Monday, February 25, 2013
Brotherly Love
Topic: Love
He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep. (John 21:17 KJV)
The last love question that Jesus used the Greek word phileo, which it means brotherly love. According to John 21:15-17 Note in KJV Living Bible says, “Each time Peter responded with the word translated into Greek as phileo.” Even though there is nothing wrong the way Peter responded to His question, Jesus wanted to know the condition of Peter’s heart.
We often miss the point the way Jesus asked Peter questions. How would you respond if Jesus ask you “Do you love Me?” repeatedly? You would probably be frustrated with Jesus. Remember, He has a way of getting to the heart of the matter.
Let me ask you a question. Do you really love Jesus? If we love Him for His handiwork, that would not be the true way for us to love Him. Why do we think some churches may turn to millionaires? Some churches may don't have relationship with Jesus and most of their focus on relationship with people and their products to sell.
Do you love Him? If not, I’d like to encourage you to develop a relationship with Him. You would never be regretted.
Posted by MGJC Web Ministry
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Sunday, February 17, 2013
Test of Love
Topic: Love
So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs. He saith to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my sheep. He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep. Verily, verily, I say unto thee, When thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest: but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not. This spake he, signifying by what death he should glorify God. And when he had spoken this, he saith unto him, Follow me. (John 21:15-19 KJV)
Do you know why Jesus questioned Peter if he loved Him three times? The first two questions, Jesus used the Greek word, agape, which it translated as self-sacrificial love. Jesus wanted to know Peter’s heart. In Genesis 22, we read how God tested Abraham’s heart by commanding him to sacrifice his son, Isaac. As a result, God blessed him and made him as the father of all nations.
Does God want to bless us? Yes, of course. There is no question about it. But there is the cost for us to receive His blessing. It’s ashamed for today’s preachers to teach their congregations to seek God’s hands for outpouring of blessing. God is not our spiritual ATM, but He is our King, Savior, and Father. We’d need to understand that God is waiting for us to take into His kingdom. We read in Revelation that there will be a great marriage supper of the Lamb (Revelation 19:6-10) that is waiting for us to take part of it. But we’d need to show Him how much we love Him. God showed us how much He loves us by sending His Son to die for our sins. Now, it is our turn.
Paul said in Romans 12:1, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. “ God knows we are not perfect human beings. We do not have anything perfect gifts to give Him. But we can present Him with our sacrifice living for Him. He wants to have relationship with each of us daily. Our living status is for Him and not for the world. Even though we are living in the world, we’d need to set our minds on things above, not on things on the earth (Colossians 3:2).
Jesus asked Peter the same question three times, not because He wanted to make him crazy, but He’d like to know the condition of his heart. Do you have the heart to invite Jesus in your life? If not, please consider to take a step of your faith to know Jesus Christ personally.
Posted by MGJC Web Ministry
at 12:01 AM EST
Updated: Monday, February 18, 2013 1:27 PM EST
Friday, May 21, 2010
True Love of God
Topic: Love
But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8 KJV)
What is the true love of God for us? Apostle Paul wrote whole chapter on love in I Corinthians 13. Love doesn’t have to do with religious duty or attending some denominational churches. Although I was arrived from Baptist Church, it doesn’t mean that all the churches are religious. There are some churches that are good and solid teachings of the Word of God in our own community. I am talking about churches that teach love, mercy, compassion, and judgment of God; and fellowship each other with our brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ.
God brought His Son, Jesus Christ, to the world to demonstrate His love through His Son’s death on the cross for our sins. God knows that we are not perfect. We make some mistakes in our lifetime. Even though He loves us, He also disciplines us to show our errors. This is why we have the Bible (or Basic Information Before Leaving the Earth).
God didn’t create many denominational churches to try to explain His love. People did. Some churches are going far away from their first love with God. Since Roman Catholic Churches arrived to Christianity, we began to separate from each other and made many groups, such as Baptist, Protestant, Pentecostal, Methodist, Mormonism, Seventh Advance, Church of God, Calvary Chapel, and many other denominations in Christianity. Apostle Paul didn’t like to have idea to create denominational churches, because it didn’t honor God, except us.
Now, we come to our generation. As we see, many churches didn’t change much. We now see that many churches are creating markets as Priests did during Jesus lived on earth. Churches are making themselves as worldly fame. They left their first love because they want more stuff that don’t relate to their relationship with God.
Do you left your first love behind because you only learned many laws and regulations of the Bible? God wants you not because you know all the laws in the Bible, but He wants to have personal relationship with you. Jeremiah 1:5 tells us that God knew us before we’d born. But God wants something more from us than just knowing who we are. That is having intimate relationship between God and us individually.
If you want to rebuild your relationship with Jesus Christ, please consider to ask Him to forgive your sins and invite Him in your life. I do not like to give the formula to sinner prayer, because that is between you and God. Then, find a home church that would encourage you and teach solid foundation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ; and begin to have your daily Bible study and prayer habits. Lastly, find some Christian friends who encourage and help you at anytime of the day.
Psalm 119:24, “Thy testimonies also are my delight and my counsellors.”
Psalm 119:27, “Make me to understand the way of thy precepts: so shall I talk of thy wondrous works.”
Psalm 119:105, “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.”
Posted by MGJC Web Ministry
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Sunday, February 10, 2008
The Message of Love
Topic: Love
For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. (I John 3:11 KJV)
February 14 is a day of love, which is called Valentine’s Day. Even though this holiday arrived from the pagan religion and has the immorality religious practice behind it, we should love one another as God loves us.
John explained that how Cain hated his young brother and committed the first murder of the history, which is recorded in Genesis 4. Cain killed Abel because he was jealous his brother that God accepted Abel’s gift and not his. I believe that this is ongoing event throughout our generation. One of my coworkers found information about our health on stress; and one of statements said that we are getting more separation from each other—health, family, friends, and etc. Let’s look at the divorce rate in America (http://www.divorcemag.com/statistics/statsUS.shtml):
- There were approximately 2,230,000 marriages in 2005 -- down from 2,279,000 the previous year, despite a total population increase of 2.9 million over the same period.
- The divorce rate in 2005 (per 1,000 people) was 3.6 -- the lowest rate since 1970, and down from 4.2 in 2000 and from 4.7 in 1990. (The peak was at 5.3 in 1981, according to the Associated Press.)
- The marriage rate in 2005 (per 1,000) was 7.5, down from 7.8 the previous year.
- In 2004, the state with the highest reported divorce rate was Nevada , at 6.4 (per 1,000). Arkansas was a close second, with a divorce rate of 6.3, followed by Wyoming at 5.3. The District of Columbia had the lowest reported divorce rate, at 1.7, followed by Massachusetts at 2.2 and Pennsylvania at 2.5. (Figures were not complete for California , Georgia , Hawaii , Indiana , Louisiana , or Oklahoma .)
- 8.1% of coupled households consist of unmarried heterosexual partners, according to The State of Our Unions 2005, a report issued by the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University . The same study said that only 63% of American children grow up with both biological parents -- the lowest figure in the Western world.
- As of 2003, 43.7% of custodial mothers and 56.2% of custodial fathers were either separated or divorced. And in 2002, 7.8 million Americans paid about $40 billion in child and/or spousal support (84% of the payers were male).
- Americans tend to get married more between June and October than during the rest of the year. In 2005, August had the most marriages at about 235,000 or a rate of 9.3 per 1,000 people. The previous year, July was the highest month at 246,000, or a rate of 9.9; this doubled the lowest month in 2004, January.
If we see our media news, many young people are killed because of their parents’ separations and many teens’ decisions are resulted as thumb down.
God doesn’t want to see the separation from each other. We should love each other. This year is very critical for the United States of America . The people have the choice who should be the next president for the next four years. Even though our nation is like a two-side coin, God wants us to involve in our political events. Our votes are depending on how our nation would be—love for following God’s way or Satan.
We should not let unborn children die without enjoying their lives and without knowing who their Creator is. God just didn’t create us for His global plan. He wants to have intimate relationship with us. He wants to love us as His own. If we let our young people to suffer, then our love for God has no eternal value. It’s ashamed for us to hear that the most divorce rates come from within churches.
God constituted the marriage and He hates divorce.
Posted by MGJC Web Ministry
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Sunday, December 30, 2007
Heart Surgery
Topic: Love
A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. (Ezekiel 36:26 KJV)
Jesus said to the church of the Laodiceans, “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot (Revelation 3:15).” Is your relationship with God alike the church of the Laodiceans?
God hates to see our lukewarm relationship with Him and people. Because having a lukewarm relationship is like if we are either God’s side or Satan’s and we would be stuck in between which way to the paradise. God will choose our decision if we are in lukewarm relationship and we would end up in hell. Hell is the last place where God doesn’t want to ser us to go for eternity.
Unfortunately, God is willing to give us a new heart—a heart of flesh. The word heart in this verse means mind. Our hearts cannot operate by itself, except our minds. Romans 12:2 says, “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”
Why not we can have a stony heart? If we don’t like let the Holy Spirit works in us, there is no way God can have relationship with us. There are many churches that are in lukewarm relationship with God and ended up with a stony heart. It is so sad to see the churches fall into the devil’s hands. I had been into Roman Catholic and United Methodist churches and didn’t feel the presence of the Holy Spirit. Even though they proclaimed to be the churches of Jesus Christ, we cannot keep the other religious rituals come into the churches.
God doesn’t care abut our religious duties or what denominational churches we attend. No! He only cares about us and His relationship with us.
Posted by MGJC Web Ministry
at 12:01 AM EST
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Requirement of Abiding Love
Topic: Love
If ye love me, keep my commandments. (John 14:15 KJV)
Paul wrote the love chapter in I Corinthians 13 and it gives us what is love. He said in verses 4-8, “Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.”
If we want to have relationship with someone, we must understand that the love is infinite that we can receive more. But there is a requirement to receive love from someone. We cannot just be fallen in love. That is the world method of understanding love.
In John 14:15, Jesus said that if we love Him, then we must not reject any of His commandments. We must follow His laws in order to have relationship with Him. If not, we are indicated that we don’t love Him. There must to have boundary for us to love Jesus with all our hearts. For example, when God tested Abraham’s faith, he didn’t fall in love with Him first. Abraham must trust God if His words would come to pass before he would reach the friendship level of relationship.
God doesn’t us to memorize and follow all the laws in the Bible perfectly. But we must do as best we can. The marriage of relationship doesn’t come in a week. The husband and wife must learn to care for each other before they would come to agreement to be united as one body.
Paul told us that we are the temple of the Holy Spirit (I Corinthians 6:19). We do not own our physical bodies, not even before we were saved by the grace of God through Jesus Christ. Before we became citizens of God’s Kingdom, Satan owned our bodies. In other words, we were the citizens of Satan’s kingdom. We became sinners and not as the children of righteousness. But thank God, we are saved through the blood of Jesus Christ and we can escape from the darkness and go to the light of Gospel.
Although many of us want to love God, we may have difficult time to follow His commandments. Why is that? The answer: We may don’t feel like to take action for Him. This is a wrong mindset of any kind of relationship. We must make move with God or people to build our relationships. We are the temple of the Holy Spirit and must build strong foundation for God to live in us.
The laws of God only do one thing—show us we are guilty of committing sins and tell us that we need to repent. For us to love God, we must abide His laws.
Posted by MGJC Web Ministry
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Sunday, October 28, 2007
Power of Relationship
Topic: Love
And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these. (Mark 12:30-31 KJV)
There are many different ways to have relationship with someone, but there is the only one way to have intimate relationship with God. Before we’d go deeper meaning of relationship with God, let’s discuss about why the most people have hard time to keep relationships.
In this message series, we will discuss the four types of relationship. First type is the relationship with God. This is the main important to have to get other three types of relationship. Second type is relationship with ourselves. Even though this title may seem to be self-centered message, we must understand that the reason God created relationship is that we need to recognize who we are and why He brought us to the earth. Third type is the relationship with other. And the last ones will be the relationship with finance or material things.
Many today’s messages of relationship are fulfilled with the world ways of having relationship and not on God’s standard. If we read Genesis 2, before God created Eve, we see that Adam was lonely and cannot find any other helper to accomplish his work (v. 20). Just imagine how lonely when you do not have someone to fellowship for a month and you cannot go out of apartment due to your disability. I had been down in this road before and it was not pleasant to get into.
Do we know why many people are failing their relationships on marriage, family, business, finance, church, and etc.? It was not because financial situation, but of their lacks of communication and desire to success to reach their goals quickly. Money and other material things don’t communicate us. People around us are that we can have communication every day at anywhere. The way we communication with other people, it reflects to our families, businesses, churches, finances, and etc.
God didn’t create relationship not because He wanted to overrule us, but He wanted to have fellowship with us each day. He wants to love us and take of care us as His children. We do not hear the message of the Cross relates to relationship anymore. We are here not because we want to take over the earth as some television evangelists put us as “little gods.” We are living in this earth because we have relationship with Someone who created us. That is God, who raised His Son, Jesus Christ, from the dead.
Do you want that relationship? If you do, please consider to surrender your life to Him. Not to me or any other pastors, but give your life to Jesus Christ. He is all you need. The world may tell you thousand ways to be saved from going to Hell, but there is the only one way to get that. That is having relationship with God through Jesus Christ.
Posted by MGJC Web Ministry
at 12:01 AM EDT
Saturday, February 24, 2007
God is Our Physician
Topic: Love
Bless the LORD, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies; Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle’s. (Psalm 103:1-5 KJV)
In Isaiah 55:8-9 says, “’For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ saith the LORD. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.’” Throughout the Bible, we see that God blessed His people and healed them from their diseases, sickness. In the New Testament, we read that we can give all of our worries to Him because God cares us and loves us.
But most of the time, we missed the opportunity to let God heals us. Instead, we would decide go to our medicine cabinets or make a doctor appointment to get ourselves well. Although there is nothing wrong about these actions for ourselves, we can just ask God to heal our sicknesses. There maybe a time when our doctors have nothing to give us to be cured. For example, there is no answer for doctors to answer to cure the cerebral palsy patient or certain type of cancer.
We have to ask God through prayer and fasting to heal our sicknesses. It’s not having enough by just taking medicines to get heal, but we need to spend quality time with our Eternal Father, because He shall supply all of our needs (see Philippians
4:19), even when we’d get sick.
One of TV evangelists said that God has failed to taking care the world. There is no way that we can approve this theology. But what we can approve is our own mistakes. We have limited thinking in our minds which we cannot comprehend into the mind of God. This is why God provided us the Bible—His every written instructions for us to understand His plan for us.
We have all experienced sicknesses in our bodies and there is no one who hasn’t say, “I’m hurt” or “I’m sick.” Even Jesus tasted His pain while He hung on the cross for our sins, yet He didn’t curse to God or to all the humanity. But when we would feel our pains, we may yell or scream for help us immediately.
God is our Physician and He can heal us. We only need to just ask Him through prayer and fasting. There is no special location to let Him to heal us.
Posted by MGJC Web Ministry
at 12:01 AM EST
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Peters Love Test
Topic: Love
So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs. He saith to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my sheep. He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep. (John 21:15-17 KJV)
What do you do on Valentine’s Day? If you have husband/wife or boyfriend/girlfriend, would you like to do something special with her/him? What if your partner would put you into test to show her/him that you care about him/her, what would you do?
Jesus tested Peter by asking the same question three times. Jesus tested Peter because He would like to know his character more—to see if Peter follows Him all the way. Not half way! But 100 percent guarantee to follow Jesus. We know Peter when he tried to die at the cross for Jesus, yet He did not allow him to do so. We know Peter died upside down on the cross for Jesus’ sake.
Why did Peter decide to face the death for Jesus and His other millions followers? It was not Peter loved Jesus’ miracle working hands, but His compassion of love. If Peter decides to follow Jesus because of His miraculous power, his love for Jesus would become powerless. We do the same thing sometime. We would decide to hate our people because of color, sex, religion, or other ethical background. Or we decide to break up within marriage due to our financial crisis or miscommunication within in the household. Do you love someone because of wealth, power and fame that another person has? Or do you love someone because that person loves and cares about you and other people around you? If we love our stuffs than our people, than the love of God doesn’t affect to us.
Even though Valentine’s Day doesn’t fit to the Christianity’s vocabulary, God gave us a command to love each other as Christ loves us.
Posted by MGJC Web Ministry
at 12:01 AM EST
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