Passage

[Colossians 3: 2]
"Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth."


Today, Canaan Mission, Young Adults' Mission, Light and Salt Mission, and Students' Sunday School are offering united devotional service.
Let us give all thanks and glory to God the Father who has blessed us to have this devotional service.
I give thanks to all the devotees who have prepared for this devotional service with all your hearts, minds, and strength.
Dear devotees, the title of today's message is 'What We Should See'.
As today's reading passage from Colossians 3:2 says, "Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth," what we should see is the things above.
For the most part people of the world seek the earthly things.
They seek wealth, fame, and power on this earth, and they consider such things most valuable.
But we who are saved are looking up to the glory of Heaven into which we will enter later.
Also, we set our minds on the Father God and the Lord who have prepared the heavenly kingdom and are waiting for us.
For this reason we live God-centered lives, thinking of the things that the Father wants and what pleases the Father.
As said in Psalm 62:5, "My soul, wait in silence for God only, for my hope is from Him," God fulfills our hope when we look up to Him only.
He fills our lives with great blessings on this earth and great honor in Heaven.
In this message, I will talk to you about the three aspects of what kinds of blessings we can receive when we set our mind only on God.
Through the message, I hope you will not put your hope in the perishing things of the world but only look up to God.
In doing so, I pray in the name of the Lord that you will overflowingly receive everything that God has in preparation for you.


Main

Dear devotees, and other members,
Those who look up to God, first of all, receive blessings in body and spirit.
The unbelievers must be prepared for the future that is uncertain and unstable.
Though they might have wealth and honor right now, nobody knows when such things will disappear.
If they have just a little bit of problem with their bodies, they worry if they might have cancer or if they caught an incurable disease.
So, they try to rely on something or somebody.
They flatter powerful people to be friends with them.
They invest in many things for their health.
They have savings accounts and insurances.
But no matter how much they try this way, nobody can guarantee their future.
On the contrary, God's children set their minds on God alone, so God fulfills their needs.
As Proverbs 10:22 says, "It is the blessing of the LORD that makes rich, and He adds no sorrow to it," the wealth that is gained through human methods by relying on people can fall apart any time, but the blessing given to those believers whose soul prospers, is never shaken.
Of course, looking up to God alone does not mean we don't do the things that we are supposed to do on this earth.
We have to be faithful in what we are supposed to do according to justice, but we can enjoy peace by relying on God and not on our own ability or other people.
Dear devotees, those who set their minds on God alone always seek what God wants and try to fulfill it.
If you love somebody, you will be interested in what the other person wants, and his/her tastes.
If that person does not like what you wear, you might even give up a particular style of clothes that you enjoy.
You might even come to like the kind of food that the other person likes, though you never liked it before.
In a spiritual sense, those who look up to their dear Father always think of the ways to please Him.
Even though there might be some situations that cause discomfort or anger, they change their feelings into good thoughts and try to have peace, thinking that the Father would not like them to have such feelings.
Furthermore, they pull out the nature of anger itself from their hearts.
Thinking that the Father would be grieved, they try their best to cast away the adulterous mind, envy and jealousy, and greed.

They try to humble themselves rather to be lifted up.
They sacrifice themselves and serve others, and not seeking their own.
As they try this way, they quickly cast off darkness and come forth into the Light.
It means their souls prosper.
3 John 1:2 says, "Beloved, I pray that in all respects you may prosper and be in good health, just as your soul prospers."
As said, for those who set their minds on God, they are in health and prosper in all things even as their souls prosper.
They do not get sick.
They do not become poverty-stricken.
They are blessed when they come in or go out, and they become the head and not the tail.
As they go into spirit and whole spirit, they receive the blessing to subdue and rule over physical things.
God the Father is telling you to cast off flesh and come into spirit because He wants to give you such blessings.
Dear devotees, for those who look up to God alone, secondly, New Jerusalem will be guaranteed.
As it is said, faith is the substance of things hoped for. Their hope for things above will be realized for them.
Your goal is not just the heavenly kingdom, but the most glorious heavenly dwelling place, New Jerusalem.
You have learned the ways to enter there in detail, and you are in the best environment to practice what you learned in your life of faith.
In an allegory, if you go to a good school and have good teachers in your effort to get into Seoul National University, your chance of being accepted will increase.
Some high schools of the same size send more than a hundred students to Seoul National University while other high schools send only a couple.
Such schools send so many more students to other prestigious universities, too.
Of course, the effort of the students themselves is the most important thing, but the environment is also important so that their efforts yield the best results.
If there is nobody who can give them any hope to get into good colleges, nor a guide who can teach them the ways to do so, it'd be difficult for the student alone to get good results.
It's similar in a spiritual sense.
Numerous people have received salvation since the creation, but only a few can go into New Jerusalem.
If you had not heard the holiness gospel or known this church, most of you would not have been able to have the hope you have for New Jerusalem.
Many of you would have gone the way of death, thinking that you could be saved just by calling 'Lord, Lord,' although you lived in darkness.
But you know the glory of New Jerusalem and there are so many friends who are going the same way with you.
Dear devotees, since in this end time when darkness is very thick, even if you have believed in the Lord and have received the Holy Spirit, your salvation is not secure unless you are spiritually awake.
The cultures of the world are being flooded with obscene and filthy things, and what you can see and hear is full of the things that pollute your spirit.
As a shepherd who is guiding the flock in this kind of world, I promised you that I will lead you to New Jerusalem even if it must be by putting a hook on your nose.
And to keep my promise, I am urging you again and again to enter into the narrow gate.
I am asking you diligently to gather everyday, not to cease to pray, to learn the word of God, not to watch TV, movies or anything of the world, to cast off all forms of evil, and to purify your body and mind so that you will not have any lust between men and women.
Furthermore, God is giving us holy praise songs so that we will not have to sing praise songs that are stained by the worldly trends.
This is a generation where we have to be of sober spirit in order to protect ourselves.
You have been running towards New Jerusalem, but I believe the goal seemed too far away for you.
You might have shed tears in prayer thinking, "How can a person like me go in there? Only a few special people can go in. My efforts seem to be in vain." Or some others might have been even more disheartened.
But now, you don't have to do that.
Not just some special people, but your brothers, sisters, and family members are going into the rock of faith and spirit very quickly.
Spirit and whole spirit is no longer some unreachable goal, but it is a clear goal that you must achieve.
The rest remains as your own effort.
You have come into a good spiritual school, and you have a good teacher.
If you just try to ride on the flow of spirit, you can change at a very high speed.
I hope you will quickly cast away the perishing, fleshly things, looking up to God alone.
Be changed by the Truth and Light.
Then, your souls will prosper, and New Jerusalem will be guaranteed for you.
It is not a place into which you might or might not enter.
The Father God and the Lord are telling us that all of you who act with faith can go in there.
Dear devotees, those who set their minds on God alone, thirdly, become precious persons.
Zephaniah 3:17 says, "The LORD your God is in your midst, a victorious warrior. He will exult over you with joy, He will be quiet in His love, He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy."
God loves you and delights with you so much that He will exult over you with joy.
Mary Magdalene was very weak with illnesses and she lived a difficult life before she met the Lord.
Nobody really cherished her.
It seemed she had no value in her life.
Such a despised woman became such an honorable person after meeting Jesus.
Matthew was a tax-collector who was hated and despised by his own people. But when he offered his life to Jesus, he became one of the most precious twelve apostles.
Peter was just an uneducated fisherman, but he became the foremost of the twelve and a powerful apostle after meeting Jesus.
I believe you too sometimes could not feel the value that you have.
It may have been that nobody really cared for you, or it might have seemed that you were inferior to many others.
Some of you had to give up your dreams because of the poor financial situations of your family.
You might have envied your friends who were born into rich families and are loved by their parents, enjoying many privileges in their environment of wealth.
Your feelings might have been hurt when you suffered verbal abuse from your bosses, clients or customers.
You might feel you are nothing because you do not have enough money, your appearance does not seem good enough to you, or you lack knowledge or a good background.
But even though you might have lived such a lowly life in the world, the value of your life will be completely different if you meet the Lord.
You will become children of the LORD God almighty who created the heavens and the earth.
It means you will become princes and princesses.
For this reason, for those of you who are saved, guardian angels are assigned to you to protect you 24 hours a day.
If you look up to God alone, they protect you so thoroughly that no darkness can come near you.
How amazing is this fact just by itself?
Also, wherever you go and whatever you do, God the Father is paying attention to you.
When Koreans express the love of parents for their children, it is said that it would not hurt even if you stuck your children in your eyes.
When babies smile making eye contact with the parents, the parents are so happy as if they gained the whole world.
If the babies say 'mom and dad' for the first time, the parents leap with joy and exclamations.
This is how the Father God feels about us.
God deemed each of you so precious that He gave the life of His only begotten Son.
He is so earnestly waiting for you to come forth as spirit and whole spirit, waiting a thousand years like a day.
When His children do not realize His love and commit sins dwelling in darkness, He suffers great pains.
You might think God will not grieve when such a lowly person like you commit sins, but in fact, the LORD God almighty who created the heavens and earth suffers pain in heart because of such a lowly person like you.
On the contrary, if you please Him just a little bit by trying to practice the truth, He will try all His best to express greater love for you.
The Father God cherishes the aroma of your heart that you offer up with your love for Him.
God treasures each of your professions of love and each tear-drop that you shed longing for the spirit, and He pays back everything to you in heavenly kingdom.
As said, "I love those who love me," if you just set your mind on God alone in your lives, God will cherish you and treasure you and make you precious.


Conclusion

Dear devotees, and other members,
Jesus gave us the parable of the rich man and the poor man Lazarus, to teach us to look up to only the things above.
The rich man did not know God, and he was merrymaking every day. He wore silk clothes and ate delicious foods.
The poor man Lazarus ate the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table.
He had sores, and dogs came to him and licked them.
But after these two men died, the situation turned around completely.
Lazarus lived a wretched life on this earth, but he went to the bosom of Abraham, enjoying peace and happiness for he had revered God.
On the other hand, the rich man who did not believe in God had to suffer in the flames in the Lower Grave.
He now had to beg just for a drop of water to cool his tongue through Lazarus whom he had known in this life.
The rich man enjoyed great splendor on this earth while Lazarus lived a lowly and miserable life. Yet who is the one who is really blessed here?
The truly blessed and precious one is the one who is precious in eternal kingdom of heaven.
But those who really revere God will not live a wretched life even on this earth.
To the extent that you cast off sins and evil and your soul prospers, you will prosper in all things and be in good health.
You will become precious persons for God, and you will enjoy the glory of New Jerusalem forever.
Dear Young Adults, dear Canaan Mission, dear Light and Salt Mission, and dear students,
What would you like to receive?
I urge you not to set your mind on things of this earth but things above.
How meaningless the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and boastful pride of life are!
When a person dies, the corpse decomposes very quickly.
Even though you are very good-looking and are adorned with precious jewels, once your spirit leaves your body, soon the decayed liquid will come out and you go back to a handful of dust.
One might have lingering attachments to this earth and take fleshly things, but all of them are so meaningless and perishing.
I hope you will invest your youth, fervor, and ability in only the things that God wants and pleases.
In doing so, I pray in the name of the Lord that you will become precious God's children who completely receive all the spiritual and material blessings that God has prepared for you.