His children should not be poor, but very rich.” 

He said Christians could not claim to be rich in Nigeria when the rich people in the country were from a different faith, while the rulers of the country and heads of all the most important institutions were from a different faith.

(NAN)