Passage

[1 John 3:18]
"Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth."


Let us give all thanks and glory to God the Father who has blessed us to offer this 2013 pastors' devotional service.
Pastors, for the last 30 years, God has been so desperately waiting for you to come into spirit.
Every year, through the devotional services, seminars, and prophetic messages, He has been giving you the guidelines and advice to go into spirit.
Despite such earnest hope and expectations of the Father God, you did not bear proper fruits, and eventually the pastors' seminar was abolished.
But for the whole church, we have had a very rapid flow of spirit for the last 10 years.
Since more than ten years ago, I began to preach that you could not be used unless you were in spirit, and God Himself would choose men of spirit to fulfill His providence. And this is being fulfilled in actualities.
In fact, many laymen members are going into spirit being on the alert, but so many pastors are still in flesh, and this causes God to be lamenting greatly.
At this crossroad between flesh and spirit, I hope all of you will choose spirit now.
I pray in the name of the Lord that you will catch this last chance and become proper servants of God.


[Main]

Devotees, the title of today's message is, "Do you believe Me?"
Just as today's reading passage that says, "Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth," not just in love but also your profession of faith has to be done in deed and truth.
If the Lord asks you, "Do you believe Me?" what would you answer?
Those who have the evidence in deed and truth can confidently answer that they believe and love the Lord.
They can also confidently profess that they trust and love their shepherd.
On the other hand, those who still have walls of sins and iniquities cannot boldly profess their faith.
Even if they might have repented, they cannot be confident of themselves unless they have borne the fruit of repentance.
For such people, they can understand what they should do if they consider the case of Peter.
Peter loved Jesus more than anybody else.
Even when many Jews were opposing Him, he sure-footedly professed with faith, "You are the Christ, Son of the living God."
He said he would be with the Lord until death.
Nevertheless, when Jesus was captured, he committed such a great wrongdoing due to his fear.
He denied knowing his master, Jesus, and he even spoke words of cursing with his lips.
Of course, it was before he received the Holy Spirit, but such an iniquity cannot just be easily erased.
You know how Peter lived his life after that incident.
As soon as he realized what he had done, he mourned and cried so bitterly, banging his head on the ground.
He did not just say, "I am sorry" with words. He did not just repent once with a couple of drops of tears.
He lived with a repenting heart for the rest of his life, and he was faithful until he was crucified upside down.
Because he bore the sure fruit of repentance like this, he was forgiven of the fatal iniquity and he recovered the position of the foremost among the twelve.
In the same way, if you have any wall of sin, you must repent from your heart and bear the certain fruit of repentance.
In doing so, I hope your professions saying, "I believe, I trust, and I love You," will be true professions.
I pray in the name of the Lord that you will be able to show the evidence of true faith, not just with words and tongue but in deed and truth.
Now, how can you show the evidence of your faith?
First, it is obedience.
If a servant does not obey his master, how can be called a servant?
Even the laymen members try to obey the word of God and also the word of the shepherd as if it were the word of the Lord.
Then, how have you pastors been acting?
Is there any of you who would say, "I never received any personal advice, so I never really disobeyed the shepherd"?
Then I want you to think about how obedient you have been to the messages I've been preaching for the last 30 years.

You heard so many times to cast off falsehood and selfish desires and adulterous mind, and have you struggled against them to the point of shedding blood?
Many people just prayed with lips, "I want to be holy. I want to go into spirit."
When you heard, "Pray fervently, humble yourself, sacrifice yourself and serve others, love the flock more than your family members," you thought they were right but you just did what you had been doing.
Among those who are changing very slowly in spirit, are some people who only talk about what they did well.
They think, "I did bear the fruit, I earned the recognition and that is why I became a pastor; I dedicated all my youth to the church; I gave up many things to become the strength of the church," and they just remain in their memories.
Also, when they see others who are doing well now, they say, "I was that passionate before; I've been there, done that," and think that they are still ahead of those other people.
If they think in this way for a long time, they do not have pangs of conscience any more.
If you have hardened flesh, you won't feel pain even if it is pierced with a needle. Similarly, your eyes and ears are closed for the works of the Holy Spirit.
What is the reason that God is pleased with the newly chosen pastors who are being trained now?
It is because of their attitude that they want to obey unconditionally without any thoughts of their own.
For example, it is the case with learning the word and praying.
I have always said that in my theological college and after the opening of the church, I focused on the word of God and prayer only, with fasting and all-night prayer.
I advised you so many times that you should do the same.
Most of these pastor trainees are obeying my advice as it is.
Now, how did you spend your time in your theological school?
What did you do in your private time after you became pastors?
How many hours have you prayed daily? Have you prayed ardently with all your heart?
How much of the word of God have you learned and how authoritatively can you preach it?
When I put an emphasis on the word of God and prayer, you pretend to obey for some time, and soon you stop.
It's the same with all other things.
One time I asked you to listen to a certain sermon ten times or read the Romance of Three Kingdoms.
Even if you think you obeyed, I want you to think about it once again.
Did you obey immediately and with joy after I said it?
Did you obey with trust thinking, "Why would the shepherd ask such a thing? How can I get the blessing in that advice? What kind of attitude should I have?"
Or, have you felt coerced to do it, or just pretended to obey thinking, "I know the contents. I have to visit the members and I also have house chores to do. I just don't have the time to listen to the same sermon ten times," or "I don't have enough time to read the Bible, and do I really have to read the Romance of Three Kingdoms? But if I don't, he will say I did not obey!"
Obedience has to come from heart.
True obedience is that you uphold the meaning of the command and obey it because you love and trust that person.
The same goes for the determination that you should have in these three months.
You might try hard for some time because you don't want to be on the list of the pastors who are not proper in the sight of God, but if you go back to your old way of life, God cannot recognize your efforts.
I hope you will realize deep in your heart what true life of a servant of the Lord is, and what kind of obedient life you should be leading.
I hope you will be able to say, "I truly believe, and I obey from the heart and trust with my heart."
Devotees, the evidence that you have faith is secondly, sacrifice.
How much have you sacrificed and dedicated yourself for the kingdom of God and the souls?
For what have you spent your money, time, heart, and effort?
My ministry as a whole was all about the glory of God and the souls. They were the only meanings in my life.
Whether I open or close my eyes, or in whatever I do and even when I sleep, I only harbored God and the Lord and the souls.
For this reason I asked God for greater power living a life in all-night prayers and fasting.
When God touched my heart to do 21-day or 40-day fast, or 100-day all-night prayers, I obeyed immediately.
When I was taking care of the church members myself, if any person was missing, I brought him back even through fasting.
I solved the problems of those who had problems by any and all means I could.
I cherished the souls that God entrusted to me more than my own family members or relatives.
It is the same with money.
To receive the answer for the money needed in the church, I mourn and pray with tears ceaselessly.
When God allows for me money for my personal use, I give most of it for saving the souls, and thus I hardly spend any money on myself or my family.
This is what a servant of the Lord is obligated to do.
Many people say they are servants of the Lord, but rather than living for God's kingdom and the souls, they follow after their own desires, and fame and worldly boasting.
What kind of life are you living?
Do you live a life of a servant of God, or do you live as you want to live?
Do you pay attention to food, clothing, resting, and what is good for health, or to reviving and changing the souls and solving their problems to lead them in the way of blessings?
Have much have you cared about saving souls, and how much have you dedicated and sacrificed yourself to take care of them?
Have you spent God's time for your personal use and used the things that belong to God for your personal use? Can you be unashamed as a servant who receives his wage from the church?
I urge you to check your attitudes and heart thoroughly.
I hope you will show the evidence of true faith, which God's servants are required to have.
Devotees, the third evidence that you have faith is love.
Some people think they were faithful in their duties but in fact they were not.
They say they visited many members, helped the needy with their own money, and were diligent in their duties, but in the sight of God they are not recognized for their work.
Even if you work very hard, it is still fleshly faithfulness and fleshly sacrifice as long as you do them without love.
1 Corinthians 13:3 says, "And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing."
Even if you sacrifice many things for others, you will not feel it is hard as long as you have love.
Also, if you have love, you will revive the spirit of the people you visit and counsel.
You will advise them with words of service, considering the measure of faith of each one.


Conclusion

Dear devotees, suppose you got a cut on your finger, and your finger is rotting with infection.
If left alone, your arm will also rot, and the poison will spread to the heart and threaten your life.
Now, what would you do?
You have to amputate the rotten part to live.
But if there is any chance of recovery without cutting off your finger, you will hold on to that chance until the last moment.
You will not just say, "Full recovery is unlikely, so let us just cut it off."
God's heart is similar with this allegory in giving us the three months' time.
Pastors and Levites must be holier and godlier than any others.
But they were having spiritual and physical stoppages and even created walls of sins, thereby laying difficulties on the whole church continuously.
God has been patient for a long, long time giving them so many chances, but God says this is the last chance.
But God's original heart does not want to cut off the bruised reed or put out a smoldering wick.
He wants you to catch this chance and turn from your old ways and make up your mind to become true servants of God.
The reason why you chose this way in the beginning is because you were convinced that this is the glorious and precious way.
I hope you will recover the fervor that you first had.
You can just rend your heart and make up your mind thinking like, "I've heard such precious messages and seen great power, and why did I live this kind of life? I am a pastor, and why did I waste so much time?"
Lazarus was dead and had foul smell, but he was revived at the command of Jesus.
I hope you will desperately cling to God with the faith that you can be renewed with the power of God given in this church and with the original voice.
In doing so in this year, I pray in the name of the Lord that you will be pastors who are worthy of being pastors of Manmin and pleasing in the sight of God.

2013-02-12 Posted
2013-02-17 Updated