[Introduction]
I give all thanks and glory to God for His blessing this devotional service for pastors. I also give thanks to all pastors who have coordinated and prepared for this service with all sincerity and heart.
Dear brothers and sisters, God the Father named this year "The year of Glory," and alln brothers and sisters of the church received the New Year with greater expectation and hope than before.
I believe that this year we will give greater glory to God the Father with more amazing works that have never been seen.
This year we started with such great expectation of works glorifying God, and besides it is of great importance what kind of religious life each of you will live in the church.
Suppose a father and his children. If the children are in discord with each other and there is no peace at home, the father will surely feel painful in his heart however great and important jobs he has done outdoors and however great popularity he has gained.
The children themselves feel ashamed at calling themselves children of such great person.
On the contrary, if elder brothers and sisters take care of their younger with parental heart and the younger serve and obey their elders while their father does great job and is gaining good fame outdoors, they will have peace with each other and the father take charge of his duty with better power feeling easy.
In addition, those peace-making children will be able to enjoy the glory and fame of the father.
With the kind of significance, Father God gives the message titled with "Peace" to all pastors who offer this year's first devotional service.
May ministers of the Lord live exemplary lives and all brothers and sisters follow those examples through this service so that everybody can participate in the parade of greater glory in 2005, in the name of the Lord I pray!
[Main]
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, members who are attending the service through the satellite all over the country, members of branch churches, local sanctuaries, Light and Salt mission, Restaurant Mission, members who are attending the service on the Internet all over the world,
The Webster dictionary refers to the word "peace" as 'a state of tranquility or quiet' or 'harmony in personal relations.'
Peace spiritually means to be generous and beautiful enough to embrace and love everybody.
Until now I have very often emphasized the importance of peace. So, it is required that you pastors of God must have accomplished spiritual peace in your heart. You should have peace with anybody under any circumstances.
Why does then God give you the message "Peace" again?
That's because God wants the whole body if all ministers of God to have peace withy each other from the top to the bottom and from the bottom to the top. He truly wants each of you to have no slight hostility or emotional disputes against each other at all.
I ask you to surely remember that Father God wants everybody of you to love and comfort each other and serve others humbling oneself thoroughly so that everybody can enjoy peace from the top to the bottom and from the bottom to the top.
Therefore, I hope all of you become pastors of the Lord deemed acceptable to God the Father so that He lead you willingly as He wishes in 2005.
Dear pastors of God, what shall you do to have perfect peace in heart?
Above all else, you must be careful in speaking with the tongue. Sometimes we find a big fire results from a very small of cause, but it brings a great amount of loss and death of human beings. Sometimes by such a fire a great number of plants and trees that had prevailed a vast land are burned up to ashes.
It is very likely that a man's careless words hinder and break the peace between people.
The words you speak out feeling unfair treatment and the complaints you make to others when their opinions are not agreeable with yours may have evil emotion and it causes Satan to work among you. There is a great difference between when you have complaints and discord in your heart and when you speak them out or show them with deeds.
The difference is likened to that between having a bottle of black ink in your pocket and opening its lid and pouring it around. When you open the lid of ink bottle and sprinkle it over, it will stain everybody around you including you.
It is similar with complaints or uneasy words coming feeling unfair treatment. Once you speak out those complaining or uneasy words, they will bother hearers around you including yourself.
A good-hearted speaker will regret immediately and good-charactered hearers feel painful in their hearts regretting they had not mined the speaker's situation.
But just as it is of no use to cry over spilt milk, we cannot take back the words we had already spoken out however much we may regret.
On the one hand, if a speaker and hearers check oneself and mind the party with good heart, peace will maintain. Something wrong happens when it is not spoken or heard with good heart.
On the other hand, when a speaker complains because his opinion is different from that of leaders, some hearers agree with his complaints and try to join.
Once one person starts to join it, two or three will join soon. And it will be led to the synagogue of Satan. The synagogue of Satan brings discord and quarrels through a small thing between members and hinders us from enlarging the kingdom of God and accomplishing the works of God.
Therefore, we must not let in the synagogue of Satan at all. You must understand you are trapped by the synagogue without noticing it.
Suppose you joined gossiping by mistake after you heard someone saying untruth and gossip about others. You may say you did not do that with evil mind. But if you have not accomplished the whole spirit, you still have evil and wickedness within you and the evil is revealed when it is tricked.
I ask you to be careful about your words all the time. You should be always alert so that you can speak something good and see and hear such good things.
It says in Ephesians 4:29, "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen."
You should not become a peace-breaker but peacemaker among many people. You must make peaceable those who are in discord.
Dear pastors of God,
You must serve each other to have perfect peace in heart.
Many people do not have peace between themselves for two reasons. The first of the two is that they seek for their own benefits rather than others'. The second of the two is that they do not understand others' opinions or embrace them but assert their own opinions to the end.
If you try to serve each other, peace cannot disappear among you. To serve someone means not only to be humble but also to sacrifice oneself for others' benefits and to meet what they need.
It can be likened when a mother pays all sacrifices for caring for her babies or when salt is melted to nothing for perfect taste. Service is accomplished when we count ourselves nothing to fulfill the love of Christ.
He who serves others is always considerate of others prior to himself, and seek for their benefits ahead of his in everything. He himself carries the yoke of servants always thinking, "What shall I do to help this and that persons?"
God the Father wants everybody of you to have peace through this kind of service.
In particular, God wants to emphasize that you should serve each other.
Matthew 23:11 tells us, "The greatest among you will be your servant." So, leaders among you should show examples of service.
But junior pastors should not desire to be served misunderstanding this verse. Still less, junior pastors should not require this and that of leading pastors. It is natural for juniors or young men to serve seniors or old men. But it is foolish for juniors to expect to be served by elders as natural misunderstanding the word of God.
God the Father wants you to serve each other from the bottom of heart. It is important to serve others according to the ways of men, but the most important to encourage and urge each other to become pastors loved by God and acceptable to His will.
Leaders of all pastors must present the will of God the Father clearly and live exemplary lives so that all pastors join the spiritual flow throughout the year 2005.
Some of you should lead others and juniors support the leading pastors so that all pastors can enter the level of spirit and whole spirit.
The service is revealed when you try to become one with each other and run toward spirit and whole spirit with the trust and obedience to the will of God in accordance with the main flow of spirit.
I you wish to serve others truly, you should make the most fundamentals of you nothing. Only when you have made your self, your belongings, your desires, your family, your own righteousness, your favorites and your stubbornness nothing, can you understand and serve others in any circumstances.
If you may serve because you have learned truth and are to serve others, it is not a true service flowing from heart. That's why some of you feel uncomfortable at something and bear a corrupt fruit some time.
You should not think, "I must serve because truth commands" or "I must endure though I feel offended." You must accomplish the heart of service and show the deeds of service from the heart.
If Jesus' service had not been true, He could not have perfectly carried the rugged cross. Throughout His public ministry He did only good things, healed sick people and performed signs and wonders. And finally He let Himself be crucified for all men. However, wicked people hurled insults at Him.
They said in Matthew 27:42, "He saved others," they said, "but he can't save himself! He's the King of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him."
If Jesus just wished at that time, He could have punished them and proclaimed He is really the on of God.
Jesus had not desire to show off Himself at all. He only desired to save souls to the pint of sacrificing His life and everything he had and willingly received being crucified in true service.
I hope this kind true service will come upon you, all pastors and you accomplish perfect peace among you by serving each other.
Dear all pastors of God, You should embrace everything with love to have perfect peace.
To embrace everything with love, you must have such perfect love as Jesus showed until He was hung on a cross sacrificing whatever He had to save sinners.
In the same way you must have the love enough to sacrifice your own life like Jesus.
With the kind of love, you must be able to sacrifice your life for God the Father, for His righteousness and kingdom and brothers and sisters in Christ.
This kind spiritual love is not selfish and does not want any return after sacrificing everything one has. This love rejoices giving without desiring being given in return.
Moses and the apostle Paul asked God to forgive and save others even though their own names be blotted out from the Book of Life.
When Stephen was being stoned to death, he prayed for them to God that He may not let them charged with that sin.
They with such an earnest love petitioned to God for the people abandoned by God.
How much more earnest and great love should you give each other because you are called for the kingdom of God?
You are companions of faith who should share all life at spiritual war waged to save souls.
In a worldly military service, soldiers have love between themselves. If a soldier falls into danger, another soldier runs a risk of his own life to rescue the trapped soldier.
Thinking about that sacrificial and rare love, how much more eagerly you should love each other because you are all brothers and sisters through the blood of Jesus and called as good soldiers of Jesus Christ?
You may have run forward without taking care of each other only for the purpose of being approved and anointed by God and struggling against sins to cast away them to the pint of shedding the blood. But now please consider and take care of each other with love.
If you truly love each other, you will try to understand each other's life environments and help each other. With that love, you should necessarily understand what kind of life other pastors around you live and what kind of difficulties they suffer from and love them.
Philippians 2:4 says, "Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others."
James 2:15-16, "Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. [16] If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?"
Therefore, I hope after searching the conditions of each other, you will supply each other not only with words and tongue but also with deeds in truth.
On the one hand, it is commonly possible for us to share things with others when enough. On the other hand, if you are willing to share your belongings with others who are poorer with joy even though you are also not rich, how much pleased God will be!
Acts 4:32 says, "All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had."
I hope you will have the love enough to find and check who has difficulties, how he is doing, and what you should do to help him. If ministers of God first look after each other with the kind of love and live exemplary lives, church members will follow your ways with touching hearts.
If you serve each other with truth and deeds, what can interrupt the peace you enjoy? Our enemy Satan and the devil cannot work on you when you are all in unity with love and service.
In addition, because your life and ministry is filled with warmth and love, so many souls will run up to you and be put in your arms. As a result, you will experience church revival in each mission.
If you want to embrace everybody and everything with love, I advise you to patiently wait and look at others with unchanging trust.
What do you think it means?
We usually expose their own fleshly and evil attributes during trial times given for them to enter the level of sprit. Some find and throw away those things by themselves, but some others may cause troubles and pains to those around them.
When those weak people bother you and make you feel painful, you should endure them in love and wait their change patiently with unchanging trust. You should not judge or blame them but consider them thinking, "He is in trial so that he will reach the level of sprit. He will be changed and become a man of spirit." True love does not feel uneasy at those people and waits for them to become spiritual persons.
So, it is said in 1 Corinthians 13:7, "It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." I hope you embrace everything and everybody without scorning those who do not keep abreast of other in spiritual flow as fleshly or being jealous of spiritually leading people with envious heart. In a word, you should have a good relationship of serving and leading each other.
[Conclusion]
Dear brothers and sisters, today's verse 18 says, "Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness."
We were sinners before, but through the faith in Jesus Christ who became an atoning sacrifice, we were reconciled to God and gained the right to become children of God.
In the great grace of Christ, we can reap the fruit of righteousness when we sow in peace. The fruit of righteousness means that peacemakers will be made righteous in the sight of God.
Today I have explained in three ways how to sow in peace. Firstly, we should be careful in words of the tongue, and secondly serve each other. Lastly, we should embrace everybody and everything with love.
I hope all ministers and brothers and sisters will sow in peace diligently so that all of you advance toward the level of spirit and whole sprit in the flow of spirit in 2005.
Therefore, may all of you be courageously called as the "sons of God the Father" and dwell in the glory seeing the face of the Lord for ever and ever, in the name of the Lord I pray!
2005-01-19 Posted
2005-03-23 Updated
