Passage

1 Corinthians 15:31
"I affirm, brethren, by the boasting in you which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily."


Let us give all thanks and glory to God the Father who has blessed us to offer this 2011 Pastors' Devotional Service.

I also give thanks to all you devotees who have prepared for this devotional service with all your hearts, minds, and souls.

Dear devotees, the title of today's message is 'Renewed Every day'.

It means we have to be renewed day by day.

Your faith must not be at a standstill or backsliding, but it has to grow every day.

You can give glory to God through your life only when you are renewed every day.

Of course, you've wanted to change quickly and go into spirit and whole spirit.

When you received God's grace, you felt confident that you could do it.

But as you checked yourself a little later, some of you must have lamented and felt sorry before God because the speed of your change was slow.

Moreover, through the time of repentance last year, you realized the fleshly attributes that you had not been aware, and you felt like, "Is this really who I am-"

But you don't have to be discouraged.

If you rely on your own strength you will become discouraged. But if you rely on the power of God, you can still be thankful and joyous.

You are thankful because you can realize your 'self'. You can rejoice because God will change you, even though you cannot change by your own strength.

You have to seek the help of the Holy Spirit and the power of God by giving thanks and rejoicing.

As spoken by Apostle Paul, "I die daily", you have to cast off the attributes of your old self and become renewed.

Then your life will be a life of a true servant with which you can give glory to God.

In this message, I will talk to you about the three aspects by which you can be renewed everyday and live a life that gives glory to God.

Through this message, I urge you to change into spirit and whole spirit this year.

I pray in the name of the Lord that you will become true servants who can lead the flock to life, to green pastures and quiet waters, and to health.


Dear devotees, and church members,
In order to live a life that gives glory to God, first of all, you must not have ulterior motives.

You have heard about this so many times now.

Even though you are very faithful, you will give a hard time to the flock and disgrace God as long as you have ulterior motives.

You will not be able to bear the fruit that is pleasing in the sight of God.

Galatians 5:24 says, "Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires."

Especially as pastors you must not have fleshly affections or desires.

They have to consider their flock more precious than their own parents and children.

Not just greed, but they have to cast away pride and arrogance, and desires for fame and authority.

If their attitude toward those who serve and love them well is different from their attitude toward those who do not, it is not right.

They must cast away desire to be recognized and praised.

Those who do not cast away such ulterior motives, even after listening to so many messages, always give excuses to justify their actions.

For example, they may do something to reveal themselves, but they might say that they are doing it for the glory of God with thanks to God.

To be more specific, they urge the church members to gather an offering for various purposes or suggest that they have an outdoor event.

They don't really have to do those things, but they push something like this to be noticed by others.

When they promote such an event or a particular kind of work, they do not consider the opinions, situations and desires of the leaders and church members, but they just do what they see fit.

Then, it is difficult for the hearts of the members to be united, and the fruit of their efforts will also be fleshly fruit.

And yet, they say that they are working for the kingdom and glory of God and refuse to acknowledge their selfish motives.

Reflect upon your hearts when you were delivering messages whether in services of mission groups or in parishes.

Pastors must always be ready to preach at any time.

They must be armed with the word of God and preach a message by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit at any given time.

But there are some pastors who want to deliver messages because they want to flaunt themselves.

They think they know the problems of the flock better than others and they think they can deliver a better message to them.

Then, after the message, they wait for the flock to say that the message really touched them.

Also, giving testimonies of their flock, they tend to furtively bring attention to themselves.

They furtively put an emphasis on themselves saying, "I prayed for them, I counseled them, and I guided them to the shepherd, and they received blessings."

Sometimes, they think that the flock is supposed to serve them because they are pastors.

And they give a hard time to those who do not serve them.

For example, suppose a pastor had a family event, like a wedding or a funeral, and some leaders served this pastor while others didn't.

Now, what kind of attitude should this pastor have-

They should be thankful and somewhat embarrassed that they are served by the flock.

They should also think about whether their members had any difficulties because of the event.

But if you take being served for granted, it is something very shameful before the Lord.

Moreover, if you have resentment or complaints in your heart thinking, "How come this leader does not do his duty to serve a pastor-" just because the church members do not serve you, what a shameful thing this is as a pastor!

When Jesus was ministering, many people sold their possessions to serve Him.

But Jesus did not ask them to serve Him. He never insisted or expected to be served.

He rather served every one in the most humble position, and He gave only love, life, and blessings to the souls.

And those souls who received His grace served Him with voluntary love out of their own freewill.

Also, Jesus received their service because He knew they were serving Him with joy.

Above all, it was because their deeds of faith and love would bring upon them more spiritual and material blessings.

If you really want to resemble the Lord, then like Jesus, you must not think about how you ought to be served.

You have to think about how to give grace to and serve the souls and humble yourself like Jesus.

You must not seek worldly authority, fame, or wealth, but you have to long for spiritual authority and power.

You cannot ask any person for this authority and power. You have to receive it from God through your effort in prayers and fasting.

I hope you will check yourself everyday and purify yourself.

When you do a certain work or speak a word, check yourself again and again as to whether or not you are trying to reveal your work rather than seeking the will of the Lord; whether you wanted to possess things, to be served, and to take things for your benefit.

I earnestly urge you to become pastors who do not have even the slightest trace of ulterior motives in what you do.

In order to live a life to give glory to God, second, you always have to think about the spiritual things.

When you visit new believers or newcomers, what a pity it would be if they did not gain hope for Heaven but only seek worldly things-

You must teach them that even though a person may enjoy wealth and honor, all the fleshly things are meaningless and they have to long for heavenly and spiritual things.

But even those who teach like this sometimes do not always look at the spiritual things either.

They say they long for spirit, but their heart and mind are full of fleshly things and their eyes are fixed on fleshly things.

If you can write a note about every single thought you have for the whole day, what kinds of things would be written down-

Are they things like, "There is a good restaurant with good food and a great view, maybe I will go there some time... I wonder where there is a good place to go and rest. . . What clothes should I wear. . . I wonder how I should decorate my house. . . What kinds of hobbies should I do. . . There are good TV programs and movies people talk about nowadays, I wonder when I'll get time to watch them-"

If you put your mind on the fleshly things, on eating, drinking, resting, and getting drunk, then your mind will incline towards flesh even more.

You won't be able to control yourself feeling it's enough. You will only seek more and more fleshly things.

Just like your thirst will increase when you drink sea water, your heart will fall towards flesh more and more, and finally, you will commit sins.

Surprisingly, there are workers who are supposed to have faith, who pray hard and attend all worship services, and yet they commit grave works of the flesh.

They did not commit such grave sins from the beginning.

The problem all began as they accepted small things thinking it is not a great sin.

To the extent that you allow flesh in your heart and thoughts, the fullness of the Spirit will go away.

And, if you begin to commit some trivial sins, you will have walls of sin between you and God.

Your ears will become more dulled to hearing the voice of the Holy Spirit, and your heart will also become numb. You will eventually commit grave sins leading to death.

When you had the first love of the Lord in the beginning, you must have filled your whole heart and mind with spiritual things.

As you graduated from the theological college, or when you were ordained as a pastor, how fervent your passion was!

You must have made up your mind to cut off all the fleshly things and quickly go into spirit and whole spirit, and become a true servant of God.

You would cut off trivial fleshly things to concentrate on the word and prayer even in your leisure time, and you disciplined yourself to make it your slave.

This kind of fervor must never cool down.

What you have to harbor and think in your heart until the Lord comes back are the spiritual things.

You have to think only about spiritual things, such as "How can I arm myself with the Word more- How can I pray more- How can I change more quickly and please God by bearing good fruits in spirit and body- How can I perform God's power to give life to many souls- How I can solve that soul's problem- How can I give fullness of Spirit to that soul- How can I make this soul's faith grow up-"

Even when you walk on the streets or when you lie down for a while at night, you have to remember the word of God and think about how you are changing yourself.

You have to think of the souls.

You will not lose the fullness of the Spirit if you just think of spiritual things and fill your heart with the spiritual things.

For you always experience the Lord who walks with you and attests you, you have no time to feel loneliness or emptiness.

You can quickly change and cultivate holiness, and you can also bear many fruits in your ministry.

I hope you will always think of spiritual things and renew yourself every day.

In order to live a life that gives glory to God, third, you must live a life of obedience.

1 Samuel 15:22 says, "To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams."

As pastors you always hear about obedience.

Servants are obviously supposed to listen to their masters.

The masters will feed the servants and use them for the work they want done only when the servants obey.

Many people say they will completely trust God and obey Him when they are full of the Spirit.

Many of you said, "I can give my most precious thing to the Lord just like Abraham offered Isaac. I will obey any command of God, even if it doesn't agree with man's thoughts."

Also, many of you said, "I can obey only with 'Amen' because I have seen the power of the shepherd and I trust him."

But in fact, it's not easy to find those workers who really obey.

Most people would begin to use various fleshly thoughts if they were in the same situation as Abraham had been.

'How can God of love command such a fearful thing-'

'God said He would give me descendants through Isaac! Is He changing His promise now-'

If you have such thoughts, the fullness of Spirit will fall, and you might even resent or complain against God for commanding you to do such a thing.

In the end, you would not be able to offer Isaac.

If you obey only when you are happy and only when the command is in agreement with your idea, we cannot say you are obeying.

You must be able to do anything that God the Father and the Lord want.

In order to do that, you must cast away ulterior motives and fleshly thoughts.

Even though you make up your mind to obey, you will show disobedience as long as you have flesh.

Using your fleshly thoughts, you disobey even the things that you can surely obey, and yet you give excuses.

When you hear that you must obey, you say 'Amen' with your lips.

But how much are you really engraving it on your heart-

Would you really do what God says to do and not do what He says not to do-

Would you immediately cast off the things that He tells you to cast off and keep what He tells you to keep-

So many people just obey within their own limits.

And yet they do not really make up their mind to obey thinking they are obeying to some extent and they are doing better than others.

For example, when you hear, "Think of spiritual things only," then you respond with 'Amen', and you pray that you will have only spiritual thoughts.

But soon, if you have fleshly thoughts following your old habits, you do not cut it off immediately.

You dive into the thoughts that are arising, and you might even take after the flesh following your thoughts.

You just heard God's word and prayed that you should have only spiritual thoughts, but since it's not really a grave sin, you will just leave it be. You think you will cast away the other things first.

If you stay at the same spot this way, you cannot improve your faith that is on hold.

You cannot fill up your deficiencies of the body, and you cannot bear the fruit that God wants.

The quickest way for you to go into spirit and hear the voice of the Holy Spirit is for you to obey unconditionally.

Do not make any excuses or give reasons, but just practice the truth and do what you are told.

God will lead your life when you obey all the time.

You can go forward step by step and hand in hand with the Lord with the help of the Holy Spirit.

You can live a life that can give glory to God.

Conclusion

Even the unbelievers know that they have to disciple their body to make it obedient to succeed in their lives.

Even though you know the way of success, those of you who follow laziness and lust cannot take the way of obedience.

But even among these people, some dramatically change their attitudes.

Those who used to live in dissipation and helplessness face a life-threatening situation but are saved. Then, their lives change completely overnight and they live a proper life.

Those students who never used to study get shocked due to a certain reason, and start studying very hard.

Seeing these people, others around them say they have changed completely and they've become a new person.

I urge you to change completely in this year 2011.

2 Corinthians 5:17 says, "Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come."

You are precious pastors who will have to be responsible for hundreds or thousands of sheep in this church that has so many works to do at this end time.

Facing the era of Canaan right in front of us, God the Father is more eagerly looking for spiritual warriors.

Get out of the limitations of the flesh just like birds that break their eggshells and come out.

Cast away ulterior and selfish motives, think of spiritual things alone, and obey completely.

In doing so, I pray in the name of the Lord that, you will all become pastors of Manmin who fly forward for the glory of God with vigor and strength like the soaring eagle.