በኮቪድ-19 እና በዓለም አቀፉ የመላላኪያ አገልግሎት መዛባት ምክንያት ‹ነጻ የታተመ መጽሐፍ አገልግሎታችንን› ለጊዜው አቋርጠናል፡፡
በዚህ ሁኔታ ምክንያት በዚህ ጊዜ መጽሐፎቻችንን ለእናንተ መላክ አንችልም፡፡
ይህ ወረርሽኝ በቅርቡ እንዲያበቃና የፖስታ አገልግሎት እንዲጀምር ጸልዩ፡፡
ይህ ወረርሽኝ በቅርቡ እንዲያበቃና የፖስታ አገልግሎት እንዲጀምር ጸልዩ፡፡
Subject 20 : The LORD’S PRAYER
[20-6] We Must Not Live a Life Chasing Only after The Desires of the Flesh (Matthew 6:13)
(Matthew 6:13)
“And do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.”
Today’s Scripture passage comes from the very end of the Lord’s Prayer. The phrase “For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever” is not included in the NU-Text. By the way, I am sharing with you about the Lord’s Prayer verse by verse. If time permits, I would like to share the correct truth with you by going into more details on the remaining Word from the Lord’s Prayer.
Just to remind you about what I have shared with you so far, I told you that those who have received the remission of sin once and for all by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit do not need to receive the remission of sin on a daily basis. Our Lord has washed away even all of our personal sins through the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Dear fellow believers, do you believe this? I am sure you do.
The Bible says, “For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Corinthians 3:6). This Word tells us that we should believe what our Lord said by knowing His intentions and we should not merely interpret His Word literally. If we interpret the Word of God merely literally, we cannot help merely falling into human morality and ethics. If we interpreted the passage “Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name” only literally, we cannot but live with legalistic enthusiasm so that the name of our Father in Heaven would be deemed glorious.
However, the Bible does not tell us to do something first, but it says that our Lord first washed away all our sins for our sanctification. Our Lord did not ask us of powers, which we are unable to produce. Rather, our Lord tells us to believe in the gospel of the remission of sin, which our Lord has accomplished, and to keep our holiness through our faith.
The second prayer topic of the Lord’s Prayer is “Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven.” If we try to accomplish the holiness that can only be found in the Kingdom of Heaven and the remission of sin through our own flesh, we would suffer much and eventually become the enemies of God. Yet, those who are in the Truth should build the Kingdom of God by their faith. The Kingdom of God is achieved not by our own merits but by our faith in the gospel of the water and the Spirit and by our preaching the true gospel.
The third prayer topic of the Lord’s Prayer is “Give us this day our daily bread.” In accordance with this Word, we should believe in and ruminate over the gospel of the water and the Spirit each and every day. Moreover, we should do the work of God. This Word does not prescribe us a prayer topic to seek for things of the flesh. You might think that we should seek first the things for our flesh, after looking at the above Word. Relying on this Word, some people pray in their flesh, “Lord, give us this and that so that we don’t starve. Help me sell a lot of vegetables as I run my business today. Help us in all our businesses. Give us food everyday so that we won’t ever starve. Help my business grow. Help our parents to stay healthy. And help our children go to colleges.” Hence, there are so many people in this world who have a wrong faith. However, our Lord gave us God’s righteous gospel, blessed us through our faith in His righteousness, and gave us our daily bread by making us do the righteous work of God.
The fourth prayer topic of the Lord’s Prayer is, “And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors.” We should fall into a great fallacy in our faith interpreting the Word of God to mean we should forgive each other solely by our human perspective. Then, it will require a lot of good deeds from our flesh. Are we able to behave virtuously in our flesh everyday? I am saying that we cannot do that. If we lived according to such a teaching, we might have to keep talking by saying “It’s okay. Don’t worry about it. I am fine” over and over again without getting angry at any situation. Christians feel that they should turn their left cheeks when someone hits them on their right cheeks. However, we should not believe that we were given this prayer topic so that we would live our lives without any stance. If we lived thus, we would be spineless like worms. Yet, we would indeed live that way, if we interpreted every Word of God literally.
Those who are right in their core faith focus on believing in the righteousness of God. Among all humanity, only the righteous absolutely believe in God properly and lift the righteousness of God. Hence, we should never be deceived by what those who believe wrongly say. Some people say that our personal sins should be remitted daily through prayers of repentance as it is written: “Forgive us our debts” in the Lord’s Prayer. But, this is not the case. It is not so because our Lord blotted out all our sins by the baptism He received from John the Baptist and by His blood of the Cross. Actually, the Word of God is as follows: Based on the precondition of the remission of all our sins that has been achieved by our Lord through His baptism and the blood, we should forgive each other as it is written “As we forgive our debtors.”
Here, ‘we’ is designating the righteous that received the remission of sin from our Lord. We have to interpret the Lord’s Prayer by presupposing that it is spoken specifically to the righteous that believe in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit. In this world, only the believers in the gospel of the water and the Spirit can call God as “our Father who is in Heaven.” When the Lord asked us to pray, “Our Father in heaven,” it was given only to the children of God, who received the remission of sin by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Hence, the believers in the gospel of the water and the Spirit must glorify the name of our Father by believing in this gospel Truth. Every righteous person can return glory to God only when they live out their faith.
If those who have not been born again yet want to give a proper prayer to God according to the lessons of the Lord’s Prayer, they first have to receive the remission of sin. They have to first pray for our Lord to blot out all their sins. In order words, they have to first receive the remission of sin by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Only then can they become the children of God and call God as their Father.
“And Do Not Lead Us into Temptation”
Truly, where and by what are we tempted? This temptation refers to suffering hardships. In another word, we must first know what brings hardships to the righteous, both the saints and the servants of God, who have received the remission of sin by the water and the Spirit. In James, it says that people suffer hardships because of their own greed (James 1:14).
Every righteous person suffers from temptation because of the greed of the flesh. The righteous should not live by their greedy manner but to do the works that reveal the glory of God by seeking the righteousness of God. Still, when their own greed sneaks up, they fall into temptations and hardships. Hence, our Lord taught us to pray “And do not lead us into temptation.” He told us that we should pray before our Lord not to let us fall into hardships due to our very wicked hearts.
If we believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit and live for the spread of the true faith, we can be delivered even if we fall into hardships. Hence, the righteous by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit do not fall into these extreme hardships. From time to time, there are those among the righteous who fall into extreme hardships. What kind of people are they then? They are the ones who only seek after their own greed of the flesh. The dividing line between living spiritually and living in the flesh is whether we set in our hearts to follow the will of God or not. Everything is determined by the faith in people’s hearts. Hence, we must make up our minds to live for the righteous works of God.
We must first seek and follow God’s Kingdom and His righteousness. However, our souls are prone to fall into temptations because we don’t. Our Lord said that people do not live by the bread alone but by every Word that comes from the mouth of God. That is, we fall into hardships because, bound by our greed, we worry about how we are going to live and what we are going to eat and wear instead of thinking about spiritual matters even after we have been born again. It is all because of chasing their greed of the flesh that the saints and the servants of God are trapped in a deep mire of cynicism. Then, souls lose their powers and fall into despair. In short, they fall into hardships because their hearts are filled with the greed of flesh and have left God.
Naomi Suffered Hardship in this World While Chasing after Her Ambitions
Let’s think about hardships that Naomi faced in the Book of Ruth. At the time of Judges, the family of Naomi faced extreme famine when she was in Bethlehem. So, Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, went into the land of Moab with his two sons named Mahlon and Chilion. Although crops did not grow well in Bethlehem and people suffered of famine, they heard that rain was plentiful in Moab and that crops grew abundantly. So, they went down to Moab. Elimelech and Naomi looked at their surrounding environment, and to preserve their flesh they left the place God had decided.
However, Naomi lost everything that was left to her in the country of Moab: It is written, “Then Elimelech, Naomi’s husband, died; and she was left, and her two sons. Now they took wives of the women of Moab: the name of the one was Orpah, and the name of the other Ruth. And they dwelt there about ten years. Then both Mahlon and Chilion also died; so the woman survived her two sons and her husband” (Ruth 1:3-5).
Naomi was unable to overcome her spiritual poverty, and she suffered even worse in her flesh. Naomi could only regret. If a man of faith is unable to live by his faith in God and follow the greed of his flesh instead of his faith in order to survive in the flesh, all he faces in the end is his own ruin. If a man of faith does not follow his faith but only his flesh, he will face hardships both in body and spirit, killing his soul and impoverishing his flesh.
Let’s ruminate on the Word of God to pray, “And do not lead us into temptation.” The Lord told us to pray thus because we should not fall into extreme hardships. In order for us not to fall into such temptations, we should not end at receiving the remission of sin by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit but live as the soldiers of Christ. As a matter of fact, since all those who have received the remission of sin are citizens of Heaven, they are also the soldiers recruited by God. Just as the armies of this world conscribe their soldiers at appropriate times, all the saints are to be enlisted to serve in the army of God in due time.
Hence, when those who have received the remission of sin are called to live for the gospel as God’s soldiers, they should answer “yes” and live for the spread of His gospel. That path to faith will enable us to live in the Kingdom of God for eternity without leading our souls into temptations. Only when we live by our faith, can we experience the fulfillment of our Lord’s Word, “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you” (Matthew 6:33). Our Lord is teaching us that He won’t let us fall into temptations if we live as the soldiers of the gospel.
Even among our saints and our ministers, there are probably those enslaved by ambitions such as “How can I lift up myself? How could I with my family gain secure lives? What do I need to do to become rich? What do I need to do to take care of my daily needs and not have to worry about them anymore?” Thinking along those lines, these people only seek the comfort of their flesh. They don’t fight the spiritual war and care less about what happens with the gospel. Surely, these people will be led into temptations and face much hardship.
Truly, those who have become soldiers of Christ inside the Church by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit will be taken care of their needs from the heads down to their heels, when they participate in every work that the Church carries on. Those who live for God despite of their weaknesses will be taken care of, at the least in their daily needs. And in the future, they will increasingly receive the blessings from God like the rising sun. Our Lord will bless them from their heads to toes. However, those who are preoccupied only with the matters of the flesh will end up selling their souls as well as their faith like the setting sun.
If there are among those who have received the remission of sin people who leave the church of God and the servants of God to chase the prosperity of their flesh, they will rather suffer hardships in the flesh and live a cursed life. If someone comes up to you and says, “Get out of this Church and follow me. I will guarantee you success,” at a moment your heart is full of selfish thoughts for your flesh, and if you in turn follow him leaving God behind, then you will be cut off from God like an orphan and face hardships without any protection. If such a person leaves the church of God and builds his own worldly church in order to live well in the flesh, and if he is actually successful in gathering masses of people into his own church, then the gospel he preaches will be a corrupted one stating that believing in the blood of the Cross alone will make them sinless righteous people. If he ministers a church successfully by such means, it is rather a failure. If he fails in the flesh, he is cursed. Moreover, if he succeeds in the flesh, he is still cursed. “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men” (Matthew 5:13). Thus spoke God.
It is a truly blessed life for the born again to worship together in the church of God, have fellowship with other saints and the servants of God, be instructed, be guided, pray together, and participate in the works of building the Kingdom of God as the soldiers of Christ. This life would be a truly blessed one.
There is a hymn entitled “He let me live with clear eyes.” There was a spiritually blind person living without any joy in his life. He wished that he could really serve our Lord once in his lifetime without any sin. When he met the gospel of the water and the Spirit, he was able to see our Lord with clear eyes and serve Him in his life. One of our ministers wrote and composed this hymn. He was raised inside the Church and now spreads the gospel throughout the world.
This happiness is not necessarily limited only to our ministers. Whether it be a saint or a minister, if a person does his best spiritually on his allotted work inside the Church, he will see all the spiritual blessings with clear eyes. It is a great blessing for us to do the works allotted to us by God in the Kingdom of God, that is, inside the Church where every saint holds the same faith in the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
Moreover, God took care of our daily needs also. Although we still earn our living in the Kingdom of God, if we think more cautiously, we realize that we are able to make a living because we are inside the Kingdom of God, that we are able to enjoy everything because God has given them to us, and that we are to live in the first place because our Lord fills in our needs. Hence, he who tries to live will perish, and he who tries to die will live in prosperity. If we are determined that we will stay put in the Church whether we die or live, God will give us the same blessings that He gave to Naomi and Ruth. That is, just as God gave blessings to Ruth, who was merely a Gentile woman from Moab. Just as God had Ruth meet Boaz and earn his favor, our Lord will bless us who hang on to Him with all our faith.
However, if we worry about and preoccupy ourselves with thoughts like “How can my flesh survive? How could I work less and show off my riches and successes? How can I be respected by other people,” we will fall into hardship in a short time. At the end, those who put their minds only to living splendidly in their flesh will eventually sell their faith and die.
All our focus must be centered at and on Christ our God. And we must live our lives in accordance with the will of God spoken to us. This is for our Lord and our own good as well. Strictly speaking, we don’t live by the gospel for anyone else but for none other than our own good.
If you leave the church of God, it would be the same as leaving the Kingdom of God. If you leave the church of God, your hearts will be tainted by the world soon because you will not be supplied the Word of God. Your hearts will become wicked because you won’t be able to have fellowship, and Satan the Devil will build his house inside your hearts. Moreover, Satan the Devil will start working inside the hearts of those who have left the church of God. Satan the Devil will delight even more while he sketches his wicked plans because their hearts are not cleaned spotlessly.
Next, Satan the Devil will lead them in his wicked ways. Once Satan the Devil gains complete control over them, they will become slaves to the Devil being used to do evil deeds. No matter how hard they might have once believed in the gospel, they won’t have the power to overcome Satan the Devil once they yield themselves up to the temptation of Satan. And when they see the righteous that are in union with the church of God, spitefulness will boil over from deep inside their hearts and they will want to oppose the righteous and the church of God.
Dear fellow believers, do we need to turn into such people? Would that truly be beneficial for us? That would be the surest way to kill our selves. Hence, our Lord taught us to pray, “And do not lead us into temptation.” That is, we have to live by faith so that we don’t fall into temptations. It is written, “The just shall live by faith” (Romans 1:17). We need faith to live in union with the church of God as the soldiers of Christ despite all of our weaknesses. That is, faith in the gospel of the water and the Spirit and faith that follows the righteousness of God are essential to the born-again righteous. We have to devote our lives for the purpose of building the Kingdom of God. This orientation is the life of a Christian after he has been born again.
If we don’t live for such a purpose, our lives will be filled only with complaints and dissatisfactions. “Man, this scum claims to be a pastor. Look at him. Would a pastor wear shorts and misbehave like that? A pastor should have some dignity, but this guy has none. He may look okay when he goes up in the pulpit because he is wearing his suit, but he is worse than an ordinary Jack once he steps down from there.” That is all they see from the servants of God who are ahead of them. Hence, they complain about the Church as well as those who are spiritually ahead of them. Instead of looking at the spiritual, all they see are the things in the flesh. They falsely judge and ignore the Church and those who are ahead of them. What would happen if these complaints boil over? They are going to challenge. Such behaviors are going to lead them to their own demise.
Dear fellow believers, we are all very precious beings. Also, we are all soldiers of Christ. Soldiers do not fight alone but united with other soldiers. If a fellow soldier dies in a battle, that death hurts our hearts. We feel the empty spaces beside us left by those who died in these battles. And we are threatened by the fact that we might face similar ends. You are lying if you said that you are thinking, “Although my fellow soldier by my side has passed away, I am not going to die. I am ala right. I am invincible.” We have to realize the fact that, once the soldiers by our sides die, we would have to face more enemies on our own and the chance that we are going to lose our lives dramatically increases. Hence, our fellow soldiers are so very precious. True comradeship in war takes place when we throw ourselves into the battle for the loss of a fellow soldier.
Here goes a story. Two of the closest friends from childhood went to the same military unit. They truly had a special kind of friendship. The unit they were in engaged in an urgent battle. One of the friends was directly facing the enemy in the middle of the battlefield. At that instant, a bullet pierced through his body. The other friend could see his friend fatally wounded and breathing hard. He couldn’t leave his friend behind. No one there was willing to run into a shower of bullets to save his friend. Although everyone advised against it, he ran toward his friend to save him. When he had carried his friend over the battlefield, his friend had already died and he was seriously wounded himself.
Many people asked why he risked his life for such a fruitless endeavor knowing what might happen to him. At this, he replied, “I have gained something so valuable. The last words my friend breathed to me were ‘I knew you would come.’” That is true comradeship, companionship, and a long lasting friendship.
Spiritually, we are the soldiers of Christ. If someone is a soldier of Christ, he is a precious person who cannot be lost. All the saints are precious because we look at them not only in their appearances as well as in their hearts and faith. Hence, we respect them. We work in union with each other. We thank God for the works of which they are in charge. We respect each other, although we may each have a very different role to play. We care for each other. Why is that? That is because we know that we are able to exist because of them. Without them, we wouldn’t be here either. Without you, I would not exist. Without me, you wouldn’t be either.
Hence, Satan the Devil constantly tries to drag us away from the Kingdom of God. When he drags us away, he lures us with sweet lies. “I will guarantee everything.” He may say this or just make us think that we will gain great riches if we only follow him. Although he deceives us with those sweet lies at first, Satan the Devil will demand for the proper compensation in the end. “I will do this for you, so you should pay me back by paying such a cost.” Is it so or not? Yes, it is truly so. Satan the Devil demands of us an enormous compensation. Once we pay the compensation that Satan the Devil demands of us, we have nothing left for us. Such a case only benefits Satan the Devil always. We are never able to live well in such ways. This is the place called the world where Satan rules.
“And do not lead us into temptation.” Truly, we should never fall into temptations. We have to live by faith and give glory to God. Although we are weak, we have to comfort and be comforted by each other as well as encourage each other. When we live thus, we will live abundantly tasting the fruits of righteousness as well as the rewards of righteousness. That is what God has required of us. We should live such lives by faith. The Lord’s Prayer tells us to live by faith from its beginning to its end. It tells us to become such and such through living by faith.
The Life of the Righteous Is the Life of Faith and Prayer
Hence, we must pray. Not only should we pray but in addition we should hold on to our faith. The faith in the gospel of the water and the Spirit is the power to overcome the world. The Word from 1 John chapter 5 says, “For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? This is He who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ; not only by water, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who bears witness, because the Spirit is truth” (1 John 5:4-6). The faith in Jesus Christ who came by the water, the blood, and the Spirit overcomes the world.
Do you think that this faith is ordinary? This faith enables us to go into the Kingdom of Heaven as it opens the gates to the Kingdom of Heaven. This faith we possess is something that is not ordinary. We cannot treat the gospel lightly. Dear fellow believers, do you believe this? Yes, of course.
To me, every one of my coworkers and the saints are very precious. Although we are all distinct in the flesh, I know that we all appear the same in each other’s eyes. From our perspectives of the flesh, we are all weak and inadequate just the same. However, I know and believe that we are all very precious spiritually. I truly believe so in my heart? Why? If we do not unite in our efforts to serve the gospel, how can we ever spread the gospel throughout the world? If we do not unite to serve the gospel, how could this gospel be shared? If each and every one of us does not live for our Lord and the gospel, how can all the people in this world ever hear about the gospel and receive their new lives? Those things could never take place.
Dear fellow believers, we should never underestimate ourselves who have received the remission of sin. We should never look down on the church of God. Even if we counted down to every young Sunday school student that attends our Church, we have no more than 300 members. Still, we are spreading the gospel throughout the entire world. We are not doing this because we have some excellent power in our flesh. All we have is the gospel of the water and the Spirit that our Lord has given us.
Although we are small in number, we are able to spread the gospel throughout the whole world for we have the Holy Spirit in our hearts by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Our Lord has enlisted us as His soldiers by giving us the Word and faith. We are able to do the works of God because we have true faith. And we are so very precious because we do the works of God. God is able to do His works through us.
The term ‘warrior’ applies to those who fight well. But, whether talented or not, soldiers are soldiers all the same. When they hear the shout of order “charge,” they charge on to the fields with spears in their hands. When they hear “climb,” they climb up the ladders even if their enemies drop stones and pour hot waters on them. These are soldiers. How could anyone climb up those ladders when they see steaming water pouring down? If I were in such a battle, I would probably run away as fast as I could. It is incredible courage to climb up the ladders despite seeing rocks as big as entire houses falling down, burning oil pouring down, and fiery arrows flying towards them. Although they can see the dangers with their eyes, soldiers charge into the battlefield at the command of their leader. Because all these soldiers are willing to sacrifice, they are able to capture a city and win the war.
Although we don’t fight in this manner, we are fighting spiritual battles everyday. We have captured high-tech weapons to spread the gospel. We are not wasting time by going into isolated areas without a plan but working very effectively with the few people we have. I believe all of this is of God’s wisdom. If we had more soldiers on our side to do the work of the gospel, we might have ignored the power of God and thought that we were successful because of our talents and fortitude. However, God did not allow such a distraction to happen to us. Truly, all we have to do is watch God do His work as we live in our faith in the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
God likes to work through His Church. The church of God is not another place but a place where those who have received the remission of sin by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit gather to spread this God given gospel throughout the entire world. God works through us when we believe in the Word of God and unite with each other to work as the soldiers of God.
Bethlehem means ‘the house of bread.’ The house that gives the bread of life is none other than the church of God. I don’t understand what other bread people go searching for out in the world. If we are seduced by Satan the Devil or by any other bread than God’s bread of life, we won’t be able to partake in the glory of God but rather lose our own lives. I urge you to believe. Although you might find the lure of the Devil tastes sweet at the current moment, he will torture you by demanding a lot more in return. Hence, we are told not to fall into such temptations that we are unable to return to our home, the Church.
If the Righteous Serve the Gospel alongside God’s Church, That Is the Most Proper Life
I said to you that if you stay inside Bethlehem, which is the house of bread, that you shall have many provisions. If you are inside the house of bread, you won’t starve even if famine hits you. The rich will come to us with their flours and ask us to bake for them. As compensation for baking for them, the bakery takes a certain portion of the flour. Hence, even in the old days when everyone was poor, my friends who were sons and daughters of bakeries never missed a meal and ate the best of breads. Not only did they eat white breads but also wheat breads. At that time I was a skinny boy because I couldn’t even get a bowl of corn flour to eat.
Of course, my friend’s family that ran the bakery was not much richer than mine. Still, they were able to eat the best of the breads at each meal because they baked breads out of the flours they took to test from what each customer brought. In the same way, they baked wheat breads to eat. Flours and other ingredients gained by such means turned into delicious breads of various kinds. You can add a bit of melting butter on the top. Of course, it wasn’t just any butter but the sweetest. White breads and wheat breads would come out of the oven, and once you added butter to the top of them, they were indescribably delicious. My family just lived a few doors down from the bakery. I could smell the sweet smell from my home. You wouldn’t know how much I wanted to eat those breads. All we could do was to salivate at the smell.
I will describe what my family looked like back then. My father would wave at me with his long cigarette pipe to come to him and tap his empty pipe a few times. That meant that I should fill his pipe with some tobacco. I was young but I knew that he wanted to fill his pipe with some tobacco. Once I finished, he would tap his cigarette pipe a few more times. This time it meant that I should light his pipe. I would light his pipe. When I got a little older, probably around 6 years old, I had to suck the pipe till the tobacco in it caught fire. My father was an old fashioned gentleman who wouldn’t dare go out to beg for some bread, even if that meant that his family would starve.
I couldn’t afford to worry about good manners as my father did. Half of the time, my family would miss a meal without anything to eat. Hence, I couldn’t miss an opportunity to eat because of my pride. It was the wish of my lifetime till I was in fourth grade to be able to eat an entire loaf of bread by myself. I never ate as much bread as I wanted when I was young. Even when my family prepared breads for ancestor worship, it would be hollow like a balloon. Two bites and an entire loaf of bread were gone. My heart crumbled down when I stared into the hollow inside of the bread. In the past, you couldn’t imagine what kind of a miser I was when it came to food because of this. These days, we have so much to eat that we are worried over dieting. Yet, in the past, we lamented over the food disappearing into our stomachs because we always wanted to eat more. We went through such times.
Nowadays, since I have met our Lord, I don’t worry about such things and live rather well. Before I met our Lord, my family was destitute. Still, these days, we live rather an abundant life. This is all due to the grace of God. Of course, I haven’t stacked up my riches like Bill Gates, but I never go without eating at a meal and have enough to serve the gospel. So am I rich or what? I do not wish to stack up riches under my name and do not live for such ends. I am not an exception but rather everyone who has been born again by the water and the Spirit lives in the same way. We the servants of God never work to gain riches for ourselves. We only earn necessary materials to serve the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
Today, it might be here and tomorrow there, but wherever I go to spread the gospel is home to me. Hence, I don’t need a big house. If we the saints who have been born again have enough space to worship, that place is our Church. Hence, I do not envy tall churches built with red bricks. Don’t you the saints feel the same way? Of course, you do.
“And do not lead us into temptation.” If we leave the church of God and leave the Kingdom of God, we cannot help but fall into temptations. In another word, we fall into temptations because we follow after the greed of our flesh. The word temptation means ‘to suffer hardship.’ How great is it that we serve the gospel together united in the Kingdom of God, fight together, joke around together, and play soccer together? Who in the world could give birth to 280 children? However, since we are in God, we have God as our parent of 280 children and form a family with 280 brothers and sisters.
As the old sayings go, “Wind never ceases on a full branched tree,” there can be many affairs in the family of lots of children. However, we are very happy that we have a family that purely serves our God the Father united with each other in our heart. Where on earth could you find another family with as much love as us? There is no one happier than us. We are truly happy people.
Dear fellow believers, if we the ministers did not serve the gospel but rather tried to make money only for ourselves out in the world, would we have as much to spare? Would we be able to get the rest in both our bodies and our hearts at such a Bible Camp and allow our bodies and hearts to become healthy? If we worked really hard out in the world, would our hearts be filled and our lives satisfied? We could never do this out in the world.
Yet, God has allowed us to have richly blessed lives. If God has given us such blessed lives, why are some of us volunteering for hardships by falling into temptations? Those who enjoy everything that God gives and live happily are truly wise and happy. If we live inside He who gives us strength and inside the blessings from God by our faith, we can be satisfied. God fills our needs in His time, if we live and pray for the establishment of the Kingdom of God, pray to fill our necessities of life, and face the challenge in everything through our faith and stand by our church. Why would you volunteer for hardships, when God provides us with the early and late rains? We never have to live in such hardships.
Even if you have to face hardships in your lives, I wish you to face them for our Lord. And let us live happily and worthily in Christ and in the Kingdom of God through our faith. God has given us His grace so that we may live such lives. Our Lord has delivered us by coming in to this world, receiving His baptism, dying on the Cross, and being resurrected from the dead. He has recruited us to be His soldiers. He has placed us in the Kingdom of God and allowed us to live inside the church of God. God Himself blessed our lives and lets us establish the worthy work here on earth. And He has us finish all our lives inside the church of God, while we live in this world.
Let us believe that this is the will of God. I hope that you will come to believe that it is our God given destiny to live doing the righteous work inside the Church and the Kingdom of God while we also build the Kingdom of God. Do you comprehend? Of course, you do. I exhort every citizen of God born again by the water and the Spirit to have faith and live accordingly so that they won’t fall into temptations.
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