I Will Come Out as Pure as Gold!

“Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in his wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.” (Helen Lemmel, 1922) 

“Turn Your Eyes upon Jesus” by Sounds Like Reign

Greetings to you all in the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ,

It has been quite a challenging few months since we have practiced social distancing. Especially, it is quite hard when we are not able to do what we used to do or want to do, like worship, bible study, fellowship, serve and talk freely with our fellow brothers and sisters or sit with each other in the place where we like to gather because all those are very important for our life.

We know it is not all as it continues without promising. Its impact is getting stronger - psychologically, emotionally and even financially on every aspect of our life, not positively but negatively. “How long could we live like this?” “Where is the way out?” “Will that time truly come?” I wondered again and again and again.

However, as I prepared each week’s worship, the story of Israel people also came to my mind again and again. About twenty-five hundred years ago, the people of Israel went through challenges, not just for a few months but around sixty years, exiled far from home in a foreign land named Babylon, and lived as war slaves, 2nd class citizens, and were thrown into the fire or hungry lions’ den, depending on the unpredictable order of Babylonian King, just to keep their faith according to the Old Testament stories.

Then I realized that these were not the only years they experienced challenges. It happened during their time in Egypt under the Pharaoh. Even recently, for the last two thousand years, they had to live far from their homeland, Israel, as foreigners all around the world until 1945. Their stories are the series of pain and suffering dealing with uncertainty.

Interestingly, all of those were the result of human’s sin, by the disobedience against God or running away from God apart from God’s law - a protection from the dangers of human life and a helping hand to grow as a people of God, from the beginning, believe it or not. Amazingly, those stories continue to point to a different direction from our human reality. In other words, those stories are powerful enough to help us to turn our current reality into divine reality. Every challenge is our opportunity to come closer to God and experience His power.

“God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” (John 4:24, NRSV)

As we take the discipline of cleaning and distancing from the unseen enemy, we have accepted this challenge as our opportunity to grow into God’s perfect love so that, through the challenging time, our faith, our purpose and our focus will be renewed, simplified, and sharpened as we worship in spirit and truth. 

So now, brothers and sisters in Christ, for the last 10 weeks, as we have worshiped the Lord in spirit and truth wherever we were, do you feel much stronger than before now? Do you see the purpose of life in God much clearly now? Do you have a clearer vision of your life for the Kingdom of God eternal now?

If not, let us share another story from Job who suffered without reason. This is what he said as he went through the deep and long dark tunnel of his life.

“...But he knows where I am going. And when he tests me, I will come out as pure as gold. (Job 23:10)!”

Do you know what? It actually happened as he went through that challenging time caused by others’ sin. Everything was renewed and restored. Furthermore, his blessings doubled! But most of all, he began to have personal relationship with God through that hardship!

Looking forward to that day in God’s grace,

Pastor Kyochul