God continuously grants us problems because unless we have problems, we will not pray. When I was about fifteen years old, I prayed for God to make me a Sunday school teacher. One day, a brother at the church where I had attended called me. He said,
“Hey Kim, Yong Doo! Come here! Hurry up! You, come here!”
I said, “Yes? Me ? Did you call me?”
This brother asked me, “Do you want teach as a Sunday teacher?”
I replied, “No, I don’t think I am able too…”
But I said in my heart, ‘Oh! I think my prayer just got answered. But I don’t understand, I thought God would personally speak to me?’ Most of the time, many christians always want God to speak to them directly having their prayers directly answered. To have such a expectation is a mistake. God had answered my prayer through another person.
My prayer has been accumulated since youth. Then later on, when I had begun my own church ministry, the more I prayed, I began to see the point or the core. When you pray, you need to clearly see and recognize the core or the point. You need to clearly know the purpose and reason why you are praying. I later realized that I did not possess the spirituality of a pastor. When I say the spirituality of a pastor, I am not talking about fundamental training, discipleship, and learning the bible through teaching. I did not possess the spiritual nature in loving souls. I prayed so much that I always had blood dried scabs on my lips. But the more I prayed, the more I realized that I possessed no spirituality. Especially, the spirituality that was required for a pastor to possess which is in loving souls with a passion. I thought I was a mess. Therefore, I used to leave my wife at home and go up to the mountaintop and pray. The focus of my prayer was on the issue of ‘how I was lacking spirituality’. So, I was on my knees and cried out to God like there was no tomorrow. I would wake up earlier than all the other people and go pray. When the other people go to sleep, I would leave and go pray. God had seen the the sacrifice of my prayer.
Only after the accumulation and sacrifice of our prayer, God will determine how and when to grant our prayer request or not. God observes us daily. God observes if we will fight with somebody, if we are being irritated, if we angered and cursing someone and so on. God sees all we do, think, and speak. Our daily conduct will determine whether the content of our prayers will be answered and our ministry as well in the Lord. This is in the bible. As we pray, through prayer we need to act and transform. We need to transforms in faith. We need to act in faith. When we transform according to God’s eyes, God grants us our prayer requests. Therefore, we must transform!
When I was holding the Fire Conferences a few weeks ago in the United States, God said, “Be very care of the people who desire fruit without going through the process! You need to discern such people. It is impossible to harvest fruit without going through the process. Fruit is the manifestation of an end result. Before we bear fruit, there will be many sufferings, pain and tribulations. You need to fight and obtain victory. When you pray, you need to pray until you obtain the breakthrough. What is the breakthrough? When you pray, we are getting closer to the key or clue in resolving certain problems. So, what are the reasons we pray? Even though you may not see the key or clue of your problems, difficulties or a circumstances, you must continuously pray. Although you may not notice or realize, you are actually and gradually moving closer toward the answer. You are moving closer to the breakthrough and the work of God. The more you continuously pray, you will move closer.
Praying is a very difficult thing to do. It is like you are laboring with your body. Jesus taught prayer to His disciples but it was very difficult for the disciples to learn. Therefore, if we are in the circumstance where we can pray, we need to pray passionately and fervently. This is very important! Many churches spend thousands of dollars to renovate or design their church buildings, but they do not renovate or design for the purpose of prayer. The churches are busy doing many other things but do not focus on prayer. This is the reason the Lord told the disciples not to leave Jerusalem but to wait and receive the promised Holy Spirit. The Lord continuously told them on how to receive their breakthrough. But the disciples could not understand due to lack of their spirituality.
When the Holy Spirit powerfully came upon the disciples, they became the people of blazing fire and began to speak in other tongue. They were able to speak languages of many different countries. The Holy Spirit is special. He leads us to the special realm which is the spiritual realm. When we move in faith and challenge ourselves to transform, God answers our prayer to recompense. If a person with a ministry act/move in faith and challenge to transform, the ministry will open up. When the common people pray, God will begin to pay attention to the common people. As those common people continuously pray, God will grant wisdom, grace and power. God will gradually make these common people into the special people of God. People who pray are the candidates in receiving God’s power. We can become that special person.
When we continuously and precisely pray, God will lead us to reveal the purpose of our prayer. We will rediscover the purpose of our prayer through God. God has given us free will to utilize prayer. The more we pray and obey, you will be discovered by God and He will pay attention to us. When you pray, you need to pray precisely, powerfully with determination. This way, you will receive the power and have your prayers answered. When you pray before God, you need to know the promises of God. In order to possess the promises of God, you need to read the bible. Many times, instead of granting us our prayer requests, He grants us first the promise of God. The promise that will come to you in the future. A person may ask God to heal him/her, but God first grants hope. Then a person’s job is to begin praying as he/she cling tightly onto the hope/promise. We need to pray with the promise of God.
In the bible, God said He had already had chosen us a long ago. When the proper time came, He bought us with the blood of Jesus. For thousands of years, God was looking for a humble people. When He finds that humble people, He plans to grant all the power. But He could not find any humble people. It is because there were no people of prayer. Do you think poor people are humble? No, from God’s point of view, adults are prideful accordingly, children are prideful accordingly, wealthy people are prideful accordingly, poor people are prideful accordingly, healthy people are prideful accordingly, and sick people are prideful accordingly. All the people are prideful. Prideful people are so into their own thoughts and ideas. We all have our own ideas and thinking. We tend to rebel instead of obeying. In some cases, a person knows that he/she is doing wrong, but still will not listen due to pride. There are people who often collide with other people with their wrong actions and wrong choices in words. These types of people are very stubborn that even though other people around him/her do not like their actions or words, they do not change but continue in their old stubborn ways.These types of people live in their own desires and are too deep into their own thinking and ideas. These types of people are living all over the world. Jesus came to the earth to resolve such problems. It was because there were no righteous people, not even one.
God had begun to discipline the people who would come to Jesus and dwell within the word. There is no one who is truly humble, therefore only through Jesus, God began to break His people. If one guarantees their own health, God would create problems on his/her health so that this person can not boast about his/her health. God allows and creates circumstances to show a person that he/she cannot boast about anything in their lives.
God handles our personality and nature. In order for us to become a citizen of Heaven, God will continuously discipline us. He humbles us. Through the word of God and the Holy Spirit, God continuously humble us. This whole process is God’s amazing grace. In the bible, God said, “Draw closer to Me and I will draw closer to you.” Now when we are humbled, we must come closer to God. This way, we will begin to receive all the secrets and key. If we continue to pray, God will grant us a mission and calling to fulfill. He will train us to fight spiritually. “Resist devil, he will flee!”
There are examples regarding prayer answered in the four gospels. Sometimes, it may appear that He answered our prayer, our situation, or our problem and it may appear things have become better. But why would there be recurrences of certain problems or situations? God is trying to tell us not to do certain things. God is trying to prevent us from something that we may continue to do so.
Matthew 13:11 God said to His people, “To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven..” Even if you have a hard time praying for a long time but you continue to fellowship with the people who prays well and you have close relationship with the people who prays, God will often work through such a situation through the people who prays. You will gradually learn to pray longer, be healed, and go deeper into the presence of God. You must continuously try with your free will. You need to try to go to service and pray. This way, God will grant grace. You will be rediscovered and restored.
There are a few ways to get God’s attention. Some people are very busy with work and with other things in their lives. Even with their busy schedules, some people would still come to pray and attend services. God will say, “Oh, even though you are very busy and tired, you still come to pray and even attend service.” God will gladly answer our prayer requests. God’s eyes are always searching and observing.
There are times when we need extreme obedience, self sacrifice and devotion. God’s power is not something that you have a choice in whether to receive or not. The power of God is not optional. We all need to receive the power of God. There is an Indian “prophet” who is trying to dress up like a old time prophet. He even has a long beard. There are certain types of people who tries to dress up and adorn themselves to look like someone from the old testament after they had received some gifts from God. They walk and talk like someone holy. Their facial expressions are different from the other people as well. This Indian “prophet” has so many videos uploaded on the internet and many Asian people follow him. I come to realize that among many followers of this Indian so called “prophet,” are pastors beside the many lay believers. Every country has false prophets. Especially in the US, there are many false prophets. These people really upsets me. When we receive the power of God, we must not misuse such a gift. We are only the pathway of God’s precious gifts. No matter where you go, there will be real and fake servants of God. The devil will make the valuable ones to counterfeits. These false prophets appear holy and filled with the Holy Spirit. Satan is excellent in making counterfeits who appear genuine and feel authentic. We need to wake up.
The devil works through the closest people in our lives. Through our husbands, children, wives, and the people whom we consider so precious, Satan will utilize such people to heartlessly attack us. Who does the devil attack the most? He attacks the people who prays the most, those who operate in the gifts of God, and the people who God preciously utilize and loves. The deception of the devil can work for one moment within a time. Satan always tries to deceive and corrupt the people who are valuable and useful in the kingdom of God. If you fail to pray, you will easily be targeted, deceived, and corrupted. You must always pray and be humbled.
The devil look for the people who misuses God’s power. But if you feel something is not right rationally and spiritually, you need to just stop and go back to the word of God and prayer. God’s word and prayer are very important. Yes, the power of God is important but apart from the word of God and prayer, it will not be completed. Many times, when the people receive the power of God, they begin to misuse it accordingly to their personality, character, nature and the kind of ministry they perform.
There are people who have prayed for a certain period of time and have become weary and tired. There are also people who have experienced many spiritual events and become weary and tired and such people have broken away becoming targets of the devil. The devil does not have a hard time finding them. When these types of people breakaway from God’s grace, Satan makes them critics of God’s work. We need to be positive to the end enduring in faith. Satan precisely finds these people who tried to live according to God’s will but yet have failed. When Satan finds them, Satan will corrupt them. This is a very scary thing.
In the LA fire conference, Satan came to my room and entered into my body through my nostril. Then he grabbed my throat and began twisting it. I even heard the cracking sound from my throat. If you have your spiritual eyes opened, the ability to hear God’s voice, and performing the Holy Spirit’s ministry, you will realize that there will be many things that you may go over the line if you do not careful. When we go over the line, we will be deceived, ruin, and destroy others. We need to discern the things out that will lure us to go over the line and then we need to address it as we repent.
There could be things that lead others to deception. Before we receive the power of God, we are not able to see any of these things in us. But once we receive God’s power having our spiritual eyes opened and experiencing new spiritual events, without even realizing, we may be misusing them. Then the problem will be great. In order for the demons to leave us, we need to earnestly and with all our being as we shout out, pray like a child. When we powerfully cry out to God in prayer, the devil will not be able to use his strength. God grants grace to the humble and He grants the power that will lead us to victory when we fight with the devil.
Remember, God said, “Draw close to Me and I will draw close to you.” Even in the natural realm, when we want to be close to someone, we need to first open our heart and begin to fellowship or socialize. We need to frequently meet, fellowship, and socialize. Then at the end, we will become closer and have depth in our relationships. This is one of the reasons why our church meets daily late at night and continuously pray. We need to have deep fellowship with God. Pray as you proclaim.
Pastor Kim, Yong Doo
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