- By Demola Atobaba, Ado-Ekiti
The senior pastor of First Baptist Church, Miracle Cathedral, Okeyinmi Ado-Ekiti, Rev’d Dr Kayode Ayinde, has admonished Christians across the country to always give gratitude to God for all He has done and for what He will do.
Rev’d Ayinde who draw his sermon from the scripture, first Chronicles 4:10 and Luke 17:11-19 with the theme: “Overcoming Post-prayer Temptation”, said it is a known fact that temptation comes after prayer and that temptation always comes after we have prayed while we are waiting for answers to our prayers and it also come after prayer has been answered.
He emphasized that every prayer of a child of God that will be noticed by God must be preceded with thanks and succeeded with thanks and praises to God. “As a child of God, you must not fall into temptation of not giving thanks to God. You must not fall into the temptation of ungratitude. You must not fall into the temptation of being an ingrate. You must not fall into the temptation of failing to acknowledge God in your life after your prayer has been answered. There was a saying that, those who don’t think don’t thank. You must not forget anything that God has done for you.
“God expects you to come back to Him in Thanksgiving. God is expectant of your praise and worship. We thank God in appreciation of what He has done, and we also thank Him in anticipation of what He will do in our lives.
He described the temptation of an unbelief as a cancer, that when it penetrates into a system, it eats it off. “Don’t just be a praying Christian. Rather, be a believing Christian. Don’t fall into the temptation of unbelief because after you have prayed, trust God enough for an answered prayer. You must have faith and put your faith into exercise for a better expectation. Throw away your garment of doubt, throw away your garment of unbelieve. Have a strong faith to believe that God has done what you inquired of Him in prayer.”
According to him, “Sometimes, most people who are wealthy are not humble. Those who are privileged, those who are opportuned are not humble. Those who are wealthy are more pompous as recorded in the Book of Deuteronomy 32:9-15.
He admonished the congregations to learn how to appreciate God for whatever blessing they have received from Him. “Don’t fall into the temptation of pride. Knowing fully well that pride is dangerous because it goes before destruction”.
The cleric affirmed that the only antidote is that every blessing and testimony you have received should be credited to God. He alone deserves the glory. Always give all the glory, praises, and thanks to God and regard all blessings you have received as privilege and not a right or your worth. Never you ascribe any glory unto yourself because it leads to destruction, he stated.
Speaking with TopNewsng in a separate interview shortly after the event, the Chairman Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), Ekiti State Branch, Dr babatunde Rosiji said, “The feeling is first to give gratitude to God and a time for retrospection. Thanking God for keeping the lives of our members despite all the challenges in the country and particularly despite the work huge load upon the health personnels of recent occasioned by ‘Japa’ syndrome the brain drained. We want to thank God that we’ve not collapsed under the burden.
“Particularly, the “Physicians Week 2023” with the theme: “It is Our Time To Get It Right”, in the health sector. This gives us an opportunity to also reflect as a nation on getting it right.
“You will be surprised that many of our colleagues who came here together to celebrate this same annual thanksgiving program last year are already out of the sores of this country and I tell people jokingly that, it’s those people you see today that you know are still present with you, because you will be surprised that even many of the medical doctors that are currently on ground at the moment are at the departure lounges.
“They have written foreign exams and they are only waiting to finetunes their papers and to raise enough funds to be able to resettle outside the country and that tells us that there are a lot of problems that is awaiting the health sector if we don’t do something deliberate and urgent too to address the ugly situation”, Dr Rosiji revealed.
