Beloved: grace, mercy and peace be yours forever from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord. I am delighted to welcome you into the month of October, which is the first month of the first quarter of this year. And I pray that God will establish you fully in all His good purpose for your life in the month, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Now, in case you don’t know or have forgotten, I want to bring to your notice the fact that preachers of the word of God have a duty to teach people the whole counsel of God. This is why Paul says to the Colossian brethren, “Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church. I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness.” (Col 1:24-25NIV) Did you see that? Paul says the commission he received from God was to preach His word to people in all its fullness. That means he could not choose to preach certain parts of God’s word and not to preach certain parts of it. He could not say that it is holiness he is sent to preach and not giving or that it is faith he is sent to preach and not eternal judgment. His job was to proclaim everything about the word of God to people.
Preaching the whole counsel of God, of course, is not something that may be done in a day. A lot of times, it will take years of hard labour and patience on the part of the one proclaiming the word of God to make it fully known to any group of people he is teaching. But it can be done, and it must be done. And we see a confirmation of this in Paul’s words to the Ephesian elders, which read, “For I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will of God.” (Acts 20:27NIV) So, a proclamation of the whole will of God is possible, and it is what every preacher must commit himself to.
But then, God’s intention is not just for the preacher to commit himself to proclaiming the whole will of God; it is also for those that are being taught to discipline themselves to embrace the whole will of God. Unfortuntely, what we see is that many of God’s children today are selective in their response to the whole counsel of God. They want to choose what truths of God’s word they are taught by their preachers and what truths of His word they embrace and practise. So, they go from place to place, seeking preachers who will conform to their taste. This, of course, is why many of them are not balanced in their lives. (Cf. 2Tim 4:3-4)
We too need to examine ourselves to see whether we are balanced in our walk of faith or not. We need to ask ourselves, “Are there truths of God’s word we are avoiding and do not want to be confronted with or embrace?” If there is any, then, we need to repent and change our attitude towards it. That is because we cannot be all that God wants us to be, if we will not seek to know His whole counsel to us and embrace it.
Yes, we may not be comfortable with the way some people are handling certain bible subjects. That, however, does not mean we should not desire to know what God says about them and to apply it to our lives. For instance, there are many erroneous (incorrect) teachings about giving today, especially in the area of giving to our leaders. That, nevertheless, does not mean that the word of God does not command us to give to support those who feed us with the word of God (1Cor 9:14; Gal 6:6). And if we will not take learning and giving to support those who feed us with the word of God seriously, just because some believers are not doing it right, we are disobeying God. Yes, we may be obeying Him in all the other areas of our lives. But because we are disobeying Him in one area of our lives, we cannot fully enjoy His blessings and provisions for our lives. More so, that area in which we are disobeying Him may just become a channel through which Satan will begin to afflict us.
So, wake up from your slumber and humble yourself to receive all that God is saying to you about holiness, faith, eternal judgment, giving, love and so forth through His word. Just humble yourself to receive the fullness of His word to you. That way, everything that is lacking in your Christian walk will be supplied, and your life will be built up to fully express the character of the person of Jesus Christ.
Do have a blissful October 2020.
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By: J.O. Lawal | Date: October 04, 2020 | Series: From Pastor’s Desk | Number: Vol. 9, No. 22