Michigan Camp Meeting 2019: As a Witness, Matthew 24:14

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Keys to Successful Devotion

Joong Ho Shin

Keys to the Successful Devotion - Part 1: Why & How to Meditate on the Scriptures

Our Father in Heaven, we are grateful that you gave us your Word.

This afternoon, in a short period of time, we will discuss, we will see why meditation of your world is so important, and how to do it is more important, as far as our daily walk with you is concerned.

So we ask that your Holy Spirit be within us and amongst us, so that it will enlighten our ears and eyes and our thoughts, so that we can understand this subject better, so that it will improve our Christian work in every way.

So this series, the theme is from Matthew 24.

This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in what?

In all the world for a witness unto all nations and then shall the end come, Amen.

So as a witness, witness, what is witness?

Witness is somebody who saw something Or somebody who can really represent that incidence or that person.

In Christ Object Lesson page 69, it says, when the character of Christ is what?

Correctly reproduced in his people, then the Christ will come to get his people to him.

So there are 2 things, Matthew 24, 14, it says the gospel, this gospel, which is for us, this gospel is the 3 angels' message.

That gospel has to be reached all over the world as a witness.

Witness has to have a character of Jesus Christ.

That's where Christ's object lesson, page 69, comes.

When the character of Jesus Christ is correctly reproduced in his people.

If I read the first sentence, I think you can quote it.

It would be well for us to spend a thoughtful hour once a week, each day, you got it, in contemplation of the life of Donald Trump, We should take it point by point and let the what?

This is a very important point that she's making.

Imagination, the holy imagination, grasps each scene, especially the closing 1.

Why do we need to contemplate the life of Jesus Christ?

When you hear the word meditate, what thoughts come to your mind?

Like a ponderer, you park your thoughts in 1 place and think about it.

When you're quoting your future wife to me, and you contemplate, you think about her all the time.

So, those of you who have handouts, how many of you are missing?

So it says, meditate implies definitely focusing of one's thought on something as to understand in what?

I used to explain as a meditative word, also comes from regurgitate.

Those of you living in the plain field of Michigan, you see these cows, they're vigorous.

And during the day, they go around and they eat whatever they can, all the grasses.

And then, in the cool of the day, they kneel along onto the tree.

Those of you who do not have a Hands up, please raise your hands.

Then how many chambers does a cow's stomach has?

So they go in, and then they bring it back.

We have a couple of memorizing scripture sessions going here.

And then you memorize, and you keep reading, and you memorize, then what?

And then you bring it back and you meditate.

And there is an importance of this meditation in the Bible.

There are many words, many places it says that.

I will meditate in 5 precepts and have respect unto thy words." It's all about the scriptures, the One-Line Clearing.

Everything, each word has a statue, laws, ways, and different words, the words, and it has that, but a couple of verses does not have those words in it.

Princess also did sit and speak against me, but thy servant did meditate in thy statue." Thy word.

If the youth, all of you are youth, young in heart, will draw from the storehouse of the Bible the treasures it contains, if, there's a big if, if they will, in other words, if we will meditate on the pardon, peace, and everlasting righteousness that crown our life of self-denial.

If you want to follow me, Deny yourself once a week, daily.

Keys to the Successful Devotion - Part 2: How to Pray 1

Father in heaven, we are thankful you gave us the model when how to pray when disciples asked, Lord, teach us how to pray.

Today as we discuss this type of prayers, we ask that you will fill our hearts with thy spirit.

So it will Enlighten our dull mind so we can see what we need to do.

And also make a decision how we should go about it and when we should go about it.

And we thank you for your love and blessings.

So let's go with how to pray like Jesus, mother prayer.

This handout, when you get it, it touched the essence of the Lord's Prayer.

And what we need to do is you read the rose prayer in Matthew 6, and then read alongside with thoughts from the Mount Blessing.

And it has each phrase and she covers it, inspired commentary.

Everybody, if you don't, raise your hand.

Everybody, if you don't want to raise your hand.

Matthew 6, after he mentions these kind of things you should not pray, in verse 9 Jesus said this.

So after this manner, our father will shout in heaven.

So he makes it very clear from the beginning, and who we are praying to is our father.

When I came to this country years ago, what I noticed was that in our culture, when we say this house is in American culture, this house is my house.

Where I came from, this house is our house.

When we introduce mother, I say this is our mother, not my mother.

Only thing, the difference is that we do not say, this is our wife.

But Children, this is our children, our child, our son, our grandson.

It is important to notice that it says what?

It makes everybody, we are all brothers and sisters, we are all family.

Says our father, and of course he said the pray he, at the beginning, the all of you, plural, and he said, our father.

However, I believe he's saying that all of us together.

So we put everybody in the same dimension.

So, our Father is in heaven, we need to recognize that.

So we are coming to sovereign God and who created everything.

If we are invited to in Buckingham Palace, invited by the 2 mid-queens, We would not just go in casually.

So we're talking about God of gods, king of kings, the whole entire universe.

He says, listen, here's the God, Father in heaven.

So when we pray, we have to recognize, when we see that, automatically, we're gonna kneel down.

So we always need to remember, We are praying, we are talking to the person who knew, who knows everything, who knew before we were born, And who knows where we are and where we are going?

And then hallowed, glorified, praise him.

We touched on briefly yesterday, the God is what?

God is God of who cannot lie and who is there forever, from the eternal to eternal.

All those characters, that's what we praise Him.

Revelation 4.11, Pastor Finley touched briefly, the glory, honor, and power, you are worthy to be worshipped.

So always, in your handout, you will see, praise God.

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

In prayer, Jesus told us to start with praising God.

Of course, this is, we are covering our former, our devotional worship time.

When Peter was sinking, he didn't say, praise the Lord, you are Almighty.

Come to the Lord in the morning, the first thing in the morning, come to Him, recognizing that He is my Creator, He is our Creator, our Father.

You created Him, And you are the creator.

When we do not know what to do, or the challenges we have right now.

I know someone who knows what's gonna happen.

Keys to the Successful Devotion - Part 3: How to Pray 2

Our Father in heaven, we are grateful that we are here once again to study the types of pattern of a prayer.

And today as we study the sanctuary type pattern of prayer, we ask that you'll fill our hearts with thy spirit, for without thy spirit we cannot do anything.

So enlighten our mind to really see the significance, deep meaning of the pattern that you gave to us and we thank you in Jesus name we pray amen so look at the sanctuary prayer this 1 page page 1 and 2 There's a little more detailed explanation of sanctuary prayer and 1234567.

And if you want to know More explanation, there's a book, Sanctuary Prayer.

It's still around, it's out of print, but if you seek for it, you'll find it.

Tomorrow I will show you the book itself.

The bookstore here, somebody came, come up with this old out of print books.

Okay, so there's some overlaps of what we covered yesterday, ACTS prayer and the Lord prayer.

So, the number 1, enter his presence with the thanksgiving and prayers and list to a name all the things that God has done for me recently.

I'm so thankful that you guided me, you gave me this opportunity to come to Michigan Camp Meeting, to revitalize my Christian walk.

Or you can praise the Lord, as we mentioned yesterday, that adore His character.

Your grace and mercy is new every morning.

So here, if I read, I can read just 1, Psalm 27, 4, it says what?

1 thing have I desired of the Lord, that I will seek, will I seek after that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to hold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple.

The 1 thing, so we have to think about what is 1 thing right now that I desire most.

Do you want to be busy like Martha to serve, work for to serve, work for the Lord, or like Mary, you want to sit at the feet of Jesus.

1 thing, Psalm 1611, this is beautiful 1, thou will show me the path of life.

At thy right hand there are pleasure for evermore.

Psalm 104, as everybody knows that, enter into his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise.

Be thankful unto him and blessed his name." I'm thankful that he brought me out of darkness years ago from the confusion of this worldly gospels and into the true gospel of everlasting gospel, 3 angels' messages, and helped me to really understand how we should live.

So that is something that we, all of us, are so thankful that we could be in any other church.

But somehow, God brought all of us into his marvelous light.

So we can really, truly understand his word as we continue to study.

So with that, and sometimes we don't have to go through all this.

Sometimes you can spend all our morning devotion time just praising and thanking, just praising and thanking.

And that's what we are going to do in heaven.

I'm so thankful that Jesus didn't come years ago because I'm here.

So at the altar of burnt offering, those of you who went to seminar presentation yesterday and tomorrow or first day, altar of burnt offering, I especially make confession of my known sins and choose to be a living sacrifice for Jesus today.

At the bottom of that section, Romans 12.1, I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is reasonable service.

The reason is this, which I alluded that yesterday, Isaiah 59, 2, the first passage there, but your iniquities have separated between you and your God and your sins have hid his face from you that he will not hear.

So if we have any sin, the Paul calls as a besetting sin, The sins that we do not want to give up.

It's like a young man telling his girlfriend, So after we get married, I'll be with you 364 days.

But 1 day, I will spend with my old girlfriend.

Jesus would not share our heart with anything or anyone.

So, promise is that, 1 John 1, 9, next verse, if we confess our sins, He is what?

And just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us, cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Next 1 is something that we should do this 1 every day.

Consecrate yourself to God in the morning.

When it becomes a habit, it doesn't become, It's not work anymore.

How many of you collect prayers from Ellen G.

I haven't counted them, but I know this for another 1.

So her prayers, she coded, let your prayer be, or Let the language of your heart be.

She uses different phrases to introduce her prayer.

So hopefully I have a handout tomorrow about something.

And says, take me, O Lord, as holy thine.

The implication is, I don't want to give it to you.

There's another prayer in Christ's lessons.

Take me, O Lord, for I cannot give it to you.

It says, take me, O Lord, as a holy dine.

Abide with me, and let all my work be wrote in thee.

So before I leave my work, I make a to-do list.

Keys to the Successful Devotion - Part 4: Personal Worship 1

Father in heaven, we are thankful that we can study your word.

Your word is a lamp unto our feet and light unto our paths.

So illuminate our mind and bless us with thy wisdom so we can truly understand your character through the world and we thank you Jesus name we pray amen So we touched on never should the Bible open without the prayer.

And then Ellen White's words, Desire of Ages, page 83.

It would be well for us to spend our thoughtful hour each day in contemplation of the life of Christ.

We should take it point by point and let the imagination grasp each sin, especially the closing 1.

So what we are going to do is we are going to take a portion of the gospel and then go through it.

And I will make key points how what we need to do.

We are not going to the closing scene today, maybe tomorrow.

So open your Bible, book of Mark chapter 4.

Mark chapter 4, the last section, 35 to 41.

Mark chapter 5, chapter 4, 35 through 41.

So devotional Bible study is a little bit different from regular Bible study.

My definition of devotional Bible study is you do it in the morning, try to catch or try to see the character of Christ from the passage, or trying to see the character of the people in that passage and trying to see the application of that.

At the end of that devotional Bible study, write a little note in your notebook or in your smartphone, and just a little note.

I came, I'm coming away with this thought today.

And so throughout the day, you can take it out and read it.

The very first day we talked about meditate.

I went to a seminar 3 years ago at Camp Meeting, and they talked about doing that, taking 1 sentence.

1 sentence, and I put it, I started, I just had a little notebook, and I wrote it down.

I can read, I can take those notebooks and just read through them, and it's like, just condensed treasures.

Normal Bible study, especially inductive Bible study, it has what?

Interpretation, and the third 1 is application.

So in the interpretation, you have to study culture, context, before and after, the geographical location of that place, and all kinds of things that you can correctly interpret that passage.

Interpretation is what the author is trying to say to the people at that time.

So to correctly interpret that, we have to know the background.

And we don't have time for that in devotional Bible study in the morning.

So you do that in the later days, later time.

But you need to spend some time in observation.

Observation, we have to give you the handout when you leave.

Observation includes, we touched on a little bit on the meditation, why, how, Who, where, when, those questions.

The main thing is observe, observe is what the passage says.

There is nothing of your thought into it.

Flat, white, or there is a little picture in there.

It's got a frame, aluminum frame, just observe.

So there's nothing about I think that becomes handy when you go to the application.

So the more you ask, you can ask, why is this passage here?

So let's go to the Mark chapter 4, verse 35, and, and, so he finished the story of up to that point, it says and, the same day, the same day as he expounded on all those parables.

The same day as he finished preaching the parable.

And we don't know what the other side, when we are reading this.

No, just remember that it's Jesus who said that.

And when they had sent away the multitude, they took him even as he was in the ship, and there were also with him other little ships.

So here's a ship, has Jesus in it, and then there are other ships, little ships following.

Mark is the shortest gospel, and he uses his word, vocabulary, very effectively.

And verse 37, and there arose, what kind of storm?

Remember that, There's a great storm of the ship, of the wind.

So Just think, the storm was not there at the beginning of their journey.

If there was, they wouldn't go in there, right?

And the waves beat into the ship so that it was now full.

So just imagine, the wave was coming in, disciples was trying to get the little bucket out, then try to dump it out.

The rate of water coming in is greater than, just like, I don't go there.

Now, until that time, they didn't call Jesus, right?

Now, and he was in the Hindu part of the, thank you, of the ship.

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