Words of the Bible

Overcome Temptation

When we look into what happened to the Israelites in the desert, we can find the wisdom to overcome temptations. The Israelites had suffered all kinds of hardships in Egypt for 430 years, and by the grace of God they were released from slavery in Egypt and proceeded toward the land of Canaan flowing with milk and honey. As God’s chosen people, they celebrated the Passover and received the Ten Commandments—the words of the covenant—and many other decrees, laws and regulations from God. Although they were God’s chosen people who were given the covenant of God, most of them failed to reach the land of Canaan and were destroyed in the desert. It was because they did not overcome the…

Journey to the Holy Land, the Heavenly Jerusalem, for the True Peace

All Christians, at least once, dream about a journey to the holy land. Bethlehem where Jesus was born, Nazareth where He grew up, the Lake of Galilee where He met His disciples and preached the gospel . . . To feel the footsteps of Jesus, travelling back over a period of 2,000 years, would be the greatest delight in one’s life which cannot be compared with anything else. Sincere Christians leave on a journey to the holy land, being overwhelmed with joy, without hesitating to endure the long distance, the high costs and the inconvenience of waiting in line among so many pilgrims, just so that they can have a monumental and spiritual experience. A holy land which they cannot…

Be Joyful Always

What a joyful and happy place the kingdom of heaven we are going to must be! The Bible tells us that the things of this earth are a copy and shadow of the things in heaven (Heb 8:5). So, if we carefully examine the feelings of joy which God has given us human beings, we can realize the true joy and happiness that we will enjoy in heaven. The joy and pleasure we feel are expressed through a smile or laughter. In everyday conversations, when we talk about gloomy and heavy topics or negative things, we feel uncomfortable and our faces get stiff. On the contrary, when we talk about something funny or pleasant, it brings a smile or laugher…

God Saw That It Was Good

We are walking the path of faith towards the goal of entering the eternal heavenly kingdom. In the desert of faith, some walk the path of faith in a manner pleasing to people, and others live the life of faith in a way pleasing to God. In the history of the early Church, we can see that the apostles and the saints were trying to walk the path of faith in a God-pleasing direction, saying, “Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God?” (Gal 1:10). It is the same with us in this age. The reason we are trying to participate in the divine nature and always live a life full of smiles just as…

Photosynthesis, Natural Solar Energy Generation System

The Sun produces a tremendous amount of energy, and emits most of the energy into space in the form of light. Only 2.2 billionth of the sunlight that the Sun emits to all directions reaches Earth. 30% of it reflects back to space, and only 70% of it is absorbed into Earth. Still, the total amount of energy that the people of the world use for a year is equivalent to the solar energy that enters Earth only for one hour. All living creatures need energy for survival, but the light energy cannot be used directly. It has to be transformed to the form of organic matter. Except some microorganisms, however, it is only plants that can store the light…

The World Mission Society Church of God Gives Hope to All People Around the World

The Throne of Judgment & the Record of Actions

In Revelation, we see that a book, which contains a record of the actions that each person has done in his or her life, is opened before the throne of judgment when the time comes for God to judge human beings. According to what is written in the book, God will examine the whole course of our lives on this earth—whether we have done right or wrong and whether we have done good in obedience to God’s will or we have done evil, and He will judge each of us according to our deeds. So, every moment given to us each day is very important. As for those whose record of actions is filled with evil deeds, God will judge…

The Apostles’ Thoughts About the Soul

“What will happen when a man dies?” “Does a man really have a soul?” “Where does a man go after he dies?” These have been the concerns and unsolved questions of numerous people for a very long time. Countless people have thought about the true meaning of their existence and studied it but nobody has been able to find the answer. They have created various kinds of theories, ideas and philosophies only with their eagerness to know, without realizing who created them. However, the knowledge about the soul, taught by Christ, allows mankind to know who they are, and it teaches the value of their existence and the purpose of their life exactly. 1. The appearance of the soul in…

Preaching, a Conversation for Salvation

We have many conversations with people around us every day. Sometimes we have business conversations at work, sometimes we have pleasant conversations with our family members, and we also say the words of blessing to our brothers and sisters whenever we greet them. Come to think of it, conversations are a huge part of our everyday lives. It is because without conversations we can hardly communicate and understand each other. So, conversations are an essential part of our lives. There are empty and useless conversations and also bad conversations that bring forth evil (Mt 12:34–37). So, God has taught us how to have a good, beautiful conversation. That is preaching. Preaching is a conversation that we have with a mind…

Jonah’s Ship and Paul’s Ship

When the human life comes to an end, judgment follows (Heb 9:27). Judgment is the process of making the final decision on whether a defendant is guilty or not and what the nature of the crime is if the defendant is guilty. It is the same for judgment in the spiritual world. The people, who do not know how horrible the pain of hell is, waste their time on this earth, and they will meet a situation where they will have regrets at the end of their lives. Since God knows what happens at the end of human life, He came to this earth in the flesh. He established the new covenant by offering Himself as a sacrifice for our…

Preparing for the Eternal World

The Bible says, “As for man, his days are like grass, he flourishes like a flower of the field” (Ps 103:15). This shows how short and vain human life is. However, there is a new kind of life after our life on this earth; we are to return to the place we came from. When this life is over, everyone must go to the afterlife. Now, let us take some time to think about how much time and effort we are putting into preparing for the kingdom of heaven we are going to. A servant’s advice Once upon a time, there was a royal servant who won the king’s favor. The servant was good and faithful, and he was also…

Do You Love God?

God loves us. He chose us before the creation of the world with love, cared about our safety even until the last moment when He breathed His last breath on the cross, and loves us constantly, even at this very moment. Do we truly love God? Although we are now walking the path of faith in God, let us take some time to think again about whether we truly love God. The Bible says, “May those who love you [Jerusalem] be secure” (Ps 122:6), and, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Co 2:9). In this spiritual Jubilee year, I want us all to cherish…

Preaching Without Fear

Lately, many of our heavenly family members have been returning to Zion, and God allows us to establish Zion everywhere in the world. The whole world is being filled with the message of the gospel as prophesied in the Bible (Hab 2:14; Mt 24:14). At this present time, when the whole world is being filled with the word of God, let us think about how loud we are raising our voices to preach the gospel. We must not hesitate to preach the gospel; if we are hesitant, we will regret it forever. There is an element of risk in preaching with fear, which can cause us to lose God’s blessings, but preaching without fear brings forth great blessings. Let us…

We Are Bringing You Good News

On arriving at Lystra, Paul and Barnabas are preaching the good news. There sits a man who has never walked. He listens to Paul attentively. Paul looks directly at him, sees that he has faith to be healed and calls out, “Stand up on your feet!” At that moment, the man jumps up and begins to walk. Seeing what Paul has done, the crowd shout, “The gods have come down to us in human form!” The priest of their temple brings bulls and wreaths to the city gates because he and the crowd want to offer sacrifices to the two men. When the apostles Paul and Barnabas hear of this, they are astonished and rush out into the crowd, shouting:…

Words and Salvation

Words are very important in people’s lives. There is a breakdown in trust between people because of the words they say; they can lose all trust in an instant. This is a common occurrence in the world. We cannot live without speaking. When we talk to others, we need to be careful about what we say, being considerate of their feelings; we should think about how they will think, how it will affect their faith, and what result it will bring forth. The words spoken thoughtlessly or the words that have snowballed in the process of being transmitted from people to people can create discord and misunderstanding among people. In this physical world, words are very important. In faith, the…

The Life by Choice

Let us take some time to consider how blessed we are to live the life we have chosen according to God’s word in our journey of faith, so that we can go to heaven by obeying God’s word and making the choices that please Father and Mother all the time. When we look at the lives of our forefathers in faith—from Moses, Abraham, Noah, Adam, and Eve to Jesus’ disciples such as Peter, John, and James, they all lived their lives by choice. During the journey of the Israelites in the desert, the Israelites wasted their time by making unfavorable choices every moment of their lives. It is the same with our lives. Life is a series of choices. Every…

God the Mother, Eternal Life

Scientists have been curious about the origin and nature of life and have repeatedly studied it for a long time. As a result, they have recently discovered that the characteristics of all living organisms and their life spans are determined by the genes they inherit from their parents. However, there are still many unsolved questions regarding life. The Bible testifies about God who is the Creator of life and is eternal life itself. It contains the mysteries of life that scientists have not yet been able to solve. Now, let’s discover the mysteries in the Bible that have been kept hidden since the creation of the world. God has eternal life God, whom we believe in and preach, is the…

Life Starts from Life

There was a lonely girl who liked painting and whose only joy was observing insects. The girl found a solid object on a tree branch, which looked like a stone or a seed. She observed the changes of that object for the whole season and drew them. When the spring came, the object flew away into the sky with light wings. It was a pupa that molted and became a butterfly. This girl who observed the magic-like metamorphosis for the first time was Merian, a German painter and the first female entomologist of the 17th century. Now we know that a gross-looking caterpillar that comes from an egg will turn into a beautiful butterfly in a little while, but people…

When We Are Called by God

When God calls us, we tend to examine our abilities first, thinking, ‘Am I qualified?’ ‘Do I have the ability to do it?’ If we think about whether or not we will be able to do what God has called us to do with our own abilities, we will all end up saying that we can’t do it. When God calls us, all we have to do is follow God’s calling, saying, “Amen!” Then the work of salvation will steadily proceed through the power of God. God’s calling us doesn’t mean that God will fulfill His work by using our abilities, but it shows His intention to help and guide us with His power to carry out His work, based…

God Dwells in the City of Zion, Being in the Flesh

One of the things that all Christians, who hope for salvation and eternal life, must not overlook is to meet God. The prophet Isaiah wrote, “Seek the LORD while he may be found; call on him while he is near.” Through those words, we can understand that we are able to meet God only when God is near to us. Then, let’s find out when is the time God is near, where we can meet God, and how God makes us His people and gives us salvation. The City of Zion – the true church where God dwells Look upon Zion, the city of our festivals; your eyes will see Jerusalem, a peaceful abode . . . There the LORD…