September 2017 Theme – The Changes That Birth Progress

September 2017 Theme – The Changes That Birth Progress

Progress is one thing that everyone desires. We all want to move forward. We want to advance. We want to forge ahead in life. No one in their right mind wants the opposite.
The bible tells us in Psalm 75: 6-7 ‘For promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south. But God is the judge: He putteth down one, and setteth up another’.
The question however is, why will God put one down and set up another? Could the personal state of the two people in question warranted that judgement of God? Very likely. It is possible for one to show certain attitude, disposition and/or deeds that can dispel progress. While it is possible for another to show aattitude, disposition and/or deeds that can propel progress.
The story of the man in John 5:1-15 is a good example. His attitude, disposition and deeds have seemingly kept him in sickness for 38 years, and not because there is no one to help him. His focus had always been on not having a helper, rather on how he could have made changes to help himself.
For years, he had been lying down under any of the five porches around the pool, so that when an angel stirred the pool, someone very close to the pool would have entered before him. Since he could at least walk, I suppose he should be sensible to stay very close to the pool after few years of disappointment, but for 38 years, he didn’t! To the extent that when Jesus who could heal him without the stirring of the pool was asking him if he wanted to be healed, his state of mind shows that he was not still ready. If Jesus had not have special compassion on him, he would have died in that condition.
As we enter September, God has impressed it upon my mind, that some may not have experienced the progressive change they are expecting, not because ‘the pool hasn’t been stirred or the angel been sent’, but because their attitude, disposition and/or deeds are such that they are in a spiritual state that cannot propel the change to happen.
It is needful for me therefore, to charge us all to examine ourselves, and so make necessary inward changes that can birth the sort of progress we desire from God. May the required willingness and grace come upon us in Jesus name.