These are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.
The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.
No one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.
“Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?”
But we have the mind of Christ.
(1 Corinthian 2:10-16)
When I was praying last week, I cried out, shouting, “My Lord !”, picturing Jesus carrying His cross. I cried my heart out because I wanted to walk in His footsteps and make my way to the place where His heart was. I earnestly requested Jesus to pour out His heart into the Hanmaum congregation.
God says that a church is the body of Christ, and the church is given a mission to be the hands and feet of Jesus on this earth. I pray that the love of Jesus will be poured out to our congregation so that our church, the body of Christ, will be a place where we can hear the heart of Jesus pounding.
The Holy Spirit connects our prayer and life into one. He makes our prayer become life and our life to become prayer. During prayer, the Holy Spirit pours out the heart of Jesus onto us. And His heart begins to take a deeper place in our soul through what we experience in our daily life. Some encounter the heart of God through pain, perseverance, joy and love caused by their children. Some experience it through their own parents. Some experience Jesus' desire to save us through suffering from wounds created by the sin of this world, and some experience the width and depth of Jesus’ love through undergoing physical suffering. Some understand the love of our God for us through the joy and suffering in their relationships with one another. Some understand it by relationships of love.
In John 13:36, when Jesus was making his way to the cross, Peter asked him, ““Domine, Quo Vadis? (Lord, where are you going?)”. At this, Jesus replied to Peter, “Where I am going, you cannot follow now, but you will follow later.”
According to Christian tradition, Peter met Jesus again at the end of his life and asked him again, “Quo Vadis, Domine?”. And after this, Peter ended up following the path of Jesus, carrying the cross..
I cry out the name of Jesus from a distance as I picture Him carrying the cross. Just like Peter who followed Jesus, I plead that I too can take on the path of Jesus with His heart. I pray that our Hanmaum church can become like this as well.
Following the shepherd
Pastor Jiwon Choi