liar, lunatic, or Lord

A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic - on the level of a man who says he is a poached egg - or else He would be the devil of hell. You must make your choice. Either this manw as, and is, the Son of God: Or else He is a madman...or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool; you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us.

-C.S. Lewis

gfa - first missionary support away!

Today, we collected for EM's very first "$1-a-day-for-30-days" Gospel for Asia native missionary support donation, and I thank and praise God we were able to begin our monthly support of SIX Native Missionaries at $30 per missionary per month!

God is good and faithful!

Let's continue to save $1 day for the next 30 days as we pray for these six missionaries who serve God day and night bringing message of hope of Jesus Christ to many remote villages where the name of Jesus has never even once been heard!

It is a wonderful privilege to join in with these brothers and sisters in Christ in obeying Jesus' Great Commission!

Praise God!

kings & prophets I: Heart of Saul

We started a series on Kings of the Old Testaments beginning with King Saul.

The people of Israel, after centuries of backsliding, of each doing what was right in his own eyes, demand the last judge and prophet Samuel to give them a king like all other nations that surrounded them.

God sees this demand as Israel's rejection of God as their King. It wasn't that God didn't want to give them a king; years before, God already had planned to give them a king as we can see God warning ahead through His laws about kingship in Deut 17:16-17. What displeased God were the reasons for their want of a king:

But the people refused to listen to Samuel. "No!" they said. "We want a king over us. Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles."

The Israelites blatantly refused to acknowledge God who was their King, their leader over their armies to fight the battles.

It depicts a major transition from Theocracy (God-rule) to Monarchy (king-rule).

So God gives them what they want:

1 Sam 10:1-9 records the anointing of Saul as the first king of Israel which is confirmed by three evidences of God's providential work in Saul's life.

The man Saul was an impressive young man, tall and likeable, unassuming and generous.

God gives Saul three evidences to show His hand on Saul's anointing:

1. Instruction: regarding the lost donkeys which caused Saul to seek out Samuel;
2. Provision: Saul would be met by three going to worship God with provision which they would share with Saul; and
3. Inspiration: Saul would be met by a procession of prophets, at which time the Holy Spirit would cause Saul to prophesy along with them.

Samuel tells Saul in 1 Sam 10:6 that Saul "will be changed into a different person" once the three signs are fulfilled, but in v.9, it states, "as Saul turned to leave Samuel, God changed Saul's heart..."

Saul's change of heart however never fully took root as we can see from his tragic downfall.

No amount of the supernatural or miraculous we experience will change our hearts. Having a heart after God, a pure and tranformed heart, does not come into being over night.

Saul disobeys God in increasingly grave situations until it finally culminates into God's rejection of him as king of Israel.

The metamorphosis of a believer's a heart into one after God's own heart - a heart moldable and touchable by God - does not consist in the degree or frequency or intensity of "spiritual" experiences, but in living out the truth of God in our lives in the mundane, the routine, the daily.

Is your spiritual walk with Christ built upon one hyped up experience after another, or is it founded upon His Word, worked out in your life in the midst of the ordinary by the indwelling Spirit?

--from Nakwon EM Oct. 29th 11:00am Sunday Worship Service

the seen & the unseen

The City of Jericho, one of the most well-fortified cities during that time, was the first city the Israelites conquered in their campaign to possess the promised land of Canaan. Accordingly, God commanded that the spoils of conquest be devoted to God (Joshua 6:17-19) unlike all other conquests that would follow.

But one man's disobedience (7:1) caused humiliating defeat before their next city of conquest - Ai. The three thousand armed Israelites were routed before the seemingly insignificant army of the peopel of Ai and even resulted in 36 blind-siding fatalities of war.

God reproaches the despairing leader Joshua and tells them why God was not with them in their next battle at Ai in Joshua 7:10-12:

The LORD said to Joshua, "Stand up! What are you doing down on your face? Israel has sinned; they have violated my covenant, which I commanded them to keep. They have taken some of the devoted things; they have stolen, they have lied, they have put them with their own possessions. That is why the Israelites cannot stand against their enemies; they turn their backs and run because they have been made liable to destruction. I will not be with you anymore unless you destroy whatever among you is devoted to destruction.

Finally, the next morning, through lot, Achan of the tribe of Judah is singled out as the culprit, and he and his family along with all his possession in destroyed.

REASON FOR SIN:

Achan's sin began with what he "saw":

Achan replied, "It is true! I have sinned against the LORD, the God of Israel. This is what I have done: When I saw in the plunder a beautiful robe from Babylonia, two hundred shekels of silver and a wedge of gold weighing fifty shekels, I coveted them and took them. They are hidden in the ground inside my tent, with the silver underneath." (7:20-21)

Someone said the eyes are the portals through which Satan works; whereas the ears are the portals through which God works.

The woman fell prey to Satan's temptations because she "saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye..." (Gen 3:6) King David "saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful..." (2 Sam 11:2)

Many of our sins begin with what we see with our eyes. Apostle John warns of the "lust of his eyes" as one of three things that mark the fallen world or sin nature in man.

The word "saw" in Achan's confession before Joshua and the Israelites is a significant word that goes beyond mere physical visual act: the root meaning denotes weighing of something's worth, to consider carefully, to observe with growing attention - in other words, worship. Achan "worshiped" what he saw, hence taking it was only a matter of time, all too easy when his greed and desire weighed heavily against God's command.

RESULT OF SIN:

Achan not only brought destruction on himself, but on all his family, who presumably from the narrative, were partakers of his sin since he hid the stolen plunder in his tent, a housing shared with all his family members. And even more far-reaching repercussion of his hidden sin was that the people of Israel were not liable to fear and dread from their surrounding enemies in the promised land who would no doubt know of their humiliating defeat. His one sin, seemigly harmless to any other soul affected the entire community.

God told Joshua that the Israelites could not stand against the enemy.

Sin does that.

Especially hidden, "un-dealt with" sins.

RELEASE FROM SIN:

God gave us a way to overcome the temptations of this world which relentlessly bombards us with audio-visual messages of pleasure and success and means to satisfy our every fleshly need and desire: it is so simple, we often miss it.

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. 2Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. (Colossians 3:1-2)

The key to overcoming such temptation, to not falling prey to deceiving pleasures of this fallen world with all its devices to draw us further away from God, and to remaining faithful to our calling in Christ is in our determination and obedience to His Word - a disciplined mind that fixes its faith-eyes heavenward, not fooled with lies espoused by everything around us telling us this world is all there is and all there will be.

None of us were made for this world, to live apart from God. We were made to spend eternity with our Creator and Father in heaven where there are no tears, no sin, no pains, no heartaches, no disappointments, no weariness, no rejection, no loneliness, no frustrations, and no evil.

Let's fix our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith!

--from Nakwon EM October 22nd 11:00am Sunday Worship Service

the first resurrection

Jesus is coming back soon.

Sooner than we think.

The events recorded in Matt 24:4-14 leading up to what is called "Rapture" (being taken up into heaven in a transformed body; 1 Thess 4:16-17 & 1 Cor 15:50-55) are unfolding before our very own eyes today in the world around us as we witness wars, "rumors of wars," natural disasters, brutal ethnic cleansing wars, etc. Both Apostle Paul (2 Tim 3:1-7)and Peter (2 Pe 3:3-7) warned that in the Last Days, hearts will grow colder and farther away from God and things of God.

Following the Rapture, we will all stand before the Judgment Seat of Christ to receive according to what we had done.

The moment following the Rapture marks the beginning of seven-year Tribulation period, during which those who were left behind will have to endure seven years of Antichrist's reign.

At the end of seven years, Christ returns ("Second Coming") to earth to reign with his saints (both raptured & tribulation saints) for 1,000 years, known as the "Millennium" during which Satan is bound in chains in the Abyss to be let loose at the end of 1,000 years for the Final Battle of Gog & Magog.

Apostle John tells us that those who reigned with Christ during the Millennium were all partakers of the "First Resurrection." They were blessed because "second death" had no power over them.

Once devil and his angels are thrown into the lake of fire, the White Throne Judgment will take place, where those who had not stood before the Judgment Seat of Christ will now stand before God. Those whose names were not written on the Lamb's Book of Life were cast into the "Lake of Fire," which is called the Second Death, where the lost souls, those who never made Christ Lord of their lives and heart, along with the devil and his fallen angels would suffer for all eternity.

Then, finally, we will be with our Lord and Savior and dwell in perfect Heaven (a new heaven and a new earth) forever, never again knowing heartache, pain, sadness, loneliness, discontent, disillusionment...

You get the idea.

So the question remains:

Are you ready?

Will you have a part in the First Resurrection? Are you sure second death will have no power over you?

Is your life completely devoted to God, your will and your desires aligned with His perfect will and desire?

Jesus is coming back soon.

For He says, "In the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you." I tell you, now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation. (2 Cor. 6:2, emphasis added)

Not tomorrow, not this coming Sunday, not when your life is settled and after you've attained to fullness of your dreams and desires, but NOW is the time of salvation.

What do you live for?

What is your greatest hope and purpose in life?

If your asnwer is not a certain and confident "Christ, and Christ alone," you will be surprised when the Day comes.

--from Nakwon EM October 15th 10:00am Sunday Worship Service