K.Y.E.O.J. – IV. to be loved the same

Shalom, my friends! This is part 4 of “Keep Your Eyes On Jesus”, a series on the parables of Jesus in memory of Lent. We have less than three weeks to go until Good Friday! Today, we want to look at the parable of the lost son. Here we go:

To further illustrate the point, he told them this story: “A man had two sons. When the younger told his father, ‘I want my share of your estate now, instead of waiting until you die!’ his father agreed to divide his wealth between his sons.

“A few days later this younger son packed all his belongings and took a trip to a distant land, and there wasted all his money on parties and prostitutes. About the time his money was gone a great famine swept over the land, and he began to starve. He persuaded a local farmer to hire him to feed his pigs. The boy became so hungry that even the pods he was feeding the swine looked good to him. And no one gave him anything.

“When he finally came to his senses, he said to himself, ‘At home even the hired men have food enough and to spare, and here I am, dying of hunger! I will go home to my father and say, “Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and am no longer worthy of being called your son. Please take me on as a hired man.”’

“So he returned home to his father. And while he was still a long distance away, his father saw him coming, and was filled with loving pity and ran and embraced him and kissed him.

“His son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and you, and am not worthy of being called your son—’

“But his father said to the slaves, ‘Quick! Bring the finest robe in the house and put it on him. And a jeweled ring for his finger; and shoes! And kill the calf we have in the fattening pen. We must celebrate with a feast, for this son of mine was dead and has returned to life. He was lost and is found.’ So the party began.

“Meanwhile, the older son was in the fields working; when he returned home, he heard dance music coming from the house, and he asked one of the servants what was going on.

“‘Your brother is back,’ he was told, ‘and your father has killed the calf we were fattening and has prepared a great feast to celebrate his coming home again unharmed.’

“The older brother was angry and wouldn’t go in. His father came out and begged him, but he replied, ‘All these years I’ve worked hard for you and never once refused to do a single thing you told me to; and in all that time you never gave me even one young goat for a feast with my friends. Yet when this son of yours comes back after spending your money on prostitutes, you celebrate by killing the finest calf we have on the place.’

“‘Look, dear son,’ his father said to him, ‘you and I are very close, and everything I have is yours. But it is right to celebrate. For he is your brother; and he was dead and has come back to life! He was lost and is found!’”

Luke 15:11-32 TLB

What point was Jesus making? The reason why Jesus started telling the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and this parable in the first place, was to respond to the Jewish religious leaders grumbling about Him associating, even eating, with the unrighteous. They expected Jesus to treat them differently – they expected Him to want to spend more time with them rather than “those people”. Jesus is telling them that the Father loves His children the same, meeting their needs differently. For the problem of the elder son was not that He was afraid the father would not accept him (that was the concern of the younger son); why would he if he is doing everything right, living a faithful, obedient life? No, he was angry at his father for treating his younger sibling, who did not deserve anything he received, in such a kind, loving way! It was pride, a sense of entitlement coming from self-righteousness, that demanded the father to love him more than his “sinning” brother. Don’t we get this feeling, too, when we see God extending His love, grace and mercy to a brother or sister in Christ who does not even know how to appreciate it and keeps grieving the Father’s heart? Just imagine the time this older son had to spend watching his father look out the window day and night for this mischievous brother! All the while he was faithful and did everything right. It is no wonder he thinks it is unfair. But that is how the Father in heaven loves us all!

“Look, dear son, you and I are very close, and everything I have is yours.”

To all you older sons in the parable, this is the Father’s response to you! The Father and everything He has is your reward. The intimacy you have with Him is your reward! When you believe, you can enter the party thrown for your prodigal sibling with joy and laughter, arm in arm with the father. Yes, you can even wait together with him, looking out the window, and running out to meet your lost brother with open arms when he returns home. Don’t you want the truth to set you free like this? You will be able to love so much more!

Now, another point I want to make in this post is about the lost son. Pay attention to his hunger, that he got so hungry that he even wanted what was given to pigs but he wasn’t given anything. I was talking to a friend yesterday, how there are times when God leaves you hungry for a reason. You are so hungry on the inside, but there is nothing that can fill this void in your heart; no other person in this world. You keep striving for intimacy, maybe you are waiting for “the one”, your lover, but somehow even that kind of relationship does not satisfy. My friend, if this is you, maybe, just maybe this is your Father in heaven inviting you to come home to Him! Because He is waiting there for you – and He would run towards you even before you get there, seeing you from afar, recognizing you; giving you a robe and a ring to tell everybody that you are His child. Do you hear me? Do you hear the Father calling?

“His son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and you, and am not worthy of being called your son—’
But his father said to the slaves, ‘Quick! Bring the finest robe in the house and put it on him. And a jeweled ring for his finger; and shoes! And kill the calf we have in the fattening pen. We must celebrate with a feast, for this son of mine was dead and has returned to life. He was lost and is found.’

Look at Him. Keep your eyes on Jesus.

God bless you!

Reminder: Listening to God 2 online gathering coming up!

Hey everyone,
Just a reminder that we as intercessors are gathering online tomorrow on March 16 (Thursday) at 9a.m. PST; 5p.m. in Berlin, Germany. We want to hear from God together to get us ready for the year ahead! I sense the blessing of God on this, I’m excited! It will last a few hours but you can come and go whenever you want. If you are interested, please register below to get the zoom link and the password. See you then!

Invitation: Listening to God – Part 2

Hey everyone,
I’m doing a part 2 of “Listening to God”, following up from January! At the beginning of our gathering, I want to share what God revealed to me in part 1 and spend time to listen to God together with you. This is not for everyone but for those who have a heart for intercession. If you love to pray with and for others, then you know I am talking about you. It will last a few hours but you can come and go whenever you want, it will be on zoom. You can leave your camera off, too, and stay muted if you don’t want to participate actively. Beware that there might be strangers joining from all around the world, but I am certain that you will soon realize that we all share a similar heart and are sisters and brothers in the Lord! If you have a heart to pray, come! Here are the details:

  • Date: March 16, 2023 (Thursday)
  • Time: 5p.m. UTC+1 (Berlin), 9a.m. UTC-7 (L.A.)

If you are interested in coming, please enter your email address below and you will receive the zoom link and password a day earlier. Thank you, can’t wait to spend time with you!

K.Y.E.O.J. – III. the joy of relationship

Hello everyone, this is part 3 of “Keep Your Eyes On Jesus”! I have been keeping the following two parables in my heart for about a week now because I was waiting for Him to go deeper with me. They are surely worth wasting your life for! What do I mean by that? Let us read the parables first:

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like
treasure hidden in a field,
which a man found and hid;
and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has
and buys that field.
Again, the kingdom of heaven is like
a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, who,
when he had found one pearl of great price,
went and sold all that he had
and bought it.”
(Matthew 13:44-46)

Do you recognize the pattern of “find – sell all – buy” in both parables? This just tells me the parables belong together.

I think the parables have two sides. We could think of them from our perspective, that we give up everything for our King and have immeasurable joy by it. Only those who have payed a specific cost before to follow Christ understand the joy of surrendering again and more to Him. It doesn’t feel costly at all, more like a heavenly reward! How could anything we give up here on earth compare to the joy of knowing the Lord deeply and spending eternity with Him; building kingdom together with Him, and being used by Him? Those who know, know! If you don’t but want to, tell God about your desire and trust Him that He will take you there! Take concrete steps and re-surrender again and again if you need to. I will be praying for you.

Moreover, God knows what our hearts beat for individually because He created us. Everyone has different interests and occupations. We have different things that we desire to do which truly satisfy us, and the kingdom of heaven has a place for every member of the body of Christ! It holds all that give us a sense of total fulfillment, as diverse as we may be. I think of Bezalel, Aholiab and all the artists in Exodus 31:1-6 who were filled with God’s Spirit to build the tabernacle and the ark according to God’s descriptions. How fulfilling it must have been for them to get all creative and professional for Him! Don’t you want that, too?

The second perspective is even greater, more beautiful – let me share another perspective from Enduring Word:

“The treasure so wonderful that Jesus would give all to purchase is the individual believer. This powerfully shows how Jesus gave everything to redeem the whole world to preserve a treasure in it, and the treasure is His people. … / … It seems crazy for a merchant to sell all that he had for one pearl, but for this merchant it was well worth it. That shows how much he valued this pearl of great price, and how much Jesus values His people.”

Most commentators view the man and the merchant in the parables as Jesus, and the treasure and the pearl of great price as us, His people. I have to chuckle when I read this, because we are always loved by God first! Do you believe that you were worth suffering and dying for for the Son of God? Do you believe that you are that one pearl so costly, that God would give up everything to just keep you? To just have you? What difference does this make for you? I believe that the more you believe in this message, the more you will give Him your everything, too! Why? Because you know He loves you and you love Him, too! It is not so much about counting the costs, but it is about relationship. It is about what He has done first, which motivates me to do everything for His glory. It starts with the identity that I am His one treasure worth giving it all up for.

So I rejoice.

I worship.

I praise.

I give thanks.

I partner with Him to make our dream come true. Your dream, Jesus, of us loving Abba and one another. So I keep my eyes on you in order to remember Your dream.

Even today. I keep my eyes on You.

Amen.

[Important prophetic message] The end times & the horses

This post is going to be long! But it is meant for some to hear now in 2023. Are you in the in-between and waiting, my friend? Waiting for something to shift, for God to do something – for you to finally catch a glimpse of light breaking forth like the dawn? When God announced a new era for the world to me a few years ago and told me to dive in headfirst, I was excited. It was time for the new wine to burst the old wineskins. Then years passed, my knowledge of Christ increased, thank God, and I had questions. I found myself in the little in-betweens now and then, before a smaller or larger breakthrough; I found myself waiting again and again, oftentimes crying out in silence because I had no words for the yearning inside of me! Only God could understand how I was hurting for the church! I was a part of it, and every single member, too, and she was hurting because of our sins. When I looked at myself and others, I lost hope; but when I looked at Jesus, I rejoiced, because I knew and believed what was written of His return.

I shared a dream in June 2021 about volcanoes and vaccines, and I did not realize until a few weeks earlier that I had dreamt of Revelation 6:12-17! Back then, I urged people to repentance for making a false refuge out of the covid-19 vaccines. I stand by it but I am realizing that the dream has more depth to it than just the vaccines, it is about relying on man-made refuges in general. For there is another prophecy I want to share related to that – but first, here is how the dream went:

“In the morning of May 22, 2021, I had a dream. The sky was dark and so was the ocean. My gaze was zoomed into two pieces of land which were floating on the sea. They looked like miniature islands. The first, smaller island hit a second, larger one and pushed it towards a third island. This island, however, was colossal! It was a massive volcano and it represented all the volcanoes on the earth. Triggered by the crash, the whole island started shaking. I literally heard the volcanoes cry out in a deep, thundering voice like a man. I thought I was watching a natural disaster movie in HD! The rocks started cracking apart and hot, glowing lava emerged from underneath. The island started foaming and roaring in anger against us, human beings for rebelling against God.

I was then led by the Spirit of God to a group of people who were on the other side of the island. The situation outside was so disastrous that they were seeking temporary shelter in a cave. They had put up a tent inside the cave and it was strange because they were all wearing the same orange uniform and lined up inside the tent. They were visibly scared and some of them were so terrified that they wanted to break out of the line and flee. As one man tried to, a female supervisor hit him on the head and commanded him to show her his vaccine certificate (note: she did not explicitly say “COVID-19 vaccine”). So he got his certificate checked and the woman put a stamp of approval on the orange cap he was wearing. The man then remained in line and the dream ended.”

As I said, here are the last verses of Revelation 6:

“I looked when He opened the sixth seal, and behold, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became like blood. And the stars of heaven fell to the earth, as a fig tree drops its late figs when it is shaken by a mighty wind. Then the sky receded as a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island was moved out of its place. And the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave and every free man, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains, and said to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?” (vv. 12-17 NKJV)

It doesn’t end here. Do you remember the dream I shared from September 2022? Maybe you remember that I was helping people to get on an elevator to escape the enemy’s guards and how I saw two secret buttons that led to two floors “above”? Here is what I shared back then: “… Meanwhile, I was trying to press a button that read “33” – it was a button that suddenly showed but I could not press it (there was a second mystery button with a higher number but God keeps the number hidden from me because it is not time yet).” I recently had a follow-up vision where I found myself on the 33rd floor (finally!) and God revealed the second, higher number to me: 39. The Holy Spirit highlighted Ezekiel 39 to me and please, listen to me: this is about the end times, all of this, because neither Revelation 6 nor Ezekiel 39 have been fulfilled yet! The point God is trying to make through me through all these dreams and visions for the end times is in the latter part of Ezekiel 39:

“You (= the remnant of God) shall eat fat till you are full,
And drink blood till you are drunk,
At My sacrificial meal
Which I am sacrificing for you.
You shall be filled at My table
With horses and riders,
With mighty men
And with all the men of war
,” says the Lord God.”
(vv. 19-20)

God keeps bringing me back this year to scriptures which talk about the people of God relying on “horses”. Look at Isaiah 31:1, for example: “Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, and rely on horses, who trust in chariots because they are many, and in horsemen because they are very strong, but who do not look to the Holy One of Israel, nor seek the Lord!” This is the essence of what God is trying to say. Look at the people in the Revelation-6-dream who hid in the caves and united themselves under the same spiritual mixture (symbolized in the dream by the orange uniforms)! They wanted to face the wrath of God with a list of vaccines! I am sure that I only have a part of the mystery of how Revelation 6 is going to play out in the future, but I know that I am grateful for God giving me this message now. Because God is good and He helps us get ready for the return of Christ. I shared about Lilias Trotter in my last post while talking about the parable of the mustard seed. Here is something she wrote in “A Ripened Life” and I want to close afterwards:

“Have we not been brought into soul captivity by means of self-indulgence in these faculties (= “horses”), God-created though they are? and therefore most of us, as we go on, find that God’s hand comes down on the strongest parts of us as it came upon the horses of Israel (Zech 12:4; Hos 1:7). By outward providence or by inward dealing, He brings it to the place of death, to the place where we lose our hold on it and our trust in it and say with Ephraim, “We will not ride upon horses” (Hos 14:3). And in that place of death God may leave it for months and years till the old glow of life has really died out of it, and the old magical charm has vanished, and it has become no effort to do without it because life’s current has gone into the current of God’s will.”

This is an exciting time to live in! God’s grace is sufficient for each and everyone of us, and overflowing for the whole world in this new era! Welcome to the end times! It is no wonder we find ourselves in the in-betweens again and again! God is preparing us for what is to come. And as I said at the beginning, when we look at ourselves, we lose hope; but when we look at Jesus, we can rejoice, because His body and His blood have conquered! We are aligning with Jesus like never before, and the whole church is aligning with her bridegroom like never before! Hallelujah for the growth pains! Praise the One who was, and is, and is to come!

He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus! The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Amen.

Revelation 22:20

2023-03-04
Seulji Chung