Turn Your Eyes upon Jesus...

 

Turn Your Eyes upon Jesus, by the Chrystal Cathedral Choir

“Rejoice always pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; 

For this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, NRSV)

 

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

    

It is already November and we have only two pages left in this year’s calendar. “Wow! Time flies! But where did it go? Can we find it?” Actually, no one will find the lost time because we ate them all, I mean, we consumed all of it. Every second, we eat time and leave nothing! Even now, we are eating it without ceasing if we think we are breathing. In other words, we are getting older. However, it means we are growing! Is that true for us?

 

Since last Advent, we walked with Jesus. And now, we are waiting for the last day of our liturgical calendar year to celebrate Christ’s coming back and reigning over us as a king. It made me ponder about my own spiritual growing with Jesus, “Am I growing well with him?” How can we measure our spiritual growing? It is through our life attitude!

 

Two thousand years ago, Apostle Paul wrote a letter to the the church in Thessaloniki to encourage those struggling believers to grow continually whatever the situation brought them through “just doing the will of God!” Obviously, in that letter, the will of God is rejoicing and giving thanks to God always! It is a Christian’s life attitude!

 

Have we done the will of God fighting with COVID 19 this year keeping our life attitude? And are we filled with joy and thanksgiving as we prepare to celebrate Christ the King in a few weeks? If so, we are eating our time well; however, if we are not satisfied with our level of joy and thanksgiving in our life now, our Christian attitude, we still have time to prepare for Christ’s coming back to us. But how can we prepare?   

 

“When upon life’s billows you are tempest tossed, when you are discouraged,

thinking all is lost, count your many blessings, name them one by one, and it will

surprised you  what the Lord hath done. Count your blessings, name them one by one; 

count your blessings, see what God hath done..”

 

This is one of my favorite hymns that changes my life attitude instantly when I sing! Edwin Excell wrote the melody line, and a Methodist Lay Preacher, Johnson Oatman Jr. wrote the poem. They put those together making wonderful song for us. So, from time to time I intentionally move my mouth and sing this song because the melody and its words energize me so much and change my whole attitude about the world and life right away. This song reminds me, “Christian gratitude is our life attitude and it is the will of God!”

 

Brothers and sisters in Christ, in November, a month of thanksgiving, we will take a few more steps to the kingdom of God eternal together, especially, for the Christian attitude of spiritual growing. We are not far from it! 

 

Join me,

 

Grace and Peace, 

Pastor Kyochul

Just Wondering...V

Which voice is holding the truth? God said, "You are the Children of Light!" But the serpent said, "You are the children of darkness." 

"The Word gave life to everything that was created, and his life brought light to everyone. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it" (John 1:4-5, NLT).

Who are we?; And where are we?; Or where do we want to be?

Just Wondering... IV

Because of one letter, we will end up at a totally different world, the Kingdome of God eternal or a Utopia, temporal. One is the Creator and the other is a creature. One of their kingdoms is run by the love of God and the other is run by the power. 

One came to save us but the other came to destroy us. It reminds us the story in the Garden of Eden. Whose kingdom would you like to be in? 

One is the Truth and the other is a lie. History repeats itself from the beginning and what can we learn from it? 

Just wondering... III

 Truly, history repeats itself and it is not our memory problem. 

Just a little distortion of the original might change the whole fate of humanity. Who did that? We did it!

However, what would you like to hold? God's promise or Human pride? 

Just Wondering... II

Is this a same story from the garden of Eden? History repeats itself?

Which cross can we take? One saved the humanity but the other destroyed the humanity.

"For this is how God loved the world; He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16, NLT).

Just Wondering... I

 Where is it coming from? Can we blame our memory?

A half truth is a lie and we know it is not our memory problem. But what is it?

Put on Every Piece of God's Armor!

 “Therefore, put on every piece of God’s armor so you will be able to resist the enemy in the time of evil. Then after the battle you will still be standing firm” (Ephesians 6:13, NLT).

Gadol Adonai  from Praise to Our God Concert

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

 

One day, as I looked out the window at the maple tree, I realized that it is already the fall season because the colors began to change. However, where was summer? I felt like I lost the whole year because of COVID 19. Because there were tons of things that we were not able to do, it seemed like creating a huge void in the year 2020 in my life. But it does not mean that nothing happened. We just were not able to do things in the way we loved to as much as before.

 

Now, is it over yet, I mean the pandemic? Not really! But it continues. On the top of it, there were more. My friend Pastor Kerry described this current reality like this: racism has raised its ugly head; the UMC is irreparably broken; and our nation is greatly divided! God is certainly calling His church to prayer. So true!

 

We know there are tons of reasons why we need to pray apart from those reasons because we always need God in the midst of our life struggles because He is the ultimate answer for us. So how do you deal with this reality at this time? Through prayers! We truly believe it so because God will fully load us with his power as we pray. And it will fight for us. However, the victory was already ours!

 

Several weeks ago, I heard a story of someone who had a deep depression but she has been able to overcome it as she has accepted the power of Jesus Christ in her life. However, when the COVID 19 came with some social restrictions, her depression came back. Negative images about herself began to surround her minds and weighed down on her whole being. She became full of unworthiness, despair, and loneliness. But one day, she had a dream of being in a basement full of ugly monkeys annoying her. But suddenly one scripture from the gospel of John came to her mind so she continually spoke it out loud in her dream. In the end, those monkeys gradually disappeared.    

   

“You are from your father the devil, and you choose to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him.  When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44, NRSV).

 

From her dream, God showed her that all those negative, fearful, heavy, depressed, and empty thoughts and feelings were all lies from the power of darkness that tried to keep her in the reality of sin and death. As she woke up, she began to reject all the lies that she had heard from inside of her mind against her true self that God had created anew. In other words, she was able to overcome it and became much stronger in God’s presence. 

 

Brothers and sisters in Christ, where are you now as we begin our new month? Are you fully loaded and equipped by the power of God dealing with those unseen enemies around us through prayers? In the month of October, we will be equipped with the word of God standing in front of two choices, the truth and the lies. And we will see how God brought us victory!

 

Join us again!

Pastor Kyochul

 

P.S. By the way, does anyone know what the four words of Jesus used when he rejected devil in the wilderness?