As members of Rhema Chapel International Churches Port-Harcourt marked this year’s “Casual Sunday”, turning up in casual wears such as jeans, t-shirts and trekkers, the Minister-in- Charge of the church, Pastor Abiola Ajadi has charged members of the congregation to build their relationship with God on foundations that would last, by living a life of self-denial in order to get the best out of their service to God.
This formed part of the sermon last Sunday at the churches zonal headquarters located at Ordu Road in Port-Harcourt. Pastor Ajadi stated that when a Christian exhibits lack of commitment in relation to his service to God his services would be characterized by what he described as casual, convenient and comfortable.
He explained that a casual Christian would ever work with the expected standards of God while regretting that this is the situation with many nowadays. According to him, a Christian who would take what belongs to him must have a different approach to seeking God,adding that, though the casual Sunday affords members of the church to dress casually by putting on the toga of simplicity, warning that their productivity as Christians must never be casual.
He also explained that those who chose to be casual in their approach to God’s work always do things that are convenient, while the third category of casual Christian are those who prefer message or sermons that make them comfortable in church.
“There is nothing casual, convenient and comfortable about discipleship. ”Discipleship is a direction for a life time. Self-denial is the bedrock of discipleship. ”This also means that we don’t have the right to do things on our own as followers of Jesus, “said Pastor Ajadi as he encouraged Christian faithful to draw examples from the lifestyle of Jesus Christ,Abraham, David and few others in the Bible, in order to live to please God. He noted that self-denial would help Christians to kill natural tendencies in them by putting on Christ, even as he quoted from I Corintians 6:19b to described the sacrifice made by Jesus to occupy an enviable position.
