“My sons, be not now negligent: for the LORD hath chosen you to stand before him, to serve him, and that ye should minister unto him, and burn incense” (2 Chronicles 29:11).
TEXT —2 Chronicles 29:1-11
Message
The world may be full of people who have scant ideas about what God expects them to do in this life. But some know their purpose for living; they have been called and handed specific assignments from God, but choose to stand aloof. Some blame other people or circumstances for their failure to fulfil their divine mandate. Yet, some simply wait for someone else to give them a push.
Right from the onset of his reign in Judah, King Hezekiah wanted to be different from his father Ahaz, under whom he served for 14 years. He saw that the central weak point in his father’s reign was his rejection of the true worship of God, shutting the temple and preventing the people from coming to serve the Lord. Therefore, in his first month on the throne, Hezekiah opened the temple and mobilized the Levites whose duty it was to do service in the house of the Lord. He commanded that they sanctify themselves and the house of the Lord, cleansing all filthiness from the temple.
He reminded them that it was because their fathers did evil in the sight of God and turned their backs to Him that calamities and destruction came on them. Hezekiah then publicly declared his resolve to enter into a covenant with the Lord, so “that his fierce wrath may turn away from them.” He stoutly admonished the Levites whom he described as “my sons”, to remember that God had called them to “…serve him, and that ye should minister unto him, and burn incense.”
No excuse is acceptable from any believer on why he or she should not serve the Lord. For a believer to become inactive or indifferent in the house of God is a mark of ingratitude for what Christ has done for us. A believer who has been sidelined by sin is expected to repent, reconcile with God, heed the admonitions of the Hezekiahs of our time, and promptly return to the service that the Lord has assigned to him/her.
Thought for the day
To die without fulfilling God’s purpose in one’s life is the ultimate failure.
Listed among “500 most powerful people on the planet” by the Foreign Policy magazine in 2013, Pastor (Dr.) William F. Kumuyi is the founder and General Superintendent of the Deeper Christian Life Ministry (DCLM) headquartered in Lagos, Nigeria. DCLM started in 1973 as a 15-member Bible study group right in Kumuyi’s apartment at University of Lagos where he was a lecturer. His revolutionary Bible teaching on personal holiness and commitment to evangelism soon gained so much traction and resulted in a widespread revival.
