John 3:16

The cost to be a citizen of heaven. John 3:16 14 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up,15 that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.” 16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life We have been looking at how we must come to worship God. It is my hope that the message I share is the same message that you have in your hearts as we look at John 3:16. This is a verse that we use to share the Gospel and also for our own walk in faith. Jesus came to fulfill the will of God. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. In verse 14 it is written “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.” We all know that Moses lifted up the bronze snake in the desert as it is written in the Bible. There is no explanation, no reason or science that can explain how looking up to a bronze snake could heal those that had been bitten by venomous snakes. Does this make sense? Science, medicine nor reason can explain the method God used to heal those who looked at the snake. Jesus says that just as the snake was lifted up, that He too must be lifted up. Just as those who had been bitten by a venomous snake and were healed by the bronze snake, we who have been bitten by the venomous snake of sin and dying have been given an opportunity to live eternally by looking to Jesus and believing in Him. But what does it mean to believe? We use this word “believe” many times when we talk to each other. It is used between husband and wives and parents and their children. Spouses tell each other that they believe in the other person. A parent tells their child that they believe everything will be alright. A child believes that their parent is the best that they will be taken care of. We use this word many times. But what does it mean to believe? What shows belief? We believe that 1+1=2 and that can be explained and we understand it, but to use the word strictly between the conversation of two people, to believe someone is to abandon oneself and to put yourself in complete trust of the other. Does you understand? I must abandon myself so that the words that were given to me by the other person can be made my own and then we can be of one mind. To become one is to believe. Just as those who were bitten were healed by looking at the bronze snake, when I abandon myself and accept and believe that Jesus is my Savior, then the path to eternal life can be opened up before me. Although science or medicine cannot explain how someone can be healed by looking up to a bronze snake, but if I have been bitten and they say this is the way to be healed, then I must bear the pain and agony and get myself to place where I can look at the snake and I must come to a point where I decide to put my belief in it and then go and act. Unless I abandon my thoughts, could I really get myself to go out and look at the snake when my life hangs in the balance? Naaman went to see Elisha and he thought that Elisha would come out to meet him and wave his hand over him and then he would be healed of his leprosy. But not only did Elisha not greet him, he also was told to go wash in the Jordan river 7 times where the water was not as good as the ones in his home country. Naaman had already decided in his mind how he thought he was going to be healed and he was angry. His servant reasoned to Naaman that even if Elisha would have told him to do something more difficult that it would be worth doing to get healed so the servant persuaded Naaman to go wash in the Jordan. Naaman washed and he was cleansed of his leprosy. I may have my own thoughts and make my own decisions but if it is not according to God’s Word then we must change our thoughts. We say we believe God and that He has provided us a way to eternal life. Is this eternal life attained by my thoughts or my experience? The Bible teaches us that we cannot attain eternal life through our thoughts, reason and experiences. To believe is to abandon all of oneself and to be one with Jesus and His Word so that what we believe can be evident in our lives. God gives us countless warnings in our lives. When we look at the lives through the Word of God, we see that God has saved us so that we may give Him glory, and for us to give Him glory, we are to come before God as His children and worship Him and revere Him. God did not give us life on this earth so that we can eat well, live well and attain all the things that we want. The Lord of all living things has given us life so that we may glorify Him through His will. If I confess that God is my Father and that Jesus is my Savior and that I am led by the Holy Spirit then everyday my attitude must be that of an active worshipper. My life must be worship. If we think that coming once a week on Sunday and going through the schedule of service meets the demands of what is required then we are missing the most fundamental principle of our lives that is shown to us in the Bible. A car that has no key is useless. When we rent a house or buy a house what is the last thing that is given to the owner? It is the key that gives the person access to the place. You can sign all the forms but without the key you are not getting inside. The Bible gives us the key to the place where our Lord is, which is through our Savior Jesus and living the life that is shown to us in the Bible. If we fail to see this, and say that we are living the life of faith, then it is like signing the contract but not receiving the key. It is no use to have a key and not enter into heaven. I say that we are to live a life of worship. What is worship? Naver (Korean search engine) defines it as “a reverent acts of devotion towards a deity”. It is an act. It is a reverent act with a heart of devotion and that is worship. In the church it is defined as the reading the Bible, and with prayer and praise, to show respect and reverence to God. It is the lifting and honoring of God. The world worships their gods by bowing down to them. It is a difficult task. In the buddhist religion they sometimes bow 108 times or 3000 times depending on the circumstance. They do this because it fits the definition of worship which is an act. How have you labored in your worship of God? Is worship simply the reading of the Bible and singing and praying? Is that what worship is and nothing else? My life is to be a living worship laboring in holiness, praising, reading the Word and praying. This is the life of one who worships. Anyone can go through the formalities of worship by reading the Bible, singing praises and praying. Even those who don’t believe in God can participate in worship. There are many buddhists who know the Bible. There are many Muslims who read the Bible. Many anti-christians know the bible well. What about singing praises? There are many contemporary Christian songs that the world enjoys and sings for themselves. What about prayer? Just as we read our verses they can use it and meditate on it as well, but does this mean that they are worshipping God? No, it does not. True worship is that which God chooses to accept as we offer Him our hearts in the singing of His praises, praying and reading His Word. Our hearts, mind and body must be one in this purpose so that we can offer true worship. When we say that we are worshipping or that we offer worship we are also saying that there is someone who is receiving that worship. Is this not true? Did you come today to listen to a sermon? Please, do not make this mistake. If you are here to listen to a pastor’s sermon then you have come here by mistake. You have misunderstood the purpose for being here. You are here to meet God through the time of worship. The sermon is only a time that which God has given insight into His Word which is being shared to you. We should be here to hear the voice of God speak to each of us. If this is not understood correctly and the pastor is seen as someone greater than a servant and is lifted up, there will be punishment from God for over stepping His authority. If we are here to worship the one who is going to receive our worship, then how are we to worship Him? Once again we come back to this point. As we come before God to worship let us see if we what we do as worship is proper. I have emphasized many times before that we are to be careful when we speak. Pastors as well as everyone else say “let us go to observe worship.” (Please note the translation for the term used in Korean is to “observe” or to “watch” and does not translate in the way that is used normally in English but the meaning is understood. The pastor is referring to two types of worship one that is as an observer as a fan at a game or the athlete who is actively engaged in the event. Both participate but only one worship is accepted). Many have said let us go observe worship. What is the difference between the one who observes worship and the one who offers worship? The one who observes worship while they may sweat singing praises, cry while they pray, and do everything but because their heart was not in the right place before God they will not be able to receive any of the blessings for the worship. They only came to watch. I recently went to a baseball game. When the athletes were performing well, the people who paid to see them get excited and have a great time watching the event. This is the reason we go to watch these events. The one who came to observe worship may get emotional and do the acts of worship but what they really came to do was to be emotionally satisfied and did not really come to worship God. If this is the attitude we have when we come to worship God, we can spend our entire lives in worship and it will have been in vain. Will you receive salvation? We must start with changing the way we speak and the way we live our lives. If what I say has the possibility of dishonoring God and hurting someone then I must be careful of the words which I speak. I must be careful of my actions because my life is to be that of one who is a worshipper. I am to give glory to God through my life as a worshipper. If what I say will hurt someone, if what I say will dishonor God, if my actions will dishonor God then I must restrain myself and not do it. The true worshipper will restrain themselves but the one who is only an observer will not. We say we come to worship God but because we do not see Him, at times we focus our attention on the people around us. We are concerned with the pastor, the people we like and the ones we do not like. If our focus is on the people then can our attitude of worship be proper? It is not. Why is it that we look to the people, go through the formalities, sing the hymns, pray, and give offering and then leave without putting our focus on God? Why are we fooled into thinking that we can say a few simple prayers and then all our sins will be forgiven? Why has it become like this? In Exodus God gave to Moses the directions of worship. God gave them specific instructions on what they were to do and the sacrifices that were to be made. God gave them every detail. Depending on the sin the offering to be made was specified. So whenever they sinned an animal was sacrificed and all was forgiven. Isn’t that great? We could take out a big loan, not pay it off and then go get an animal and sacrifice it and our sin would be forgiven. Would that be nice? By following these rules, we could see that all sins were forgiven, so there would be no reason to suffer any consequence, and the rich could sin more while the one who had less could not. You could think that if you brought a bigger animal the more cleaner you could be from your sin. Everything became formalities. All of worship became formalities. There seemed to be no consequence for the sin one committed and worship was a routine. In order to change the way we worshipped, God sent Jesus to us. God sent His Son to give us a new way of worship. Is the way we worship any different from the way of worship in the Old Testament? There is no difference. We say we look to Jesus who was on the cross 2000 years ago, but the difference is that today rather than bringing an animal sacrifice like the Israelites did at that time, we come with less of a burden and with more ease as we confess our sins before God as we go through the formalities of worship. We argue that we need not pay a price because we have been given freely. Do you know why that God does not require you to pay a price? For those of you who have studied the Bible, why does God not require payment? It is not because there is no value, but it is because the value is priceless and no one can pay it. There is nothing that you can offer that can be exchanged for the blood that Jesus shed. Even your life does not come close to the value of the blood. That is why God offers it freely. So do you think that it is free? Jesus teaches us that there is a cost to receive His sacrifice. Although my life is not required we are required to come to worship God and bring a gift of reverence for the blood of Jesus. This is what we can see in the Bible. We forget this principle as we come before God and try to worship Him. Matthew 4:17 17 From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” There is a popular saying in Korea right now that says “Jesus is the way to heaven, every other way leads to hell.” What is the requirement for getting into heaven? It is repentance. When Jesus tells us to repent He is telling us that without it we will have nothing to do with Him. To repent means to give myself to God. It is not to give the life that is in me, but it is to give Him all the hidden dirty things in my life. He is not asking us to give Him the good things but He is telling us to give up all the bad things by repenting. Have you repented? Then He says in Matthew 4:19 “Come and follow me.” He tells us to follow Him, but many of us reply that we like where we are at and do not follow Him. He further teaches us to “Be perfect...as your heavenly Father is perfect.” He is teaching us to live lives as perfect as God. Do we think about these things when we say that we believe in Jesus? Matthew 6:14 14 For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. If there is someone in your life that you cannot forgive then you yourself will not be forgiven by God. It does not matter how much good you do, if when you see someone you hate you have feelings of anger and resentment inside you. Jesus teaches us that you will not be forgiven. Do you forgive everyone? We laugh about having arguments with our spouses that go for months or bring up things that happened years ago because we have not resolved those issues. These things happen because as time has passed and we have been together for so long that we just overlook those things. But if we take a serious look at our lives we will see that there are many sins that we have committed from the time we were married until today, but have we forgiven each other? If we have not, then Jesus teaches that will too will not be forgiven. If I am not forgiven how can I expect to enter into heaven? We are being told to pay the cost of forgiveness. God is not telling us to give up our lives but He is telling us to make the payment of forgiveness and to forgive others before we come to worship Him. He teaches us to seek His kingdom and His righteousness. Do we? He is telling us to make this payment. He is not telling us to live for our pleasure for our comfort but He is telling us to pay the cost of seeking His Kingdom and His righteousness first before we come to worship Him. He teaches us to seek, ask and knock. When? We are to seek, knock and ask for that which God desires to do in our lives. If we are seeking, asking and knocking in prayer for our selfishness, then our worship gives no glory to God. Matthew7:13 13 "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 21 "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. He says that only those who do the will of the Father will enter into heaven. These are the payments that are required to be paid. These are the costs. We can put a monetary value on life, but what is really required is your very life. When you offer your life you are making payments. These payments are to be made in the life of worship in which you were called and saved. Wherever you go, whatever you do you are to live as a believer in Jesus, as a child of God, being led by the Holy Spirit as an example to others and for this you were called. This is the payment that the Lord says must be paid as it is written in the Bible. Are we living this life? This is what Jesus teaches. Is this the life that the disciples lived? We think that it was easy for them. Let us look at some of the writings of Paul, Peter and John. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 19 Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20 you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies. The body that you think is yours is not yours rather it is the temple of God. It belongs to God. Do you think about this in your life? We do not. It says that since we were bought at a price to therefore honor God. This is a direct command. 1 Corinthians 7:23 23 You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of human beings. You have been bought by God with the blood of Jesus so now you are a servant to God. You have a new master. Do not be a slave to man, but be a servant of God to His Word. You are to live by paying the cost of obedience. Are you living this life of worship? No, we do not. We are our own master, we do want we want, and if we are not satisfied we refuse to obey and turn away and act in rebellion. It states clearly not to be a slave to man, but we enslave ourselves to the ways of man and to their praises as we become weaker everyday. 1 Corinthians 10:24 24 No one should seek their own good, but the good of others. You are not to live for yourself, for your gain, for your benefit. You are told to live for the benefit of others, to be humble and serve in love. We are told to pay this cost, but we live for our own satisfaction, for our own benefit and pride. We live for ourselves, but it is states clearly to not seek our own good but the good of others. 1 Corinthians 10:31 31 So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. Pay this cost and live the life of a worshipper. 2 Corinthians 5:15 15 And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. Jesus died for you so that you no longer live for yourself. Abandon that old life. Now having been bought with the price of His blood, we should now live for Him. The Bible tells us this but we refuse to see it. We see in James that it says that faith without works is dead. Can you confess that God is your Father, that Jesus is your Savior, that all who believe in Him will not perish and have eternal life, when your faith has no action and it is dead? Will you be able to enter into heaven with dead faith? You cannot. 2 Peter 2:1 1 Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. What does it mean to rid yourself of these things? It means to pay the cost of restraint. It means to change your life. 2 Peter 2:9 9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. We have been chosen so that we may declare the praises of Him who has saved us out of the darkness into His light. We are told to live as priests declaring His praises. Live as a worshipper. 1 John 3:18 18 Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth. We are to love in action and in truth. This is how we are to live as a worshipper and pay the cost that gives glory to God. Paul, Peter, James and John have spoken to us in just a few verses about the cost that is required so that we can enter into heaven and also live the life that reflects true worship. If we do not live this life then what kind of relationship would I have with God? If I am only an observer worship and not offering my life in worship, then what kind of relationship will I have with God? The weeds in the garden flourish without any need of care. All through spring and summer we worked hard to turn over the dirt and uproot the weeds. Will the weeds never grow back? They continue to grow. However, the vegetables that we plant to eat from even though we pay much attention to eat and give it plenty of water, much of it will be destroyed by insects that eat it. We are to live our lives and harvest the fruits of the spirit that are planted within us. The Word of God must be planted in our hearts and produce a change in our lives and a harvest of the fruits of the spirit in faith, but am I allowing these seeds the to produce fruit within myself and tending and caring for them? Am I daily working at removing the weeds of sin from my life and removing all the evil things that are trying to destroy the fruits that are planted within? Without doing so, they cannot grow. When I am anxious and I worry, and all the emotions that I have harbored within me come up in anger and frustration all these emotions of dissatisfaction will come in and overturn the seeds that are planted that are to produce life. These things will ruin your life so that you will be unable to live your life as a true Christian. They must be uprooted. All the insects of destruction must be caught. Who will do these things? I must do it. Every morning, every moment I have, I must go out to the field and find and kill all the bugs so that I can have an abundant harvest. In the field of my heart and in my thoughts and in all my being, of all the things that have become habits and those things that come in to me through my emotions and thoughts, I must decide according to the Word that which I must uproot and throw away. I must decide to pay this cost so that I can live my life in worship. Is this it? Some of the weeds seem small but when you let it be for a while and try to uproot it the root is big and runs deep. Other weeds look large, and it seems as though you would need a shovel to dig it up, but when you pull on it they come up very easily. This means that in your hearts, all those things that come up inside you, other than the things of Jesus, but those things that are evil and are trying to tempt you, you may think that it is large and have a difficult time getting rid of it but it may be uprooted much easier than you think. On the other hand, the little ones that you think you will let be for a little while and overlook it, will be deeply rooted in you so that later you will have a much harder time uprooting that from your life. You are able to catch and remove these things but you must do it constantly. Even though it is difficult the moment you see it you must remove it, and no matter how hard it will be you must be determined to remove it so that you can reap a true harvest as a true believer in Jesus. Let us not be foolish and neglect to do this because we think that this is easy. I received and email. It stated that even though we are not taught we learn to cuss we do so very well. Have any of the parents ever taught their child profanity? No one does but the children do it well. We are not taught to be jealous or envious but we do it well. No one needs to be taught to be lazy or discouraged but we all know how to live this way. Then it stated that in contrast, all good things cannot be attained without effort. You cannot have anything without discipline. I cannot live the proper life of someone who has been saved by Jesus without putting in any effort and having discipline. With our mouths we speak evil without having to train it, we don't have to try to be jealous or envious and there is no effort required in being lazy or discouraged. This is not how we are to be. When we become sensitive to the warnings that God gives us then we can be changed to be used by God for His will. But many of us get lost in the flesh and are unable to hold onto the hand of God. What warning is God giving you in your own life? When He does, listen to Him, and accept what He tells you. Should your life not be that of one who gives true worship to God? When it says that all who believe will be given eternal life, to believe means to have faith and to live in accordance to that faith so that you can enter into eternal life. This is the message that I share with you today. This is the requirement to receive eternal life. Live the life of a true worshipper. Wherever you go and whatever you do may you live a life that gives glory to God so that you can be one with Him. Sermon by Pastor Howard Park translation by Miguel Park

Dinesh D'Souza's book and movie

Movie '2016 Obama's America'

Are You Living In The Hope Of Eternity

Are you living in the hope of eternity? How much hope do each of us truly have in eternity? Do we really desire to stand before God? Do we desire to go to heaven? Is this world more important or is heaven? These are important questions. There are things that we cannot live without in this world. Our Lord promises to us that when we lay aside everything and follow Him that He will provide us all that we need and that He will remain with us. So then we ask, why is it that He gives us everything and then takes it all back? Why are we not allowed to posses anything of this world? We ask why it is we have to give up everything to attain the things of eternity? But God, our Father, has given us everything in this world, to rule over it, overcome it and take care of it, but it is our inability to do as we have been empowered to do. God has given everything to us into our own hands, but we are unable to handle it. We are unable to posses and use the things of this world and also unable to hold onto the hope of eternity. We stand at a crossroad refusing to follow Him. The reason is because the Word of God is not real to us. We do not believe that the Word of God is eternal. We do not believe that the Word of God is truth. There is no appreciation for His creation. We do not believe that He is our Lord and Savior, nor that He is our Father. Unless we accept that He is our Father, we cannot accept that we are His children. Even when we are talking about earthly parents and children, if the child cannot accept their parent as their own then there will be conflict in that relationship. If there is doubt to the child as to whether nor not the mother or father is their own then the child will not be able to put their trust in them. Because we cannot accept God as the Creator of all and as our Father, who has given us life through our parents, we do not want to accept that we are to worship Him with our lives and live according to His Word and by doing so we will be with Him for all eternity. This is why we refuse to give up the things of this world. God does not tell us to give up. We think that we must abandon everything. We think that God is stealing everything that He has given us, and we think of Him as a thief. God has never taken anything away, but whenever we experience difficulty or hardship we question Him and ask Him “why?” We ask Him why He gives us pain, suffering and hardship and we argue and complain. We have no gratitude in our hearts. We think of Him as one who takes things away. We harbor these thoughts and feelings against Him and therefore can’t put our trust in Him. We say that God is good. We say that He is holy. But when we really look inside ourselves, do we really believe that He is good? Do we really believes that He loves us? We do not. We think that He takes everything away from us, so when we have a little or enjoy life a little bit, we think that He will take everything away from us so we live in anxiety. We are worried that He is going to take of what little we have. We are worried that He will make us do things that we do not want to do. He is not this kind of God. God is love. But when we say that God is love, we base that love on our own selfish love and and do not understand the true love that God has for us. God’s love is that which was willing to sacrifice His one and only Son to save us from our sins. This is the love that God has for us, but we think that a God that loves us should let us do what we want and give us the things that we ask for. We misunderstand God’s love and therefore cannot accept His love and this is the reason we do not posses hope in eternity. But with our lips we say that God is good, that He is love. Do we really believe that God is good, that He is love? Are we overwhelmed by His love and so grateful that we cannot contain ourselves and unable to explain with words because His love is too great a gift? Are we holding tight to this God and living for Him? We fail to do this because daily we fall into the trap of our own thoughts and waiver back and forth. If a student fails to study for an exam but passes with a high grade and the teacher praises them for doing good work then the student is happy but did not deserve the grade nor praise. True joy comes from doing what one is supposed to do. A student should be filled with joy when they have put in the work and studied hard and then gotten a good grade, but a student who studies half-heartedly but receives a good grade did not achieve the result properly. But this is what we want. When we are at work, and money comes to us, more than we have worked for, then we are happy. If we receive money for the amount of work we have done then we are unhappy. When we feel that we are underpaid for our work, then we get frustrated, complain and no longer want to do our work. Where is your standard? Is it your desire? Everyone’s standard is different. Someone who earns $10,000/month may be content, enjoy it. Another person may earn $1000/month and equally be content and happy and enjoy it. Someone else may earn $100,000 or $200,000 and not be content and want to posses more. Who is the one that posses love? Who is the one who is content and happy? You are not content because you have more. What is important is your standard. When your standard is God, then how are we to live our lives so that we can be filled with joy and have hope, and how are we to live in that hope of eternity? The Bible shows us the way. But to many of us the Bible has no effect on our lives. We read it because we are forced to read it or else we feel obligated to read it one time a year. Where is the love for the Word? When young couples like each other they will do anything within their power, even against their parents wishes, to find a way to communicate with each other and be with each other. Do you really love God if you read the Bible out of an obligation and you pray to Him just because you feel forced to do so? We mistakenly believe that because we have read a few chapters and prayed to Him that we have completed our homework for the day. We think because we have done this much that God will love us in return and He will bless us and make the way before us easy. Is this not the way we think? How can I attain eternal life? How can the path of eternity be opened up before me in this manner? Think about it deeply? We are promised in the Bible that when we repent of our sins that we will be made white as snow. It also says that if there is any sin, then we cannot enter into heaven. But many of us do not repent. If we do not repent we cannot attain eternal life. We cannot enter into heaven with sin. But we think if we do just enough then we can enter. We look at others and think that there is no one who does as much as we do so we will enter on our own merit. In Revelation it asks will there be any left who believe, it is stating that there will only be a few who truly believe in the end. We have heard other pastor’s testimonies where God has shown them that only a handful from a few thousand will enter. At other places there will be none who enter. Some places will have a few from a thousand. I have told you many times before, and I was pleased to see that other pastors were seeing what I have been shown. God has shown me places and asked me “If I were to come today, how many do you think will enter my kingdom from here?” I answered that I did not know. He said that none would enter. At other places, and other meetings and groups I asked Him and He told me a few from here at other places none would go. It does not shock me anymore because I am no the only one to share this. How foolish it would be to be wrong and to lose your soul for all eternity. This would be the most foolish person. The issue is not about having everything and living well, the real issue is about attaining eternal life and spending eternity with our Lord which is the true blessing. God tells us to practice living in heaven as we live here. Then you will go to heaven. If you live as if in hell then you will enter hell. It is a simple truth. When I first started my ministry God told me to practice the things of heaven here. He told me to teach the practices of heaven. If your family represents heaven then so shall it be. The family has no secrets, the family is one, they communicate, and they live in faith with one another, they serve each other, forgive each other, and repent to each other. The family is the place where you practice your walk with God. If you practice the things of hell in your family then you cannot enter into heaven. The second thing I was told to teach in my ministry would be that everyone is to do only what they were placed there to do, whatever it is, wherever that may be. God has told me that your reward will not be better because you run away from your duty or you decide to do something else. You have been given a purpose and you are to be obedient and fulfill that purpose. You may decide you know better than God and go do whatever you want to do. Other times you may not want to do it because the path is difficult and the work is hard. Both are disobedience. If God tells you to go out in the middle of nowhere where no one will give you any recognition for your work then you must go. If He tells you to go to Manhattan then you must go. You cannot tell God that you dislike Manhattan and you would rather go to the middle of nowhere. Neither tell Him that you dislike the middle of nowhere and would rather be in Manhattan and that is where you will be a witness. You are being disobedient to God. Obedience is simple. It is not as complicated as we think. People refuse to accept it. People think that they are doing God’s work when they do what they want to be doing. There is real joy when you really do God’s work. When you remain in Him and He in you, when His will becomes my will and His desire becomes mine and I really understand His heart, and when I am obedient to His Word then I am able to serve Him. Our problem is when we disobey God’s will for us and we do what we want and say that we are doing His will. We are being disobedient. We cannot attain eternal life in this manner. This is the problem. How will you live your life in faith? God tells us to rejoice always, pray without ceasing and to give thanks in all circumstances. When we live our lives we think that there is not much to rejoice about. This may be true. There are hardships, difficulty, pain, suffering, sin and many other circumstances that we do not want. Do you think that God did not know this when He tells us to rejoice? He knows. Just as there are seasons that change, there are also joy, pain, anger, and happiness. These things happen to believers and non believers alike. We that believe argue and complain when we suffer a little. We ask why is it that we have sickness when we believe in Jesus. We question why our family suffers when we believe in Jesus. We complain. This is where we start to mistakes. I used to question God why it was that the more I tried to follow Him, that there seemed to be more pain and suffering? If we separated all the believers from nonbelievers and only the believers had blessings and good things happened to them, then there would not be a nonbeliever in this world. This is not the way. In this world, whether you believe in Jesus or do not, God gives the wind, breath, and blessings to all alike. In this life we are to seek and find the truth and find joy. Our lives as a believer must be an example who do not believe so that they will see us and we can show them the way to a life of faith. As believers we think that everything should be only blessings and happiness. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that when you believe in Jesus that you will no longer suffer. This becomes a stumbling block in many people’s walk and many people abandon Jesus because they thought everything was going to be easy. I was startled recently, I never thought that anyone would become a buddhist after following Jesus. I have heard that many people turn their lives over to Jesus after being buddhist but never the other way around. Recently in a statistic report in Korea, the number of people that changed from Christian to buddhism was twice the number of buddhist turning Christian. Why? It is because they had no faith. They did not really know God. They had no peace on the inside. How sad our Lord must be. Those of us who believe think that we are something greater than we really are. We refuse to see the suffering and pain that fellow believers are going through. As long as I am good and I am receiving the blessings we think that everything is fine. We sing praises that say that we are one with each other, but refuse to look upon the suffering of those around us. Then when those believers fall away and go to another religion we point fingers at them, hate them and ridicule them. We don’t want to understand their suffering. Are we praying about this? Are we praying for those who do not believe? Is it right for me to go to heaven alone? God does not desire such people who are selfish. Is it right for you to eat well and live well while those around you are going hungry? Is this having the right kind of faith? It is not. God tells us to go sell everything and give it to the poor and them come follow Him. If God desires for you to sell your house then sell it. But he is not telling all of you to go sell your houses. If you are not right before God and have a proper understanding of what He wants from you then it will not matter that you sell all that you have. There is someone in the Bible who sold their possessions and was killed before God. Why did this happen? It is because He as hiding things from God. If we are hiding things from God then everything we do will be useless. God blesses us when we give joyfully and truthfully to Him. However, you may think that you have a house and that if you sell it God will grant you eternal life, but God will not give you eternal life for doing so. Why? It is because God looks at your heart. He looks at where your focus is. We hide our desires in front of people act a certain way thinking that God will acknowledge us for doing so. We must first settle the matters in our heart and find and pursue God’s will through our daily walk with Him. If we would have been able to to attain heaven in a day then there would be no need to practice the things of heaven within your own homes. It is in the daily walk and living the life that we continue to draw closer to our Lord. Jut because I confessed Him as my Savior at one time does not mean that I will enter into heaven. Yes, the one crucified next to Jesus did enter into heaven, but you do not have the faith that the criminal had. We have had two thousand years pass since the Jesus was here and have been given the Word and told to believe in Him and yet we still do not. The one crucified next to Jesus was hanging on the cross in the same manner and to him Jesus could be seen as another criminal. To believe that the one hanging on the cross next to you in the same manner and to believe Him as the Savior is a miracle. We do not have this much faith. We think that like the criminal that we will just put our faith in Jesus right before we die and go to heaven, but you do not have that much faith. That faith was an incredible faith. We have the Word and we still do not believe. Let us say that you were hanging on the cross like the criminal, would you have confessed Jesus as the Savior? Would you have confessed to Jesus to take you to the place where He was going? We look down on this criminal. I pray for that kind of faith. We have the Word of God and we see many miracles and workings of God and have a greater understanding of God’s creation, but when Jesus came during His time He was not revealed to them as He has been to us. Jesus had no fault and was crucified and that criminal put his faith in Him. If you have this kind of faith, then you will be able to attain eternal life. This is the kind of faith that you must have, to hold onto dearly, to walk with this kind of faith, to be one with this faith, but how much do you truly desire to have this faith? May you have the faith, like the criminal, that will help you attain eternal life. Sermon by Pastor Joy Lee Translation by Miguel Lee

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

Psalm 15 1 Lord, who may dwell in your sacred tent? Who may live on your holy mountain? 2 The one whose walk is blameless, who does what is righteous, who speaks the truth from their heart; 3 whose tongue utters no slander, who does no wrong to a neighbor, and casts no slur on others; 4 who despises a vile person but honors those who fear the Lord; who keeps an oath even when it hurts, and does not change their mind; 5 who lends money to the poor without interest; who does not accept a bribe against the innocent. Whoever does these things will never be shaken. Psalm 50:14-15 “Sacrifice thank offerings to God, fulfill your vows to the Most High, and call on me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honor me.” Psalm 51:17 My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. Two weeks ago we looked at the person who is able to dwell in the tent of the Lord and on His holy mountain. The one whose walk is blameless, who does what is righteous, who speaks the truth from their heart; whose tongue utters no slander, who does no wrong to a neighbor, and casts no slur on others. We see in the Psalm the heart of the person who dwells in the tent of the Lord. How is this person to give worship to the Lord? It is to give it with a heart of thanks. “Sacrifice thank offerings to God, fulfill your vows to the Most High, and call on me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honor me.” We are to give worship with gratitude and this is the worship that the Lord accepts. We also see: My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise. Do we lack a broken spirit for which we are able to live according to God’s word? So if we need to approach God in this manner as we worship, then what was the prerequisite for gratitude? It is not lacking anything. It is having no complaint. Even if you were to lack, you would be grateful for that which you have and being content in it you give thanks to God. This is required to be grateful. Even if you had the right to complain you would not complain. Why? Because you are grateful. As people, we are filled with complaints, frustrations, anxiety, and all the things we lack. But the child of God lacks nothing. Why? Because the child of God knows that they have been given the right portion by God. When you know this then there can be nothing but gratitude. This is how we are to worship. So do we find this only in the Old Testament? In the New Testament: 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. Rejoice always! Do you have reason to rejoice in your lives today? We think that it is impossible to rejoice always. That is what we think, but God tells us that it is in Jesus Christ that we are to rejoice always. This is the requirement for rejoicing. If I am in Jesus Christ then I am able to live this life. If I refuse to enter Christ and stay outside of Him, then it is impossible to know what this means. The Word is clear, it is God’s will for us in Christ Jesus. In today’s meditation we read the comparison of the grape vine. “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit.” Then we must realize that if we are not bearing the fruit of Jesus it is because we are not in Him. We say with our mouths that we know Jesus and assume that the things we say and do are bearing the fruit of Him, but we are not. How many mistakes do we make even though we have good intentions? It is because we do things according to our own standards. When someone looks at me with their standards I am found to make many mistakes. Is this not so? We think that we are right to think our own way, do our own thing, eat whatever we want, but when someone sees what I do, it is not acceptable. As a Christian, there are things that we are not to say and not to do. But why do we do it? It is because I am not in Jesus. I received an email from someone which had sent me a copy of what they had seen. This was found in a hospital announcement board. A person was bitten by a scorpion. He was treated at this hospital and then released that day. A person was bitten by a snake and released from the hospital in three days. A person was bitten by a rabid dog. The person has been treated for ten days and is expected to be released soon. A person was bitten by another person and has fallen unconscious. Weeks have passed and the patient is not improving. The patient’s chance of recovery is not good. What does this mean? Do you understand? What does it mean to be bitten by a person? Did someone really bite them? They have been bitten by the words of someone else, and these words have put this person in a near comatose state. The words are more poisonous that the sting of a scorpion, a snakebite or a bite from a rabid dog. This person cannot be helped from this state of unconsciousness. The words I speak have the ability to bite anyone. You can say what you want, but the words you speak can have the effect of hurting someone and putting them in a state of unconsciousness. We are capable of making such mistakes in our lives. We think of these things as humor and do not give much thought to these examples. The Bible teaches that the power of the tongue gives life or death and is untamed. If you are able to control it then you can control your life. The tongue spits out evil and poison but we do not realize this. We refuse to listen to the Word of God and we refuse to listen to the warnings of others. We think that speech is for speaking about our feelings. But that is not it. In today’s passage: Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. We easily memorize the verses. What is the requirement? I may think that there is nothing to rejoice about. All of us here, me included, if I think about a reason for rejoicing always, there is none. But, unless, I live the life that the bible teaches, I will be living a life that has nothing to do with Jesus. If I am to be a child of God having been redeemed in the blood of Jesus, then I must live the life so that the Word of God can come to life in me. If this is so, then why would He ask us to do something that is impossible. Let us take a look again: for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. So if I am with Jesus and He is with me then this is can be done. We forget this part, and always try on our own to be joyful, and this is why we are unable to live a life of rejoicing. You can study about Christ, train to be a disciple, do your daily Quiet Time, and endlessly study the Bible, but with only head knowledge these teachings will not be powerful truths in your life. When I hold onto Jesus deep in my heart and act according to these teachings and live in obedience to Him then I will be able to live a life of rejoicing. No matter what I feel and want to express, if the spirit leads me and tells me to restrain myself, to be joyful, and speak thanks, then I must not vent anger and frustration but I must obey and say things that are grateful and joyful then I will not have reason to bite the people around me. Is this not so? But we put aside these words, and place Jesus somewhere near us. Then when we pray and need Him for something we call upon Him as if He were someone who only grants your requests. This is why you may not be seeing the power of Jesus in your life. Rejoice always and give thanks in all circumstances. Where do you find the strength to rejoice always when you feel that you have no reason to rejoice? It is by staying in Christ. We are to be in Christ, but because we live in this world and find ourselves falling away into temptation, therefore we must pray for the Spirit to help us and give us the strength to stay in Christ. We must pray so that we can live the life that declares our belief on Christ. I can pretend to follow Jesus and live my life like Him, but unless I truly confess Him as my Lord, I will not be able to live the life that the Bible teaches us. Do you want to live a life of rejoicing? Then you must pray. You cannot learn about it. You must ask for the help of the Spirit. When the one who prays is able to rejoice in their life, then they will be able to rejoice in all circumstances. They will be able to confess that they lack nothing and from this will come the words of thanks. Why? It is because I am acknowledging that He has provided me the every thing I need in faith today. I am acknowledging His work in my life. I am living my life according to His purpose. I am taking every step in union with Christ. I am careful in my speech and my action. I am using my strength to live a life that reflect Jesus. The world may see me as lowly and without status, but if this is where God has put me, then this is my purpose and I must be grateful. If I have selfish ambitions and desires and these purposes of mine do not come to be, why do we complain? We complain because we do not get what we want. I have said before that the parts of the body that are more important are the most delicate, unseen and kept hidden. I have a small growth on the bottom of my foot. It is small but can you imagine how difficult it is for me to walk? When something touches it my entire body gets shocked. Since it is on the bottom of the foot, the medicine does not stay on too well. The bottom of your foot is not regarded with much importance, for some people it smells bad, but do you realize how important and delicate that part of your body is? If the slightest thing irritates your foot your entire body suffers. Do you know how precious it really is? We do not give much thought to it. Everyone wants to be the CEO of the company. They want to be in the highest positions. Do you have the qualifications and the ability to run the company and be in the position you desire? Are you responsible enough? Nobody wants the responsibility but they all want the pay and position. Will you get there by complaining? No. There cannot be a nation with only the president. In Korea, there are soldiers that protect the DMZ for the safety of the country. If the soldiers do not do there job no matter how difficult the circumstance then the country will be invaded and there will be major consequences. We all know this, but if you ask anyone if they will go and protect the country, nobody wants to go. They know it is important but they themselves are not willing to go. God desires to use me to show others His glory by having me in the humblest position at work or at home, so that I may live the life of rejoicing always, giving thanks in all circumstances being in Christ. Jesus has placed us where we are but rather than rejoice and give thanks we say “no” to Him. We do nothing but argue and complain. What happens if everyone was the head. We have seen pictures of two headed snakes. What happens to them? They always get caught. One part of the head wants to go left, the other wants to go right and they conflict with each other. Can they go anywhere? They get caught while fighting each other. There must only be one head, but everyone wants to be the head. If you ask any child what they want to be when they grow up, they all used to say they wanted to be the president, the general, they all wanted to be the best of the best. Then who will take the lower positions in life? How can a country function? If the church was full of only pastors how can a church function? If the company was only filled with the CEO, president and vice president then who will do the work? The company will fail. Walmart or Home Depot have people in different positions doing different things doing their best so that the company can function the best from management to the cleaning people. The family is the same. The husband must be the best husband and fulfill his duty as a husband. He and his wife should be of one mind and work together. But we do not. Rather we bring division in the home by trying to manipulate the children to one’s side. We do not raise the children to be in Jesus, but we raise them to please us. This will bring disaster to your home. What is the life of always rejoicing, praying continually and giving thanks in all circumstances? It is the life of becoming like Jesus. It is surrendering all of this world and becoming like Him. Then I can rejoice, pray and give thanks in all circumstances. But we are not doing so. Where must you go to be like Jesus? You must go and die on the cross at Calvary. It is not dying for me, nor is it to lift myself up, but it is my death as a husband for my wife, a wife’s death for her husband, a parent’s death for their child and a child’s death for their parents, so that the family can be one and follow Jesus. Rather than die like Jesus, we want to be lifted up, we want to be glorified, and we want our desires to be satisfied. That is why there is strife and misunderstanding within the family. Because there is no peace in Jesus, there is no choice but to leave the home and go find comfort in the world. To be in Jesus means to live a life that is becoming like Him. As Jesus died for me, I must die to those around me so that Jesus may be glorified in my life. If I do not acknowledge that this life is the life of death then there can never be rejoicing in this life. During His time in the ministry, did Jeusus ever describe clearly what heaven is like? He always used parables to describe heaven. He said let those who have ears hear. Heaven is not something that is obvious and it is not something that we can easily interpret and understand. Heaven can only be grasped by those who have ears to hear and the Spirit to accept and understand. It cannot be understood with the knowledge of this world nor can it be accepted by only listening. I will never understand the truth about heaven unless I lay down all before the Lord and live a life led by the Spirit in obedience. I will never be able to attain heaven as Jesus teaches. But we decide for ourselves what heaven is like and how we can get there. Because of this, different groups and sects have formed. If we do not follow the Spirit in obedience then we can never get to heaven. You cannot get to heaven with short cuts. It is a step by step climb. As you grow in your walk it is a step by step, moment to moment transformation that happens according to the Word, then you can draw close to heaven. You can try to be like the tortoise and the hare, who suddenly gets up and makes a mad dash right before the end and try to win the race. Yes, you may achieve the goal but it will be an embarrassing victory. What will you have to show for your faith in heaven? There will be nothing. Jesus has told us that when we get to heaven there will be reward and gifts. Let us say that you will live to one hundred. If I have lived my hundred years faithfully then there will be a reward for the hundred years of this life. If today I do not live it faithfully, then the days reward will be taken away from the rest. So from a hundred, to ninety nine, to ninety eight, until I barely get anything. We are told that we are priests. Worship is not about coming once a week to service in your nice clothes. As Peter said, it is your daily lives that you offer to God as worship. If Jesus is the Holy Priest, then I must offer up my life to Him as a sacrifice daily come to Him in repentance and live that life. Do we live this life? You cannot be like Judas who sells Jesus for profit. If you do, will God accept your life and worship? You cannot live like so and then come once a week telling God you are sorry and expect Him to cleansed when you have no desire to stop sinning in your life. Live like a priest. Be holy. Then when you make a mistake come and be cleansed. But you refuse to live this life and therefore there is no reason for you to rejoice and be joyful. There is no work of Jesus in your life. There must either be a longing prayer that desires to repent for not living this life or a desire to seek help to overcome the temptations in your life, or a prayer of gratitude, or some prayer that will allow you to overcome the spiritual temptation so that you can live the life of rejoicing always and giving thanks in all circumstances. There is no connection in your life and that is why you still live in temptation. You decide. If today there is something that is tempting you or making you angry, at that moment rather than getting angry you give glory to God. When there is no reason to be joyful but you rejoice before the Lord in prayer, then as you receive the help you can give thanks. You can rejoice. Usually we do what we want and when we feel we have made a mistake then we go to God and say that we are sorry. When something goes well, even though it is not what God desires, we give Him thanks anyhow because we think that things are well. Will God receive such thanks? Will He? Jesus says to humble ourselves, but we think that because we are lifted up that things are now great. The person who is to serve is now gone. In humble service we were to give God thanks, but we give thanks for being lifted up, how can God receive this? He cannot. God’s will and my will are different, God’s thoughts and my thoughts are different. We must realize this and do our best in the place that God desires to put us, so that we can be true Christians, and so that we can rejoice always, pray continually and give thanks in all circumstances. But we do not do this. Sometimes in life there are times when good things happen to us. King Hezekiah was about to die. He was given another 15 years to live. What a great gift. How did he give thanks? He thought that it was his righteousness that granted him life. Because of his pride he brought a curse upon Israel. In your life when you have reason to rejoice, how do you give thanks? Give thanks like Job. Job gives thanks that God is the one who gives and takes away his purpose is only to give thanks. True thankfulness is being grateful even if everything is taken away from us, but we complain when even the slightest things do not go our way. This is not being grateful. When we see the lives of those who have gone before us in the Bible, we must see what kind of life that we must live. When our prayer have been answered, and we are given spiritual powers, we take that as a sign of our righteousness and then like King Hezekiah, we can be used by God but my life will end in disaster. We must be careful of the words that we speak. To whatever extent that God desires to use us, we must give thanks and always be awake in the spirit. But we think that prayer is not important but being used by God and seeing the result of our works as important. It is the life for our satisfaction. We can receive the destruction from God if we do not realize this. It is possible that when god desires to use me that He may keep me in low places. At other times He may place you in positions higher than you have ever imagined. But if I am the one who decides what that level is, usually you will be placed lower than that position you desire. If I submit to the Word of God and lay everything down at His feet in humility then God can lift me up and use me. But if I desire to be in a place higher than that which God desires for me, then because of my pride, God will humble me and bring me down. How should you pray to God? Your prayer and the answers to your prayers depends on your heart and attitude. The path that leads to being used by God is a different path. It is not a path that everyone can go through singing and rejoicing. It is very difficult to go this way. You never know what will happen in this path. You must always be awake in this path always alert. There can be temptation. There can be blessings. Not only will there be blessings given to you by God, but there can be great temptations given to you by Satan. There can be difficult times, because God is desiring that you humble yourself even more and seek Him more earnestly. You must be a person of prayer that can see the truth as to what is going on around you, then you can be a one who rejoices always. When you can see that in your hardship that God has His hand on you then even in your difficulty you can rejoice. When you are able to see that the devil is tempting you with great gifts, then you can fight off the temptation and give thanks and rejoice for having the strength to do so. When you pray to find this joy, you will be grateful in low places or in high places. When you are in Christ. This is the life you have in Christ. This will be when you commit yourself to Jesus and follow Him with perseverance. You will rejoice from within. When you desire to be raised up, and you want yourself to be recognized before others, then you must first restrain the poisonous word that you speak and this must start from within your own homes. You must always be awake and make sure that no evil words come from your mouth that will hurt others. You must be determined to do this. You cannot do this on your own. You cannot do this without Jesus. Without the help of the Spirit you cannot live this life. The true life of following Jesus Christ, the life of offering yourself up as a living sacrifice, is the one who in Jesus Christ does the will of God. It is through this life that God will lift you up so that He will be glorified. In order to keep raising you up He will continue to refine you by fire. The more you are purified by fire the better the quality of the product. It is not the the physical life but the spiritual life. The follower of Christ cannot desire the things of this world that are fading away. We have been called to be children of God and to keep our eyes on the things of the Spirit. When you realize that God desires to use you in this life whether you are in high places or low places, then you will be able to rejoice and give thanks no matter your position. You must not be seen but it must be Jesus who is seen in your life. In order to use you where you are, God will provide you everything that you need to overcome your circumstance. When you receive His strength and power and pick up the cross, then your life can be one that shows those in your family and those around you the life of Jesus. This is the reason God will give you strength and power. This is why He will grab a hold of you for His glory when you surrender to Him. When you die to Him, He will give you the power of the resurrection, a new strength, and lift you up so that you will be able to live a life content on earth and also live eternally in heaven with our Lord. May you be determined to live this life. Sermon by Pastor Howard Park Traslation by Miguel Park

The Victorious Life Of Believer

SF.8.17.2012 The victorious life of a believer. We say we have faith in Jesus. We trust God and in our groom Jesus. We obey Jesus and we accept Him as our Savior. But how are we to live our lives in faith? How victorious are we in our daily lives? Am I truly living in obedience to God as a Christian? We must think deeply about these things? We are in a time of fasting and repentance. Even in the eyes of people, unless you are sincere in your repentance you will not be forgiven. God looks at our hearts. He does not look at your outward appearance. Just as God knows your heart, you also know if you are living sincerely for Him. It is possible that we can fool others and make it seem that we have allegiance, that we are diligent. We can also truly desire to be diligent and want to have allegiance, but if it is without Jesus, then God is not pleased. There are also those who do not desire to work, to be diligent or serve others, but because others are watching, because of our pride, or because of our position we act as if we serve God and love others but it is a lie and we know this and so do others. Are we fooling God? We think we are fooling God because we can fool people. The Bible is clear. You cannot fool Him. There are some of us here who cannot remove this false outward shell and think that we can continue to fool others. God is not fooled. You will not enter into the eternal kingdom unless you live in truth. God is seeking those who are true. The Bible tells us that lying is a sin. Unless my life of faith is in truth, I will not enter into heaven, and I will end up in hell and that is the reality of our lives. No matter how many times we are told this, we think “Surely I still have time” , “Surely if I confess with my mouth then I will enter into heaven,” “I still confess, I still sing, I pray, I read the Bible, and I go to church and volunteer, there is no one else who does as much as I do, so surely there is a place in heaven for me.” There are still many who live under this false pretense. All this is useless. The responsibility for living the life of faith belongs to me and not God. God has taken me to many churches where He as shown me that there are only a few people who at those churches will enter into heaven. There were maybe 7 or 8 out of a thousand. I have read of another pastor’s experience where he was shown by God that only 7 of two thousand would be chosen. I am not the only one to be shown this. Many others are being shown this also. But we think that everyone in our church will go. If only a few out of thousands are being chosen, then how do you think that everyone here will go? You are fooling yourself. All will not go. You will not enter into heaven unless you truly believe in Jesus, are redeemed, and live in obedience to God. Only a small number of people proclaim this message. There are those who teach that when you come to church you will be blessed, that many of your troubles will go away, and if you confess with your mouth then you will go to heaven. You go after these teachings because it is what you desire to hear. Then you blame the pastor and say he should be held accountable for teaching these things. Where does it say so in the Bible? It does not. You dislike hearing what I have to say because it is bitter. It is to difficult for you to do. That is why you do not want to hear it. You think, “Surely, she speaks things that are too difficult, and too hard.” You ask God if what I say is too difficult. What if I speak of soft things, and good things and you end up in hell? I too will end up in hell with you and I refuse to accept that. I must first save myself then I can help others. God has bought the lives of His children with the blood of Christ and His anointed have been entrusted to care for them and in the end they will be judged for their work. I do not have the ability to ransom their souls. The word of God is truth. You cannot be victorious in your life with me teaching you soft and easy things. Let us say that when you stand before God in judgement and you say that your pastor is the one who taught you these things will God accept this excuse? What will you do when He replies back to you and asks “What have you done with the Word I have given to you?” What will you reply back to Him? The Word of God has been given to us. We are to read it and understand. You cannot read only what you like, the easy things, the things that you want for yourself. The Bible teaches us the right way to live. If you truly desire to be victorious in your life of faith then you must do so in truth. You must truly repent. Without repentance you cannot correctly understand the Word of God. If you do not correctly understand the Word of God in truth, then you cannot understand what it means to be a child of God, a citizen of His kingdom, or to be the bride of Christ and therefore you cannot live the life the way that God desires. Even if you understood it correctly the life is difficult to live, but if you refuse to understand and you fail to do the things to live this life, then the truth of the gospel becomes twisted in your life and you cannot go the right way. Then you can never life the true life of a believer. Our Lord teaches us that one soul is more precious than a thousand. We do not believe this to be true. We think that there must be many members in a church for the pastor to be successful. How can you damn one soul and save two? How can you damn two souls and save three? How can you think to save many souls in this manner? One soul is very precious. There is no recognition in small numbers. Other pastors do not acknowledge pastors of small churches therefore they desire big churches. Large numbers do not mean that all go to hell and small churches do not mean that all go to heaven. Even in small churches, if you do not live by faith then you will not go to heaven. If in a large church if everyone lived truly by faith then they all will go to heaven. We are all mistaken to believe that all those who go to large churches do not go to heaven. Why did God create large churches? We are mistaken and don’t understand. There is no reason for a small church to persecute and judge a large church. If those in large churches could not go to heaven then God will never have allowed a large church to be. It does not matter if you attend a large church or small church, what matters is that I am standing firmly in the word of God and living the true life of faith. We must stop trying to divide the church. The church of God is one. All the believers in the world cannot worship in one time. There are different locations with different anointed leaders to lead those that are right for their ministry in order to do God’s will. We see different places with different churches, but to God His church is one. We should not persecute and judge others but rather we should be praying for them. If everyone here goes to heaven I would be overjoyed. But all will not go unless you live the life of faith. You are mistaken to think that you will go to heaven because you come to this church. Do not be deceived. You cannot think that because the pastor teaches a certain way, all you have to do is attend the church and then you will enter into heaven. No. It is not so. Even in churches where the pastor is teaching incorrectly, there are still those who will go to heaven. How? By living the life of faith. None of us have the right to speak poorly of any pastor, church or believer. It is about how much faith I have and how obedient I am to the word and living according to it. We should not be speaking judgement on other people and their churches. This is how we are to be living in faith, but rather we point fingers. When we point a finger at someone three fingers are pointing back at us. Do not persecute and judge others. You must concern yourself with repenting of your sins, and living according to the Bible. This is your first concern. Stop looking at what others are doing. You dislike one person, you despise another, you judge them on their work according to your standards. You say that another is not a true servant of God. Never pass judgement, good or bad, on a servant of God, for that is God’s work not yours. Members of the church are not given the authority to pass judgement on an anointed servant of God. King David was a great example of this. David was given the opportunity to kill Saul but he would not touch Saul because Saul was an anointed king chosen by God. We fail to do this. Even in our own churches, if we dislike our own pastor we go home and speak things of them that we should not. How much more would we speak of those who are not our pastors whom we consider someone else’s leader? Yet, we say we believe in Jesus. We ask God for His blessings. Do not persecute God’s chosen servants. There is a difference to go and speak to them if there is a disagreement or issue, but to judge them and to speak behind there backs is not what we should do. I have told you many times, if I say something that is wrong to then come and speak to me. I tell you to come and let me know what I say that is wrong, what I need to correct. I am telling you to not go home and complain and pass judgement about me. Even more so if it is a pastor at another church. Unless we correct these things in our lives how can we expect to receive God’s blessings? We are hindering ourselves from receiving our own blessings. We do not realize that we are blocking our own blessings. We fail to see that we are unable to receive blessings because of the things that we say. I have at times have though to myself that I disliked someone, or someone’s behavior was something I disliked. It may not come out of my mouth but from my inside it is already being spoken. What does God say about those who say “racca” to their brother? We refuse to accept this teaching. We think that things happen naturally and are acceptable. We think to ourselves that it normal to have those thoughts as long as I did not say it out loud. But what does God look at? He looks at our heart. He looks inside me. This is a sin that we commit many times myself included. I try not to do this, but in a brief passing moment when I see something it comes up from inside of me. Why? It is because I think I know Jesus and because I think I know the difference between right and wrong. We do too much of this and Jesus tells us to bring all these things down before Him and no longer judge others. He does not ask us to do this for the sake of others but it is for my sake. If we do these things we cannot grow in faith, live in faith, we cannot commune with Him or be one with Him. God has no sin and therefore cannot be with one who has sin. Unless we truly love others and forgive them we will always find something that will cause us to pass judgement on them. It is because there is something which I dislike and it has nothing to do with whether God dislikes it or likes it. I always tell you that I am not satisfied with my children. It is not because they are doing anything wrong, it is because I wish they were doing a little better. It is the parents greed that the child does a little bit better. I keep raising the bar and keep expecting them to exceed that expectation. But God always tells me to leave them alone. That is why I have left them alone and watched them with patience. I have told my children that God has been so much better to them than I have. I have told my children that I always want to say something to push them but God has told me to leave you alone. This does not mean that you do not say anything when the children sin. As a parent you must guide and discipline your child, but when you overstep your authority and try to manipulate the child to your desires, this is what you must let go of. You cannot sit in the throne of God and try to change the child to your liking. God desires to raise the child for His pleasure, and guide the child to be used for His kingdom. His way is different. As I was raising my children this was always a point of conflict between God and I. I would see something my children did, and tell God that it displeased me. God would also agree, but then He would ask me, “Will you lay down your children so that I can raise them up, or will you keep dragging them the way you want?” I told Him I would give them to Him. But then I would catch myself trying to hold onto to them and drag them the way I wanted. It is because of what I wanted. But God says let go of them. The more I have let go of them, the more I realize that they have grown up better than I have thought. But even to this day, I will tell you that I am unsatisfied for them. I see that there is no end to greed. My desire and prayer has been that my children be better than me, and in many ways they are. But ironically, when our children do become better than us, then we hold on to them even tighter and try to make them less than us. We should let them become greater than us, but if they do then suddenly we feel small and insignificant and we cannot let that happen to ourselves. Even to our children we have an attitude of competition. We say openly that our children must be better than us, have more status, be a great person of God, do more work for the Lord, and then when I speak openly with you, you desire that your children do not succeed you. You cannot stand to see your children rise above you. God desires that we grow in union with Him. This is not easy. Therefore we must let go of everything so that our children can be used for the God and His purpose for them. We do not do this. This hinders our walk with God and also hinders our children’s walk with God. If I say that I have faith, then I must first obey God so that I will be well and then my children can also be well. We want our children to be well, but when they are we get upset and are unhappy. Why? It is greed. It is pride. When my child does better than me it kills my pride. We say it does not. How much do we pray for our children and bless them? But we have a hard time allowing those blessings to come upon them. It is because I get in the way of the blessings. We are also this way before God. We pray many times to God. Every believer prays. Five minutes, ten minutes you are always praying and asking God. But even though we pray that God would guide us into His path, it is easier for us to disobey Him. We think that obedience to Him is too hard. Why? It is because I must let go of myself and surrender to Him. I have to be humble. I have to let go of my pride and without doing so I will never be able to grow in God. In order to obey God and follow His commands we must first let down our pride so that we can say “yes” to Him and follow Him. We say we believe, but unless we start off correctly by letting go of our pride, we can never have true faith. Faith is obeying God completely. Faith is not doing what I want but doing everything that He commands. The faith can be mine and I can go in union with God. This is not easy because we do not understand God. The God of the Bible and the God we imagine Him to be is different. I must believe in the God of the Bible. I must not believe the Jesus or God who I want Him to be but I must believe the Jesus and God that is written in the Bible. If this is Whom you want to believe, then you must read the Bible and understand it clearly.You must read the Bible and then pray. If you do not know the Word then try to pray, you will not pray the way you should and many of your prayers will not be answered. We are taught to read the Bible and then to pray. You cannot listen to a sermon once a week and think that you can pray with just the message. The sermon you hear is the revelation that the pastor has received that they are sharing with you. In today’s time, people complain when those sermons go longer than twenty or thirty minutes. You cannot learn enough from a short sermon. You can study a lifetime and it will not be enough. You can read the Bible until you die and may never understand all of it. You must feed the body to live, so to must you feed the spirit so that you may live. If you do not feed your spirit how then can your spirit be healthy? It cannot. We watch television for two or three hours but we do not read the Bible for that much time. We say that we have a had a long day at work and need to relax so it is alright to watch TV for a couple hours. But if I tell you to read the Bible you say you are too tired to read the Bible. Some of you actually read the Bible to help you go to sleep. Is this how you show God your love? Or do you love TV more? I do not tell you to not watch TV. I tell you to watch it in moderation. There are times when you need to watch it and there are many things that you can learn. But if your focus is on the TV then you are killing your spirit. You kill your spirit because you are not feeding your spirit the word of life. Praying is not enough. Praying does not feed the spirit. The food for the spirit is the Word. The Word and prayer must be done together. You cannot only read the Bible and not pray. Prayer is time interacting with God and time spent with the Spirit. If we do not pray then we cannot understand His Word. How great it would be if we could understand the Bible easily. But the more I read it, there are so many things that are difficult to understand. When I first read the Bible, I though that I knew much of it. But the more I have read it the more I do not understand. Unless the Spirit of God is with me, I cannot understand what the Word is saying. There are things that we can understand in the flesh, but there are many things that can only be known in the spirit. That is why when you read the scripture you must also pray. These two things must go together. Some people only pray. Some people only read the Bible. Your faith cannot grow in this way. The Word and prayer must go together so that we can know God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Then we can live a victorious life of faith. If you fail to do this then you cannot succeed. A student cannot go to school to take an exam without studying. Some people may read the bible once or twice in their lifetime. Others boast about knowing God if they have read it ten times. They claim to know God but what do they really know? If you really want to live a life of victory in God then do not let go of His Word. Some of you will say that you don’t have the time to read the Bible because you are too busy. But what about the time you spend for your entertainment? You forgo sleep doing what you enjoy doing. When you truly live a life of faith in victory, you will take out time from your physical enjoyment and use that time to spend with God. But many of us give God our left over time. Give Him your best time. Would you like you children to buy you a gift after they have spent all their money on good things for themselves, and with what is remaining they get you something as an after thought? How about the God who created the entire universe? How can you give Him the crumbs of your life and ask Him for blessings? Do not be mistaken. If you want to live a life of true faith then give God the first and the best. You must make this a habit so that you do not lose God or His blessings. We all love to receive blessings. If you want to receive blessings then you must act accordingly in order to receive it. I am telling you to act. We are a small number here, but may we truly live a life of victory in faith. Sermon by Pastor Joy Lee Translation by Miguel Park

Psalm 50:14-15; Psalm 51:17

Psalm 50:14-15 “Sacrifice thank offerings to God, fulfill your vows to the Most High, and call on me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honor me.” Psalm 51:17 My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise. Last week we learned about the person who is able to dwell in the tent of God. Today we will look at the heart of one who comes before the Lord to worship. Rather than worshipping from our hearts properly we are more concerned with the formality of worship. At times it is our image that we are more concerned with than proper worship. When there are a large number of people that gather together, it becomes easier to focus on people’s image. When the number is small, and the atmosphere is like a family, there is less that one can hide. You know the life of those around you so the focus is less of the image and more on the individual and their personal life. In a large church, it is harder to know everyone, so when you gather once a week for service, rather than knowing what is really happening in their lives, we tend to look at their outer appearance and decide if they are well or not. Rather than looking into their heart, we notice their new attire, new car and make a judgement based on the image. We fail to see their beautiful heart which they bring to worship the Lord. If many people are gathered in this manner, will the Lord accept such worship? Worship is what we offer to God, and in order for it to be worthy, He must accept it. When you make a contract between two individuals there must be an agreement of what will be given and received. Why do we come before the Lord and offer our praise and worship? Is it for personal satisfaction or enjoyment? Then the worship is wrong. If we offer our worship it is because there is someone who is going to receive it. If the one who receives it is God, then we must ask ourselves “is God pleased with our worship?” We must ask ourselves this question when we offer our worship to Him. When we desire to make a request or to celebrate an occasion we give gifts. Why do we give gifts? The gift symbolizes gratitude and it can also be used as a bribe. Does not the gift of gratitude have to symbolize the value for which one is giving thanks? Does not the bribe need to be of value that symbolizes the nature of the request? Would a small gift be sufficient for making a grand request? A grand request must be matched with a grand gift, and an important request must be matched with an equally important gift. If someone were to bring joy into my life, would I not be moved to give that person a gift of gratitude? We must first open our eyes and see the truth about ourselves, so that we may give God the true and proper worship He is worthy of. If I do not see myself as a sinner, and think that I have done nothing wrong and do not have much to be grateful for, then the worship I give to God is nothing but formality. You may think that everyone is the same, that you have not received as much as someone else, and you think that there is nothing special happening in your life so you question why you should be grateful. You are grateful for nothing, and when you come to worship all you do is complain and are discontent. You compare yourself with others and question why they have so much while you have little. Unless you look at your life in light of the word you will continue to complain and be discontent. You do not come before God to worship with joy and thanksgiving, you come before God and ask Him “why?” Will the Lord accept this worship and will He answer this type of prayer? Fasting will not get your prayer answered because in your heart there is discontent. There is no gratitude, only blame and frustration. With a heart like this fasting will not change the outcome, but now that you fast you complain that you have fasted and complain to God even more. What kind of fruit do you expect to harvest in your life when you live foolishly like this? “Sacrifice thank offerings to God, fulfill your vows to the Most High, and call on me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honor me.” Aside from the prerequisite of having our prayers answered, when God does answer your prayer, what should we do? When God delivers us from our troubles we are to realize that He has saved us so that we may honor Him, but rather than giving Him glory by living our lives in honor of Him, we begin to get proud and lift ourselves up thinking that we have done something great. This is wrong. What does God desire in order to answer our prayers and save us? Is there anyone who has never prayed to God offering Him everything that we had, even our very lives if He would just answer our prayers? We pledge allegiance to Him and make countless promises. If we acknowledge that there is a proper life that we are to be living then we must first start living this life. Then as we live our lives in gratitude then we can expect God to answer our prayers and bless us. We must change the order of things and do it the right way. We do not come before God in praise and thanksgiving. We come before Him with our complaints and our requests and demand that He answer our prayers so that we can live for Him. If the order of our lives is reversed then will God be able to accept our worship? If He does not accept our worship then it is a waste of time. Our prayers, offerings and fasting will be of no use. My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise. Do we come before God and pray in this manner? Are we really broken and contrite? No. Rather we come before Him seeking blessings, asking us to use Him for His glory so that we can be lifted up. We do not come before Him repenting and broken for not living according to word. If we are not praying this way, then are our prayers not wrong in comparison to the word? Psalm 57:2 I cry out to God Most High, to God, who vindicates me. If I cry out to God and it is He who vindicates, then it is not I who vindicates myself. I must put all my trust in Him and follow Him. We pray that He vindicates but after praying we go and do everything with our strength. There are things that I must do, but we must live a life that cries out to God and trusts that He will do His will. Psalm 57:7 My heart, O God, is steadfast, my heart is steadfast; I will sing and make music. What does it mean to be steadfast? It is the determination to live my life for God to give Him praise and thanks. With this steadfast decision you can come before God to sing praises and worship Him. Do you come before Him steadfast in this decision or are you only offering lip service to the Lord? Where do many of out trials come from in our life of faith? It comes from the words that we speak and misunderstand. A Sunday school teacher asked her students “who goes to heaven?” “Is it the rich person, the one who does good works, the pastor, the elder?” The children answered “No.” When they answer “no” that means that they must know who goes to heaven. Who do you say goes to heaven? A five year old raised his hand and answered “the one who dies goes to heaven.” The rich man, pastor and everyone must die if they want to go to heaven. The answer is simple. I ask you who live a life of faith, who partakes in the resurrection? One must die first so that they can resurrect. One must die before they go to heaven. You can change the words and say it this way or that way. But if you want to have Jesus be the light of your life and if you want to live as if you are in heaven then you must die to yourself. We say this but do we really die. We refuse to die to our spouse, our children, our parents. How can we die when we refuse to even honor the commitment that we made during our wedding vows and cannot even die to our spouse? Laboring hard for yourself to make it in this world is not dying to yourself. You are making compromises with yourself and refusing to die. If God accepts the praise and worship of those who offer it with thanks then what is the prerequisite of gratitude? It is the absence of complaint, discontentment, blaming and desires. Then you can be grateful. When you can see the rod of discipline as a guide to better my life and not as a source of pain then you can grateful. If we complain, argue and rebel then it is because we fail to see the error of our ways and have no remorse. This is why we blame someone else. If we come before God not with gratitude but with complaining and the needs that we want satisfied then we have failed to come before God the right way. True gratitude means that you lack nothing, there is nothing to be discontent over and there is no one to blame. If I serve in the lowest position in the company, or am given the most meaningless jobs to do, I must do that which I am entrusted with a heart of gratitude so that God will accept my life as pleasing worship. If you complain about where God has put you and demand that God lift you out of your place and put you in a higher place that you desire, have you ever considered that you are rebelling against His will? God has made both the rich man and the poor man. God has made both the doctor and at times the sickness. Why? It is through the suffering that the person may find His way to God. But what do we do? We bring our complaints to God first. We demand to know what it is that we have done wrong? There are times that we are sick and hurt because of the fault of someone else. We can get hurt in accidents or other fault. But there are also times that we are sick because we did not take proper care of ourselves. Many people are sick because they have lived for their pleasure and in so doing have acquired some sickness. When this happens we need to realize that He is giving us a warning, telling us that He is in control, so that we can turn back to Him. You may be going smoothly with your life and then suddenly be involved in an accident to wake you up and show you that He has the power of life. He can do as He pleases. But what do we do? We argue against God and ask Him what it is that we did to deserve our troubles. We do not see His hand at work in our lives. When we are stricken with sickness we should humble ourselves and confess to God that we are the ones who have failed to take care of the body He has given us and change our lifestyle to get better. We should be grateful for the warnings and the chance to get well and turn our lives back to God. Gratitude should be flowing out of us. Our prayers go unanswered because we still think we are in control of our lives and refuse to acknowledge that God is the one in control. Psalm 66:12 You let people ride over our heads; we went through fire and water, but you brought us to a place of abundance. Unless we allow God to bring us through the fire and water we will not be able to reach the place of abundance. When God has placed us in our circumstance so that we may be disciplined through the trials so that our faith may increase and we can turn our eyes towards Him. We must open our spiritual eyes. But rather than opening our eyes we complain to God about our circumstance. No matter how perfect we may think we are if other people notice our faults how much further from perfect will we be in God’s eyes? If God desires to use me for a specific purpose, then I must endure the trials so that I may be made into the vessel He deems worthy for that purpose. Before I can be lifted up for His use, I must be humbled and trained. We are not to broaden our shoulders and lift our heads the moment something goes our way. When you water the garden and want to spray the water far what is the best angle to spray the water? Is it high or low? If you spray to high the water will come back down on you. If you spray too low you will be getting yourself wet also. The angle must be right for where you are and where you desire to spray the water. When you are in high position you spray down and when you are in a lower position you spray up. You need to find the perfect angle for where you are aiming. The moment God answers our prayer we immediately become proud and our heads go up. We act as if everything is finished. What will happen? It will all come back down on our own heads. In Proverbs it says that the blessing and the curse come from the same place. The blessing and the curse is the same. You can have the greatest feast set before you but if you do not eat of it will you be full? Can you be filled just from looking at the feast? If you must eat to be filled, then likewise you must obey the commands to receive the blessings. Why are there curses? The curses follow disobedience. If you do not obey the commands then you will not receive the blessings. If you obey then your curse will turn into a blessing. If you receive the answer to your prayers and do not act upon it then the blessing becomes a curse. We are to live our lives in gratitude and obedience to HIm, but if we are proud we are told that God will destroy us. If I am banished from the presence of God then nothing else will matter. Neither should you torture yourself and stay discouraged and wallow in self pity. You are spraying yourself with the hose and ruining yourself. Either way you are bringing the curse on yourself. I must find the perfect balance between pride and humility through obedience to God’s word so that I may achieve the greatest distance in living for God. We will not be able to reap the benefits of our spiritual life unless we find the right balance. This balance is not what I define but it is determined by the word of God. The Bible tells us in this situation to do this, in that situation to do that. When we pray it teaches us how we should pray. It gives us the answers that we seek. By saying “yes” and obeying we are finding the balance that we need to humble ourselves before God. By living this way, you are watering your garden well and allowing it to grow abundantly. If I live a life of humility that reflects that of Christ then through my life God will be glorified. My life will be an example of the presence of God to those around me. If I am unable to live this life, then my life will not bring glory to God and my life cannot be a testimony to others. Is your only purpose to come and worship to have God answer your requests? Is God our slave or is He our Master? If you bribe someone to have an issue resolved what happens when the bribe comes to light? There will be greater repercussions and more trouble for those involved. This is not natural. That means that the issue had not been resolved properly. When you come to God with discontent in your heart but you give your offerings and worship and you get your prayer answered, is this natural or unnatural? When things seem to be resolved for you they are not normal. Even though it may seem as though you have gotten what you desired in the end you will have nothing. Even if I were to receive nothing, like Job, I must confess that though the world point fingers at me and persecute me, I will neither grumble nor complain nor speak against the Lord. Then my relationship with God will be true and just and He will accept my worship which I offer in thanks. Then He will save me from my troubles. If God put me in a difficult situation so that He may be glorified and I were to die, then my death would give Him glory and I will reap great rewards. The problem is we think that our reward must be here on this earth. God’s purpose and my purpose are different. God’s thoughts and my thoughts are different. God’s purpose is to give me eternal life and bring me into His presence by guiding me in the paths of righteousness. If my purpose is to use the name of God to reap the benefits of this life then my purpose is not the same as God’s purpose. Who’s purpose must be achieved so that you can say that you have live the life victory? If I achieve my purpose, it is possible that people of this world may say that I have succeeded, but the people of God will see that I have failed. Moreover God will say that I have failed. If God judges me as a having failed, then it will not matter that the world thought of me as a success, I have but one place to go. Is this not so, if God says I have failed? No matter what the entire world may say, if I worship the Lord and He does not accept my worship then I have failed. My worship will be in vain. It is no use how much I fast and pray if God does not accept my prayers. What purpose is it to worship God when He does not accept your worship? Why waste your time and money doing so? Do you just go as if going to a business meeting where many people gather to make an appearance? Is this not a life that has nothing to do with God? I must have the determination within me to give thanks to God no matter what the world says to me or how it persecutes me, as long as I find favor with God. This is the attitude that God desires and accepts. It does not matter if my earthly father disowns me, or my friends desert me, as long as I can lift my eyes to the Lord and He acknowledge me. No matter how hard or difficult my situation I will confess that I lack nothing and give thanks to Him with joy and praise. Then the Lord will save me from my troubles and I will dutifully live my life to honor the Lord. God will dwell with me in my life as I live continuously in this pattern of worshipping Him. In every moment of our lives there are countless temptations that are trying to make us fall. In these moments we are lacking. As a child who wants something from their parents but does not receive it, rather than complain we should try to see the purpose of why we have yet to receive what we have asked for. Could it be that they desire to give us something greater? Is it because they know that it is something that I will not need? If I am able to look within myself and come to understand the heart of my parents then I will have no reason to complain. Parents have a natural desire to want to give their children good things even though the child does not ask. But if I ask before the time is right, I end up complaining and being discontent. Wait for God to provide you when He says it is the right time. Humble yourself before God. Live in obedience to His word. The foundation of life has been given to us in the Bible. If you will live in obedience to His word, God will use you for His purpose. When you say “yes” to His purpose, and give thanks from your heart, and if you live the life that you confess before God, then He will save you from your troubles. You cannot question His way, and take a step backwards, and expect to receive the same blessings. The Bible says that God does not despise a broken spirit or a contrite heart. Do not have complaints or discontent when you pray. Pray in gratitude for His grace in saving a sinner like me, and be repentant that you have been unable to live a life worthy of that gift. We must be contrite. We must not complain. Although both are prayers that cry out to God the one of contrite heart is crying out because we are remorseful of our sin and we desire to live a life that pleases God. This is the prayer that God will accept. May you pray so that God will accept your prayer. When God accepts your prayer and lifts you up may you live your life so that your life is a witness of Jesus, so that you may be the salt and light of this world. May God be glorified through your life and may you receive the blessings that God desires to bestow upon you.