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 Sermon > Theme Words of Life |
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Title |
2018 Prayer Title(4) - The Spiritual Love |
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Speaker |
Rev. Jaerock Lee |
Bible |
1 Corinthians 13:13 |
Date |
2018-01-01 |
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Scripture
1 Corinthians 13:13
But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
Let us give all thanks and glory to our Father God who has led us until this 2017 ? 2018 New Year's Service. I once again offer up thanksgiving to Father God who has kept and protected this church with His blazing eyes and poured down His unfailing love upon us.
In the name of the Lord I welcome all of you here attending this blessed service. I extend my gratitude to the pastors and all brothers and sisters from all over the nation and all over the world, and to everyone attending this service via GCN and the Internet. I give thanks to all of you who have served in all aspects, who have prayed for the church with fasting and overnight prayers and with love for the church.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
Very soon we will leave 2017 behind and welcome the New Year 2018. Looking back on this year 2017, we can find many unforgettable moments. This year was the seventh year of my filling of the Measure of Justice for the kingdom of God and the souls, and thus such great blessings have come upon this church. Manmin has enjoyed festivity-like days this year in midst of the Descent of God, undeniable revelation of the spiritual realm, and unceasing works of the power of re-creation.
Accordingly, I have even greater expectations for 2018 that will come soon. It is because Father God has given Manmin more shining and valuable blessings and glory year after year. What was your heart like when you came to this service tonight? This being the case, with what kind of heart have you come to this service with tonight? Did you think, "Father God gave us such abundant blessings this year, and what kind of gifts will He give us in the New Year 2018?" Or did you think, "This year was filled with so many regrets and misgivings" and have a sense of frustration? Even if you feel a little frustrated, I encourage you to make a new resolution and start New Year 2018 with hope.
You have come to God and you are worshiping God on the first day of New Year. It means you have come prepared to receive blessing. I ask you to commit this New Year 2018 to Father God in this service. Father God joyfully accepts His children who believe and completely rely on Him. When they ask, seek, and knock, He wants to answer them and give them even more.
He said in the year 2018 the greater glory of God would be revealed and the glory given to this church would be greater by utilizing the spaces. You have heard it through three messages in the New Year Church Prayer Titles: first, 'Utilizing the Spaces: Power of re-creation', second, 'Sincere Heart and Full Assurance of Faith', and third, 'True Sanctuary.' The fourth church prayer title that is given to this church in 2018 is 'Spiritual Love.'
Now I will explain to you what kinds of fruits 'Spiritual Love' will bear for this church and each of you. If you hold fast to this message and pray with it for a year, you will understand the heart and will of Father God more clearly, and be filled with grace and truth. Through this message, I pray in the name of the Lord you may all be empowered with His power.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
Now let us repeat loudly today's Scripture 1 Corinthians 13:13. "But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love."
Faith is the treasure of treasures, and it is impossible to please God without faith. Only by faith can we gain salvation and eternal life, and enter the Heavenly Kingdom. Hope is so precious. When we have hope, we can advance toward the better kingdom of heaven and do our best to sanctify ourselves. There is no doubt that Faith and hope are necessary for us to enter heaven.
Why does God say, "...faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love"? It is because when we accomplish love we can have the glory to be called as God's true children. It is fitting that we can gain salvation and enter heaven by faith and advance toward a better kingdom of heaven with hope. But we cannot enter New Jerusalem with only faith and hope. We can possess heaven with faith, but we cannot enter New Jerusalem, the best dwelling place of heaven, without love.
New Jerusalem is the embodiment of love. The twelve kinds of spiritual hearts symbolized by the twelve foundations stones of New Jerusalem are synthesized into perfect love. The ultimate purpose of God's cultivation of mankind is to eternally share this love with His true children. The only thing that lasts forever even as we enter heaven is love. There we will no longer need faith and hope any longer.
It is because the words we have learned on this earth will be witnessed with our eyes and all that we believed will be fully realized. And it is because our heavenly mansion and prizes will have been rewarded and there is nothing to be hoped for. But the thing that we can possess forever in heaven and will abide with us eternally is love. That's why Father God is telling us to accomplish this love above all else.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
Ten years ago, Father God once gave us this love as a special gift. It happened in 2007 when I finished my fourth mountain prayer session during my spiritual training. Father God gave me a word of blessing as the following. He said, "Harbor one thing in your heart, and announce it from the altar. Then, I will let all your members receive blessings and glorify God with what they see with their own eyes and what they personally touch."
I was wondering what to harbor, and whether it was to be the growth of their faith, their material blessing, or the healing of a certain disease. Meantime something was strongly urged in my heart. It was 'love.' It is because love is much more precious than faith, and is the path to greater blessing than financial blessing and good health.
When people disputed in the church of Corinth, saying, "Who is greater?" the Apostle Paul said love is a still more excellent way than gifts or duties. In 1 Corinthians 12:31, he said, "But earnestly desire the greater gifts. And I show you a still more excellent way." The greatest gift of the gifts is love. It is spiritual love that is true love without changing one's mind.
When we accomplish this spiritual love we can receive limitless answers from God. It is just as written in Proverbs 8:17, "I love those who love me; and those who diligently seek me will find me." When we truly love God, He will also repay us with such great and amazing love that we can only return with love. He will let our souls prosper, and then everything will go well with us and we enjoy good health.
Dear brothers and sister sin Christ,
Father God does what He has spoken without fail.
In Numbers 23:19, God says, "God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent; Has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?" Accordingly, such a faithful God our Father let the seed of love He sowed 10 years ago bear beautiful fruits in this church.
First of all, the deeper level of love of Father God and the Lord has been displayed in this church. He has told us what the completion of perfect love in which love and justice is properly harmonized is, what we have to do to fill the deficiencies and shortage of love, and what the seven levels of love as the essence of the heart of Father God is.
It is comparable to the measure of justice I've filled for the last 7 years. It was the providence of God that let the souls see the sacrifice of the shepherd with their eyes and actually experience the love of Father God. Through the Incident of Repentance in 2010; the Sword of Judgment and the Suspension Period of 2013; and Propitiation of 2017, many have come to understand in their hearts that God never gives up on them and will give chances to them until the end. Thus, the God of love has been newly engraved into your heart over the idea of the God of justice.
The greater works of power manifested in this church are the fruits of love as well. It is because such powerful works have such love of Father God as eagerly desires to let the dying souls alive in this rebellious generation. The revelation of the spiritual realm is to let the souls believe in the Lord and gain salvation and also let them hope for heaven, the true world, not for the earthly life that is vanity.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
Manmin is a church that is filled with love and bearing abundant fruits. Such fruits of love are being borne among the sheep of Manmin. Of course, each of you bears different fruits. Some of you look like a tree whose fruits began forming at the place where flowers fell away, some others, like a tree whose fruits are somewhat taking shape, and still others, are like fruits that are ripen and so fragrant. The shape and size of the fruits are different for each of you as well. Now Father God said spiritual love would come upon us more completely in New Year 2018.
What kind of efforts then do we have to make to bear perfect fruits of spiritual love?
First of all, we have to understand what spiritual love is.
For this you have to store the Word of God at least in your head as knowledge. I have already delivered the messages on spiritual love a few times. The representative message is the 'Love Chapter' that deals with the fundamentals of love.
1 Corinthians 13: 1 says, "If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal." Here you have to understand what the 'tongues of men' refer to and why your words like those of angels become a noisy gong and a clanging cymbal if you do not have love. And the following verse says, "Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant," and you have to understand detail meanings of these attributes of love. You should not understand them roughly or remember them dimly, but have the exact idea of the Word.
You should not feel satisfied with reading or hearing it once more, but let the Word abide with you always in your life. You have to always examine yourselves with the Word when you lie down and when you rise up. Even those who have already entered into spirit have to review the past leadership conferences' teachings once again to fill their deficiencies and shortages. Only then will Father God help you fully examine your heart, thoughts, words, and deeds in all you do through the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit will help you grasp whether it is spiritual love or fleshly love, and why it is, and what true love is in seeking the other's good. In 2018, I wish for your life to be overflowing with the Word of spiritual love wherever you are. By doing so, God will drive you into the levels of spirit and whole spirit more quickly.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
To bear perfect fruits of spiritual love, secondly, you have to practice the teachings of love.
John 13:34, Jesus said, "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another." And 1 John 3:18 says, "Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth." As said, we should not stop at the knowledge of the love of God alone. We have to put this love into practice toward the souls around us.
The Teachings of Love Chapter present to us detailed guidelines of the deeds of love. You have to joyfully and thankfully give relief to those who are poor financially, even up to the point of sacrificing yourselves and even without others' knowing about it. And you have to serve the kingdom of God sacrificially and faithfully in your volunteering works without a desire to be revealed and commended by others. You have to endure patiently, intercede in prayer, and visit those whose faith is weak until their faith grows and they change. When someone bothers you, you should not have hatred or frustration against him but Pray for him with a merciful heart.
You have to cover others' transgressions and embrace them warmly with a gentle and meek heart like fluffy cotton. You have to rejoice and be happy at others' success as if it were yours. Whether in matters big or small, you have to give the first choice to the other and seek other's benefits before your own. You have to abstain from getting angry at an irritable situation and should not pass judgment and condemnation on others in evil thought.
And lastly, you have to rely on the love of Father God, the Lord, and the shepherd who will change you into spirit and whole spirit, and to bear, believe, hope, and endure all things in any kind of trials.
Philippians 4:9 says, "The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you." To the extent that you practice the teachings you have learned, you can possess spiritual love that delights God more and more. If you have this spiritual love, you will be able to find the favor of God and receive blessing on this earth, and enter New Jerusalem in the future. I pray in the name of the Lord that you may all practice love more enthusiastically and accomplish spiritual love in the New Year 2018.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
Please envision the things of Manmin that will have accomplished completely by spiritual love. The Sanctuary will be filled with the aroma of the members' love. Even the new believers who come to this church will be touched by the members' warm and gentle love.
What will happen to pastors and church workers? They will turn out to be ordained pastors, pastors, district leaders, sub-district leaders, cell leaders, group leaders, and other leaders who shed many tears for the souls with fervent love for them and pray for them day and night like the Apostle Paul did. In addition, they will go forth to every corner of the world with the handkerchief of power and spread the Lord's love.
There will be many of you who abound with such good works and charitable deeds that they will receive great blessings like Cornelius and Tabitha in both spirit and flesh. There will be many who will rejoice with truth without envy and jealousy like Mary Magdalene.
Such people will be happier when others gain favor from God and receive blessings. The other's joy will be their joy, so their faces will be overflowing with happy laughter. In this way, how bright and shining the Sanctuary will be! Students will also accomplish gentleness, virtuous generosity, and love so much like Joseph that they will become the light and salt of the world and boast in God fully.
In this New Year 2018, may all of you be filled with spiritual love and become God's true children so that you will share true love with Father God and the Lord forever in the most beautiful city of heaven, New Jerusalem, I pray in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ!
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, Happy New Year!!! |
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