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Showing posts from October, 2012

The Recovery of Revival

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What does it mean to be revived? From the perspective of history, when people say revival , they generally mean an event in time where there was a significant increase of spiritual interest in a specific region after a period of decline, often characterized by mass conversions and burning zeal toward God. There was the First Great Awakening, then the Second, the Third, and finally, the Fourth Great Awakening. Yet many begin to wonder what happened? Where did that spirit of revival go? These days morality plummets and normality is distorted. Deep down, everyone knows we desperately need the Recovery of Revival. To be revived means "to bring back to life or consciousness; to resuscitate (to impart new health, vigor, or spirit); to restore, use, or activate." What we actually need is not a mere exciting event of revival once every century, or every decade, or every year. We need a day-by-day revival! In the midst of this tired universe we're living in, the need

The Healing Christ - the Sun of Righteousness

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The healing Christ is the Sun of righteousness with healing in His wings ( Malachi 4:2 ). The word Sun  refers to life (i.e., the sun as source of life supply) and righteousness refers to justice. Many are excited by miraculous physical healing. However, this is not the aspect of the healing Christ I'm going to write about today.  The truth is ... "Today the whole world is sick. The daily news reports are filled with death, injustice, lawlessness, and darkness. This earth needs healing, but it will not get it until Christ returns. The only ones who receive healing today are the ones who know Christ as their Savior and inward life.  We are receiving this healing ahead of time in a secret, hidden way every day. We are sick in our entire being- spirit, soul and body. We need our whole being to be healed by the Sun of righteousness. We need His wings to heal us, first inwardly and then outwardly." The divine healing for our physical sickness barely scratches the

Following the Lord and Living to Him

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I've had a long history with Christians on Campus, since I was a freshman in college. There I got connected with Judy, an older sister in the Lord, whom I love dearly. From that moment on, our ongoing fellowship has helped me go through various spiritual crises. Recently, living my life has been quite challenging (isn't this everyone's story?) I'm the kind of person who wants to excel in everything that I do, but it soon becomes excruciatingly difficult when everything  appears to be the first priority. In short, giving 100% at all times, in all things, drains both my mental and physical capacities. I know time management. The key is to wisely prioritize, right? Yet the main problem is I truly, genuinely, consider that all my responsibilities are equally important. Now what? Not only that, when I managed to drop one of the balls that I've been juggling, I got so condemned, fearing the judgment from others. Sounds like a nightmare, doesn't i

Death Cannot Hold the Resurrection Life

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Continuing from my previous post on The Sign of Jonah , I'd like to write about our experience in relation to Christ entering into death and passing through death into life. It's good to know that Christ entered into Hades as both God and man. Yet the account of Jonah's prayer, which parallels to Christ's activities in His burial, is so detailed that it makes me wonder- why do we need to know what Christ did in such a thorough way ? 1 Peter 3:18 says, "For Christ also has suffered once for sins, the Righteous on behalf of the unrighteous, that He might bring you to God, on the one hand being put to death in the flesh, but on the other, made alive in the Spirit;" Christians hardly talk about Christ in His burial, especially about the part where He was "on the one hand being put to death in the flesh, but on the other, made alive in the Spirit." Yet this is a great matter!  At that very juncture of time, within this One Person, humani

The Sign of Jonah

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Jonah in the belly of the fish! That's what most people think about when they hear the name, Jonah . Actually the story of Jonah is quite amusing. How could a man be swallowed up by a big fish, stayed for three days and three nights, and be spewed out from the belly of the fish onto the shore? Why is such an account in the Bible? This past week I came across Matthew 12:39-40: "But He answered and said to them, An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and a sign shall not be given to it except the sign of Jonah the prophet. For just as Jonah was in the belly of the great fish three days and three nights, so will the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights." Surprisingly, Jonah is mentioned again in the New Testament. But what's more mind-boggling to me is the fact that the Lord Jesus refers to Jonah being in the belly of the great fish as a sign pointing to His own burial- the three days and three nights in betwe