Passage

Psalm 84:10, "For a day in Your courts is better than a thousand outside. I would rather stand at the threshold of the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness."

Introduction

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

This is the 2010 Church Workers' Devotional service.
Let us give all thanks and glory to God the Father who has blessed us to have this devotional service. I also give thanks to all the devotees who have prepared for this service with all your hearts, minds, and souls.
Dear devotees, how precious do you consider your duties?
Today's reading passage Psalm 84:10 says, "For a day in Your courts is better than a thousand outside. I would rather stand at the threshold of the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness."
It was a confession saying to work in the Temple of God is happier than to work anywhere else.
It is very precious and blessed thing to have a God-given duty to serve the kingdom of God.
For example, the title of deacon is not just a name automatically given to those who have been a believer for a certain period of time and have reached a certain age.
It is a title given for them to take care of the church having a sense of ownership along with the pastors and Levites.
In the Early Church, they established seven deacons to help with the ministry of the apostles.
They were selected from among the believers of the early church who were full of faith and Spirit, so it was quite an honor to receive the title!
In 1 Timothy 3:13 it says, "For those who have served well as deacons obtain for themselves a high standing and great confidence in the faith that is in Christ Jesus."
You were chosen as the stewards of this church to evangelize the world and reveal the glory of God greatly at this end time.

I urge you to realize how precious your duty is and how great a blessing it is when you fulfill your duties well.
You must fulfill your duties having the attitude of such a worker who is very specially chosen.
For example, when we have the anniversary events, what kind of attitude should you have?
You have to have the same attitude-of-the-heart that no matter what it may be, you will try to do whatever you can to help as if it was a personal family matter.
When you pray for the events in general and for those who are in charge, you will not just pray for the purpose of praying. You will pray for each detail with an earnest heart.
If you offer a fasting of just one meal even though you are not actually in charge of anything, how preciously God will consider your action!
Also, even though you cannot care for all the details around the whole church, you can at least become a faithful steward in your mission group or cell group.
When there are newcomers, you shouldn't be disinterested thinking you are not a small group leader or cell leader. You have to care for them like your own family members.
The same goes for all others who have different duties.
If everybody cares for the house of God having this kind of sense of ownership, God will also consider you valuable.
On the other hand, if you are irresponsible in fulfilling your duties, it is actually creating a wall of sin between God and you.
In the parable of the talent, the one who just buried his one talent aroused great anger in the master.
How can we ask God for blessings if we are negligent toward our God- given duties?
Especially, those who are receiving a salary from the church, having faithful hearts, should do more than what is entrusted to them.
How blessed and thankful it is that you can concentrate on the works of God without having to worry about worldly work to earn the living?
There are many people who have secular jobs but enthusiastically do God's works in their spare time.
But if you are a Levite whose love and faithfulness are less than that of lay members, how ashamed would you be of it before the Throne of Judgment?
Your passion that you had when you became a Levite must not change. That passion has to increase day by day.
You should also accomplish sanctification more quickly than lay members to become great strength to the kingdom of God.
Today, I will tell you three aspects that you need to have and develope to make your faithfulness true faithfulness in the sight of God.
Since you have become workers in this precious church, I hope that through this message you will realize the direction you have to take, and what kind of attitude you should have in your faithfulness.
In doing so, in the name of the Lord I pray that you will offer to God the kind of faithfulness that pleases God.

Main

Dear devotees, to offer to God the kind of faithfulness that pleases God, first of all, we have to follow the spiritual order and establish peace.
God established this church and He has called each of you here as members.
He has been refining you for a long period of time to allow for you have the proper measure of faith to fulfill His providence.
He sometimes allowed for us to climb rough and rugged mountains and to face strong waves.
We have actually gone through so many things that cannot be explained with words.

Through those things your faith has increased. Many of you have become precious workers who love God and obey Him.
So, how preciously should you be caring for each of your brothers and sisters, for you have been through all these things together?
Not everybody is perfect, and even though you have different opinions, you have to consider each other as family members.
Then we can be conciliatory in our actions, understanding of one another, and follow peace in all things.
One of the main causes of breaking peace is ignoring the order of the church.
Even though a person may be quite fervent in their duties, those who break peace cannot be acknowledged as faithful workers by God.
It is especially so in this church because the organization and order of this church were established by the commands of God Himself.
Even though you might have some different ideas, you should submit to this order.
You have to contemplate on what the will of God is in establishing this order, and what you have to do in this order of the church.
Even though you are capable of doing something, you must not ignore the order.
Even if the subordinate worker has wisdom and experience, he must not work on his own discretion or indiscretion while ignoring those who are in higher authority.
In the case of those in higher authority as well, only when they follow the order they will not cause discomfort to others.
They must not say, "I am the director, and I will do what I want."
Now, if you feel something is not right in a certain matter, how do you react to it?
Do you try to correct it with gentle words and actions while relying on God with prayers?
Or, are you one of those who easily misunderstands, judges, complains, and becomes resentful expressing his feelings of discomfort?
Are you not one of those who spreads slanderous words that can put others in difficult situations?
To the extent that you have not filled your heart with the truth, you will become impatient when you see something that does not agree with your opinion.
On the other hand, those who are filled with the truth will try to resolve the situation with endurance and love in any kind of situation.
Sometimes, even though you work rightly and justly according to the order, you may be criticized or you hear complaints from others.
Even in these situations, to the extent that your heart is filled with the truth you will have peace in heart.
As we come to have tens, hundreds, or thousands of peace-makers among our workers, how happy God will be!
If you have pride in the fact that you were called as workers in this precious church, I hope you will accomplish good and gentle hearts.
I urge you to follow the order all the time and be faithful in peace.
Dear devotees, to have faithfulness that pleases God, secondly, we should not see the shortcomings of others but only good points and cooperate with one another.
Philippians 2:3 says, "Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves;"
If you put yourself in the lower places humbling yourself, you will be able to find something to learn even from little ones.
Those who are established as leaders in the church right now seem to have some shortcomings, too.
But God knows the good points and bad points of each one much better than you.
And He has established the leaders according to their talents to accomplish the kingdom of God through them.
Also, through those processes, God refines them to make them more perfect.
Therefore, we should not say, 'this leader lacks this and that,' but we should see their good points.
If they have some shortcomings, we should be able to fill them up and be strength to them.
You have been listening to this kind of message for many years. So, some of you might say you have been trying to obey it the best you can.
You might say, "When they had these shortcomings, I tried to keep quiet, and even when there were things that were not in agreement with my opinions, I didn't make a big deal out of it."
But what God is talking about is not such outer appearances but the heart.
For example, some people just pretend to be helping in the beginning, but because their opinions are not accepted, they just become spectators.
And when the result turns out to be bad, they think, "See, I was right!"
How can we have true cooperation with this kind of attitude?
The kind of heart that God wants is not to give up because the others have shortcomings.
We have to trust them until the end.
Even though we don't like something in a particular matter, we should not just suppress our emotion, but we have to cooperate without having any kind of discomfort.
Of course, it doesn't mean we should go over or around those in authority, but we have to help each other with our best efforts.
The reason why you became church workers is because you love God.
Many of you also say that you are being faithful with all your life because you love the church and the shepherd.
If your confession is true, you should not just become one with the Lord and the shepherd but also with all other workers within the system of order.
Even though you do not receive the reward or the merit, you have to help one another with all your wisdom and ability.
That is the work of God and the work of the shepherd.
If you have this kind of attitude, you won't have any basis to say that anybody lacks anything.
You won't say that you are trying to cooperate, but others are not doing the work.
You have the attitude to strengthen one another to accomplish the kingdom of God, so you can trust each other and fill in for one another's shortcomings.
Dear devotees, to have faithfulness that pleases God, thirdly, you must cast away the stubbornness in thinking that you are better than others.
None of you can say that you alone love the Lord and the shepherd.
And, neither the Lord nor the shepherd is exclusively for any individual.
Jesus accepted a person like Thomas as he was, although he had doubts. He used him for the kingdom of God.
Also, even though John received much love from Jesus, we can't say he alone knew the will or understood the heart of Jesus perfectly, correctly and completely.
We cannot say he understood Jesus' heart just because he had been close to Jesus and he had seen and heard many things.
We can understand the heart and will of Jesus only to the extent that we fill our heart with the truth.
Let me give you an example.
Suppose Jesus told John in advance that in the future Peter would deny Jesus three times.
This is not for John to spread to others this future fault of Peter, or to hate Peter.
Jesus probably would have meant it to let John realize something or that John had to help Peter not to deny Jesus.
Jesus must have told John about it because there was a need for him to know, whatever the reason may be.
But upon hearing this, what if John had forsaken and ignored Peter thinking, "How can he deny our master?"
Or, what if John spread these words to other disciples and brought Peter down? Would it have been Jesus' will?
Of course not!
Then, it would have meant that John didn't understand the heart of Jesus at all as to why Jesus had told him that.
Only to the extent that John had filled his heart with the truth could he have been able to understand the heart and will of Jesus and say that he loved Jesus truly.
Otherwise, even though he was very close to Jesus and saw and heard many things, he might have done the opposite of Jesus' will.
It's the same with you.
You cannot say you are a man of spirit just because you love the shepherd, you are close to him, and you learn many things from him.
If you ignore or pass judgment and condemnation on others because you have heard and seen many things, you are only creating walls of sin with your arrogance.
Therefore, we first have to thoroughly check to what extent we have cast away evil and changed ourselves into the truth.
When others are doing something, you should not say it is not the will of the shepherd and try to change the course of the work at your discretion.
Each person has different measures in loving God, and also in loving and understanding the shepherd, but we have to respect one another.
We have to acknowledge that other workers are all needed for the kingdom of God and they are strength to the church and the shepherd.
And you should do your part in your position in order to create the flow that God wants.
Dear devotees, in order for us to be truly faithful to the kingdom of God, as I mentioned, we have to have peace in the organization. We have to adhere to order and we must be united in heart and cooperate with one another.
Also, you should not think you alone know and love the shepherd, and you must respect the standpoints of others as well.
If you really love the shepherd, you yourself have to become a spiritual and good worker.
You should fulfill your responsibilities and make everything work smoothly by having good and cooperative relationships with other workers.
Now, I would like to give some advice to some departments in the church.
First, Planning Dept. is the dept. that should check and plan everything of the church in general and make it proceed according to the will of God.
God has given us the three fields in the chain of approval to let you fulfill this role.
So, you should check which work was not really done according to the will of God. You should also understand that in many aspects you didn't pay enough attention and became like spectators.
The Int'l Mission Team and Interpretation Dept. should know that they did many things beyond their authorities and that they spoke many words of complaints because they did not understand the intention of God in what He did.
The Transportation Team also has to check the words from their lips. If they disappointed God in any way with words of unbelief, they should change now.
The Secretarial Bureau and the Security Dept. each has their own responsibilities within their duties. They must not insist on discharging a mission beyond their assigned duty. They should not insist on their own area of work.
Also, from the top to the lowest in the order, they have to thoroughly check how humble a heart they have cultivated.
When they interact with the church members and Levites and pastors, they have to say each word with humbleness; they must not be impolite in any way.
The General Affairs Dept. has to consider the money of God very precious and each one has to do his/her duty strictly.
The Financial Committee has to watch the money of God with the good heart and the desire to help the shepherd, so that there won't be any waste of money.
Other than these, God tells a certain department to cast away negative thinking like, "What am I doing in this dept., which is not even acknowledged by God?" (Church Admin. Dept.)
Also, to another dept., God says, they have to fulfill their duties with more of a truthful heart. (Reception)
You should not give wrong reports to me just to show your performance, or because of your prejudice or selfish motives.
Even though God does not speak to every department in detail, each of you should check yourself.
I hope this devotional service will not be one of the formalities that you have every year but a chance for you to renew your determination and change.

Conclusion

Dear devotees, God has great expectations for you.
He has many plans to use you greatly in this ministry of unimaginable power of God and to give you great blessings.
But for this, you first have to become workers who are obedient to God's will.
You have to be ready so that God can use you as He wants.
He has been giving you this kind of messages for a long time. We should have accomplished them a long time ago.
We should have imprinted the words in our hearts and accomplish them. But, we didn't really do that.
But now, it's not too late to change our heart and get ready to go into the Canaan Sanctuary.
You should not just stay in the same place thinking that you are just a man of flesh. Because you are a man of flesh, you have to try harder to change.
If you were breaking peace before, you should make up your mind not to break it this year and change.
If your shortcomings have been pointed out to you, then you have to keep on trying with self-disciple until you pull it out by the root.
I hope you will all change according to this message and become spiritual warriors.
In doing so, I pray in the name of the Lord, that the blessings of the Canaan Sanctuary that God promised us will be revealed before us as soon as possible.

[Amen]