TEST ME IN THIS, SAYS THE LORD.

For one month, stop sowing into thorny soil. Sow into fertile soil instead — and watch your blessing multiply.

By Mike Arnold

“BOKO HARAM” means Western education is forbidden. Keep the children ignorant. Keep them hungry. Keep them recruitable. That’s their whole play — and while they’ve been running it, Nigeria’s so-called pastors have been cashing in.

Christians are being slaughtered. Raped. Enslaved. Driven from their homes by the millions. And the gold-plated megachurches keep rising. The luxury estates keep growing. The fleets of jets keep expanding. The offerings keep flowing. That is not coincidence. That is fruit — and you have been cultivating it with your own hands.

“You have planted much but harvested little. You eat but never have enough. You drink but never have your fill.” — Haggai 1:6

You know this harvest. You’ve been living it your whole life. Now you know why.

The Parable of the Sower is not about the seed. It’s about the soil. Jesus said the deceitfulness of riches chokes the word and makes it unfruitful — and that is exactly what your “pastor” has been doing to your seed, Sunday after Sunday, year after year. That’s why the blessing never comes. You’re not the problem. The soil is.

On the last day, that man will stand before God and say “Lord, Lord — did we not prophesy in your name, do many mighty works?” And Jesus will say: I never knew you. Depart from me. — Matthew 7:22-23. How does God measure whether He knows a man? James 1:27 — the whole test, one sentence:

Pure religion, undefiled, acceptable to God, is this: care for orphans and widows in their distress.

Not jets. Not domes. Widows and orphans. Any man who builds a palace while displaced widows starve in his shadow is not a pastor. He is a wolf. And every seed you put in his offering basket, you put in his belly. And the Body of Christ harvests death and desolation.

Now hear the dare God himself issued — the only place in all of Scripture where God says test me:

“Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse… Test me in this, says the Lord Almighty, and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven.” — Malachi 3:10

The storehouse God is talking about — in its full biblical context — fed the foreigners, the orphans, and the widows. That is where the tithe was always meant to land. Not on a Gulfstream

This is a Mt. Carmel moment. To the demonized prosperity pimps who are exalted as “pastors” I mock you as I issue this taunt: Call down the fire. I dare you. Do all you can to “prove” you are on God’s side. Show the FRUIT that you have produced with all your vast riches. And then I’ll show what God has done with mere scraps — no jet, no mountain of cash, no golden dome, no TV show, no fancy robes. I will show you lives transformed, hope kindled, faith on fire — and it far eclipses anything you can demonstrate. 

Right now, minutes from the gold-plated megachurches of Abuja, more than 600 displaced children are sitting in classrooms we built inside IDP camps the government pretends don’t exist. One of those schools is a retrofitted goat shed. These children live in shanties next to open sewage ditches. Nobody else is coming to help them. (And yet multitudes of “Christians” worship in air conditioned comfort in opulent buildings, just around the corner. For shame.)

But these children have loving teachers. They have a school. And now they have hope, vision, and a path out of camp. Every one of them knows what they want to be when they grow up — doctors, nurses, barristers, builders, artists. Before school, they wanted to get guns and go back and kill. Now they are getting an education, and they want to go back to rebuild. They are breaking the cycle of death to bring the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in Heaven. 

Without intervention, research says 50–60% of displaced Nigerian youth face radicalization — millions of new jihadists grown in the soil of abandonment, because the  church is too busy admiring its own reflection to cross the road and help.

This is why God put us on this earth and gave us funds to share. Not to make a “pastor” rich. To show His love through selfless works of service. To build His body from the bottom up.

Imagine — and it is very possible — if the true Nigerian church were to stand up and show the world what real Christian love looks like. The Church could take care of every single displaced child. Overnight the entire momentum would shift. The world would take note. The kingdom of darkness would crumble. This is not only possible — it is God’s will. And it is in your hands.

HERE IS THE CHALLENGE:

For one month, stop sowing into thorny soil. Sow into fertile soil instead — and watch your blessing multiply.

Thirty days. Take what you would have put in that fancy man’s offering plate and send it here instead — into children, into teachers, into the only soil God ever called pure religion. One month. See what God does with obedience that costs you something real.

And don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t. The Bible is clear — God loves a cheerful giver, and no one is to give under compulsion. If you feel called to do this and your pastor tells you not to, let that be the final confirmation you needed: They don’t care about you. They care about your money. And they don’t truly know Jesus.

Cut out the greedy middle man and give to Jesus directly. How? The Bible says how: What you give to the least of these — IDP children — you give to Jesus himself.

Here is a fact that should shake you to your foundation: the hoarded tithes and offerings of just the top ten richest “pastors” in Nigeria could fully support every single acknowledged IDP in the country — all 3.3 million of them — for a full year.

We must DEMAND they deploy the Kingdom-resources entrusted to them, to where it God desires. If they don’t, then you know their heart is in their stomach.

A Biblical shepherd, like David, lived with his sheep, not in a mansion. There are still true shepherds like that all across Nigeria, doing God’s work. Find one and follow him, and you will be blessed beyond measure.

Trust me — these mind-bogglingly wealthy wolves can go without your seed money for one month. They will survive. The widows and orphans in the camps may not.

Test God in this. He said you could. He dared you to.

Every naira, every dollar you give, goes straight to advancing the Kingdom of God on the front lines. No jets. No golden toilets or luxury estates. Teachers. Children. The work. This is fertile soil — the most fertile on earth.

You will not find better ground to sow your seed. And the blessings you harvest will be more valuable than gold.

Do your research. Visit the schools. We are an open book.

Rise. Together.

#EarthShaker