In the year 2013, a famous Nigerian preacher visited a beautiful Canadian city for a conference. I drove down with my wife to the conference. In the course of his ministration, he switched into a session of testimonies of the numerous people who had given offerings and seeds in his meetings and how dangerously they had been blessed. The testimonies were jaw dropping, mouth watering, and doubt killing, including, for example, the pandemic of testimonies of multimillion dollar business breakthroughs by many of the people who gave to his ministry. The hall was parked to the brim.
The long and short of the story was that the man of God carried an anointing for “guaranteed reward” for sowing into his life and ministry. He actually gave us a “GUARANTEE.” I sat down there, conducting a search in my spirit whether this was right or wrong. Above all, the question was “should I be part of this?” Am I led to do this? Prior to this episode, I had been in church for decades; being a worker and minister for years, and had been a crazy giver to God’s work and to countless numbers of ministries and people, God’s name be praised for these.
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So, I wasn’t a stranger to the principles of giving, having taught about it widely and extensively. But what I hadn’t known by that time was the deception aspect of fund raising in the church. I hadn’t known that some groups of ministers use deception, manipulation, and sometimes, occultism to raise funds and milk God’s people. Personally, I gave to anyone and to everyone without asking any question, a habit that made many people to take advantage of me, costing me fortunes and some shreds of regrets, years later. Back to my story, the man of God made a strange announcement. He called for a seed of $1,000 with a guarantee of a major financial miracle within seven days from that particular date. Mark the word, “guarantee.”
The altar was filled with people. I stood up to join them in response to the promised and guaranteed harvest. Clearly, the motive was wrong. Everyone was in business. The caller and the giver of the seed. We were all in business, but not with God. The 3 days or 7 days or 24hr guarantee are always the catch, the point of greed that appeals to many people to which a lot of pastors subscribe. I fell for the same greed, “in 7 days, you will hit it big.” How could I have fallen for this? But the man of God was someone I had held in high esteem. I was too trusting. Maybe the Lord was ready to bless us financially after years of labour and sacrifices.
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Sadly, nothing happened at the end of the guaranteed seven day period. Not even after one month. Not even after one year. This wasn’t my first experience. They were numerous in my experiential pipeline. But this last experience was the beginning of my research into the world of “failed seed prophecies” that today, many Christians are querying God for, “why haven’t I received any harvest to the numerous seeds I have sown under many ministers.” If God told you that everyone who gave $1,000 seed would be blessed dangerously in 7 days, why didn’t it happen to me? Clearly, it was not God. I didn’t bother to gaslight myself, maybe I didn’t have faith? Nope. If God told you, I would experience it because the Lord can actually put a word of blessing into the mouth of a genuine minister.
Let me take a step backward. I am a firm believer in the principles of giving. It is one of the critical principles that underpin the Christian faith and till tomorrow, I am still a crazy giver to the kingdom at all levels and to God’s people, but as led by God. I also believe that under a genuine prophetic move of the Spirit, God can open major doors for His children in response to their obedience to give to His work. However, here is a vital lesson I want to teach you today. Your finances are directly connected to your life. In fact, your money is a product of your sweat, if you worked for the money. So, in essence, every money you work for is a proportion of your time, and hence, your life. Therefore, anytime you give to anyone or sow into any work, you are giving a portion of your life away. When done properly and by the leading of God, you will be rewarded and blessed by God for it (Luke 6:38). And God’s reward does not have to be financial.
However, I, like many other believers, have fallen victim of many greedy and probably occultic preachers who use witchcraft powers to manipulate people to give to their satanic works. Some that are not satanic are greedy and mammon-captured. For many years, these folks mixed with swathes of original preachers, use scriptures and false and unverifiable testimonies of dangerous harvests to coerce believers to give to them. In fact, some of these dangerous preachers put things on their lips and tongues to raise massive offerings for which many believers fall. There is a widespread network of such preachers in the church, and sadly, many of them are connected to genuine leaders and fathers whom they use for image laundering and ministerial validation.
Some of these people are adulterers, sorcerers, and witchdoctors in suits and cassocks. I might have fallen victim of few of them in the last 40 years of my Christian journey. You can’t give onto these types of grounds and expect an harvest, if at all you don’t get damaged. But a day came in my life when I got frustrated. I gave so crazily and never received any tangible result that is commensurate to the scale of my sacrifices. Then, I approached a mentor with an honest question, “sir, why is God not rewarding my seeds and sacrifices?” He could not give me any convincing answer. After much pressure on God, the Lord spoke to me, “you have sown into many greedy soils for which there is no harvest.” The Lord then referred me to the parable of the Sowers in Matthew 13. According to this scripture, the only ground with a guaranteed harvest is the good ground. According to the Lord, many of the grounds you have sown into have nothing to do with God, but with greed. You gave to greed, not to God.
“Notwithstanding no devoted thing, that a man shall devote unto the LORD of all that he hath, both of man and beast, and of the field of his possession, shall be sold or redeemed: every devoted thing is most holy unto the LORD “(Leviticus 27:28 KJV)
That was my turning point. I stopped giving with emotions or by impulse or in the flesh. I stopped responding to every man wearing a cassock. As a preacher myself, I began to ask the Lord to guide me towards the right people, ministers, and ministries that my finances must go to. Some of you give to people that are either under divine judgement or under satanic punishment. That can even come with some severe consequences, much worse than not even receiving a harvest. The Lord warned me to desist from being reckless with the sowing of seeds.
The Lord told me to walk in the Spirit, asking Him for guidance prior to pushing my finances to anyone. After many years of giving out money and responding to the call for seeds by every tom, dick, and harry, I began to be extremely circumspect and painstaking with my finances. The results were dramatically different from my previous experiences. The Lord began to bless me, restoring many of the things I had lost. I began to give to the poor, missionaries, orphanages, and physically challenged people as led by God. I began to give to ministers and ministries that the Lord specifically leads me to support. The results were dramatic.
There are many things I cannot say here. The church is not just filled with the righteous but with the wicked. In our midst is a complex syndicate of some pastors and preachers who have covenant with Satan, and who leverage these evil powers to raise offerings by capturing the minds of people with occultic powers. If you close your eyes to give, you will bankrupt yourself, cripple your finances, and end up with regrets. Don’t give your money to every church or to every ministry. Not all ministries are of God. See your money as a portion of your life. It must be done by the leading of the spirit. Your money is a gateway into your life. It must go to the right soil and to the safest grounds. Give dangerously to genuine servants of God.
As we transition through the ember months, some brands of evil preachers will mix up with the genuine preachers. You will be mandated to sow into their ministries for safety and security in the ember months. Your seeds must be sown into holy grounds, kingdom focused grounds, as well as spirit tested and proven grounds. Pray before you give so you don’t become a prey after you have given.
Ayo Akerele is the senior pastor of Rhema Assembly and the founder of the Voice of the Watchmen Ministries in Ontario, Canada. He can be reached through [email protected]
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