Greetings, my dear friends! I thank God for you and believe that this day will bring you many blessings as you meditate on the word God has given us today.We are still talking about the importance and necessity of changes in the life of a believer. It is not enough just to go to church to be changed, so can we really blame the church when we do not see any changes in our lives? Many of those that go to church have this kind of thinking: «I guess this church is not of God, otherwise I would have changed a long time ago, because I have been a believer for many years». No, dear, you cannot blame church for the lack of positive changes in your life and circumstances. Jesus said about the Church:
«I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it» (Mathew, 16:18b).
Church is being built by Jesus Who said: «Follow Me, and I will make you». It means that until you start following Jesus there are not guarantees that your life will change. Changes do not result from religious activities; they are a result of following Jesus.The lives of many believers stay the same for years, even though they attend church regularly and read their Bible. Either a person does not understand what it means to follow Jesus, or he is not ready to pay the price of following Jesus and living the life He has called us to live. All those that follow Jesus have testimonies of how Jesus changes and transforms their lives!If I attend a church and do not experience any changes, I do not differ from the crowds of religious people that claim to believe God in their hearts and observe different religious rites as a proof of their piety. But the crowd and the disciples are on different levels in their commitment to God, and they lives differ as well.When we read our Bibles, we see that there were different categories of people among the followers of Jesus. Part of those followers was the multitude. Wherever Jesus went, they followed Him. These people attended all of Jesus’ meetings, were witnesses of God’s miracles, and listened to His teaching and parables. It seemed like they were following Him. Jesus said that He would change the ones that had made a decision to follow Him. Nevertheless, He could not change the multitude because these people refused to pay the price of following Jesus. The crowd only wants to see miracles and experience improvements in their lives and not the character changes.Let’s read the 6th chapter of the Gospel of Luke to get a clearer picture. «And He came down with them and stood on a level place with a crowd of His disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem, and from the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear Him and be healed of their diseases, as well as those who were tormented with unclean spirits. And they were healed» (Luke, 6:17-18).
In this passage we see two categories of people that followed Jesus: the disciples and the multitude of people. We can see the same picture nowadays. Among the followers of Jesus Christ, there are true disciples and the multitude. All the believers cannot be considered to be disciples of Jesus, because there is a difference in the level of dedication and commitment between those two groups.Only disciples are changed through their following Jesus, but the multitude stays the same – selfish, fleshly and hypocritical. The exception is those people out of the multitude that make a firm decision to become a true disciple of Jesus and follow Him. The multitude looks for Jesus, attends His services and listens to His sermons for one reason only: they want to improve their lives and make them easier. The multitude is not interested in personal repentance, character changes and the understanding God’s plan for one’s life.So, which group of people do you belong to today – the disciples or the multitude? The things that God has prepared for His followers who submit to His will and become His disciples are so much bigger than the price they need to pay. God bless you today!Pastor Rufus Ajiboye
