In the 312 Azusa Street Home Page says, “Los Angeles was ripe for revival in the spring of 1906! Christians throughout the city were praying for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The previous summer, a Holiness group hungered for a revival during their camp meeting. One of the speakers warned if they didn't ‘dig in’ God was going to pass them by and ‘raise up a people who would.’"

In the Book of Jonah, God commanded this lazy prophet to go to Nineveh to proclaim the message of hope to escape from God’s judgment on the land. Although Jonah tried to disobey his assignment, God shook his laziness tail off by taking him into the belly of whale. Even though Jonah knew God would judge the people of Nineveh, he cannot escape from God for not doing his work. If Jonah didn’t go to Nineveh, there would be no spiritual revival to save themselves from going to Hell; or understand there is God who would like to take care and love them. Of course, after several years later, people of Nineveh turned their back on God and lived sinfully; as a result, God judged their nation.

Jonah’s imprisonment in the belly of whale has been meaningful to the symbolism on the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and also to the revival of our lives. Most preachers may believe that Jesus died on Good Friday evening and resurrected on Easter Sunday morning. If this is true, then Jesus lied about the prediction of His death and resurrection, and the original Passover in Exodus would become useless to the Christianity. However, we can be sure that Jesus’ Words became true as it is written on the Old Testament by reading through original historical documents and the Bible. Jesus died on that Wednesday evening at 6 pm and resurrected on that Saturday evening at 6:01 pm.

Also, the resurrection of Jesus can tell us that we have the hope to break from slavery of darkness of sins. The Bible tells us that we were once become slave to sins before we accepted Jesus Christ as our personal Savior.

We can have revival in our lives by accepting Jesus’ invitation without going to the revival convection. Revival is not about coming together with millions of people to worship our King Jesus or to renewal our spiritual energy, but to have intimate relationship with Jesus Christ personally. We cannot know Jesus more personally until we’d experience with Him by one on one.

What does it mean to have Resurrection Sunday? Most Christians believe that having Easter Sunday means to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ on Sunday after Palm Sunday. Most of them believe that there is no different between Easter Sunday and Resurrection Sunday. However, the KJV Bible on Easter (Acts 4:12) refers as Passover and there is no other verses to contain the word “EASTER.” The other definition of the word EASTER can be found in pagan term as to worship the sun god. (Read Easter Origin at Holiday Section of MGJC Website.)

Jesus said that He is the resurrection and the life. We can have life through Him and there is no other religions can provide something greater than what Jesus has.

Jesus died and resurrected on the third day (evening) to give us hope that there is life that is everlasting. You and I can experience it with Him now without waiting for us to die and accept His invitation. We only need to believe in Him and begin to fellowship with Him everyday by reading His Word, praying, helping each and encouraging other. Some church leaders may tell us that we’d need to have more Bible reading and praying times, and giving more money to our local churches to get more blessings from God. Although there is nothing wrong with these things, God wants us to experience the resurrection and life away from our safety zones, so we can reach the outer parts of our communities. There are other people who haven’t known Jesus Christ and we are the tools to reach the lost souls into God (Matthew 28:18-20).

If you are new to the Christianity, I’d like to tell you that you can find hope of what you’re looking for, if you invite Jesus to come to your life. You can receive the Eternal Life without facing second death that would lead to Hell. Romans 5:8 says, “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” You can do that in your private home just by asking Him forgiveness of your sins and invite Him to your life. It’s just simple. John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

How many of us would have to face our daily tribulation every day? How many of us may decide to give ourselves up when our tribulations are too rough? It’s not easy to go through our day without the situations. If we think we can go though our situations without faiths, we’d let ourselves down.

The definition of faith can be found in Hebrews 11:1-3: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good report. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” We can face our daily trials if we have faith in God—which it produces to patience, patience to experience, and experience to hope. This hope will bring joy in our lives. We cannot experience God-given joy until we experience to go through tribulations.

I understand many hardships that you would need to go through to get the joy of the Lord. Being a disabled man, it doesn’t mean that I cannot have the joy in my life. Some people would think being a disabled person means that he/she has curse from God or has demonic possession. That’s 100 percent false. Of course, some demonic activities may turn the person as not normal person, but into scary person. However, God can use a disabled man in powerful way that we cannot imagine. He would only need to do is to believe in God and trust in Him.

Jesus faced the devil when He was in the wilderness for forty days (Matthew 4; Luke 4), because He had faith and put trust in His Father. Was Jesus rejoiced after spending in the desert without the food and drink for forty days? I believe so that Jesus was relief and rejoiced over the angel’s protection with His Heavenly Father.

Whether we have disabilities either by physically, spiritually, emotionally, or mentally, we can have joy in our lives with God through Jesus Christ. This is why Jesus died on the cross and resurrected on the third day. We can receive joy through the blood of Jesus Christ.

God wants to test us, so we can face the giants to overcome into the joy of the Lord.

But not Peter as he crossed by the temple. Although Peter didn’t have money, he gave this man something greater than the gold or silver. He received Jesus Christ in his life and the power of healing. Because of Peter, this poor man became a spiritual rich from being poor. Many people may miss the opportunity to meet the beggar and became spiritual poor.

Even though we have many Christian churches in America, it doesn’t mean that we are secured spiritually. Some of mega churches may act like the rest of people in Acts 3. We understand many people go to the worldwide healing services to get healing in physically, spiritually, mentally, and financially, but their requests may not be answered. We cannot receive the healing until we know Jesus Christ and have built relationship with Him.

Peter didn’t ask Jesus to heal the man immediately (see Acts 3:6). Instead, he explained to this beggar that he didn’t money to drop in the offering plate. But Peter didn’t stop there. He had something to give to this beggar that was far greater than money—that was introducing him Jesus Christ. Then Peter lifted the beggar up to begin the healing process (v. 7).

Most preachers may use Ephesians 4:20 as to believe that God can give us financial blessings. But we should not use this verse to proclaim only for our financial blessings, rather than, in every part of our lives. God can give us things that we prayed for, but He can give us more than we’d ask for if we’d ask Him for things sincerely in our hearts. God can able to work with us in His plan.

God also can work with us greatly whether or not we are in physical situation. Although you may received some rejections to employ some places due to your disability, God can hire you as just as you are. Paul says in I Corinthians 1:27-29, “But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in his presence.” We don’t need some special recognition to employ at the mission field.

Pharisees misunderstood what Jesus was doing on the Sabbath Day to heal the blind man (John 9). They didn’t understand that Sabbath was made for all the people to rest upon the Lord from their hard work. Sadly, we ignore the Sabbath Day over centuries and misplace it with our schedules.

We need to rely more on God and believe that He can able to use everybody to accomplish His plan. If you are physical disabled person, you don’t need to listen to all negative things about you. I had been there and it was not much encourage to me. But God doesn’t give discouragement and let us down immediately. Even though the challenge may seem impossible to complete, God will give a lot of encouragement and stay with us until the end of the course.

Are you distress to hear all the negative things about you? Don’t let your people pull down you easily. Instead, fill your life with God’s Words that are encouraging to help you to get through obstacles in your daily life and let the Holy Spirit guides you.

Have you ever complain to God for anything? Have you feel like if nobody cares about your disability or illness? Of course, we all have experienced in our life with depression. We may have decided to give up our life and mad at God or someone with our situations. If you are in physical condition, you may hear many negative things that come into your mind and decide to follow what your mind said.

Let’s look why the Pharisees decided to mad at Jesus’ work on the Sabbath Day (Saturday). They were making difficult to the situation. Remember, Pharisees were trying to obey all the laws in the first five books of the Old Testament. If we read following verses after John 9:16, we see that Pharisees were making more complicated situations to both Jesus and the man, who was blinded.

Why is that? Pharisees were trying to accuse Jesus for disobeying God’s law on Sabbath. As we read through all four gospels, they were trying to succeed to accuse Jesus by justifying God’s laws. We, too, sometimes believe that God needs our help by adding our ideas to His. This is what many today’s churches set in their minds on and it’s pretty sad.

Jesus doesn’t need our help, except what He gave us to do. He didn’t need Pharisees’ help to heal the blind man. Don’t blame God about why the cripple man heals on Saturday. Exodus 16:29 says that God gave us a Sabbath. He wants us to rest upon Him on the end of our work for the week. It means that we can energize our strengths for the following week by resting upon God’s care. If He wants to heal somebody on Saturday, there is no reason why we question to Him. We need to learn close our mouths when God decides to do something in our individual life.

If God doesn’t heal you physically, it means that He wants to begin to heal your inner being first and wants to use your physical situation in a greater way. Don’t deny yourself for not receiving physical healing. Or don’t just go to Evangelical Christian Healing Services for that, but believe and trust God in faith that He has a greater plan in your life.

As we are getting come near to the brand new year, it is the time for us to make a New Year resolution. What would your New Year resolution be for the year 2007? Some of us may hear from pastors expressed that the year 2007 would be the great year. Although we don’t know the year 2007 would be great or not, we need to seek God for the direction before we would run in a race to grab the New Year resolution.

As I said before, we all are in a race to reach our goals. Apostle Paul told us that we have to run to try to obtain the prize. We have to exercise and make our bodies workout to get into the finishing line of race. This is the same method that Paul also tries to teach us as we’d mediate on God’s Word each day. We need to have continual communication with God through prayer, meditating on His Words, and fasting. Fasting doesn’t need to be related to food, but we need to stay away from something that we’d desire to have for while, such as TV, computer, radio, etc., and begin to seek on God’s face. Jesus said in Matthew 6:33, “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”

Some of us may have wrong mindset of the New Year resolution. For example, some people may decide to loose weight from 280 lbs. to 150 lbs. for the next 12 months. The New Year resolution is not about self-serving, but it’s about God. Right now, there are many preachers who teach more on self-serving Christians than how we can worship God. Their definition of God’s blessing is all about earthly wealth, fame, and power. Of course, God can bless us to these earthly things, but it’s more than just receiving earthly treasure.

Genesis 1 tells us that God created all the things in this world and He blessed it. John 1 Colossians 1 tell us that if Jesus Christ didn’t create anything in this world, the earth would not be existed and we will not be alive. He cannot share His blessing with us if the earth wouldn’t exist.

Why not let us set our own new goal on aside and begin to give honor and praise God for the New Year and what would He be going to do in your life. The Year 2007 could be the best of the year in your life.

We usually use this verse apply to Christmas or if we are Catholics, it refers to Virgin Mary is equal to God, which means Mary is the Queen of Heaven (cf. Jeremiah 44). Either of the terms for Matthew 1:23 doesn’t fit to the biblical standard of its meaning.

Why we refer Jesus as our Emmanuel (God with us)? Why not we just call Him our Savior or Messiah? Jesus is more than just being our Savior and Messiah. He wants a special relationship with us that would last for eternity. Let’s read what the KJV Study Bible has to say for Emmanuel: “Immanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us: This is a title describing the deity of the person of the Son of God rather than a name actually used by Him. It implies God will come to dwell among His own people, which He did in the person of Christ.” ((Thomas Nelson, Inc., King James Version Study Bible [computer file], electronic ed., Logos Library System, (Nashville: Thomas Nelson) 1997, c1988 by Liberty University.)

God wants more of us. Because there was a block between God and us, which is our sins, He decided to bring His Son, Jesus, to break the block for us to across over to our Holy Father.

Jesus died and resurrected on the third day (72 hours, not 1 ½ day as most churches would believe), so He can be with us all the time and we have the free access to Him. Although most churches celebrate Christ’s birth on the Christmas Day, we should honor and celebrate His birth, life, ministry, death and resurrection every day.

God wants to have relationship with us while we still are living on the earth and for eternity. He is our Emmanuel.

Although some of us may don’t believe that Christmas does relate to Christ’s birth, we are mandated to lift His name everyday of the year, especially during the month of December. Jesus said, “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.” (Matthew 28:18-20)

About a couple centuries before the birth of our Messiah, Isaiah prophesied that there will be a Child born to us to take over the world. His name shall be great. Although there was silent gap for almost 400 years between the last book of Old Testament and the first book of New Testament, I believe that God was still working on His plan and spoke to His individual people.

The Bible tells us God brought His Son, Jesus, to us because He wanted to demonstrate us how much He wanted more of us. Paul said in Romans 5:8, “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” If God doesn’t love us, then why Isaiah called Him Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace? Unfortunately, this was not case. He is love. God loves you and me from the very beginning before we formed in the mother’s womb.

We call Him Wonderful, because He is the great God who does wonder of His creation. We call Him Counsellor, because He knows us and we have the free access to seek His help. He is the mighty God, because He has great power to defeat Satan and save us from his mindset by His grace through Jesus Christ. He is our everlasting Father, because He created us to have relationship with us. Also, He is the Prince of Peace, because He wants to have peace and enjoy life with us.

If we celebrate Christmas to receive more gifts from our love ones, then we will miss the point of why Jesus gave up for our sins at the
Calvary almost 2000 years ago. Jesus’ death and resurrection are the most valuable gifts that He wanted to give us. Do you like to have this valuable gift that you cannot find it from any jewelry store? This is the reason why Jesus came to us.

Are you and your family members save by the grace of God through Jesus Christ? Jesus died for our sins and resurrected on the third day, so we can have life with Him for now and eternality. If you like to receive this free gift of salvation, you simply ask Him to forgive of your sins and invite Him to your life. He is all you need and there is no other gods to fulfill your inner body of your soul. This can be your joy to the world.