Category: Prayer

Have you seen how the sheep respond to their shepherd? There’s a video on youtube showing people testing the sheep and see how they react to the different voices. It’s a touching moment to see the sheep not only respond to their shepherd but quickly run to him (*see Note1).

Jesus Christ says in the Bible, “My sheep listen to My voice; I know them, and they follow me.” (John 10:27)

Jesus Christ also says in the Bible, “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and welcome you into My presence, so that you also may be where I am.” (John 14:3)

Where is Jesus Christ now? He says, “But from now on, the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of the mighty God.” (Luke 22:69)

Why can Jesus Christ sit by the side of God? It’s because He, in very nature God, took the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. He humbled Himself and became obedient to death, not a glorious death, but on the shameful cross. Therefore, God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth. (refer to Philippians 2:6-10)

No matter how powerful idols you are worshiping, they all need to bow down to the only one name approved by God. Therefore, if you think you believe there’s a God but don’t know which religion to go, ask God to show you the true one. If you think you hear God’s voice but not sure, test it by asking if that voice confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. If that voice doesn’t confess Jesus as God, it is not from God. (refer to 1 John 4:2-3)

So I pray: Lord, God, please give us listening ears in our hearts and discernment in our spirits. As Your sheep, we listen to Your truth and obey Your guiding. As a result, we will know who is the true God when You come back to bring us to a better home some day. When the voice of the world tries to lead us astray like a wolf, please provide an escape for us to quickly run to you. When you call us by each of our name, make us happily jump up to follow You without hesitation.

*Note1:video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e45dVgWgV64&t=1s

*Song: The shepherd’s voice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lS-UTKZH4AU

What is prayer? Whom do you pray to? How are you sure there’s someone listening to your prayer?

In Christianity, praying is a two-way conversation, not a monologue. When you pray to God, you are not speaking to the air or throwing out your request to the unknown spiritual power without expecting the answer. First, if you recognize God as your Heavenly Father, you know whom you are talking to. Second, when you talk to God, you are sure He listens because that’s what the Bible says. Third, when you truly pray in Spirit, the result is you will get to know God more and know yourself more. And you will also learn to access the resource in God’s kingdom through the prayer.

The Bible says, “I love the Lord, for He heard my voice; He heard my cry for mercy. Because He turned His ear to me, I will call on Him as long as I live.” (Psalm 116:1-2, NIV)

Praying is the most precious privilege and authority God gives to the believers who receive Jesus Christ as their Savior. Talk to Him at anytime, anyplace, because Jesus Christ has paid all of the cost for you to have the unlimited line with this powerful and loving Father and Creator of the universe.

So I pray: Lord, God, thank You for always listening to us when we humble ourselves and come to You. Thank You for giving this precious privilege for talking to You anything in our mind, pleading to You for what we need, and speaking on behalf of others for their benefit. May You teach us how to pray for knowing You, ourselves, and advancing Your Kingdom through Holy Spirit within us.

A sad but true story happened to a friend’s family: A lady attended a spiritual event and joined the group. She was taught to “be herself” for finding her happiness. Later she was asked for money contribution to the group. However, her husband found out her continuous spending on this purpose so he didn’t allow her to do it anymore. For some reason, she committed a suicide.

It is one of many reasons people may regard religious people or spiritual groups as maniac or lack of rationality.

The Bible says, “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.” (1 John 4:1, ESV)

The false thoughts exist not only in various religions or philosophies, but also in the daily news, books, or gossip from coworkers, etc. Avoiding to have contact with these false thoughts is not an effective way of finding security; learning the truth to filter out the lies is a better solution.

There is a Creator God of this universe knows everything and He is good to always telling the truth. The truth you want to learn is recorded in the Bible, a collection of writings, in which the earliest ones were written nearly 3500 years ago without one word being changed. (*see note)

Do you want to find the wisdom of telling good from evil? Jesus Christ is the way and the truth. Coming to learn from Him is the beginning of wisdom.

So I pray: Lord God, please give us a heart of fearing the true God so that we can learn from Your wisdom. Please teach us when we open the Bible to seek Your guidance and live with peace and discernment in the truth-distorting, levity-mixing, paradox-permeating society.

*Note: https://www.biblica.com/resources/bible-faqs/when-was-the-bible-written/

What is happiness? A mother said she wants her daughter to have smooth life without any trouble. A man said he wants to save all the money he needs for the retirement. Another man said he wants to have a pain-free life with healthy body to the end.

How you define true happiness for your life results in the direction of pursuing it.

If a student wants to be happy with one-time success in the exam, he can memorize the answers for questions within a short time and forget them all after the test. However, we grew up understanding life is not just for one or several tests but a marathon to persevere to run toward to the bigger goal.

What is the ultimate goal for humans from God’s perspective?

The Bible says, “…Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead. I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:13-14, NIV)

All the temporary happiness from smooth journey, money, and health will fade away when we walk toward the end of the life. What we can bring to the eternal life is only by knowing who our Creator, Savoir, and Lord is so that we will desire to live forever with Him. The trouble in this life may give us hard time, but it also gives us an opportunity to seek the way out of the doom.

If you are a reborn Christian, your life is truly happier in three ways (*see note):

1. You know all your guilt has been removed because Jesus Christ paid the price of being condemned guilty on the cross.

2. The bitterness permeating in your soul is removed by the power of Jesus Christ and is replaced with joy of praise through Holy Spirit.

3. Your inner life is being transformed by the work of Holy Spirit living within you.

So I pray: Lord, God, a life not given to great things is not worth living. We thank You for risking Your only Son’s life to redeem our lives. May You give us vision and courage to risk our earthly life for pursuing the heavenly greatness. Our aim is not historical influence, but eternal impact. Then, we will press on toward the goal to win the prize You call us to receive.

*Read more from Pastor John Piper’s sharing about happiness and taking risk for life:

Do you find yourself to shun certain people who don’t please you or get in your way because they are like the speck in your eyes? Do you feel justified and empowered by not forgiving certain unfair things or unjust enemies so that you can keep your dignity? You are not alone.

The Bible tells a story about God calling a man, Jonah, to preach to Nineveh, the capital city of Assyria, because the people were very wicked. Jonah hated the idea because Assyria was the great enemy of his country. Jonah didn’t want to do it and he ran away from God. But God was merciful to reveal Jonah’s sinful motivation so that he repented and dealt with his own sinful motivation. (refer to Jonah 1-4)

What is his sinful motivation?

Jon Bloom wrote: “Self-pity is our sinful, selfish response to something not going the way we think it should.”

Self-pity builds a wall around us to avoid being hurt by other people. It exposes our pride, low self-esteem, self-indulgence, self-righteousness under the disguise of self-protection. Self-pity gives birth to sorrow, shame, fear, depression, gossip, judging, and bitterness, etc. Like all other sins which were like landmines on the way of life, self-pity is a sin needed to be removed before it destroys our life.

What can we do? Once we find ourselves stepping on the landmine of self-pity, cry out for help. Jonah repented his sin to God and was saved. We also can come to Jesus Christ for deliverance because He has crucified our sins on the cross and defused the crisis of death threat.

The Bible says: “Give me aid against the enemy, for the help of man is worthless.” (Psalm 108:12)

Sin is our enemy. The help of man including self-guided improvement is useless. Sin can only be overcome with Jesus Christ’ blood on the cross.

So I pray: Lord, God, please reveal any sins within us because they are life-threating to our souls. Then, please give us confessing hearts to come to Jesus Christ and acknowledge His sacrifice on the cross, which has overcome the death of our sins. With God, we will gain the victory and You will trample down our enemies of sins and devil.

People who don’t believe Jesus Christ might think that the God in Christianity was like a tyrant who cruelly commanded people to follow his rule for his own benefit and didn’t tolerate any gray area outside of his absolute truth.

When we live in another country which speak different language, it’s necessary that we learn their language and culture to communicate with the people there. For our safety and benefit, we also want to obey the law executed by the government from traffic rule to filing tax report, etc.

Therefore, before jumping to the conclusion about the God in Christianity from humans’ perspective, why not ask God to give us His perspective to understand the reason that He expects humans to know Him and communicate with Him?

The Bible says: “If you call out for insight, if you cry aloud for understanding, if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives wisdom.” (Proverbs 2:3-6a, NIV)

The result of knowing this God is that “Then you will understand what is right and just and fair—every good path. For wisdom will enter your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul.” (Proverbs 2:9-10, NIV)

Is it contrary to what you thought about a god who wants you to blindly obey him like religious fanatics under hypnosis or programmed robots without free will?

Open the Bible and read it with a heart of looking for answers to your questions. God wants to tell you many good things about your life and His love for you.

So I pray: Lord, God, please forgive us that we often look for treasure in the world, but not in Your words in the Bible. But You promise to lead us to know You when we accept Your words, store up Your commands within us, turn our ears to Your wisdom and search for understanding with all our hearts. Please give us your supernatural perspective to see the grand majestic heavenly view of God in Your words in the Bible.

Is cancer bad? A psychiatry doctor in Taiwan, who is also influenced by the New Age Seth Material believes that cancer brings a good opportunity of examining a person’s spiritual status. From his clinical counseling with patients, he discovered that many patients derive cancers from their long-term suppressed emotional and broken spiritual problems. And he argues that it’s more important for patients to build up a healthy spiritual life than merely recovering from cancer because when the cancer relapses, the patients may be dreadful for going through the painful process again.

This doctor also thinks humans may have more peace facing the end of their life if they believe that souls still exist without the dead physical bodies rather than vanishing in the universe. He thinks that even a soul going to hell is still better than disappearing.

This is a fallacy of distraction. If the hell is not a horrible place for a soul, why did Jesus Christ need to die on the cross to save the souls from going to hell? And why should we care about whether our soul still exist or not after death? And who is Jesus Christ? He is a real man in the history and there are hundreds of prophesies about Him that He came to fulfill (see the following link).

This doctor said that he seems to touch the God of destiny and sees the blueprint of Wisdom behind a soul through counseling his patients. But without further asking who this God is, he still hasn’t seen the true God.

So I pray: Lord, God, no one can come to You unless You draw us. Please be merciful to us and open our eyes to see Your fingerprint is everywhere in the history and our lives.

353 prophesies fulfilled in Jesus Christ http://www.accordingtothescriptures.org/prophecy/353prophecies.html

A young person asks me to pray for him for knowing if he is walking on the right path of God. I am glad he has a heart to ask God for direction. I remembered the verse from the Bible: “Make me know Your ways, O, Lord; teach me Your paths.” (Proverbs 25:4). But before I said these words to him, I quietly prayed in my heart to ask God what He wants to tell him. Then, I heard myself asking him the question:

“If God does show you the way He plans for you, but it may not be your own way, are you willing to obey it because you know He always gives you the best for you, even though you cannot see it now?”

The young man admitted it’s tough because he hasn’t really trusted God that deeply.

“I understand. It’s not easy to trust God without knowing Him intimately. Therefore, God sometimes allows us to do things in our own way until we are at our wit’s end. Then we start to willfully surrender and follow His way and He will definitely show us His best way for satisfying us and glorifying Himself.”

It takes time to know God closely and then trust Him, just like knowing any friend. Before running out of our life, Today, could be the day you start to come to Jesus Christ and be His friend.

So I pray: Lord, God, thank You for patiently waiting for us to surrender to You. But before it’s too late in our life, it’s time for us to stop doing evil things and quit thinking evil thoughts. Please help us develop the deep trust in Jesus Christ so that we want to obey You. And thank You for showing us Your tender love and for being always ready to forgive us whenever we turn to You and confess our sins.

Have you ever wondered if you are making the right choice for your life? How can you be sure you will not regret for making that choice?

Someone said that you just make the choice based on your best judgment at that moment and don’t need to regret because you have done your best. This philosophy turns each decision of your life to a gambling. You seem to be your own master to decide everything, but actually you just leave your life to be tossed by the unknown probability. This is not called freedom. This is self-deception.

The Bible says, “Submit to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and He will come near to you.” (James 4:7-8). God is not a controlling tyrant. On the contrary, He is love so that He wants to set you free from gambling on your life. But the devil wants you to feel proud of being your own master, so that you would not come to God. The result is you hinder yourself from walking with God and getting the best of your life.

So I pray: Lord, forgive us to be self-reliant and self-righteousness. We often think our efforts make us deserve all the good things in our lives, but forget it’s all because you give us life in the beginning so that we can work hard. Today, Lord, we come to you with gratitude and ask you to purge us of pride and submit to You with humility.

Do you have a joyful song singing in your soul, even in the midst of trouble? Do you lift up your head to see the sky in awe and reverence? Do you feel thankful for being given life? Do you enjoy the freedom of stopping doing what you know it’s not good for yourself? Do you feel secure and protected when dreadful disasters happen?

I grew up in a culture surrounding with darkness: man-made idols worshiping, ghost stories, brutal images on media, and national history of hatred and prejudice, etc. Without knowing a way out, I lived in constant fear of people and worldly crisis, as well as anxiety of losing control of own life and failing on social expectation. No matter how many virtues I reflected on and tried to improve myself, there’s a guilt not able to be wiped out. The guilt induces condemnation, first condemning others, then condemning self, which generates bitterness and then cynicism.

A soul-broken person carries such self-destructive bomb that eventually explodes to kill self and hurt others. The firing distance ranges from inside of the family, marriage, and to the society.

However, genuine salvation of Jesus Christ is a life-changing experience. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come” (2 Corinthians 5:17) The bomb wrapped on self was removed and replaced with a fountain of joy when one receives Jesus Christ as his/her Savior and the Lord of his/her life. Since then, I can sing a joyful song in my soul. I am set free to be my authentic self, and granted the peace of living in the uncertainty with hope and gratitude to the God of the universe.

So I pray: All the earth, shout for joy to the Lord. Worship the Lord with gladness; come before Him with joyful songs. Know that the Lord is God. It is He who made us, and we are His; we are His people, the sheep of His pasture. Enter His gates with thanksgiving, and His courts with praise; give thanks to Him and praise His name. For the Lord is good and His love endures forever; His faithfulness continues through all generations. (Psalms 100) Lord, thank you for putting a new song in my heart.