Embracing Godliness: Relying on God for Our Year of Increase

Today is the Second Sunday of September. Our theme for September is “Godliness” and this Sunday’s preacher was Reverend Ezekiel Gyimah. He is the assistant reverend of the CEM Bronx mission and we were blessed to hear from him today. 

Reverend Ezekiel starts with reminding the congregation that have all agreed that this is our Year of Increase- As ordained by CEM hq. The Reverend tells us we must end the year with a testimony of the progress of God’s doing in our lives. We cannot keep responding to “3tisen” with “same old same old”. He says now, when someone asks how we are doing, we must answer saying that the Lord has been good to us. We must get to the point where we will impact the people that come into our lives and not the other way around. This year, all the prayers must have results. We must touch the blessings of the Lord this year. When we start a plan we must finish it this year and not leave it halfway in Jesus name. Reverend cites Exodus 1:20 which speaks on how God was kind to the midwives and made them increase and made them exceedingly powerful. We pray God will show us his kindness and make us greatly powerful. The Bible is full of promises showing that when we start something, the Lord will finish it. Zechariah 4:9-10 lets us know whatever our hands will touch, there will be an expected end. We cannot despise small beginnings. Without a beginning there is no end. 

The Reverend moves by saying that if we have a desire to increase, we must first touch something. We cannot just be unconcerned. How can we have a finished creation if we never wet the clay? Reverend Ezekiel gives a personal account on how recently, he has felt he is not progressing or how he felt stagnant. In all his financial endeavors, he has depended on other people and family members too much and now he realizes he has not been depending on God. He has found the root cause of the problem and knows that his trust should be in God alone. He has little pieces for him to at least start some kind of project. It gives him joy and satisfaction to know he has peace of mind and a God full of promises. That alone gives him unexplainable happiness.  In our desire to increase, we must learn to rely solely on God. Reverend Gyimah emphasizes that we must have the desire to rely on God in order to increase. He uses an example of driving without GPS. Most of the time, Rev. G doesn’t use GPS because he just wants to see what is around him and gets lost then asks what’s next. It wastes time and is inefficient. You get lost and your time becomes delayed. You become off schedule and you miss the appointed time. God has plans for our lives that are all perfectly timed and aligned to what he purposes. Plans without timing are just floating words. This makes you miss opportunities and confuses our sense of surroundings. But then again, to quote Sir Fechin Attuah in the youth inauguration service, he reminds us that when we use the GPS, it never gives up on us. It continues to reroute until we reach our final destination. Without relying on Christ in the quest to increase, we will walk into issues where we can find no exit. We must rely on Christ and Christ alone. The Reverend tells us without Christ we can walk into spiritual realms that can end all of our visions when we get lost. When we rely on Christ he will direct our path and bring it to an expected destination. Rev. cites Psalms 23:4 knowing that David says he has no fear because even in that valley of death, God is in every step. He cites David once again as he asks where his help comes from knowing that it comes from the Lord. To define Godliness, Reverend says Godliness is relying on God- nothing more or less. With the topic of Godliness, Rev. speaks extensively about the apostle Paul who tells us Godliness must be seen in our physical life. 1 Timothy 3:16- God came in human flesh to die for us, so we must live a Godly life. People have suffered to testify about Jesus so we must live a Godly life. If not, we will be mocking all the sacrifices that were made for us. We must not take the word of God for granted, but live intentional lives and revere that God is good and his mercies shall endure. 

Have a blessed week everybody and see you again on Tuesday Bible Studies and Friday Zoom service. Once again, if you want to replay the sermon, just check the CEM Bronx youtube page! God bless us all. Amen