hear God’s word daily but are our lives changed: #MorningDevotion Hearing and Obeying!
The church up the hill got a new young pastor from the city. On Sunday morning the church was full to capacity everybody eager to hear the young pastors sermon. The pastor preached an inspiring powerful message on loving one another and most of the congregation loved it. The general consensus was that he was a good preacher.
The next Sunday, the church was full to capacity everyone eager to hear what the pastor would preach on. To the amazement of the congregation, the pastor preached the same sermon he had preached the week before word for word.
On the third Sunday the same thing happened and the people were deeply concerned. One of the church deacons gathered up courage and asked the pastor the question that was on everybody’s lips.
“Why is it that you keep preaching the same message every Sunday? Don’t you have any other message you can preach?” he asked.
The young pastor replied, “Why should I preach another message when we have not acted on the one that has been preached?”
James 1:22-24
Obey God’s message! Don’t fool yourselves by just listening to it.
If you hear the message and don’t obey it, you are like people who stare at themselves in a
mirror and forget what they look like as soon as they leave.
Every Sunday our churches are full of people and the word is preached. In fact when I think about it, in this nation (Kenya) every other place you go to someone is always preaching (at least in the major towns and cities) Switch on the TV and all the local stations have some time every day that has been allocated to the gospel either through gospel music or preaching of some sort. All in all, we hear the word daily but the question I would ask is this; Are our lives being changed or are we just hearers of the word?
Have we become so familiar with the word but not allowing it to take root in our lives?
Every Sunday we are in church most of us with our note books but have you ever asked yourself what many people do with those notes? Do we refer to them? Do we go back to the word to counter check the scriptures the preacher made reference to?
We have become a people chasing after the next big revelation, the next big thing. I know people who attend every major conference, kasha, convention and other meetings but they seem never to grow. They still struggle with the same things, why? Because they are just hearers, they take notes; shout amen when the preacher preaches but it all ends there, no implementation, no obedience.
If your life is not changing yet you are exposed to the word every other day, it means you hear and don’t obey, you look at yourself in the mirror and as soon as you walk away you forget how you look like.
So, were you in church last Sunday?
What did the preacher preach about?
What have you done about what you heard?
Why would you expect God to give you a new word when you have totally ignore the last thing He said to you?
Ouch!!!! Its time to look for those note books and start doing something about what I have heard so far!
-By Pastor James Martin Okumu/Jam 316 Radio
We hear God’s word daily but are our lives changed or are we just hearers?
