God Pursues Passionately

We closed the "shop" at 10.30pm but the crowd kept coming. Ended up staying close to midnight. People were so hungry for the spiritual. Most of them were young people from Singapore.

There were so many encounters but two of them revealed so much about the love of God.

A youth came with three friends. As he sat down, we pointed to his left shoulder. After he got healed, his eyes were wide open; he jumped out of the seat and shouted, "What the f**k?!" 

Somehow I like to hear these vulgarities when people encounter Jesus. You don't get this privilege inside the church in case the holy compound gets polluted.

But Jesus likes the outside world and only real encounters get these responses.

When he came back to the seat, we said, "Your family needs reconcilation in relationship and you need to release forgiveness to your father."

He was astounded, turned to his friends and said, "What the f***!"

We added, "You have a very sensitive and tender heart, like my son. You care for people deep inside. And you are studying psychology, right?"

His friend said, "He knows you are studying psychology?!!" 

By now he was so stunned like vegetables that he exclaimed, "Bro, I don't know what to say. But I cannot get up from my seat now. My legs are unable to move. They are stuck."

Since he got stuck, we shared about Jesus. He confessed that he's a Christian but never encountered something like this. We shared how personal and how loving God is towards him. It impacted him so much that he took a while to slowly get up from the seat.

A Vietnamese lady sat down with her sister and her BIL. We told her that she had a curved spine at the lower part of her back, after doing spiritual reading. She got completely healed. Then she requested for her shoulder to be healed and she received it.

Through translation, she began to share that she had a dream three days ago that she would meet us at this place to be prayed for her health. The God of heaven is powerfully pursuing her.

We shared the Gospel with her. Her eyes began to be filled with tears. But she was afraid of her family as she's a Buddhist. So she wasn't ready to take that step. That's totally fine because salvation is not that one step of prayer. Prayer isn't going to get anyone saved. It's about believing and surrendering, which has already begun in her. Left our contact number so that she could contact us.

The God of power is also the God of love. Seeing how He pursues them passionately ministered to my heart. I feel like I wasn't there to minister. I was there to witness God Himself loving and pursuing people.

How To Read 1 John 1:9

How To Read 1 John 1:9

For many years and even now, 1 John 1:9 has been the go-to Scripture if any believer sins. While God forgives our sins, this passage isn't about confessing your sins to receive forgiveness and cleansing.

A word without the context always becomes a pretext for a proof text.

1 John was written in a time when false teachings penetrated the church because there were no New Testament Scriptures. John had to establish basic understanding on faith in Christ because Docetism & Cerinthianism (parts of Gnosticism) were prevalent.

Now re-read the whole chapter 1. There were plenty of powerful words deliberately chosen by John to argue against these false teachings which were confusing the believers in the church.

Verse 7 - But if we walk in the Light, as He is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.

We can only have fellowship with one another IF we are in Christ. Fellowship (koinonia is reserved only for the Body of Christ). This verse is talking about being in Christ (in the Light). Only when you are in Christ (born again) can His blood cleanse you from all sin. If you are NOT in Christ, you are still a sinner whose sins are not cleansed.

Verse 8: If we say we have no sin...

Read verse 7 again, for it sets the context for verse 8. To say that you have no sin is to say that you do not need His blood; you do not need to be cleansed; you have no need for a Saviour.

This is why John said, "...we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us." (1 Jn 1:7)

Verse 9: If we confess our sins...

Read Verse 7-8 again. It sets the context. If we confess our sins, meaning... if we confess our need for a Saviour, if we confess we need to be cleansed, if we confess we need His blood, "He is faithful to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

Back to verse 7 --- only in Christ can you be cleansed from all sin / all unrighteousness.

Verse 10: If we say we have not sinned...

This is repeating verse 8. It's called Bible parallelism. If you say that you don't need to be cleansed, if you say that you have no need for a Saviour, "we make Him a liar, and His Word is not in us."

1 John 2:1 - My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you MAY NOT sin.

Read previous verses in chapter 1 again. How can John tell you to confess that you have sinned and immediately tell you that he wants you NOT to sin. He must be schizophrenic to tell you that you surely have sins and at the same time, tell you that you can live free from sin.

Unless John was trying to establish the foundational truth in chapter one that EVERYONE needs a Saviour and His blood, instead of mere knowledge (false teachings of Gnosticism) in order to be cleansed from all sins and walk in the Light and have Christian fellowship with one another!

Thus, 1 John 2:1 is telling us that as born again believers, we can walk free from every sin. "BUT if anyone does sin, we have an advocate... Jesus Christ the righteous." - 1 John 2:1

As a believer, you have already confessed your need for a Saviour (1 John 1:9) and you have been cleansed from all sins / unrighteousness.

Now, if (not when) you sin (1 John 2:1), remember that it is Christ who is your advocate and your Righteousness. You can't confess to be forgiven because you are already forgiven in Him. Now He lives in and through you, so that you don't have to sin (Gal 6:1).

Jesus is BOTH

Jesus is both Grace and Truth.

He is both Saviour and Lord.

We preach a gospel that says that "God is love and God is good, would you like to receive Him?" Then we start preaching to the same person after he comes to church service "Jesus is Lord. You need to surrender your life to Him and live out the Kingdom values." We separate the two, thinking that the former is salvation and the latter is discipleship.

If I were the hearer, I would feel cheated by the initial message.

Jesus didn't preach this kind of gospel.

Neither did the early disciples.

Nor the early church fathers.

If the gospel you preach doesn't include Lordship, it is not the Gospel and you ain't getting people saved.

Re-studying The Parable of The Sower

Re-studying The Parable of The Sower

I was planning to read 1 John when the Spirit intercepted and invited me to go back to Mark 4.

This is the foundation of the Kingdom which gives understanding to every other parable about the Kingdom.

Read Mark 4 (Jews & Gentiles), Matthew 13 (Jews) and Luke 8 (Gentiles) again.

25% rejected the Gospel of the Kingdom.

25% received (in the Greek, it means to 'receive with the mind') but either took offense (Jews) or departed from it (Gentiles) due to tribulation/persecution.

25% remain unfruitful / never mature due to worldliness.

Only 25% accepted = held fast = understood the Gospel of the Kingdom.

The Gospel of the Kingdom has only 1/4 who will respond to it. Many are called but few are chosen. Those who accepted/held fast/understood the Gospel are chosen.

Today, if the Gospel you preach has 100% response, perhaps you are not preaching the Gospel.

Why You Shouldn't Fast As Believers

Why You Shouldn't Fast As Believers

Warning: This post might awaken some religious spirit.

Fasting has its own benefits but the followings are just religious mindsets that do not lead to those benefits:

❌ When we fast, God hears us

❌ When we fast, our prayers get answered faster

❌ When we fast, God forgives us and heals our land

❌ When we fast, we are genuinely repenting

❌ When we fast, we get more power and anointing from God

❌ We can fast from media, TV, games, etc. (That is simply called 'breaking a bad habit', not fasting)

❌ When we fast, we can move God's hand

You will never find these in the New Covenant. God had to explain it to the religious ones (Isa 58:6-7).

✅ Biblical fasting has always been food. Let's not change the Word for our own comfort. If you can dethrone your stomach (gullet), you can dethrone your god (Phil 3:19)

✅ Fasting reminds you that you are dead (Rom 6:6-13) because you are first a spirit being, alive in Him

✅ Fasting helps you to stay more focused and more conscious of who God is in you (Rom 8:9)

I would like to add that fasting helps you in personal healing. In the natural, fasting allows some parts (tissues and cells) of the body to regenerate and repair. But it is way more powerful when you get the principle in the Spirit.

I'm not saying that fasting produces divine healing. But fasting trains you to deny the visible and the physical so that you magnify the invisible and the spiritual (Rom 8:6). Most believers cannot minister healing to themselves while they can minister healing to others. 

Why? Because the symptoms in the flesh appear and feel more real than the Spirit of Life inside them. When you fast, you are training your flesh to shut up so that if you have symptoms in your flesh next time, you know how to shut the flesh up and use a loudspeaker in the Spirit.

Don't fast for the wrong reasons. You don't gain any brownie point with God. Fasting is not work-based. That's pure religion. Fasting is grace-based because you have been made complete in Him.

The Possible Biblical Death

The Possible Biblical Death

The early disciples and last century disciples knew how to walk in the life of God until they were ready to depart from this earth.

For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. - 2 Tim 4:6-7

Paul knew when his time of departure was near. God revealed to him. He completed his assignment entrusted by God. Before that, he knew that he had the power and life of God to decide if he should live or die (Phil 1:21-26). He didn't die of sickness. He was beheaded as a martyr.

...since I know that the putting off of my body will be soon, as our Lord Jesus Christ made clear to me. - 2 Peter 1:14

Peter knew when his time of departure was near. God revealed to him. He was crucified as a martyr.

F.F Bosworth, after completing his assignment, knew that the time of his departure was near. God revealed to him in 1957.

For a few months, he continued to be alive. Few weeks before his departure, he gathered all his family members to inform them and pray for them.

But he still couldn't depart. So he asked T.L Osborn to come and pray for him to leave this earth. He said to Osborn, "I have been preaching this for too long. I have been walking in it. The life of God is strong in me. My body doesn't want to let me go. Pray for me, so that I can depart and go."

Osborn visited and prayed for him for a few days. Finally, F.F Bosworth slept and went to heaven. He didn't die due to sickness. He died because he finished his assignment and God had revealed that his time was up.

What's the possibility that the biblical death is one without sickness and one that has completed the assignment, when God reveals that it's time to depart?

Kenneth Hagin, too, experienced that. I believe we, too, can experience this.

No One Has Seen Christ Part Two

No one has seen Jesus literally after His ascension. It will actually destroy His own words of the purpose of sending the Holy Spirit, which is to our advantage.

I wrote about this some time back with many Scriptures about Christ who is STILL seated in heaven beside the Father.

When people share testimonies of seeing Jesus, they only saw a vision of Him but not the literal Person of Christ.

The following passages further nail this truth.

James 1:23 says that when we read the Word, we are reading who we are, because as Christ (The Word) is, so are we in this world. 

The Word is our mirror. The more we see The Word, the more we become like the Word (2 Cor 3:18).

However, we have yet to see the 100% Christ. Thus, there is a tad dim in the mirror. But we keep going after seeing Him more clearly in the Word.

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. - 1 Cor 13:12

When Christ returns literally in Person, we will see Him face to face. Two things happen when we see Him literally:

1) We shall know fully (1 Cor 13:12)

2) We shall be like Him (1 John 3:2). The word 'like' in Greek here means 'likeness in nature and condition'.

Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when He appears we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is. - 1 John 3:2

It is impossible to see the literal Person of Christ (aka face to face) without gaining full knowledge of Him and without being transformed to His nature and condition.

So hear those testimonies with a pinch of salt when people tell you that they saw Christ face to face.

Identity & Mirror

If we can release healing to others but not to ourselves, it's an identity issue.

If we can hear the voice of God for others but not for ourselves, it's an identity issue.

Identity in Christ has to do with the understanding of righteousness. We see the most issues with ourselves. Unless we regard ourselves not according to the flesh, we cannot walk in identity.

We must look past who we think we are into the true mirror (James 1:23-25), which is the image of Christ. Verse 25 says that we need to look and keep/continue looking. We cannot afford to forget who we are in Him, just because we see the issues and flaws in the flesh.

You were born of the first Adam (sin) regardless of what you do. Nothing can change that even if you are a good person.

You are now born again of the last Adam (righteousness) regardless of what you do. Nothing can change that even if you struggle, stumble and fail.

The rights that Jesus had with God the Father have become your rights. This is why you have the rights to hear from Him for yourself, and you have the rights to walk in healing for yourself.

Sin is no longer the issue with a believer. Identity is. And if we don't know our identity, we can never walk in healing and the prophetic for our own lives.

You Are gods

If He became sin so that we can become righteous in Him, then we are now identified with Him. We are not identified with sin, but the righteousness of God.

Since Jesus in the four books of the Gospel is the Righteousness of God revealed, and that we are now identified with Him, every time when you read the four books of the Gospel, you cannot see yourself as the sinner, or the sick person needing help or healing.

You must see yourself as Jesus. As He is, so are you in this world.

You see yourself ministering healing, deliverance, casting out demons, raising the dead, etc. You see yourself having the Kingdom of God and the Spirit of God. You are the anointed son and daughter, the righteousness of God revealed.

This is why only a Christ-centered message will empower you into sonship. Apart from that, you will identify yourself with the wrong person.

This is not blasphemy, crazy, proud or whatsoever. It is who God intended us to be. It doesn't make you become Yahweh but it makes you become gods (Jn 10:34).

Get Out Of Religion

It's interesting how careful and holy we phrase our words when we pray, but we don't watch our tongue outside of the prayers.

This is called religion. I was guilty of that.

We remember to say beautiful grace prayers before we eat, but we forget thankfulness in our daily lives outside of the meal prayers. We forget that He provides not just during mealtimes.

We remember to pray 'healing' prayers when praying for people, but we forget that God is the Healer outside of that prayers.

More often than not, we are spiritual during spiritual moments/meetings but we become secular outside of those moments/meetings.

God doesn't listen to our prayer moments only. He listens to us 24/7. If we spend more time contradicting what we pray in our prayer moments/meetings, we cancel off every spiritual thing.

This is what religion does to us. Religion never focuses on lifestyle or the way of life. It focuses on the moments/meetings.

Faith is not just an event or a day in life. It is the way of life.

Tongue Or Prayer?

Tongue Or Prayer?

Whoever desires to love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit. - 1 Peter 3:10

1) Keeping our tongue away from evil is not just about saying evil things. Saying anything that contradicts what is good (The Word of God) is evil, because we are calling God a liar.

2) Jesus kept His lips from every deceit (1 Peter 2:22). He loved life because He is The Life (John 14:6). This is probably why He saw 100% results 100% of the time. Deceit includes every white lie.

If we want to see good days in our lives, just as healing and health, the first thing to watch is our tongue.

What have you been saying in your daily life? What have you been lying about in your daily life?

Your prayer life is only as strong as your tongue. How powerful and long you pray doesn't have any impact until your daily tongue has changed.

Prayer doesn't change our world. Our tongue does. If we realise that every word that comes out of our tongue is prayer, we will shift our whole mindset about what prayer is.

Don't Change

If your idea of healing is based on whether you feel the symptoms in your body or not, you still don't understand identity.

Since faith is the evidence of things unseen, the evidence of healing is not based on what you feel or see in your body. The evidence of healing is based on "By His stripes".

People might say that you are lying. Ignore them. They don't understand the Word and identity. You speak what the Word says. Since the Word is the only absolute Truth, when you speak what the Word says, you are always telling the truth.

The people around you and the enemy are always trying to get you to speak out what is contrary to the Word. Jesus said that Lazarus was sleeping when everyone around Him was telling Him "No, Lazarus is dead!" But Jesus understood the Word; He understood identity. He spoke the Word because He is the Word.

And He raised Lazarus from the dead.

If your evidence is based on the result and what you see, you don't need faith. In fact, you don't need Christianity. You just need doctors. They will tell you the medical result. They will tell you what they see.

But if you want to be "The righteous lives by faith", then you have to base your evidence on the Word. 

"What does the Word say?" becomes your only evidence. "By His stripes, I was healed."

People will say all kinds of things about you when you keep believing and speaking the Word as your evidence. They want to knock you out of the ground. Some do it on purpose; some are just sincere and genuine but they don't understand the Word yet.

The more people say you are crazy, lying and weird, the more you drive your legs deeper into the ground and stay unwavering, unchanging, unshakeable, steadfast and immoveable. Because after you have done all, STAND. Don't move.

The Word is the most stubborn and firm thing in the entire universe. It does not change regardless of anything. Therefore, you cannot allow anyone to change what the Word says in your life.

Living Without Sin & Deceit

Living Without Sin & Deceit

The early Pentecostals believed that if you sin, the power of God will not move.

The Grace message believes that if you sin, the power of God will still move.

It cannot be that one is fully correct and the other is fully wrong. There must be some parts of truth in each school of thoughts.

Since the Pentecostals focused alot on experiences and encounters, they must have experienced in reality that sin stops the power of God from moving.

Yet the Grace school focuses on the Scriptural truth that where sin abounds, grace abounds even more. And since sin didn't stop Jesus from healing everyone who came to Him, sin couldn't stop the power of God from moving.

Which school is correct? I believe the answer is Yes.

Both.

In my previous post, I shared about how lying in our daily lives has an effect on the manifestation of the Word of God in and through us.

Today I read this passage.

1 Peter 2:22 - He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in His mouth.

Jesus did no sin. Neither did He ever lie because He is the Truth (Jn 14:6). Since He always spoke the Truth, His words (coming out of His mouth) and His heart were fully aligned with the Word of God. He saw 100% results 100% of the time.

Since He did not sin, He fully trusted God (1 Peter 2:23). The root issue of sin lies with a lack of trust in God. He believed God the Father fully, thus He did not sin.

A fully yielded heart that trusts God 100% produces 100% results 100% of the time.

Does sin stop the power of God from moving? No! 

But sin stops the power of God from moving through you 100% of the time because you have a trust issue. Sin proves that we don't fully trust God 100% and if we don't trust Him, we cannot see 100% results 100% of the time like Jesus did.

Jesus did no sin and there was no deceit found in His mouth. He had 100% trust in the Father. If we want to walk like Him, we will need to live like Him.

Why Are You Lying?

Why Are You Lying?

It is human to err and human to lie, especially white lies. Sounds about right. But little do we know that lying has a powerful effect on how the Word of God comes to pass in and through our lives.

When we got born again, the Spirit in us is the Spirit of Truth (Jn 16:13). This Spirit is at war with the flesh (human) as said in Romans 8:7. As believers, we can no longer say "I'm just a human" and yet expect the Word to manifest all the time. It's contradictory.

I believe that Jesus had 100% result in and through the Word, not because He is the Word, since He had to be an example for us by becoming a Man living in the Spirit to demonstrate the Kingdom of God, but because He only spoke the Truth (John 14:6).

1 Peter 2:1 - So put away... ALL deceit...

I just read this verse today and I was reminded that it's not some, but ALL.

God exalts His Word above His name (Ps 138:2). He holds the universe by the Word of His power (Heb 1:3). It is impossible for God to lie (Heb 6:18). He is the Word (John 1:1). The integrity of God's Word lies in the integrity of His mouth.

If God were to tell a single white lie, the whole universe would fall apart. That means that His Word would become void of power.

If this is so, we need to re-think about how lying impacts the effectiveness of the Word of God coming out from our mouth.

Lying as a lifestyle or in our daily lives may seem harmless, especially white lies and sales talk, but it actually hinders the Word of God from manifesting in and through our lives. There is NO separation between the secular and the spiritual because the Word is going to come out from your soul and body.

Death and life lies in the power of the tongue (Prov 18:21). Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks (Lk 6:45). We speak what we believe (2 Cor 4:13).

In other words, each time when we lie (including white lies), death is released, because lying is in the realm of death. Each time when we lie, our heart is reinforced to believe in the lie, since we speak what comes from the heart. Each time when we lie, we wire ourselves to believe in lies, instead of truth.

Here's the thing. When you study the Word of God and speak the Word of God, because of lying in your daily lives, you can't get to the point of truly believing in the Word of God because your heart is living in the tension of truths and lies.

Out of the same mouth, truths and lies flow out. You cannot separate the Word of God (Truth) and your own words (lies in daily life). It's like blessing and cursing (James 3:10) from the same mouth. Therefore, you stumble (James 3:2) and become double-minded (James 1:7-8), where you don't see the Word of God manifest in and through your life.

The next time when we don't see the promises of God coming to past in our lives, don't ask, "Where is the faithfulness of God?" Instead, ask, "Have I been lying in my life, thus causing the Word to become powerless in my life?"

Grace & Truth

Grace & Truth

When we lean on Truth to the extreme, we can step into legalism.

When we lean on Grace to the extreme, we can step into licentiousness.

Jesus is neither Grace nor Truth. He is both Grace and Truth.

For the law was given through Moses, but Grace and Truth came through Jesus Christ. - Jn 1:17

While Titus 2:11 says that the Grace of God (Jesus) has appeared to all men, John 14:6 says that Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life.

How we perceive Jesus not only affects how we receive from Him, it also affects how we conceive the representation of Him into the world.

One obvious misrepresentation is through the way we present the Gospel. Jesus didn't teach His disciples to lead people into the sinner's prayer. He told them to preach the Kingdom so that people could repent and believe in the King.

In street evangelism, I hardly hear the Kingdom being preached. Majority, if not, all the time, I only hear Grace being preached. We hide Truth for fear of rejection. It is often the half-preached Gospel that leads people into the sinner's prayer. I was so guilty of that.

Why are we rushing to close the deal (of sinner's prayer) when the person is not ready to repent and believe in the King? Why are we rushing to clock another testimony and showcase through the social media to the world?

Why are we trying to exalt God in the disguise of exalting ourselves and our own ego? Why are we trying to follow popularity in the expense of Truth?

I know an extremely popular figure who brought lifestyle evangelism to the world through social media. He impacted me many years ago, which was why I did the same by following what he did. But his mentor somehow never did the sinner's prayer thingy in the streets. I wondered a little, then.

Fast forward to a few years later, I understood the Gospel of the Kingdom. But there wasn't a change in how I presented the Gospel in the streets, even though I knew the message of the King. 

Last year, there began a strong nudging in my heart by God to re-look into how we present the Gospel to people in the streets. Suddenly, it clicked. The Gospel of the Kingdom must match with how we present the Gospel in the streets.

Just few weeks ago, I heard a message by Curry Blake. He shared, "God has been speaking to me this year (2024) ----- to get people truly saved and truly healed."

I truly believe that the time has come, where God is speaking to individuals all over the world to re-present the Gospel message in the streets ----- not to lead people into sinner's prayer, but to preach the Kingdom so that they could repent and believe in the King.