Let Us Be Those Who Give Glory to God

Let us be those who give glory to God. If I take the glory that is due to God, then I am of the devil. Satan wanted the glory for himself and he was banished from heaven. We don’t realize that when we steal God’s glory that we are one with the devil. If I steal from God then I am the devil because I am rebelling against God. Have you lived your life in complete surrender to God, praying earnestly so that His will would be done here on earth? Unless you do, you have yet to surrender your life to God. You desire the praises of others and the moment someone compliments you your pride is getting bigger. You are being tested in these moments. The devil tells you that you have done a good job. Of course, there is nothing wrong with a compliment, but if you do not give the glory to God, it becomes poison to you. Many of us have fallen into this trap. We wait to hear words of praise from others. When you do a good job and when you raise a child you use positive reinforcement. This is a different matter. This is about stealing glory from God. There is a time to think positively and be encouraged, but we must never take the glory that belongs to God. When we are doing God’s work, and we hear words of praise, that our faith is strong or that we are filled with the spirit, we should not let that boost our pride. It is good to know that our faith is growing but our pride should not grow with it. Pride goeth before destruction. This path does not lead to God but it leads to the devil. If I desire that God’s will be done, the I must first humble myself. I must lower myself. I must learn how to serve others. Why did our Lord come and wash His disciple’s feet? We don’t even wash our parents feet because we complain that it smells. Even married couples have a difficult time washing the other person unless they really love each other. It has to do with our pride. We say that when you are married you are one, but there are times when we are not. When we are in a good mood, we act as if we would do anything for the other person, but the moment we are upset we hold everything back. God is not like this. Our behavior was not worthy of our Lord coming to die on the cross for us. We are so indifferent. The Jews did not crucify Him, I crucified Him. I am the one who crucified Jesus and I am the one who has my back turned to Him, but there are so many believers who blame the death of Jesus on the Jewish people. The bible says that I am the one who killed Jesus. We cannot turn our backs on the Jews. We must see ourselves in them. We refuse to acknowledge this and this is why the cross has no meaning in our lives and there is no reason to give God glory. We know in our heads that we are to give glory to God, to praise Him and honor Him, but rather than give it to God, we want the praise and honor for ourselves. We constantly seek the praises of others and the moment our pride takes pleasure in the praise we have failed that test. When someone praises us for whatever reason, we can accept it but then turn to God and give Him the glory and tell Him that it is not ours but it is His and that He be glorified. We have a hard time doing this because by doing so we feel insignificant. We feel worthless. We want to be proud in our own being, but we forget that God is our Creator. God does not desire to crush us under His will. He desires that we yield to Him so that His will may be done through us, and by allowing the will of God to be done through us, we are then giving glory to God. We think that it is someone else’s responsibility to do God’s will, while it is enough for us to say we believe in Jesus, got to church, volunteer some of our time, and hold a position at church. We are living in a lie. The position of pastor, elder, and deacon are to be used for God’s work and not as a title that you boast about. We get upset when we are not addressed by our title, but these are merely positions that you hold in the church. We need to give God the glory, but we live our lives looking for our own glory. We have been deceived. God does not want us to live in this deception. When we give to our Father what belongs to Him, He desires to shower us with His wonderful blessings. God does not desire to take anything away from you. He will not share His glory with anyone else. We see this example in Lucifer. It is written in the bible that Lucifer was banished from God’s presence because he wanted to share in God’s glory. Though we can share in much of everything, we can never share in God’s glory for it belongs only to Him. We have earthly fathers and they have their authority. They must exercise their right and authority for this has been given to them by God. There is much disorder in the world to day because the leadership in the home is failing. Fathers are failing to maintain authority in the homes. The children are losing respect for their parents. In the past, no matter how poor you were, the father was given respect as the authority of the home. Today, even though we live in plenty, and the father goes out and works hard to provide for the family, they have failed to restore their position of authority in the house and this is leading to the downfall of the nation. The world is failing. God cannot give us His authority but we try to take it. God cannot share His position with anyone. That would mean He would have to lower Himself. Why was Lucifer banished? It is because He wanted to be in God’s position. Children do not think that you have the authority of your parents. Your parents being good to you and you disrespecting them are completely different issues. Do not disrespect the authority of your mothers. The problem is because fathers have lost authority in the homes, the mother’s authority is nonexistent. The mothers may think that they have the favor of their children and give no regard to the husband, but they are creating their own fall from authority. You must all listen carefully. Mothers may think that you can disregard your husbands and take side with your children and in so doing that you will be given more respect, but your authority will also be ignored. The work of God is done through order and we must maintain that order. Without doing so we cannot understand God’s authority. We must respect the order and authority so that we are not challenging God’s authority. This starts with order in the home. Those who challenge the authority in the home challenges the authority of God. Those who challenge the authority of their mothers challenges the authority of God. Why? It is because they do not respect the order. Parents need to bring up their children properly. Do not raise them according to your whims. Do not raise them improperly. You must say no when you need to say no. You are not to let them do whatever they want when you feel like doing so, and then when you are upset you wield the threat of authority to try and control them. You are raising your children to disrespect the order and authority. Parents must establish order and authority in the home so that the children will learn to be obedient. But not having done so, the parents want to blame the children for being disobedient. This is wrong. Parents listen carefully. When you try to please your children and lose your authority to them, you are prohibiting them from finding their place before God. God desires order. His will is done through order. It is not done at random or without purpose. We must not forget this. This is why we must not seek glory for ourselves but we must seek to give glory to Him starting from within our homes. Then we will understand that His authority is not for us to be desired. I love God because I loved my earthly father greatly. I never challenged my father’s authority so I have never considered for a moment to challenge God’s authority. I can never challenge His authority. If it is God’s word then all I can do is say “yes”. This is from my personal experience. My husband and I argue. There is a difference between having an argument and challenging his authority. There should be a difference between arguing and challenging authority but today many of the wives have put the authority of the husband below them. The amount of money a husband makes should have nothing to do with the husband’s authority, but many of the wives disrespect the husband for making little money. This is wrong. When we were married we became one and confessed that for richer for poorer, in good times and bad times, in sickness or in health that we would go together as one. Are we living the life that we promised we would? We are not. Too many wives are challenging the authority of their husbands. Younger people listen carefully. If you are thinking that you are going to do whatever it is you want with your husband then do not consider getting married. A husband is not something for you to manipulate for your pleasure. This is also for you young men who think that you will do whatever you want with your future wives. Do not get married if this is what you think. You will only be fighting each other. God has given you the authority to maintain order. The head of the woman is the man. The head of the man is Jesus Christ. The head of Jesus is God. Many women dislike this message because it teaches us to submit to man. This truth will never change. Many men misuse their authority. God teaches us to love our wives but rather than love them we dictate authority over them and the woman refuses to submit to authority that has no love. Men are misusing their authority. You must love in truth. Both must be one in love in God, but this is where we have failed. We have put the first button on improperly so the rest follows likewise. This is why we don’t understand how to give glory to God, to be reverent of Him, and to serve Him and live our lives for Him. We are under the false assumption that we can use God for our purpose. Rather than give God the glory by entrusting in the order and authority He has put in place, we try to be the authority and take the glory for ourselves. We have become food for the devil. The devil is deceiving us and we are being fooled and following him. We are following the voice of the devil and not listening to the voice of God. There is no way to give glory to God when we are not obeying Him. God wants our praise and our worship. We must acknowledge God for who He is. The rocks, the trees, the flowers, the wind and all the creatures of the sea praise Him even now. Of all His creations He desires most of all our worship of Him, but we give the least of all that He deserves. It is because we have been taught incorrectly, have failed to give the proper recognition to authority, and when we read the bible, we read it to mean the things we want. The Holy Spirit is always trying to guide you. He is telling you to stay on the right path. He tells you to correct your mistakes. You hear his voice but you tell him that you will do it later. You tell Him that you will change after you keep sinning just a little bit more. You complain that being good is boring. You think that by being good other people think that you are a fool. You tell God that you will do the things you want, follow the devil for a little while. We say and do these foolish things. We do not see God. If we truly saw God then we could not say and do such foolish things. We would not be fooled by the devil because we would see that the spirit of God is in us. There is a battle that wages inside of us. Which side will you choose? Will you follow the evil, lose and then complain to God that you are weak? Will you blame God for making you out of dirt? This is why our Lord came to this world and lived life just as we are. Now that Jesus has overcome, we too can now overcome. Even though we say this many people use the excuse that Jesus is God. Then let us take a look at Paul. Paul lived a life that followed Christ. Paul said to follow him. How could he tell us to follow him? Was he any different from us? He is the same as us. He was born to parents just like us. Jesus was born to a virgin but Paul was born to people like us. David was the same as us. Moses was the same as us. Joshua was also the same. They obeyed the voice of God. Joseph followed and obeyed God in much trial and hardships. There are many great examples that we are to follow in the bible, but we don’t look to the bible. We look at ourselves and our situation and rather than serve God, we look to satisfy our desires and our needs. We do not see God. No matter how much the Spirit keeps knocking, you pretend not to hear. You may fool the people around you but God knows the truth. You may try to hide your soul but at times God reveals your soul to those who pray for you. You cannot hide everything. Even if you could hide everything from others, we know that God’s creation is listening but we don’t believe these sayings. There is no secret that is kept hidden forever. We must trust God and follow Him. The bible says that when we repent of our sins, He will remember them no more. He will completely blot them out. The devil remembers your sins. We are deceived by the devil and we follow him. The devil is relentless in reminding us of our sins even though we have truly repented. God tells us that when we truly repent of our sins that He will completely wipe them out and make us clean, but we do not listen to Him. When we are reminded of our sins, we become fearful and rather than approach Him we move away. This is how we are living our lives. Who should you listening to? You should listen to God. When you follow Him you will know that He is good. You will be grateful. You will realize that you cannot live without Him. You will be compelled to worship and praise Him. It is your heart that does not see this. This prevents you from giving glory to God. If we do not repent from our sins, God will wipe us out. I bring this about on myself. We say that God will wipe us out, but the truth is we force God’s hand to do this to us because God cannot look upon sin. It is our sin. It is my sin. It is each of our sins that brings on the destruction of this world, but we think that God chooses to do this without reason. Even at this moment God is patient and desires that we repent and turn to Him to prevent the consequences of our sin. There are many people of God who speak this message. They tell us to repent. They tell us to return to God. We are the ones who do not turn back to God and so destruction will come. We do not know when this will be. Like Sodom and Gomorrah, when there is too much sin, God will do away with us. It was not God who destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, but it was their sin that brought about their own destruction. We are a small number here, but each of us must first repent for our own sins. We must ask forgiveness of our neighbors and forgive our neighbors. We must pray for this country and ask God to give us a heart of repentance to turn back to Him and prevent our destruction. You must also pray for the country of your origin which is Korea. Pray also for the country of Israel and the Jewish people. Pray for the Arab nations and for Palestine. We need to pray for peace between all nations so that there are no longer disputes between peoples. You can no longer live only for your own satisfaction. Because you live in Chino Hills does not mean that only this city must prosper. If all of America crumbles then so will Chino Hills with it. If California crumbles then so will you. The bible teaches us to pray and bless the place where you are, and to put your roots down there and grow. We are immigrants here and we need to bless this country and also bless our country of origin. Israel is the country where our Savior was born and the place where He will return. We must pray for the protection of this place. You must pray. The foundation of faith and victory is prayer. How will you give glory to God? Unless I stand grounded in faith I am unable to glorify God. Without faith I am the servant of the devil, how then can I glorify God? You can do work for the devil, but if you want to give glory to God you must separate yourself from all sin. You must repent of all your sins, remove yourself from sin, be holy and live a righteous life so that you can live a life the will glorify God. Sermon by Pastor Joy Lee Translation by Miguel Park

Psalm 15

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. Let us think about what the word of God means in Psalm 15. We say we come before God to sing praises to Him, worship him and honor Him. David shows us how we are to worship and I would like for us to take a look and see if we are living this life as shown in the Psalm. 1 Lord, who may dwell in your sacred tent? Who may live on your holy mountain? Who can dwell with God, who is it that can be with the Lord? Who can come before God to worship and who can live as one with the Lord? He answers: 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. That is the answer. This is exactly how you are to live your life so that you may walk with the Lord and give Him glory. It is when you walk with the Lord and give glory to Him that He will answer you whenever you pray to Him. There needs no other explanation. It is clear. The problem is, although we recite these words we lack the application in our lives. This is not the only place where we find these words. There are too many verses of scripture that we cannot go over all of them. In Psalm 24:3-6 it is written: 3 Who may ascend the mountain of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place? 4 The one who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not trust in an idol or swear by a false god. 5 They will receive blessing from the Lord and vindication from God their Savior. 6 Such is the generation of those who seek him, who seek your face, God of Jacob. He asks, “Who may ascend the mountain of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place?” This explains how we are to live. Psalm 25:10 All the ways of the Lord are loving and faithful toward those who keep the demands of his covenant. What does it mean to keep the demands of his covenant? It is to live the life in accordance to God’s word. To those who live this way God is loving and faithful. Unless the entirety of our lives is obedient to God’s word, we are confessing that God will not be with us. There is no difference when we worship. When we worship we are to worship as written in the New Testament John 4:23-24: Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” When we come before God our conscience must be clean. When we are filled with the worries of this world, our own thoughts and ways, all that we have set as standards in our lives prohibits God from accepting our worship because all our thoughts that get in the way of us being one with Him. It says to worship in truth, what is truth? God is Spirit and unless we worship in spirit and in truth He will not accept our worship. Unless God accepts our worship what would be the point of it? Pastor Lee always says that it is better to live how you want and end up where you go. At least you would have enjoyed your time on earth before ending up in hell so you might be a little less bitter. Why do you want to live uncommitted to Jesus nor completely in the world and still end up losing it all in the end? What does it mean to live in truth? What does it mean to no longer sin? There are many important questions that come up that must be thought about. There are countless explanations. In Job 6:29 Relent, do not be unjust; reconsider, for my integrity is at stake. Job was replying to his friend who came to console him. His friend told Job that he was being punished for his sin, because God is just and his plight was the result of his sin. He told Job to repent. Job replied that he did not sin, and that he lived righteously before God, and he replied to his friends that they should relent in their judgement for in not doing so they were committing sin. How accustomed are we to judging others? Job’s friend was committing sin for assuming that Job had sin in his life even though he was right about God and the judgement of God. If it is sin to not see the entirety of what is going on and to pass judgement, then how great is the sin when we pass judgement on others and not use the word of God but judge according our own thoughts and standards? How much sin is there in our lives? How much evil are we doing in our lives? Will God answer our prayers? When our prayers are not answered we get frustrated and complain. We are jealous when other people’s prayers are answered. Or when we get an answer to one of our prayers we think that we are righteous. Pastor Lee and I always reminds you, the reason that God gives you gifts and ability is not because you are just, but rather it is to let you know that God lives and He is revealing Himself to you. When you receive an answer to you prayer it is showing you that He is. In return you are to obey and repent, but rather you think that you are just. You desire to be lifted up before others and you judge others. The bible tells us that you are an evildoer. When you judge someone who is righteous as Job, you become an evildoer. Don’t behave this way. If you do not know, it is better to be silent and not do anything. If you do not know and keep silent at least you would not be likely to fall and stay on level ground. Let us not live foolish lives by opening our mouths and speaking foolish things. What does God say to us when we come to Him to worship? He tells us that if we have wronged our brothers, to leave the offering, not to give it, to leave it there, go make amends and then come back and give the offering. Then God will accept your offering. If God does not accept your offering then all you did was give your offering for no reason at all. Before you come to worship, you must go and repent and ask for forgiveness from the one you have wronged until your relationship between you and God has been restored, but do you do this? We do not. Although it clearly explains how we are to come before God to worship Him, we do not do these things. With our tongues we should not stir up emotions in others but how often do we do this? We should not slander others, but how often do we point our fingers at others? When we are at work or speaking to others, when something is not to our liking the tome of our voices immediately goes up, that means we are stirring up the emotions of others and are judging others. If I come to worship after having done all this, then God will not answer my prayer even though I try to feign innocence to Him. God will call us guilty because we refused to obey His command. If this is the condition of your heart, then you cannot be one with your family, or your spouse no matter how much you pray. Jesus teaches us that it is not the food that goes into a person that makes them unclean. He teaches us that it is what is in a person's heart that comes out of them that makes them unclean. Matthew 15:11 11 What goes into someone's mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them." What is it that comes out of a man's mouth? It is words and our emotions. Matthew 15:18-20 18 But the things that come out of a person's mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. 19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. 20 These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them." These evil things that I think about come out in my speech and in my actions. Why does this happen? The reason is when I see what I want and enjoy I place them into my mind and heart. When you ask the youth they say they think about many things, but where will their thoughts be evident? You can see what they think about through their speech and their actions. If you think about things that are good, then your actions are also to be good, but if you notice that someone speaks wildly or behaves foolishly will you think that they are thinking proper thoughts? You will not. Even if someone were to be silent you could tell what they were thinking by the look on their face. If it is even more evident their thoughts when they open their mouths or in their actions and they continue in this way and add more filth to their lives, how can God acknowledge their prayer unless they repent and really change so that they may confess with their mouths that they are truly living a life that allows them to be one with God? He cannot. The bible is clear, God will not accept someone who lives this way. Unless I am free of sin and filled with spirit, and my life reflects Jesus and the Spirit, I will not be able to worship God with joy and thanks. Out of me will come my anger, complaints and bitterness. So rather than praying to God with praise and thanks I will gripe and complain. This even more reason that our prayers will go unanswered. We cause this to happen. But rather than take the blame we put the blame on others. We put the responsibility on others. We say "I did this much." We say "that person did such a thing us us." We shun responsibility and when we pray, rather than repenting we tell God that He has failed to provide for us and we blame Him. Our lives must be centered around the word of God. Our hearts must be a place where God can dwell. I have explained before, when you are a part of the world and then come to know Jesus and choose to follow Him, it is like a tree that must be uprooted and planted in a new place. A tree that is uprooted and replanted takes a minimum of three years of struggling to survive before it can bear fruit as it should. From the depths of the world, the Lord has touched you, shown you even made His voice heard to you and called you, but now that you have come to Him, it does not mean that it is all over. You must now begin the struggle to survive. It is the struggle to rid yourself of all the past sins that are deeply rooted in you. It is this struggle that we must face with determination but lack. We think that just by hearing and seeing that everything has been done. I frequently give examples from the garden. As I was tending the garden yesterday I pulled this out. The flowering part is small but look at the root. Look at how much longer the root is. If you do not remove the entire root and just cut off the flowering part, the plant will grow back. Look at this and compare how much bigger the root is even though the plant is not that much bigger. If I leave these weeds alone in the garden, then will I be able to harvest the vegetables that I want to eat? These weeds will grow extremely large. Later, they will be even difficult to remove. When you live your life, your selfishness, your desire to do certain things, your unwillingness to forgive others, if you allow these things to stay within you, the roots of these things will keep growing and go deeper inside of you, then later after you have been redeemed you will not be able to uproot these things from you. If you realize the wrong in your life, then you must immediately repent and change your life so that you can remove the roots of sin quickly. When you overlook sin in your life, then over time these things will become habits that will form the way you live. Just as the food you eat effects your health. If you eat too salty or too spicy the effects of your health are poor circulation, poor blood and overall poor health. Just as your health is effected by the choices you make about what you eat, the things that you choose do in your life will become habits and then these habits will decide who you are. In comparing your life to the bible, if you do not remove the one or two sins from your life, eventually these will decide who you become. These must be pulled out. These must be removed so that you may walk in union with God so that even if you were to glance at Him, He would acknowledge you. I did not date much before getting married to my wife and never really had a chance to date because of our life situation. But if I recall correctly from others, when you are dating before the other person even really says anything you already know what they are thinking or need because you know their heart. When I take care of my wife Pastor Lee, I must know when she needs to use the restroom, when she needs a drink of water, and all other needs as long as I am willing to put my heart and focus on her. When you are focused on someone else you can understand their heart and need. The reason I tell you this because when your interest is the focus of the other person, you can tell what they are thinking or what they need just by the look on their face or the look in their eyes. If your focus is on yourself and how busy you are or how hard your life is then you cannot care about the other person. If you really desire to live a life that is in union with our Lord, then you must love God. We all know that you receive as much love as you give. It is the same before God. God has already given His great love to us, but I am unable to see His love in my life because I am unable to give love from myself. This shows that my heart is not filled with Jesus. If I had removed all the dirty and evil things from within me, then to the extent that I was filled with the Lord, He would bless me with all that I need because He is aware of what I am lacking. But if I am still filled with the things of myself, then it will not matter how much I call out to Him, He will not answer my prayer. The reason is because I am not filled with the Lord who would allow me the receive the blessings. You must realize this. But our focus is always on us and the God who gives us what we ask for. There is a misunderstanding. CNN ran a news article about a man in Brazil who went fishing at a river and saw a beautiful rock and took it home as a piece of decoration. It weighed about 25 pounds or 11.6 kg. The more he admired it the more he became curious and had it looked at by someone and it was found to be an emerald. He took it to have it cut and it weighed 57,500 carats and was valued at W80,000,000,000 (~$80,000,000). He picked up and brought home W80,000,000,000 and became wealthy overnight. I am not talking about the emerald, but about Jesus who you are to pick and place in your hearts who is far more precious than that emerald. He is far more valuable. Just as you would take a raw gem stone and cut it to give it value, if you are going to place Jesus in your heart then you must live your lives as if it has worth and value. Do you think that only that one person saw that W80,000,000,000 stone. Other people saw it also, but only in this person's eyes was it beautiful and special and worthy of taking home. The entire world knows about Jesus, those who hate Him, those who believe in Him, but the question is how have you placed Jesus in your heart? Are you keeping Jesus in your heart like a decoration to show others when they come to visit? What use it that? What use is it to be a pastor, a deacon, elder, to come to service dressed in fine clothes, and to look the part because of Jesus. What use is it to make a name for yourself? What value is it to take a rock and have it for decoration or to take a picture of it and hang it on the wall. There is no value. Is Jesus worth less than this W80,000,000,000 emerald? When I dwell with the Lord, He in Me and I in Him, He who provides me everything will give me all that I need and more. He will give me blessings that are worth more than W80,000,000,000. The reason you cannot receive these blessings is because you yet have to place Jesus in the right place in your heart. You still complain about what you don't have or the things that you still need. You still point fingers at others and judge them. Look inside yourself and see if you have yet to be transformed by Jesus. We sing this hymn often "You have longed for sweet peace and for faith to increase, And have earnestly fervently prayed". Do you really want His peace and do you really want your faith to increase? Have you fervently prayed? "But you cannot have rest or be perfectly blest Until all on the altar is laid". Have you laid it all? The foundation of laying it all is not the giving of our material things but the laying down of all our sins and repenting. We must be rid of all this so that we may have peace and then God can see our sincerity to others. Then God will hear our prayers and accept our offerings and answer our prayers. We sing these hymns but if there is no life like this, then we must take a look at ourselves. "Is your all on the altar of sacrifice laid? Your heart does the Spirit control? You can only be blest and have peace and sweet rest, As you yield Him your body and soul." We sing this, but do we mean it? Is the Spirit really controlling you? Another hymn "Serving the Lord, repent And sorry for my sin, I'll give my love to Jesus And gladly serve for Him. In Christ, Where -e'er I be, There what-e'er I do, For Him Who died for me Lord, I would be be true!" When we sing this hymn we are pledging allegiance to our Lord. We are giving Him out of the depths of our hearts. We are giving ourselves up to him and surrendering our lives. We sing the praises that we will live our lives to glorify Jesus and not ourselves. We must not only speak these words from our mouths but they must be evident in our lives so that when the author of this Psalm asks: Lord, who may dwell in your sacred tent? Who may live on your holy mountain? You can boldly say "It is I". I am the one whose walk is blameless, who does what is righteous, who speaks the truth from my heart; whose tongue utters no slander, who does no wrong to a neighbor, and casts no slur on others; who despises a vile person but honors those who fear the Lord; who keeps an oath even when it hurts, and do not change my mind; who lends money to the poor without interest; who does not accept a bribe against the innocent. This is the person that dwells in the sacred tent and lives on His holy mountain. This is the life that is controlled by the Spirit so that even though I only lift my eyes to Him, He will answer all my prayers and I will be able to confess this life to others. In order to live this life that the author of this Psalm describes you must make the necessary changes in your life. It is not a life that reveals who you are but rather reveals our Lord. It is this life gives glory to God. May you live this life that will be a blessing to you so that you can be true Christians and be the light that reflects Jesus and the Spirit to the world.

Behavior that Pleases God or Satisfies My Desire

Spiritfruit.Aug.3.2012 Behavior that pleases God or satisfies my desire. When we mistakenly think our wrong behavior pleases God, we are also wrong to believe that we are doing His will. We sing and worship God but it is not in truth. Why do we live in this lie? It is because we have been deceived and are blinded by the lies. The lies are our greed and the things that we desire to accomplish and attain rather than truly doing the will of God. These are the things that we go after rather than pursuing God. When you let go of everything, then God’s purpose will be made known to you. There are those who start off doing God’s purpose but somewhere along the line, they forget about God and their purpose becomes their idol. More than fulfilling His purpose God desires us to be with HIm. He wants to be in a relationship with you, but we refuse to be in a relationship with Him. The reason being, when we are in a relationship we have to give of ourselves to the other, and we know ultimately that this means death to ourselves. We know that this is the true way to love and respect each other, so rather than committing ourselves to God, we take the comfortable way and that is to live for a purpose rather than for God. We give God the excuse that we have done everything in obedience to Him, by going on missions, helping the unfortunate, and serving the church but the main purpose is missing. It is not God’s will that we are allowing to happen through our lives, but rather our own purpose which we try to accomplish using God. Think deeply about this. Have you really let go of everything in your life so that God may do His will through you? Do you really want to live according to God’s will? We profess it so readily. When you pray aloud you say it often. You pray to do God’s work and give God everything, but afterward when I speak to you, you live how you want mistaking it for God’s will and obedience to Him. To whom are you obedient? You are obedient to your desires and emotions. If your desires align with God’s will you choose to do such work, but even that becomes a leveraging tool for you to use and try to win favor from God. You think because you have done such works for Him that He will later bless you for it. What blessing are you seeking? To be one with Jesus means the cross. We try to erase from our minds the fact that to be with Jesus means to bear the cross, and we do not want to think of such suffering and pain. Why did Jesus come? Was it to be blessed? He came to die on the cross. Because He died on the cross He tells us to bear the cross also and to walk with Him. Other people fear sharing this message for fear of losing numbers in their church. They would rather preach the prosperity gospel. They preach that if you go to their church you will receive blessings, you will go to heaven, your finances will be better, and you will be healed from your disease. For a new believer this may be true, but as your faith grows we are to know what is and is not. Believers may try to put the blame on the preachers and blame them for preaching these things but the truth is you want to hear these things. You want to hear things that make you comfortable. You want to be told that you have done nothing wrong. You want to be told that you are easily forgiven for your sins as long as you ask for forgiveness. Yes, you will be forgiven but how must you ask for forgiveness? It must be with a contrite heart, a heart of sorrow and remorse. You do not ask for forgiveness right before you go to bed and mention it in passing and think that all is forgiven. You have fallen into a trap. I tell you again, this is not how you repent. If this was the way to repent then there would be none who would not enter into heaven. The bible tells us that the number is few. It is not because God does not desire to take all to Him, it is because our hearts are not right for Him to accept us. We do not believe Him, we only hear what we want, we do what we want and make all the mistakes and desire to go our own way. Why do you want to be fools and make mistakes? Why? You are killing yourself, your family and those around you but still you desire to do what you want to do. Why do we do this? We prefer to listen to the voice of the devil than to God. We think that the voice of the devil is comforting and gives us freedom. Although it may seem this way in the end it is death and hell. The way of God may seem harsh and difficult, but if you obey and follow, it leads to eternity, life and hope. Whom will you follow? If you desire to end up in heaven what must you do? I tell you again, no matter what other people may tell you, the gospel of Jesus is not easy. Believing in Jesus means suffering. Believing in Jesus means that you do not own anything. The problem is you refuse to let go of what is in your hands. If you are willing to let go of everything then there is nothing that God will require of you. It is our greed and the demands that we put in God that causes us to think that God is not on our side. God is not on our side. We are the ones who are to go to the side of God. He is not someone who will do what we tell Him to do. You are living in a lie. You think if you believe in Jesus, and if you go to church that Jesus will be your advocate, “No!” You must go to where God is and go close to Him. We are branches asking the vine to come and attach Himself to us, when it is us who need to go and attach ourselves to Him. If the branch desires to live it must attach itself to the vine and not the other way around. We tell Jesus to listen to us. Why should Jesus listen to you? You are made of dirt, what can you do for HIm? God is the Creator yet we act as if we are the creators. We sit in God’s throne. We are the branches telling Jesus to come and graft to us. We tell Him to be a part of us and do what we desire and what we ask of Him. Is this not true? When you move plants or trees and uproot it they will have such a difficult time thriving, but how can a branch that has no root expect to live apart from the root? Where is God’s will? When you listen to the sermons you nod your heads, but the moment you leave those doors you do what you want. You complain that the sermons are too tough and desire that we would pamper you. You desire that we tell you that you are doing a good job. How ridiculous. Why should you be pampered? What have you done that was worthy of it? In order to be praised you must first do good. If you desire praise then do things that are praiseworthy. You must please God, you must praise Him and give Him glory. God desires to give you so much more than you can imagine. This is something I know a little of. God is eager to reward those who please Him. I ask Him what have they done that is worthy of reward. He replies “isn’t their desire to return back to me beautiful?” Isn’t their desire to give me praise from their hearts beautiful?” I reply that they are far from being worthy of reward, but God delights in those moments where one desires to give glory to God. You do not understand the heart of God so you think that you are pleasing God. You desire that God bless you so that you may go gladly to serve Him. You only desire to be blessed for you satisfaction and pride. That is not the kind of obedience God desires. God desires that you have let go of everything completely and rid yourself of all selfish thoughts and when He gives you the command the only thing you say is “yes” and obey. He desires that you are obedient like Mary. You may think that Mary had it easy, but in those days what she went through she risked her life to do. For an unmarried girl to be with child meant death. She obeyed in the face of death. This is the type of obedience that God desires from each and every one of us, but we think what God desires of Mary and what He desires of you is different. How are you different? What makes you think that you don’t have to sacrifice as much? Why does your will need to be accomplished? Why not God’s will but your will? I keep reminding you that you are not needed for God to do His will. But still God desires to be with us, to forgive us and love us. You keep focusing on the love and forget that there will also be judgment. God will not take you to heaven if you are living in sin. This is judgement. Live on this earth as you like, do what you want but you will be responsible for all your actions in the end. You cannot blame God. Stop living how you want. Everyday in your daily devotions it teaches about not doing what you want or what you desire but rather to do God’s will and when you live in obedience He will be with you. I wonder everyday what you are thinking as you read this, what you have learned, what you are thinking about in your minds everyday. When I pray for you I see that there is no change in your lives. You do it as if you did homework. It is not homework, it is a guide to show you how to live properly with God. I wonder if the teachings are hard but when I ask you, none of you say it is not difficult. It must be easy because you have no questions, if it is easy then why is there no change in your life? To know in your head does not mean you know, it must be in your heart and moved into action. To move what you know from your heart into action is to die to yourself and live in obedience to God. It is our greed that causes us to make demands of God and try to force Him to do what we ask. We are to do as much as we know, but rather than do what God desires we prefer to do what we want, think and say. We use the word of God to make it mean what we want it to mean. Just as we want Jesus to do what we want rather than us going to attach ourselves to Him. It is no longer the gospel of Jesus it is our own gospel. It is not God’s word it is your own word. This is the problem. The bible does not say that you can live how you want, that you are the best, that are praiseworthy. If you are proud then you will die, if you are humble then you will live. This is the teaching in the bible. What is it that you hold onto? It is your own gospel. It is what you think, what you have heard what you desire. Not all who preach do so correctly. Yes, it is possible that I may preach something wrong. That is why you need to know the true word of God. If you do not know the truth then you cannot live the right way according to the scripture. If I teach you something contrary to the scripture then you must be able to renounce that teaching, but how can you without knowledge of the word. If I say something wrong you should be able to rebuke it with scripture, but you don’t know the scripture. When you listen to preachers you don’t discern rather you judge. You say that the preacher is wrong, but if the preacher is wrong are you right? You need the scripture to help you discern what is right and wrong and when you don’t know you must ask. You need to pray and ask God to guide you. Rather you use what you know to judge others. When you hear something strange, you do not use the scripture to compare the teaching to see what God says, you use what you have heard from others to decide if that preacher is right or wrong. That preacher is a person anointed by God. There are many fakes out there, that is why we are told to test the spirits. We are taught not to go where the teaching is wrong. But what do you use to discern. It is the standards that God set that you must use to discern. It is not with what you think you know. You are to use God’s word together with prayer to discern, without it you cannot be discerning. Do not live according to your standards. Do not read the bible according to your standards. That is living for your desire. You are not truly serving God but you are using God for your own satisfaction and peace of mind. What is the difference if you practice another religion or if you sit here not really following Jesus the way you should? Are you really a believer because you sit here? If you choose to sit in church then you must really believe in Him. There is no purpose to sit in church if you do not really follow Him. You cannot pretend to be a follower and point your finger at nonbelievers. There is no difference between you that pretends to follow and the nonbeliever. You will not get into heaven. If you truly desire to serve God, then you must surrender everything before Him, and you must live your life according to the scriptures. You cannot live in sin. You cannot knowingly sin and ask for forgiveness. You must repent until God accepts your apology. I met an individual in Korea who was blind. He went to the hospital asking the doctors to help and they told him they could not. A lady who had overheard him, told him that if he went to the prayer mountain and fasted for 40 days that God would heal him. So he went. He was a nonbeliever who did not know God or ever step foot in a church. So he fasted for 40 days seeking God. He was told that he would be healed after 40 days of fasting but after the 40 days nothing changed. He was obedient for the 40 days but now he started blaming God. What can you say to someone who did not know anything about God and put him into a 40 day fast? After another 3 days of fasting, as he had given up hope and wanted to die, on the 43rd day God met Him and healed him. Not only was he healed of his blindness but God had given him many spiritual gifts. But I am not telling you the story about the blessings, but after the 40 days of fasting during the three days he blamed God, he said God made him repent for 3 years for those three days of blaming God. God had forgiven for all his past sins during the forty days but for those three days he was told by God to continue to pray until God told Him to stop. Every waking moment he repented for blaming God. It was always the first prayer he prayed and prayed countless times. He repented for 3 years! Then one day God told him that it was enough. This is repenting. This is prayer. Do you repent like this? Or do you combine all your sins together and tell God forgive you for all the sins that you know about and don’t know about and just say sorry and expect to be forgiven? Yet, you complain that you have repented enough. God does not forgive that easily and I am telling what I saw and heard. He still lives in Korea. Do not be mistaken and think that because you have been given gifts by God that you have been forgiven. Do not think that because you hear God’s voice that you are free of sin. He shared with us that repenting is truly difficult. He said after that he did all within his strength to not sin. Do not think that you have achieved something because you have received some gifts or power from God. We used to meet him frequently but recently our schedules have not allowed us to see each other. You think when you seek forgiveness from someone that you can just say you are sorry and then everything is resolved. Then you want blame the other person for not accepting your apology. This is you living by your own rules. This is your way of setting standards that you desire everyone to meet for you. I used to believe that God would not go that far as to make someone repent, but if He would have a new believer repent for that long, how much more would He require of us from those who profess to believe in Him and sin knowingly? When I realized the truth about repentance it tore me apart. I had been hoping to invite him to speak at our church one day. He has finished seminary school and many people tell him to be a pastor, but he refuses to do so and works as a janitor at his church. He did so the last I saw him. Many of us choose paths that are not God’s will, many of us choose to do work at higher position but it is not for God but rather for our satisfaction. He has great faith, but he cleans the church. Do you enjoy cleaning the church? He will do nothing else because that is His calling no matter what others tell him. This is obedience to God. It is not your will that must be accomplished. I must do God’s will. I must surrender all of myself and submit completely to Him to be truly a child of God and be His bride. Never forget this. Sermon by Pastor Joy Lee translation by Muguel Park

Judgement of God is Coming Close - We Need to Change Our Heart and Life

1 Corinthians 15:35-44

Truelight.July.29.2012 1 Corinthians 15:35-44 35 But someone will ask, "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?" 36 How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37 When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. 38 But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body. 39 Not all flesh is the same: People have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another. 40 There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. 41 The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor. 42 So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; 43 it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. When we speak of resurrection there is an absolute prerequisite and that is death. Is that not so? In order to be born again one must die first, but we desire to be born again without death. When we are faced with choices, rather than making the same mistake, we must choose to do what is right in order for the change to take place. We cannot do good if we do not acknowledge our mistakes so that we may change them. All the earthly desires must die within me so that Christ can reign in its place. The word is very clear as it speaks of the heavenly bodies and their splendor and all the other bodies. Even though we do not go into detail this is something we all understand. By comparison, what is life? What does it mean to live? Is it to eat, sleep, go to work or school? Is this living? What is the purpose of living? Why do you eat, sleep, go to school, make money and do all the things that you dislike to do? Why do we spend all our energy doing all these things? What is life? Why do you do such things? Depending on what you plant and sow in your life will be the difference between success and failure. For example, if you study hard, get a good job and make good money then you will have reaped the benefits of all you hard studying and work. You have benefited from the seeds of hard work which you planted. If you do not work hard can you make good money? If you do not study well can you get good grades? In order to live well you must work hard and be diligent. If rather than working hard you spend time entertaining yourself watching TV, going out, eating and drinking, being lazy and living for yourself then what will you reap later? It does not matter that you think that you are doing well, if someone else looks at you and tells you that you are not well, then we must be able to accept what they say and be able to change but that is difficult for us to do. The reason it is difficult is because we are stubborn and it is our pride. We hide behind the excuse of comfort rather than seeing it as pride and stubbornness and getting rid of it. Why do I point this out? It is so that you may be a better person, a good person, reap good rewards and have good results in your life. This is good advice for your life but you refuse to listen. Why? Because in order to achieve it you feel like you will die. What does it mean to plant something? Does it mean to go out to a field and plant seeds in the ground? Is that all? What does it mean to sow? What I do, say and think are the seeds that I plant. I will reap the harvest of the things from which I have spoken. I will reap the harvest from the actions I have performed. What will the harvest be? If I speak with vulgar language and use words that are uncivilized what will people think of the type of person that I am? If I act wildly and have no manners, what will people think of me? You may think that people do not know the thoughts that are in your head, but over time those thoughts will gain power and they will reveal themselves in speech and action. Thoughts are important. This is what you are sowing in your life. As you think, speak and act you are sowing seeds into your own life. However, we do not think that we are sowing seeds in this manner. If today you sow the seed of anger to someone you love, what will you gain in return? Will you hear the words "I love you"? Is this what happens when you fight? When you raise your voice in anger is there anyone who answers the anger with love? There is none. Just as a ball will bounce back, I will receive what I sow. We don't think about this. Instead we think we have the right to be angry and expect the other person to respond with love. This is our stubbornness. This is our will, our pride that lives in us. We tell our spouses that we have done nothing wrong. We put the blame on the other person. We claim that we are the head of the household and question why they choose to anger us? As I force my will upon others, it causes others to have to surrender to my will. In my family of five, if I spread the seeds of angry words, angry actions and all my emotional issues on them, then where will those seeds spring up? It will be evident one day in the lives of my children, but today in this moment I feel satisfied because I have relieved my stress on them. If we are living in this manner, will we be able to say that we have lived a good life in the end? Will our children be able to say that their parents have lived well, and have learned so much from them that they can now pass it on to their children? If this is not so it is because you have still yet to die. The seeds that you are plating will effect many generations to come but you fail to see that. What you are doing this very moment is very important. But if you are living for your pleasure and your gratification then it will be difficult to reap good rewards from your life. If a student plays video games rather than study, will that child be able to go to a good school, get a good job and get good benefits from it? Who can guarantee it? No one can. It is the students fault for not making the sacrifices in order to reap the benefits. Adults also, as I have told you before, because of my desire I taught my children to watch TV and it was quite a burden for some time. I must restrain myself, read books, read the bible, sing praises or spend time communicating with my family and show them by example the life that one must live so that they will learn and remember seeing their parents reading the bible, talking to them and teaching and guiding them the way to be a family and to love one another. This is what we should be teaching them. Instead after spending the day at work or having been in an argument you come home and are demanding to your spouse doing and saying what you want. Can you be a family unit like this? What are you teaching your children? We don't think that we are planting seeds by doing these things. We plant by bestowing upon others. We bestow acts of good will to others. Though it is difficult we love others. We forgive the ones that we find hard to forgive. When you bestow something upon others what have you done? You have planted seeds. The seeds of forgiveness, the seeds of love, the seeds of mercy and the seeds of humility. What you will receive in return will be given to you by God and that can be the splendor of the sun or the moon. Depending on the seeds you sow you will reap different types of splendor in your life. However, many people refuse to see the types of seeds they are planting and the resulting fruit and this is where the problem arises. You may have lied, for whatever reason, and people may overlook it the first couple times but if it continues will you have any credibility with others? Even if you do speak truth, once you have been labeled a liar because you have sowed the seeds of lying you will never be credible to anyone. Our Lord teaches us not to live like this. But we choose to be insincere and say whatever we want depending on our mood. What is this? You may come to church and it may seem that you are a believer, but God looks at your heart and knows that when you are in the world. You live as part of the world. This is a double life. You are lying. You do not receive recognition in church and the world recognizes you as a false Christian. You are the one sowing these seeds but you fail to see this. You want to be praised because you dedicate your time to the church and because you hold a position here. When you are in the world you spend time entertaining yourself with them and you want their approval also. What do you expect to receive from the seeds of your action? The bible teaches us that rather than storing up the things that will waste away, to live in the spirit and reap the things of the spirit. But we are callous to this teaching. We say that Jesus has forgiven us all our sins and we interpret this teaching incorrectly. We sing the words of the hymn "safe in the arms of Jesus, sweetly my soul shall rest" but what does it mean if have worries? It means that you are not in Christ. Is this not so? If I have doubts, worries or troubles I am proclaiming that I am not in Him, but we fail to see it this way. We sang the hymn, but what use is it if the moment we say "amen" and then immediately start to worry? We are living a double life and lying in our faith. We sing that "our fears have turned to prayers and our sighs have turned to praises" but are you singing and are you praying? But yet you sing these praises. God is everywhere. He is with you in the bathroom as well. He is with you in the garage, in the shed, no matter how deep one digs to build a bunker God is there. We think as long as no one else can see us then God does not see us. We think the moment we leave the worship area, or the moment we say "amen" that God is no longer present. This is why we do whatever we want. When we ask God to help us wherever we are in a difficult situation that means He is also with us when we are doing wrong. But when we are doing wrong we think God is somewhere else watching over someone else. We say that God is watching over us in all that we think, speak, and do, but if we don't act as if He truly is then we are liars. Who are you lying to? You are lying to Jesus. You tell Him that He knows everything and if He replies that He knows that you have been lying your entire life before Him what will you say in response? Will you be able to ask Him for the splendor of the sun, the moon or stars? What have you sowed and what did you think that you would reap? This week I pulled out all the carrots. It has been about three months. I planted all the carrots all at the same time and gave them all the same amount of water. There were plenty that were a good size. Look at these half inch carrots. There were many of these small ones. Unless you pull them out of the ground you can't really tell the difference. You say you believe in Jesus, wear your nice clothes, spend your life coming to church and hold a position in it, but when the time comes and your are pulled from the ground will you be like these useless carrots? How much time and energy did I spend on these carrots? What a waste of time and energy on these ones.The time and energy was spent the same but some of the vegetables will make it on the dinner table while others will be thrown away. Jesus gives us the example of fishing. What happens after you catch the fish? He says the unwanted ones will be thrown away. Are they all not fish? It is up to the one who catches the fish whether to keep it or throw it away. If you do not satisfy the heart of Christ then He will throw you away. Though you may receive the same amount of water if you do not grow you will be thrown away. We sing that Jesus will watch over us until we make it to heaven, but there is a requirement. That requirement is that you live according to His will. You cannot expect Him to follow you to wherever you want to go. You cannot let go of the hand of Jesus and think that He is going to chase you down. I don't think that you can receive the help from Jesus when you let go of Him. Because we have been trying to have an organic farm we have not been using pesticides. And due to my physical condition I have not been able to tend to the garden well. When evening time comes you can see where the insects have eaten away at the plants. Some of the plants have been eaten before they can even start to grow. You need to kill the insects before they eat the plants or else use insect repellant but that means it would no longer be organic so I surrendered and let it be because the garden has been getting too big to maintain. At this rate there will be nothing to harvest. In order to maintain a vegetable garden one must be diligent and use their spare time to tend to it. If you are not diligent in tending to the garden of your soul, and if you are not planting good seeds through you thoughts, speech and actions, then the devil will come and attack you and make you one of his own. If I am not prepared for his attacks, in the end, no matter how holy I may seem, I will end up having lost the battle. The world will attack you with worries and concerns so that you will be unable to focus properly according to God's will and His word. When this happens you must recognize it immediately and uproot those thoughts and rid yourself of them. Catch it and throw it away. This is the only way to properly maintain the garden and to reap good rewards. During the London Olympics, a South Korean has set a new world record in archery. The archer is legally blind. He set a new point record of 699 points from which 720 is perfect. The archer can only see from a distance of 20 feet what others normally see at 200 feet. At a distance of 70 meters they shoot 72 arrows so I calculated that he hit the bullseye 51 times for 10 points and 21 times for 9 points to reach 699 points. He beat his own previous world record. How much did he have to train to do this? He had to overcome much difficulty in order to accomplish this. You sit here as a healthy individual. You know Jesus. You have been educated and taught everything you need to know, but are you living for the goal of attaining the eternal life which is far more precious than any medal you can attain at the Olympics? The bible clearly lays out the path for us to attain this reward, but how much training and discipline are you putting yourself through to attain it? Are you putting in as much effort in your own life, as did the legally blind person who trained thoroughly to set that new world record? Are you training yourself in every word you speak and every action that you do? If not then can you win the gold? Does the coach allow the archer to train how he wants or only teach him how to shoot arrows? A coach teaches the athlete everything that is required to make them a complete athlete. In order to master the skill they are trained physically and mentally to harness all there strength and focus to achieve one goal and that is to hit the bullseye no matter how chaotic the world is around them. In 2002 when South Korean hosted the World Cup, what did the new coach do? He started with the fundamentals by training them and conditioning them. He did not start with soccer skills. He trained them differently. In our daily walk, it is not studying the bible that is important, although it is, but what is truly important is the skill to take what you have studied and apply it to your lives. It is the ability to take what you have learned and to make it real in your life. But we prefer to just know it in our heads and therefore we lack the fruit in our lives. Is this not how we are living in these times? It does not matter how much you know of the bible, if there is no change in your life it is because you have failed to die to yourself. That means that those seeds have not died and therefore there is no fruit. Do you truly want to participate in the resurrection with Jesus? Then you must die. Without dying you cannot participate in the resurrection. There is no reward prepared for you if you do not die first. If others are not able to see Jesus in my life then I will not be acknowledged as a Christian. If I do not live in Jesus and participate in the resurrection then all the power and money in the world will not matter. What does it mean to die? Does it mean to literally kill oneself by suicide? No. It is killing your will, your stubbornness, pride and your thoughts. This is how you die. It is the change in your life created by your death and Christ living through you. Why do you get off the cross when they bring the hammer and nails to put you to death? What do those nails and hammer represent? Theses are the words spoken by those around you that attack your pride. These things are the hammer and the nails. The words are nothing but you let it effect you enough that you come running off the cross. They are words spoken to you that you may improve your life but you refuse to listen to these words. This is how we rebel against dying to oneself. During the time of President Park Jung Hee there was a single star general Na Hi Pil. At a banquet all the officers were poured a ceremonial drink as a sign of appreciation from the president himself. As all the officers were given shots and when it came to Na Hi Pil he asked the president if he could substitute soda for alcohol. The mood of the celebration was immediately iced. No one could imagine a lower ranking officer deny the drink when all the other officials were accepting it. Even those who claimed to be Christian accepted the shot and pretended to drink it. But Na Hi Pil refused to accept the drink due to his faith. Another officer realizing the situation quickly apologized to the president saying that Na Hi Pil could not drink alcohol so he quickly took it and drank it in Na Hi Pil's place. Due to the circumstance all the officers told Na Hi Pil that he would now be removed from his position and would most likely leave the military. After the banquet was finished, and the president was leaving he approached Na Hi Pil and said to him "you are a true Christian". The next day, Na Hi Pil expecting to lose his job had cleared out his desk and waited for the news. What do you think happened to him for standing up for his faith? Not only did he keep his position, he was given an additional star and raised to a position in the main headquarter of the army. He became more powerful than a four star general. When you submit to Jesus, no matter what others may do to you, Jesus will move their hearts in order to use you. Na Hi Pil later retired from the military and went into work for government agency and was hired by head of the agency and given a recommendation from the president of the country. The president was able to acknowledge Na Hi Pil as someone who stood out. He mentioned that when Na Hi Pil refused the drink he knew that Na Hi Pil was a man who could not be forced into a situation nor compromise on his work. That action was seared into the mind of the president permanently. Later, during this time, the president was assassinated but God had provided a way for Na Hi Pil to be protected from the coming storm. When you submit yourself to God and follow Him, He will prepare the way of safety and keep you from trouble. This is what it means to die to oneself. Even though you may think that you are dying you do not really die, when you submit yourself before God He will lift you up. This is the kind of life we must live, the one of death and sacrifice so that we may receive the blessings and pass it on to the next generations. Please do not be stubborn. If you make one mistake you apologize one time. If you make a bigger mistake and one apology is not enough then you must apologize twice or three times. You must apologize until that person accepts your apology. Our problem is that we refuse to apologize for our mistakes and we say that we will do better. It does not work this way. If I have wronged someone 10 times then I must apologize 10 times, but you think after one simple apology that everything is resolved. In Christ you have been forgiven everything. Everything that you did before knowing Jesus is forgiven at one time, but the sins you commit knowingly after you have put your faith in Him is like crucifying Him again. You will not be easily forgiven for these sins that you knowingly commit. There are too many sins that will not be forgiven just by saying you are sorry once. I must truly repent and seek to be forgiven. Just as an athlete must train and discipline themselves to set new records you also must train and go through the discipline to receive that which is greater, the gift of eternal glory. I cannot receive the prize of eternal rewards without going through the training and discipline. I must go after that which I seek or else it cannot be mine. It does not matter that the world acknowledges me, I must seek to be acknowledged by Jesus and until I receive His acknowledgement I must strive to live the life that can only be done by remaining in Him. And when I remain in Him, He will protect me until I am called into His kingdom. This is the life that gives glory to our Lord and this is the life that shows others the fruit of our faith. Sermon by Pastor Howard K.J. Park translation by Miguel Park

I Will Praise My Savior Forever

I will praise my Savior forever. Will I really praise my Savior forever? Do I live my life with respect for Him and honor Him and live my life according to His will? We sing the praises well, but is Jesus really my Savior, my master, my groom, and my Father? Is He really the One with whom I cannot live without? We say yes, but is He really the one thing that you are not willing to let go of? Many people say that this is true, but the moment they experience discomfort they runaway from Him. They must overcome the discomfort to stand right before God. For example, when I counsel people, they think that if they no longer come to see me then they do not have to change. Is God different somewhere else? People think that if they hide from me then there will be no problem. This is not true. No matter where you go, God is the same. For example, let us say that you dislike the teaching here because you find it difficult, then if you go somewhere else, is the Jesus that you worship there one who is different? Jesus does not change. Are you really willing to live only for your true Savior and forsake all the world? The number of saved is few. I must humble myself before the Sovereign God, put all my trust in Him, live according to His will. I must humble myself surrender my pride, and give Him everything. To live as a Christian I must make the teachings of the beatitudes my life in Matthew 5. Unless we live by His teachings we will not see God. Do not mistake His grace for your self righteousness. His blessings for you are a sign of His presence. The beatitudes must become my life. It is about abandoning my life. How much of your life have you abandoned? You refuse to let go of your pride which is nothing. It does nothing for you in this life. How can you praise and worship the Savior when you refuse to let go of your pride? Are you truly a Christian? Are you truly a devout follower of Christ? To follow Christ you must devote your entire life to Him. That is the only way. If you are not going to follow Him properly then don’t waste your time pretending to do so. You are bing tricked by the devil thinking that you can partially commit to Jesus. The children of God hear God’s voice, the children of the devil listen to his voice. You will not go to heaven because you sit in church. If you listen and follow the voice of the devil then you are the child of the devil. If your children do not listen to you but rather listen to someone else, can you say that the children are yours? No and neither will God. What use is it to sit in church not doing the things God desires but doing the things that the devil desires? We have been teaching you so many things here but what use is it if you do not change? What purpose is there? What happens to a disobedient child? What happens when you disobey God? We are only offering lip service to God. We need to worship God in truth. It must be real inside of me. When we sing the hymn “I could not do without Thee” we must really live this life no matter how difficult our circumstance or how terrible our health. If I forget the love of Christ then I will suffer the pain of this world and suffer pain for all eternity. That is foolish. Why not suffer a little pain here? The bible reminds us that our time here on earth is temporary. If for this little time I am tricked by the devil and refuse to let go of my pride and suffer for all eternity what will we do? God keeps revealing many things to me and they are being put up on our internet cafe site. All churches put up information according to how God is working through them, and we are also sharing our information. Right now we are learning about how God desires for us to be clean in order that we may be used by Him. He cannot use us if we are not holy. God is not concerned with the number of people, although He does want many to be holy and live righteously, but what is important is that we are holy and we pray for His will. God told Moses that He would wipe everyone out and start over. We think that God cannot do this. We think that God cannot do His work without us. God does not need us for His will to be done. God has people that do His will in places where we do not know and His work is being done. We may think that the world is evil and headed in the wrong direction, but God is directing everything His way. You fail to believe this. You fail to see how great is the gift of Jesus and His sacrifice on the cross. You don’t believe it therefore there is no power in it. You don’t see the power of the atonement and the sacrifice that was made on the cross and it means very little to you. You say that He died for everyone, but it is not real to you. That is why you refuse to let down your life and sacrifice anything for Him. He is not your personal Savior, your groom, nor your God, nor your Father. A parent can discipline their own child but not someone else’s child as much as their own. A child will not listen to someone else’s parent as much as they will listen to their own parents. If God is truly your Father then you would listen, but because you don’t believe He is you are disobedient. Jesus is not your groom, you think he belongs to someone else. Would you listen to someone else’s spouse? Jesus is not looking for someone to have a date with, He is looking for His bride. You refuse to be His bride because you just want to date him and get everything that you want from Him. When you date you are willing to do anything and everything for your other, but the moment you get married you go to war. This is not what God desires. God desires someone to walk with Him together, one who is willing to sacrifice, one who desires to live a life that reflects God’s glory. But I refuse to sacrifice myself. I refuse to be his bride. Because He is not your groom, because you do not make Him your Savior, there is no power in His blood to cleanse me. You choose to not make Him your Father. This is why you do not truly believe in Jesus. You cannot praise Him as your eternal Savior. You give Him lip service when you sing hymns. You sing that He has saved you but do you believe? When you date someone you want to please the other person, but why is it that you don’t want to please Jesus your groom? Why? You think that you are doing Jesus a favor by being His bride. Rather than being grateful that God chose us to be His bride, we think that He owes us now that we are His. We demand everything from Him. We ask for diamonds, name brand bags, clothes, watches we demand that He satisfy all our desires. We should grateful that we have been cleansed by His blood and chosen to be His bride. We should be offering everything we have to Him, but instead we make demands of Him. How sad we must make Jesus. He came to earth as a man, was beaten, and bore the burden of the cross. Was He a sinner? He had no sin. He died for my sins. He was naked and persecuted, died and resurrected for me. He cleanses us with His blood and calls us His bride, yet we are proud and refuse. We act as if we are doing Him a favor by following Him. If it were not so, then we could not be behaving this way. Why are we so confident? It is our pride. We claim that we have done Him a favor. We say that it is not He who came to me, but I who went to Him and we boast. Do you truly want to praise the one who has saved you? Really? What do you feel in your heart? Truly, truly do you want Him to be your Father? Can you give up everything to follow Him? God won’t steal anything from you, but if He asks for something can you give it up? You have difficulty with small things like your pride, how much more difficult would it be for you to give up some of your material possessions. You would rather denounce Jesus than give up your possessions. It is because you think that your life belongs to you. You think that your body belongs to you. You don’t think that it is something that you offer to God. You say “How can God ask me for this?” You say “How dare He ask me for this?” You refute Him and argue that He has given it to you, that He has given you life, He has blessed with possessions, He has given you health, He has given you wisdom, He has blessed you with beauty, He has blessed you with many gifts, so you say “why does God want to steal all this from me?” In Korea I met a person who was completely tone deaf. Any hymn she sang was in the same pitch. But with God’s anointing when she performed for God the sound was beautiful. After many performances, one day she was filled with pride and she could no longer sing beautifully. This is God’s power. Do not be proud because you sing well. Do not be proud because you speak well. After her fall she repented for a number of years before God used her again. We think that we are the ones who make ourselves sing. I may have a terrible singing voice now, but in the past I sang really well. When I moved to Los Angeles I lost my voice due to the dry weather. A specialist told me that if I wanted to use my voice to even speak I must leave Los Angeles immediately. I was told that if I stayed I would be a mute. But I still speak. Even though I sing this way I am still very joyful. You may think you life on your own terms but it is not so. Even to this day I am grateful for having the ability to speak. I have been in Los Angeles for over twenty years. When I first arrived, within a few short months I lost my voice and was told to leave Los Angeles immediately. My husband is my witness and the doctor has probably passed. Though I am not able to sing with a beautiful voice, I am still grateful that I can sing and very joyful. God will use even the mute for His will. This is my testimony. There is nothing God cannot or is unable to do. Did God not know what would happen when He sent me here. I was unable to speak for nearly six months, I could not speak on the phone because people could not hear me. When I humbled myself before God my voice was given back to me. We think too highly of ourselves. We are proud and we have no humility. We lack gentleness. We lack holiness. We are commanded to be holy so we must be holy everyday in our lives. We must not sin, and use all our strength to keep ourselves from sinning. Rather than repenting, keeping ourselves from sin and not sinning we prefer to sit in the midst of sin and live for our satisfaction and that has become the focus of our lives. This is why we do not repent. That is why we do not change. We enjoy sin because we do not recognize God for who He is. If I were frustrated then I would repent. I would seek forgiveness from God and the ones I have wronged. But even though I sin, life doesn’t seem so bad so I don’t repent. You believe because that there is no major tragedy in your life, or because you have not been stricken with a grave sickness that God is letting you live in your sin. You think that because you have gone a day or a year that He will continue to let you be. You look at someone else and think that God has let them be for so long that you also will be allowed to be as well. How long will you keep living this way? We are currently doing a relay fast in our church, but why do you think that He asks this of us? Is it to punish us? It is because He loves us. He wants us to be free from sin and no longer living in it. He tells us to repent, to honor and respect Him and then He will be with us but we keep telling Him to wait a bit until we have lived how we wanted. We tell Him that to live according to the bible that there are too many restrictions. The truth is there are not many things that God tells us not to do. When I am free from sin, I do not see the things that the bible tells me not to do. I see the bible telling me to do this and go do that. Why do you see it differently? I see the bible allowing us to do many things. The bible tells us to be joyful, be one with God, dance, sing and to celebrate with Him. I see the bible telling us to do many things. I don’t see it telling us not to do much. The reason you see it telling you do not do this or do not do that, is because you are living in that sin. I am not saying that I am without sin. If my heart is closed today, then I see the bible telling me don’t do this or that. If I stay this way I am the one who will suffer. You must experience for yourself the joy of walking with the Lord. You must know for yourself how precious and priceless He is that you would be willing to let go of everything so that you may only have Him. Then you will be able to sing “I could not do without Thee”. The problem is that you don’t want to meet Him. You refuse to listen to him. You only hear what you want. You do not listen to all that He says to you. This is the problem. You cannot filter what He is saying to you. If you take out any one word then the loss is yours. Think about how you must live your life so that you will be only satisfied in Him. Sermon by Pastor Joy Young Sook Lee Translation by Miguel Park

1 Chromicles 4:10

1 Chronicles 4:10 New International Version (NIV) 10 Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, “Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain.” And God granted his request. Everyone who reads the prayer of Jabez delights in it. “Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain.” These are great words. I will comeback to this scripture at the end. Now I will discuss something of a different matter. Today the world is focusing a great deal on the Olympics. The kind of records which will be broken? What events will take place? Which country will take the most gold medals? We spend a lot of time thinking about these things. The Olympics, which are about the spirit of competition have now become a way to make money by a certain kind of people. Can you guess who? It used to be that those who could participate in the Olympics were only amateur athletes, but now the rules have change and professional athletes are also allowed to compete for their country. Unfortunately, this has brought with them people who wager on these events. They will wager on athletes, countries and events to see if they can win or end up losing money. I am informing you that this is what is happening currently in the world. These gamblers gather and try to predict the outcome of the games. For example, they might think that the country of Korea may medal in swimming, and Tae Kwon Do. They will be trying to predict the number of medals for the country. In yesterday’s news, I read and article that said Korea will not get a gold medal in swimming. The article said that the Korean athlete will not win, and is not even capable of coming close. This is what they have predicted and published. I share this with you because there are people who hear these things and feel good about it and those who hear it and feel bad. There are those who hear these things make a judgement and wager money. They can either win money or lose it. Depending on how an athlete hears these words and reacts, he can either overcome and succeed or he can believe what has been written and not succeed. It would be great if one could read these words and be more determined to win rather than be a person who uses it as an excuse to fail. An entire country can read and hear the same thing and be united to overcome that attitude or succumb to it. People can also get caught up in the news and information to make wagers and either win or lose. I am trying to explain to you that many times in our lives we get caught up in the moment emotionally and make choices that effect our lives greatly. The oddsmaker who uses cunning and deceit to steal someone else's money through gambling rather than working honestly, or the one who gets caught up in the moment and gambles it all away, or the one who wins it through gambling, do any of these people live well in financial stability? Generally, we know that they do not. Life teaches us this lesson. but many of us fail to realize that we must learn from this lesson and apply it our lives. We think nothing of associating ourselves with these people and getting caught up in the moment and amusing ourselves with them. We don’t realize how foolish it is. When we entice people we create problems. I am speaking about myself. When I was around these children’s age we had no TV in our house. There were only a few TVs in the entire neighborhood. We had our first TV in our house when I was in high school. When we had our TV, I did not watch what I wanted to watch but I watched whatever my father wanted to watch because he had the power. When he wanted to watch it he turned it on and turned it off when he wanted. I never really watched TV when I wanted and having to work, I really never had the time to watch it. Later, when I had immigrated I finally had my own TV. Now that I had my own TV I wanted to watch it. I did not understand the language and did not have much else so I started to enjoy watching TV especially sports. I am not sharing this story to tell you about TV but to let you know that when I was enjoying myself watching TV, I was also teaching my children, who were about 6 years old , to also watch TV. Now they are much older and restrain themselves, but as teenagers as soon as they woke up, as a habit they went straight for the TV or computer. Who made them this way? I taught them. The children were consumed in their shows and games and could not be taken away from it. Who taught them? It is the parents who have shown the children by example and now the children can’t get away from these things. We don’t think about it. What I considered as harmless and enjoyable has damaged those around me whether it be our children or others. When I am the center of my life and do things how I want, the seeds I sow will be reaped by others. There are many people who ruin their lives over drugs and entertainment. Just to do whatever is their pleasure they create problems, they don’t study, they throw everything away. Do you learn about life in front of the computer? No. Can you just live only through entertainment? No. You need to stop playing and live your life to acquire the necessary things to be able to live in peace and enjoy life. If you cannot break this habit, then for that brief satisfaction your body will get sick and you will lose your life. Yesterday, when we all gathered for dinner, the person who always controls what I eat had left. I openly expressed to you my desire to want to eat more, but I stopped myself from eating too much. If I do not stop myself, then the urges to keep eating will take over. I must decide that I will not overdo it. The decision must be made by myself. I expressed to Dr. Shin the emotions that were inside me. I can hide them and pretend as if they do not exist, or I can be open about it, and though embarrassing, I can make the decision to stop. If I stop, then I have accepted it and acted upon my decision. But if I hide my true feelings and go away and satisfy myself when no one is watching then I can never correct my problems. Many of us refuse to acknowledge our problems in order to save face. When no one is around we go and do whatever we want, and when people are around we pretend that we don’t behave a certain way. You can never correct yourself. For example, if there is food and I act as if I don’t eat it, but when no one is around I go and eat it secretly, can you fix this problem? You cannot. What you don’t realize is that what you do for your comfort and pleasure is hurting others around you. You may think that you are doing a good job, and argue that it is the others person's responsibility if they are being hurt by your actions. Yesterday, something happened, but it was not the only time. This has happened many times before. I understand that being busy that these things can happen. When someone is aware things can be fine, but when someone is unaware, someone can be hurt. Yesterday, the dishes were done and people all left. Common sense tells me to put the spoons with the spoons and the knives with the knives. The knives should be placed with the blade down so that someone will not get hurt. I am saying that this is common sense. But there was a fruit knife placed with the spoons with the blade placed up. They are about the same length. I went to grab the spoons to put them away and grabbed the blade of the knife. Did the person who put the knife there think about what they were doing? They could say that that they were doing their job, but when you realize that your lack of judgement could hurt someone do you do think and act with more caution? There are many things that you can do easily without care and thought. Even when you speak you can do so without realizing that what you are saying can have consequences, even though you may not have a problem with what you are saying. Yesterday, someone posted on an internet blog about something that angered them. When we go play soccer we clean the field of dog poop. Someone posted on their blog that a customer had allowed there dog to poop in front of their store and people had stepped in it and walked into the store and made a mess. They commented that people who raise dogs should carry with them bags and clean up after their dogs. It is easy for the someone to take their dog outside and not clean up after them, but they don’t realize the trouble that they are causing others. They are only thinking about their own comfort. Another person blogged about how they were driving with the window down, and someone next to them threw out a cigarette and the ashes hit their face. They commented that it could have been more problems if the the lit part of the cigarette had hit them or entered into the car. They posted multiple picture of people and their bad behavior. All people want to be free of trouble and live comfortably. The bible teaches us basic principles to live by. Are you living according to these principles? Or are you living how you want? Are you living how you want to live but telling your children how they should be living? If you are not showing them how to live a life of faith, then how will they be able to do so without anyone showing them? The grandparents, parents and children all know in their head what they are to do. The reason no one is able to do what they know is because no one has seen it to be able to follow the example. They end up thinking that all they need to do is know it in their head. The children think that to get to heaven all they have to do is say that they believe in God because that is what their grandparents showed them and what their parents showed them. The children assume that they can go do whatever they want with their friends and come on Sunday and pray to God and everything is fine. There is no change because the parent showed no life of change. The parent does not change, so the children do not change. Because I do not change, I am unable to change the world around me. And because I am unable to change I cannot be the light to this world or the fragrance of Christ. No one can look at me and call me a Christian, but I ignore what others think about me and think that I am myself a good believer. I am living in my own stubborn way, but the bible says that I am not the judge, but God is the judge. The bible tells us that the things I have spoken will judge me, and the life I live will be judged and the word of God will be the standard to which I am judged. If we forget these things and have become prisoners in our own thoughts will we be able to live the life that others will call as Christ like? Let us examine ourselves. Even the world tell us that if we are able to be careful one time, restrain ourselves one time, we will keep ourselves from harm, others will take notice of our hard work, and people will consider us well, but we have a hard time restraining ourselves that one time. Because we are unable to restrain ourselves, not only will we be judged negatively but we will fail at making the necessary changes to improve our lives and we will be exposed. Rather than bettering your life it will get worse. In today’s hymn we sang about the blood of Jesus. It used to be the blood of Golgotha and then the blood of the cross. The problem is that both Golgotha and the cross is wrong. We assume that whenever we sing about the cross that it is automatically Jesus. But in truth anyone can hold a cross. Even the two sinners that were crucified with Christ both held crosses. Whose cross are you talking about? Unless you specify the cross of Jesus, then one can assume any cross even the cross of the thief. In one’s own life their own blood gives them life. Does it not? If one can make an argument like this, then you must be specific. I am not the only Kyung. Nor am I the only Kyung Jin Park. If I am in a room with other people with the same name then you must specify Pastor Kyung Jin Park if you are talking about me. If we talk about the blood, then we must specify the blood of Christ. If we specify the blood of Jesus that He shed on the cross then there can be no confusion. When we speak we must be clear so that there is no miscommunication. Between spouses and parents and their children you cannot just assume that the other person understands. You cannot expect a child to know when it is what they did not know that got them into trouble. Unless you specify exactly what you mean they will never understand. You cannot assume they will know what you mean. It is easy for you to tell them to go figure it out but you are making more trouble for them. It would have been better had you not said anything in the first place. Through the word we are taught everything and through Jesus we were shown how to live our lives. The disciples followed Jesus and recorded all these things. It is difficult for us to follow Jesus when we do not see Him. It is not easy. Jabez was born through difficulty. His name means sorrow. Was it because Jabez was born and his mother felt sorrow for the child, or was it that his mother was going through a sorrowful time in her life. We do not know for sure. What we do know is that Jabez’s prayer and the answer to that prayer is recorded. There is no other mention of Jabez. Even if there is no other history or record of my life, though I live in sorrow and difficulty, I am able to live my life in a way that will allow God to answer my prayers and be evident for others to see. I may come from a family that does not believe or maybe I am able to change my life from one of pursuing my own pleasures to pursuing God, and God answers my prayer and he expands my territory and keeps me from harm. Then I will be able to speak boldly of God and how He has answered my prayers. Are you prayer warrior? If you want to live like this, then you must cut yourself off from the pleasures of this world. You must decide that you will no longer chase after the things of this world but pursue only God through prayer and His word. Rather than watching TV you will use that time to get closer to God. You must decide to stop chasing pleasure, going after entertainment, cut out TV, or pursuing the pleasures of the flesh. Y must decide that you will use that time to pray, to sing praises, to read the word, to unite the family as one, to live your life centered around God’s word and stand up and go forth and live it. When you live like this then your prayer will be answered. I spent all week meditating on this verse. What do you see when you read the verse? 10 Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, “Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain.” And God granted his request. Is it where God granted His request? Or where He enlarged His territory? I would like to share with you other translations of this verse. In one translation it states that "Jabez cried out to the God of Israel," If you are going to bless me, then enlarge my territory... Another translation states "Jabez cried to to the God of Israel, "I want you to bless me and increase the blessings... The King James Version states, "And Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, Oh that thou wouldest bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast..." Yet another translation states, "Jabez called out to the God of Israel, 'God bless me and enlarge my territory..." What is the difference? Do they say the same thing? That is why I keep emphasizing to you that when your mind has been conditioned a certain way you will pass by the words and not truly understand the meaning of it. In the past the translations were from a standpoint where one would ask God, but now if we see the newer translations they seem no longer to ask but rather demand from God. It is not enough to demand, now we demand more and more from Him. We tell God that we will do things with our own strength, and if He is going to bless us, then not only do we want what He is going to give us but we demand everything as well. When the meaning of these words are embedded into our hearts, will we humble ourselves before God or will we start raising ourselves up to Him? By raising ourselves up we bring God down to our level. Is this not the way we use words when we pray? Is this not the way we speak to each other between husband and wife, children and other people as well? We say things in passing without thinking that the consequence of what we say is hurting someone else. The things we say are what separates us as either Christian or part of the world. This is very important. Do you realize that the words are showing you the truth in you about the things you must change as you desire to get closer to God? Or do you keep changing the meaning of words to make it easier for yourself to live the way you want? Will God answer that prayer? How can anyone think that we are Christ like if when we pray rather than asking God, we are demanding of Him, and rather than being humble, we are rude? People will realize that we are not real Christians, but that we have been tainted by some other belief. We have changed the truth.This is is how people are considered cults because it starts with twisting the truth. If everyone jumps off the bridge will you also jump? That is foolish. It does not matter that someone may deem me worthy, if before God I am unable to stand before Him justly then I have failed. It does not matter that others will persecute me and bring me down, as long as I live by His word and am acknowledged by Him, then I can stand confident before any man. Our problem is that we want other people to notice us and acknowledge us. If our focus is on others then just like the spirit of the Olympic games is being effected by outside influences, we too will be effected by our desires or the desire to please others rather than to live our lives focused on Christ and worshipping God and giving Him glory. What use is it to make huge sums of money by gambling? If I become wealthy and accumulate much land and receive much praise, in the end I will stand before Him with nothing and end up going to hell. Let us live centered around the word of God. Let us live glorifying God. Let us live proclaiming that Jesus is our Lord and Savior. Let us live in obedience to the Holy Spirit. Unless I decide to die to myself everyday we will end up being like the rest of this world. We must avoid living this life. We must be people who use each word with the proper meaning, and be one who is acknowledged by Jesus as a true Christian. Examine yourself and see if you have any habits that you are showing your children as bad examples and cut them out of your life. You must cut them out so that your children can remove them, also. Then others can see the example of Christianity and you can be acknowledged by God. Lay your life before Him and live the life of change. May you live the life that allows you to be one with Jesus by using your strength and humbling yourself before Him. May you and your family be one in Jesus. Sermon by Pastor Howard K.J. Park translation by Miguel Park