via Zimbabweans turn to God – DailyNews Live 5 JANUARY 2015 by JOHN KACHEMBERE
HARARE – While millions of people in the developed world turned on the style and spent billions of dollars entertaining themselves on New Year’s Eve, thousands of poor and desperate Zimbabweans decided to turn to God.
With the chaos in the ruling Zanu PF likely to escalate this year and no hope of economic revival, Zimbabweans are pinning their hopes of a better future in God.
“It’s better to put your trust in the Lord than in these politicians,” said 32-year-old Tafara Mudonhi, an economics graduate who has failed to land a proper job for the past six years.
Mudonhi joined thousands of other unemployed people who thronged Prophet Emmanuel Makandiwa’s Crossover Night in Chitungwiza to seek divine intervention for the country’s seemingly unending economic woes.
Zimbabwe’s already escalating unemployment rate, estimated at more than 85 percent, increased in the past year when hundreds of companies shut down.
The country’s economic crisis has deepened since long-time President Robert Mugabe, who will turn 91 next month, won re-election in a controversial plebiscite in July 2013.
Factories in the once bustling industrial zones in the main cities have crumbled unabated. Job seekers — mainly university graduates —on foot in the scorching heat are turned away. Railroad tracks once used by trains to ferry raw materials and supplies are now overgrown with weeds and are in advanced stages of decomposition.
With rains becoming sporadic in the last decade, most rural people are drifting into Harare to search for opportunities to make money but many end up selling vegetables, trinkets and mobile phone rechardge cards on the streets to make ends meet.
Statistics from the World Bank showed that 46 percent of Zimbabwe’s 13 million people now survive by running such informal businesses.
Preaching from the book of Psalm 62 verse 11, Makandiwa told the congregation to get ready for God’s power in 2015 that will bring abundant peace, order and increase in their lives.
Across town Prophetic Healing and Deliverance (PHD) leader Prophet Walter Magaya told thousands of congregates who braved the chilly weather that new minerals will be discovered in Zimbabwe this year.
“There shall be wonders in Mozambique. There shall be wonders in Zimbabwe. Barrenness is going forever. We are about to be fruitful. We are about to multiply,” said Magaya.
The situation was the same in most cities and towns across the country as various churches gathered to praise God and seek spiritual guidance in the New Year.
Political commentator Reason Wafawarova, however, urged Zimbabweans to put their focus on the Creator and not on miracles and get-rich-quickly schemes promised by the new breed of charismatic preachers.
“Essentially, prosperity gospel offers us an easily manipulated God. It places God on our side, not us on His side, and it eliminates his sanctity and his sovereignty. It gives us this vain God who can easily be manipulated through offerings and eloquent words of faith,” he said
Wafawarova noted that prosperity gospel derives its strength from greed and guilt.
“There is this cycle of greed and guilt, where the longer it takes for promises to come, the more one feels guilty of lacking in faith, or of not being good enough a giver in church,” he said adding that the greed for material returns coupled with this guilt would create an addiction that leads to cultic fanaticism.
“Naturally, the message of prosperity appeals to the flesh, and it capitalises on the natural desires for health and wealth.
“The message promises the desires of our sinful hearts, and no more do we find the call to repent from sin, no more do we find the call to deny oneself, no more do we find the call to pick up one’s cross, no more do we find the call to follow Jesus, and no more do we hear of the call to die for Christ,” added Wafawarova.
COMMENTS
I totally agree with Wafawarova on his analysis of Prosperity Gospel preachers. The Bible warns us against false prophets and goes on to say that we should test the spirits which claim to say they have been told by God regarding prophecies. The Bible goes on to say that if a prophet makes a prophecy which does not come to pass then that prophet is a ‘false prophet’ as a prophecy from God is 100%. On this note I wish to refer to prophecies by Prophet Makandiwa at his ‘Cross Over’ in Harare at the end of 2012. He made a prophecy that a prominent member of the Royal family in Europe will die in 2013. My question is who is this prominent member of the European Royal family who died in 2013 or even up to date, no one so was this a prophecy from God or from his ‘god’.
At the end of 2013 Prophet Makandiwa made another outrageous prophecy that people tak about ‘diamonds’ but God showed me ‘gold raining’, what happened to this ‘gold rain’. He went on to claim that there will be an ‘economic boost’in 2014 in Zimbabwe which will surprise many peole and what happened and peoplewill beshopping 24 hoursa day because of the ‘economic boom’. Nothing of that nature came to pass so can we say Prophet Makandiwa hears from the God who created ‘Heaven and Earth’ and the God of the true Bible or some other ‘god’ whose nature we do not know but possibly ‘OCCULTISM’.
People should learn to ‘seek and trust God Jehovah the Almighty’ diligently and not listening to some of these ‘charlatans’ who claim to be God’s rohets’ when they are not. ” Many will come and say i prophesied and healed many people’ but the Lord will say I never knew you go away”. Once again how many souls have been saved and baptised in the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit as commissioned by JESUS, all we hear are thousands attending but are they repenting or they just flock for miracles coming from an obscure and an unknown source.
Kalulu, you and Wafawarova have hit the nail on the head… this article is about turning to religion, not turning to God.
Folks can be urged to turn to God, but when they reach out for someone to teach them, that teacher often just wants followers and financial gain for himself. Those false teachers, calling themselves “prophets” and such, are nothing but charlatans and showmen.
True teachers of God’s will seek nothing of themselves. They seek no position, power, or accolades. They sell nothing, but they spread knowledge of the good news of salvation through the promised Messiah. An honest, fearful heart seeks to please God.
Be nothing but a Christian… not a “hyphenated-Christian”… take no name but His.
(Also note the scriptural purpose of Christian giving is to help other Christians who have less… not to enrich men or support some earthly headquarters function that no scripture authorizes.)