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.