Our pulpit must stop talking about miracles and breakthroughs because our youths want to hear that through miracles and breakthroughs, people can get something out of nothing. I repeat that you can never get something out of nothing. What they are being told is that it is possible to reap what they did not sow. It is impossible.

It was Saint Paul, who admonished his admirers in the church at Thessalonika that he who doesn’t work shouldn’t eat. The national psyche of Nigerians today is more like “if it is ripe pluck it if it is unripe do the same thing.” Man must labour before he is able to eat. Today, the shout of “I claim it’’ is renting the air from our exalted pulpits. What are you claiming? Whose labour are you claiming? Let the truth be told from the pulpit to our teaming youths going out of our churches.

 My dear pastors and priests, our churches have largely contributed to the rot in the society. Our messages of instant gratification have created a generation of people, who only want to see instant results, immediate relief, and a painless profit. This is not the natural course of nature or a normal way of doing things.

For our youths to change, our messages must also change. For our nation to change, the messages from our pulpit must also change. We must begin to deliver relevant homilies which are relevant and capable of uplifting souls. Instead of messages that only promise blessings, miracles, breakthroughs, and wonders, we should replace these messages with preaching on virtues such as hard work, creativity, dedication, commitment, perseverance, diligence and responsibility.

The Scripture says that by the labour of your hand you shall eat, happiness and prosperity will be yours. Prosperity and breakthroughs will never emanate from idleness and laziness. This gullibility must change and it must stem from our pulpits.

We must show our hearers the proper way to wealth. Let us start this immediately by using correct words of encouragement. We must stop glorifying people, who became wealthy from questionable sources. The brother who became a millionaire because he simply sowed a seed, either to a pastor or to a church should no longer be among those testifying in our churches. We should be giving opportunities to those, who work hard through a lifetime of perseverance, diligence, and dignity of labour.

Unless we are able to do this, our churches and Nigeria will keep on celebrating symbols of instant success like the Yahoo boys Bet9ja players, the scammers, Bank robbers, pen robbers, embezzlers of government funds and MMM members.

If these remain the only messages of success stories we are capable of producing, our society will keep going down the hill. If we are to produce quality youths and future leaders, we must begin to invite to our pulpits, people, who attained success through biblical principles of hard work, faithfulness and diligence. We have to downplay the roles of sowing and reaping for prosperity. It is time to begin to emphasise on principles of production of goods and services.

We must begin to encourage hard work among our youths. Instead of teaching in our churches every Sunday, the art of giving and taking such as givers never lack, our messages must change to teaching principles like planning, critical thinking, system building, market and customer analysis, and production of goods and services.

This is how noble people are created and produced in a society not. With the messages we have today in our churches and society at large, it is not surprising that young people now act as if God rewards laziness and mediocrity. I want to use this medium to appeal to my fellow pastors and priests in the ministry to stop preaching a false gospel. They should begin to preach the real gospel of the kingdom.

 Let us continue to offer the sign projected by Our lord Jesus Christ. Our youths must know that Christianity is not magic. Just because somebody is making pronunciations doesn’t mean that those pronunciations are from the Bible. We must let them know that they only need God’s blessing to make it in life. We must let our young people know that the shouts of “ I claim it, I receive it” alone are not enough for someone to be blessed.

We must open their eyes and ears to realize that the shouts of “Amen, Amen, Amen” no matter how loud the vibration is, doesn’t make God fulfill all their wishes. Our youths and Nigeria needs to be delivered from religious superstitions, half-baked life, laziness and real Christianity must be that preached to the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well.