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PASTORAL PHILOSOPHY > PASTORAL PHILOSOPHY
Children of God are to love Him with all their heart, all their soul, all their strength, and all their mind (Luke 10:27). This is because He has loved us to the point of sending our Savior Jesus Christ into this world as an atoning sacrifice and has given us eternal life.
Those who love God are bound to be loved by Him, and “loving God” is the same as keeping His commandments (John 14:21; 1 John 5:3). We will have kept His commandments when we have obeyed what He has commanded us to do, thrown away what He has told us to throw away, done what He commanded us, and have not done what He has forbidden us from doing. As we keep abstaining from every form of evil and circumcising our heart, we will soon take after the heart of the Lord.
When we are obedient to God’s Word and live by it, we will be not only loved by God but also be prosperous and in good health just as our soul prospers.
When Jesus’ disciples preached God’s Word, signs that attested to the faithfulness of the Word always accompanied them. As the apostle Paul, after he preached the Word, made sure to manifest signs and wonders that enabled people to believe that God’s Word was the truth, he could boldly confess, “The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with all perseverance, by signs and wonders and miracles” (2 Corinthians 12:12).
In order to help people believe in God beyond any doubt, it is necessary to proclaim the Word of life and manifest the works of His power especially at a time in which sin and evil thrive and science and civilization continue to develop. Preaching the Gospel without any manifestations of God’s power will only urge people to accept and believe in the Word as mere knowledge.
Manifesting tangible works of God recorded in the Bible when preaching the Gospel will enable people to believe in His Word from the heart and transform them into people living by the Word.
People who love God live by His Word. It is difficult to meet with God and receive His answers to prayer when we believe in Him only from our knowledge of Him. God will recognize our faith as true and bless us accordingly when we live by His Word.
When I led the First Worship Service of a “Manmin” congregation with 9 adults and 4 people (including myself) on July 25, 1982, in a sanctuary smaller than 534 square feet in area, the title of the sermon message was “Faith: The Most Precious of all the Precious.” Manmin Joong-ang Church is the fruit of faith in God, having placed our trust only in Him and marched forward to this day. Its members accomplished all these by faith, as they have clung to God in prayer and His promise, “‘If You can!’ All things are possible to him who believes” (Mark 9:23) for more than two decades. As we have walked by faith everyday, Manmin has experienced manifestations of God’s power by which the works of creation took place as well as continued growth and overflowing blessings.