(Psalms 119:113-148, Luke 2:43-49, Matthew 16:22-23, Matthew 17:4-8)

The knowledge of God is bigger than the world we live in. He is bigger than the universe we know today. As regards, time, He God’s knowledge and ways are infinite!

When He gives us assignments to do, it is overfamiliarity that makes us begin to do it as we use to. Every assignment He gives is a different instruction and may have different guidelines. We are to return to Him with the instruction asking for the guidelines for the execution. When we return to Him asking for the guidelines required for the assignment, He releases more grace, and allow us more chance for fulfillment.

It is overfamiliarity that makes us base how we serve God on our years of experience as Christians. This deprives us of the freshness of God’s anointing. While we think we have the experience of serving God, we may lose the timely grace He has available for our lives. Unknowingly, we then limit/restrain God from acting beyond the capacity of the experience we already have in Him. He would want to do more for us but He is retrained by our “fullness”. Can we imagine, coming to collect water with a full cup? We cannot receive water more than the emptiness of our cup. God always gives to those who come empty. He cannot continue to give us when we think we have had enough already.

Overfamiliarity makes our prayer fire goes out. The reality of our prayer life (fire) is that we need the Holy Spirit to keep refreshing it every moment. However, overfamiliarity removes genuineness from our prayer life, dumping traditions of man into our hands for us to toy with. We pray not because we have faith but because we think “(after all) He will always answer me”. Are you saying “He always answer me” because you have faith in Him or because you think you are familiar with His way? Overfamiliarity with God’s way can be that subtle! We need to check our prayer life and be sure we did not stop growing it the day our prayer was answered.

Do you tremble before His word or you critic on if the preacher is well-seasoned or not? Do you check yourself through the mirror of His word or you think maybe the preacher is focusing on your previous conversation with him? Are you going further to prayerfully search the Scripture for this word been preached or you are relying on your intuition to judge if it is right or wrong? Are quick to say “we also read the Bible” or you pray “Lord is that coming from You”? Do you say “Bible apart, let us discuss reality” instead of asking the Holy Spirit to open your spiritual understanding and give you the right word from His holy word?

Overfamiliarity removes our first love and leaves us with the costly assumption that Jesus is still traveling with us. It removes one from the freshness of fellowship with God and leaves one with stale traditions of man!
Check, are you still with the childlike faith or you have perfected your own doctrine?!


Prayer Points
1) Father, remove overfamiliarity with Your way from my heart and restore me to my first love in You, in Jesus name.
2) Lord, forgive me for studying the scripture with a heart (sense) of overfamiliarity, in Jesus name.
3) Jesus, remove from me the hypocrisy of claiming to honour You with my life while I only take instruction from myself.
4) Holy Spirit, take away the soots that overfamiliarity with God’s way has accumulated in my prayer altar, in Jesus name.
5) Holy Spirit, take away from me, the stale knowledge of the traditions of men and refill me with unquenchable thirst for instructions from You, in Jesus name.