AVOID IT AT ALL COST- TRAP OF FAMILIARITY
Mark6:3 Then they scoffed, “He’s just a carpenter, the son of Mary and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon. And his sisters live right here among us.” They were deeply offended and refused to believe in him.
Pastor E. A. Adeboye told the story of a man that insisted on seeing him despite being busy. He came on a day when he doesn't attend to any body because it was a day with God alone.
Despite his busyness, this man waited till he finished. Pastor Adeboye asked the man what he wanted. He said, "just a handshake". Wow! Not even prayers?
The man got a good handshake and left but his faith connected strongly with "just a handshake".
Pastor Adeboye said that most of his Pastors shook his hands on his way to the office that day and every other day but do not benefit from it because they are used to it.
Someone else treasured that handshake and that was the encounter he needed for a turn around.
The anointing you don't respect you will not attract.
In my few years of ministering to people, I noticed that those closest to me hardly benefit from the grace of God upon my life.
Outsiders have shared amazing testimonies that may sound unbelievable to those closest to me yet I try to give my best to them when preaching and praying but with only few result.
The same has happened to most Pastors. Infact, one of the reasons some pastors bring invited guests to grace their programmes is to ensure the people get blessed more and to achieve certain results they have been struggling to get from their people.
It is not because the invited guest is more anointed or can preach better, but people tend to down play the gift of God on a man they see every time. This is the problem with familiarity.
Surprisingly, the invited guest may be experiencing the same with his members but going to another church, he looks like a super hero. Same also applies to the pastor that is invited to go preach elsewhere.
This syndrome may sound normal but I want to tell you that it is totally abnormal. Familiarity with the vessel God has placed above you will make you miss God over and over again.
Don't be like the Jews who missed their time of visitation because of familiarity with Jesus' ancestry. Contemptuously, they called him, 'son of a carpenter' instead of admitting his messianic status.
God can be using your siblings or child mightily and yet not be a partaker of that grace because you see him as that "little boy" of yesterday. Beware of looking down on vessels whose history you can tell.
If you allow what you know about the past of a man to come in-between you and being blessed by God through that man, you may remain on the same spot for a long time. Often, those God sent to us are already around us but we esteem them less and miss God repeatedly.
Sometimes, when you know too much and have "seen" your pastor too much, the tendency to look down on him and not value him may set in.
The devil uses the trap of familiarity to keep people on the same spot making them to look for what is not lost.
Avoid the trap of familiarity.
Father, I receive grace not to fall into the trap of familiarity In Jesus name. Amen