How has it changed you? | By: J.O. Lawal | Date: May 12, 2024 | Series: From Pastor’s Desk | Number: Vol. 13, No. 2

Beloved: grace, mercy and peace be multiplied to you from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord. I am very pleased to welcome you to another week of this month, the month of May 2024, and also to another year of fellowship and ministry as a church. My prayer is that God will perfect all that concerns our assembly and work out in us all that is pleasing in His sight, so that we can be a model in all good things to all His people all around the world. Amen.

As we all know, it is now twelve years that we have been meeting as a church here in this town, Ede. And God has been nothing but good to us these twelve years. He has taken care of us in all ways and has also caused us to multiply in all good things, not allowing Satan to ruin our testimony as His holy people. So, we all ought to be grateful to Him for all that we have enjoyed from His hands and all that He is still going to do for us, in us and through us in the years to come.

But then, as we are celebrating God for all that He has done for us, in us and through us these twelve years, we also need to ask ourselves, “How has everything He has done changed us?” Yes, individually and collectively, we need to ask ourselves, “How has the word of God that we have been listening to since we became a part of this assembly changed us? To what extent has the work of His Spirit in this assembly changed us? Is it even obvious to us and to others around us that our lives are being changed at all by being members of this assembly?”

See, what God is after is not really the number of years that we have lived as professing Christians or that we have spent in our Christian assembly or that we have spent hearing His word or witnessing the move of His Spirit. What He is after is the effect these things are having on our lives. Look, for instance, at what Jeremiah said to the people of Judah about his God-given ministry among them:

“From the thirteenth year of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, even to this day, this is the twenty-third year in which the word of the LORD has come to me; and I have spoken to you, rising early and speaking, but you have not listened.” (Jer 25:3NKJV)

Did you see that? Jeremiah brought the word of God again and again to these people for twenty-three years. And did they listen to him? No! Did the word of God that came to them all those twenty-three years change their lives? No! Was His word that they heard able to prevent them from eventually going into slavery? No! Why? The reason was that they did not take His word that came to them with seriousness.

Also, consider the children of Israel that Moses brought out of Egypt. Did the word of God that they heard again and again from Moses’ mouth benefit all of them? No! Did all the miracles that they saw and enjoyed day after day help them in quickly securing the land God had promised to give to them? No! Why did these things not help or benefit them? The reason was that they did take them seriously.

If they had taken the word of God that was daily brought to them and the miracles that God daily performed for them seriously, their faith in Him would been increasing every day. Then it would not have taken long at all before they entered the Promised Land and possessed it. But because they would not take what God saying to them and doing for them seriously, they ended up wandering in the wilderness for forty years. Yet many of them did not make it into the Promised land.

So, being exposed to God’s word and God’s grace and power for twelve years in this assembly is not really what is important. What is important is how this exposure has changed or transformed our lives. That is what I want you to begin to consider, as we come together this Sunday for our twelfth-year anniversary. And I pray that, as you do so, God will open your eyes to see whatever is lacking in your seriousness in relating to Him and also strengthen you to do the right thing about it, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Happy anniversary!

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