Jesus transforms those that follow Him II

ByPastor Rufus Ajiboye Reading Time: 4 minutes
Greetings to you, my dear friends! Grace and peace to you from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ! We are still talking about the need to change and to be transformed into the image of Jesus Christ. It is impossible without following Christ. Jesus transforms those that follow Him. Jesus will change you if you follow Him!I have yet to meet a follower of Christ that has not been changes. If you go to church and consider yourself to be a believer, but do not experience changes in your life, there is a problem – obviously you are not following Jesus. When a person follows Jesus, changes are unavoidable.How did I come to such a conclusion? I saw that not everyone who comes to church is a follower of Christ. Some people in churches follow other people and not Jesus. There are some believers that only look for personal benefits and do not seek the will of Jesus.In order for me to change I need to follow Jesus. It means I need to follow and submit to His Word and His instructions. It means to spend time with Him to learn His heart and to participate in His mission. To follow Christ also means to imitate Him in all things. It means to react like He reacts, to speak like He speaks, to love what He loves and to hate what He hates.Let’s look at one more verse of Scripture where we see God making an emphasis on the importance of changing one’s character: 
 «But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and forever. Amen» (2 Peter, 3:18).
 The key word in this verse is ‘grow’. God calls every one of us to 
 „grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ”.
 What does it mean to grow? Growing means changes. Every time when you see the word „grow” in the Bible, you must understand that it is a call to change. If I say I am growing it implies changes in my life and character.Have you ever seen a butterfly? Undoubtedly. A butterfly is one of the most beautiful of God’s creatures. But we know that it also is the final stage of this creature. In the beginning this creature is quite ugly; it is a caterpillar, similar to worm. Some time goes by and this caterpillar changes into a brown cocoon that is also quite ugly. And only afterwards a cocoon changes into a butterfly. At first it does not look beautiful either. After some time this almost colourless creature is transformed into a colourful masterpiece, a making of God’s genius.The spiritual growth of a person appears somewhat similar. It is a process of continuous and unceasing changes. God calls us to grow and change. He desires us not to stay at the stage of a caterpillar or a cocoon; He wants to see us as His finished masterpiece.If you are not growing, it is because you are not striving to go higher. Isn’t that the truth that in order for a person to grow in natural, he must do some things? He needs to nurture his body, otherwise it won’t grow. Just by looking at the food or smelling it and not eating it, will the body grow? Of course, not! You also need good spiritual food to grow spiritually.Many believers do exactly that: they smell the Word and then tell how wonderful it smells, and then leave. It is no wonder that so many believers in churches do not change for years. Make a decision in Jesus name that from this day forward you will change and grow in the grace and the knowledge of your Lord Jesus Christ. We will continue to talk about it tomorrow!God bless you!Pastor Rufus Ajiboye

Similar Posts

  • Purpose for living

    AutorsPastor Rufus Ajiboye Reading Time: 4 minutes
    Many people ask themselves a question of why they feel inner emptiness. So many continue to walk the wrong way in their lives, and it goes on day after day. They feel their life to be aimless and they continue their walk unmotivated.Multitudes of people do not have a clue of why they live and whether the life is worth living. All of these things happen because they do not have a clear purpose for living.

  • Sacrifice as a measure of love! III

    AutorsPastor Rufus Ajiboye Reading Time: 4 minutes
    It is not hard to love God – simply think about Him, think about what He does for you every day, and your natural response will be gratefulness. Worshipping God will become a natural thing for those who think about Him and His works. God loves you very much. But, if you live and at the same time do not think about Him, do not see what He does for you, it is hard for you to sacrifice; particularly – it is hard for you to sacrifice your busy daily schedule, your finances, your time, your comfort, because you do not think about Him.

  • How can we experience God in our life?

    AutorsPastor Rufus Ajiboye Reading Time: 6 minutes
    The God´s mercy is renewed for us this morning. The Bible says: «Let everything that has breath praise Yah!» (Psalm 150:6). If you can breath today – it´s a mercy of the Lord and a sufficient reason to praise and thank Him.Today I would like to begin a new topic called “How can we experience God in our life?” Studying the Bible we see God doing great feats through many people. He was able to realise His intentions using those people just due to their revelation and understanding of God´s key principles. While living in the different times, educated on a different level, belonged to the different cultures all Bible heroes basically have something in common. The secret of the success and feats they had is obvious – they knew God and interacted with Him. They experienced God´s power and His mercy in their lives. How did they succeeded? It became possible because they dedicated themselves to God. That´s exactly what God is inviting us to do.

  • Love means having fellowship and spending time together!

    AutorsPastor Rufus Ajiboye Reading Time: 5 minutes
    We have been created fro love and fellowship with God. More than anything He wants us to love Him with all the whole essence. God initiated our relationships with Him. First of all, God sent Jesus to suffer, so we could restore the fellowship with Him. Now, when it´s already happened, the relationships with God have to become personal and intimate. If there is no order in our relationships with God, our whole life will be a chaos, so everything in it will be set the wrong way. Consequently, fellowship with God softens your heart making it sensitive, so that you learn to hear to and collaborate with God. God is still speaking to His people in many different ways. All those who have experienced God and His mercy in their life knew how to listen and recognise His voice.

  • The counselling III

    AutorsPastor Rufus Ajiboye Reading Time: 4 minutes
    One of the ways we make ourselves qualified is to learn to listen to people, listen to their hearts and feelings; only then we can really help them.Besides, we must be ready to show the problem from a different perspective. It is not satisfactory to point out person’s problem or his or her mistakes; we must be able to highlight how his or her present lifestyle or approach to life has caused the problem.Today I would like us to look at another passage of Scripture.

  • When we pray, invisible chains that bind people suddenly fall off! II

    AutorsPastor Rufus Ajiboye Reading Time: 4 minutes
    You may ask why people act the way they act? Why don’t people sometimes understand very elementary things? Why do people hear the truth, but do not change? There are invisible things that keep people in bondage. There are strongholds that cannot be destroyed by teaching, sermons, instructions and lectures. They are spiritual things. What happens when the church prays? These strongholds collapse and some real changes take place. We cannot afford not to pray and try to admonish other people; usually people listen to us, say that they understand, but do the same thing all over again.