WOW

After discipleship with my dad on my way home I have a lot of thoughts about the value system we abide by. Sometimes our value system have a close relationship with where we coming from. Here's the thing, I am coming from a culture that performance and money is the center of my life. As you all know, I was a IT major and I even got a mater in IT which I hate. You know why would I choose to major that because my parents and my brother convinced me that software engineer would be a job that provides great fortune. The thing is I felt like 6 years of study is miserable and empty because that's not something I wanted to do. What did this story tell you? If you're making a decision based on money, you may feel like you are working for money and you are being enslaved by it. Scriptures talks about "No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.--Matthew 6:24" Don't get me wrong, I am not saying money is evil because I do believe God is the Lord of all creation and He is the one who provides fortunate. God creates all things by His word, but except for one thing which is "us"! He created us through than money so why would you idolize money and recognize money is your king?

I am not saying you can't earn big fortune without Jesus. You probably can but the thing is we do witness a lot of rich people they still live under the orphan spirits and try to prove themselves they are someone big, someone important by purchasing toys such as fancy cars or purses and they may have to maintain certain status in people's heart as well. Come on! Why bother? As children of God, sometimes we will have this stereotype that missionaries or pastors have to be poor because they need to give up all the things they have so as to preach the gospel. I am rebuking this stereotype right now in the name of Jesus! From my perspective I believe children of God would go through a phase of learning how to trust Him because if you lead an easy life with your great fortune your entire life you might be indulged by it. If you can't learn to be faithful without money, how are you going to be faithful with money? At the end of day, you are blessed by the resources so that you can be a true blessing to others. Do you know the owners of forever21, they are south Korean Christian and give away 90% of their income so as to give it back God. Sometimes when we are in church, we probably feel like we are "obligated' to give offering because we have to, because we probably will afraid if we don't give offerings people might think of us as one of those stingy people. To be honest with you, I've struggling with this kind of stuff and especially I am not working right now. So before I went to church last Sunday I was like "Hey Jesus! Just so you know, I can only give you $100 cuz I am pretty broke now!" But that day, God has been speaking to my heart to bless our brother who has been through a hard time now. God was like "Justine, I feed you pretty well and I bless you with everything you can have even though you are on a non-working phase! Would you do me a favor to reciprocate to my son who can't not enjoy what you enjoy right now! I need you to co-work with me to restore his faith back! " so I was like" Can't say no to our father!"

From what I've learned from Jesus is that sometimes money is not our source of security nor happiness. As a matter of fact, God is. So if you think that you are still trapped in this kind of situation I would like to pray for you and ask God to free you from that kind of bondage. Jesus doesn't really care about if you give Him $100 or one trillion, all He cares about is where your heart is? I heard an amazing testimony from my friend, she told me while her dad was called to go on a missionary journey his company was about to grow and expand but after her dad received his calling, he was simply being obedient what God has told him to do. Because what God took away from you right now He will totally reward you for your faithfulness.

Father God, I am asking you to free those who read through this message, I am asking you to free us from the culture of putting money as the center of our lives. Father God you are the provider of everything we could have, we could enjoy! We will stop looking at whatever in our lives are lacking, we will start to look at whatever we have in our lives are blessed by you! Day in and day out we just want to get closer to you, we want to seek first your kingdom because we have faith you will give us all that we need. You are a Father never back out your promises and we will be obedient to every mission and every job that you are calling us to do. We just wants to freely give what we receive freely. In Jesus name! Amen!!