Motivators are False Prophets

Allow me to wade deep into another controversial topic, motivation and motivational preaching.

I do this because it has become fashionable for preachers to consistently give their hearers easily digestible spiritual diet. I compare it with spiritual fast food. Nice aroma, excellent taste and no need of tedious preparation. But nutritionists tell us that consistent intake of fast food can be equated with ingesting slow poison.

Why am I calling the motivational preacher a false prophet?

The first reason is the understanding of what prophecy is.

Prophecy is in simple terms saying what God is saying.

However, God always speaks within His revelation. What I mean is that God cannot speak contrary to who He is.

Prophecy therefore is putting in words what God is in His revelation.

It would be preposterous to expect God to speak a blessing on something that is contrary to His attributes.

Let me give an example.

Someone has stolen millions and brought their tithe or fat offering to church.

Can God speak a blessing to that person? Can God prophecy good things to that thief just because he has brought a huge fraction of his theft to God’s house?

Due to that, a prophet must as a necessity have a zeal for things God loves to be able to effectively speak for Him. He must furiously hate the things God hates.

Remember Phinehas?

He went beyond the mourning Israel was undergoing to pure murder when he saw a leader bringing a woman into his tent for sex purposes.

That for me is the prerequisite for God’s prophet.

A prophet is not only uncomfortable when God’s revelation is slighted; he is furious.

Samuel was a very old man when Saul spared Agag. He probably did not have much energy to accomplish much since that was the reason a king was sought.

Yet we are told he hacked that king to pieces.

It is zeal for God that energized him despite his age.

A prophet is God’s spokesman. This means that this person needs to be in close fellowship with God in order to be able to take God’s message to others.

And that is true for any spokesman, whether of an organization or of a kingdom.

Ambassadors fall under that category. That is why they must be changed with the change of political leadership since they exist as mouthpieces of those leaders they represent.

Stop going in circles. I know someone is shouting, especially because their favorite pastor or preacher is a motivator par excellence.

I will respond by saying that they are the ones thinking in circles.

You see, it is impossible to separate God’s nature to His proclamation.

That is why I am focusing so much on God’s nature before looking at His proclamations, or what we call prophecy.

That is why I want us to get the profile of the prophets we read in the Bible to accurately gauge the prophets, or those who call themselves prophets, of our day.

Get me a popular or favorite prophet in the Bible.

Prophets were never liked except by the people as sold out to God’s agenda as they were.

Some of their orders were beyond extreme. No wonder many times they were called insane. They looked insane to the normal person.

Can you imagine a married man with children walking completely naked for three years? Can you imagine the dress code and diet of John the Baptist? Can you imagine the fishy smelly proclamation of God’s message in Nineveh? Can you imagine marrying a known harlot?

Yet this is just a little of what we read about the prophets whose ministry has been recorded as opposed to many whose only record is their proclamations.

No prophet was killed because their prophecy had motivated people to murder. No prophet was persecuted because the message he was proclaiming was so good that they thought he should take it to their neighbors since they had benefited immensely from it.

We must understand the prophet to accurately judge prophecy.

No wonder Jesus said we will know them by their fruit since we can only produce of our essence.

Having settled that, we might now start looking at the motivational preacher, whether they are a pastor, bishop, coach or any other character provided they are using the Bible or Christian faith as the basis of their delivery, or whatever they call ministry.

Have you ever encountered an offensive motivational speaker (or preacher)? Have you ever heard one rebuking his listeners for sin?

In fact, the essence of motivation gives these conmen away. Motivation is in simple terms psyching people up for something. It is offering someone some impetus to face something they might feel inadequate for. It is giving someone some psychological glucose to help them persist a little more.

I hope you are getting my drift.

Motivation is soulish. It is not spiritual at all.

That is why a harlot can comfortably stay for years under the ‘anointing of a motivational pastor and not even have an iota of guilt, let alone conviction for the life she is leading. That is why cartels have made churches their new frontiers because there is no preaching touching their wickedness. That is why someone can be in church for decades and even get into the leadership without hearing the Gospel clearly being presented to them. That is why there are solid theologians who are shocked when the Gospel is preached to them because all that training did nothing to make the Gospel available to them. That is why we have ‘spirit filled’ believers who live despicable lives yet see nothing wrong with it.

Motivators say what people want to hear, not God wants them to hear.

The prophet, on the other hand, says only what God wants to say.

That is why the approval ratings are so high for motivators but very low for the prophets.

Prophets are for the most part hated whereas the motivators are feted wherever they go. The higher their motivational quotient, the more in demand they are and the more appreciation (payment, but assume you have not read that word) they can access for their motivation.

Though I intend to leave this post open ended, I will want us to look at Jeremiah.

Jeremiah was a lone voice amidst an oversupply of motivational preachers calling themselves prophets. And they tried their best to extinguish Jeremiah’s lone voice by trying everything, from slander to murder because nobody wanted to hear the prophet’s indictment on their lives.

You remember even towards the end of the book when the people sent the prophet to pray for them and ask for God’s direction that they were actually looking for a motivational prophet. That is the reason they trashed God’s word through Jeremiah.

Do you also remember Jehoshaphat with Ahab (and another time with Ahab’s son) when there was an overabundance of prophets, four hundred of them? Were they really prophets?

Of course not. They were motivational speakers telling the king what he wanted to hear.

That is why one of them struck the prophet when he came asking him how he came about to be a prophet and where he had passed them.

I am simply saying that motivation can never be prophetic and never has been.

Prophecy drives people God-ward and seeks to diminish human effort even as it amplifies God’s release. That is why prophecy is not popular, and never can be.

Prophecy irritates human effort. It demeans human ambition. It trashes human endeavor.

But it releases God’s power. It releases God’s revelation. It releases God’s magnificence.

That is the reason since creation prophets are ready and willing to suffer loss and even die for God’s word.

But prophecy is also not easy on the prophet. I have mentioned a few incidences where it went beyond the insane for God’s message to get through to stubborn people.

I will kill your wife but you must behave as if nothing has happened. Buy land that you know you will never use.

Have you ever seen a motivator going through such orders?

Another pointer is that the motivator receives compensation for their motivation whereas the prophet suffers for it, or must be ready to suffer depending on the reception of his message.

Or do you think Nathan knew that David would repent when he confronted him? Was he not ready to die to tell the king point blank that he was an adulterer and killer?

Or do you not remember Samuel telling God that Saul would kill him if he knew what he was going to do in Jessee’s place?

How many motivators have ever been scared of sharing their motivation? Aren’t they as comfortable in the church and elsewhere?

The truth is that a motivational preacher will be as comfortable in a secular boardroom as they are in the church. And nobody in that boardroom will be drawn to repentance by all that ministration.

I do not know whether you will now agree with me that the motivational speaker or preacher is for the most part a false prophet who always says what the people listening to him want to hear.

Otherwise, I leave it with you