My Ideal 24 (Gen. 1:27-28)
Today, I want to talk about something I’ve been meditating on recently, and it’s My Ideal 24. My 24 is the way we pretty much process everything we hear, see, think, and feel. If I were to summarize, my most perfect 24 very simply, it would be Genesis 1:27 because that’s how God created us and God made us perfect. The way that He made us perfectly is by making us in His image, because only God is perfect.
Gen 1:27 – Image – Spirit
God is Spirit which means we’re spiritual beings and when our spirit is with God, then we’re perfect and this is who I really am. When I’m enjoying this state, then I get all the blessings.
Genesis 1:28 Blessed, Fruitful
I’m blessed, and God is the One Who blesses us. He makes everything we do fruitful. Have you guys ever spent a long time doing something and it turned out it was for nothing? You wasted all of this time and it was a dead end. That’s essentially kost of our lives, we spend most of our lives running and looking busy, but in the end, we end up doing nothing. But with God, we don’t have to be like that because God makes everything we do fruitful.
Increase in #
God blessed us to increase in number. A lot of people try to gain safety in numbersnumbers, so they try to become more popular and they try to get more friends for themselves. Because they think that will make them feel happier and full again, but we can only find these blessings inside of God’s Spirit.
Rule Over
Finally, God promised us to rule over everything he created. Again, a lot of people want to rule over things. If I have a dog, I want a rule over that dog, I want that dog to listen to my words. If I have a boyfriend, I want that boyfriend to listen to me; I want to rule over my boyfriend. If he has plans with a friend, “No, come hang out with me.” We want to rule over our studies too, how many times do you imagine, “Yes, starting from Monday, I’m just going to start working, then I’m going to be able to concentrate all of a sudden.”
But the thing is, none of this is within our control. Many people try hard to get this because this is a blessing, because the only way to get this is if we’re with God in Spirit. However, Satan is constantly deceiving us.
2 Timothy 4:3-4 Satan’s Lies
It says there will come a time when people don’t want to listen to the truth, and they listen to the things they want to hear. So, there are a lot of philosophies around right now. I heard this week there was one person who said something. Who remembers the pulpit message saying, “Wanting to gain perfection is sin”? Trying to get this by ourselves is sin. This week, I saw a TikTok that was talking about that, too. They were like, “Perfectionism is the destruction of man.” Do you know what they said next? “You don’t have to try to be perfect because you’re already perfect, so don’t try to be perfect; instead, you’re already deserving of the world.”
You
How great does that sound? When you come to church, Pastor Park just says, “You can’t be perfect; you have to die at the cross,” but when you go out into the world, they say, “You don’t have to be perfect because you’re already perfect, and if anyone disagrees with you, they’re obviously wrong.” Already, this sounds and feels so good because it tells you, “You’re worth it,you!re perfect, you’re beautiful and you’re worthy.”
But what this does is that it divides us from other people and from God. The reason is because in Ephesians 2:2-3,
Eph. 2:2-3
It says we chase after our sinful desires. So, we satisfy the cravings of our sinful nature, so we’re chasing after these things, which takes us away from God. They say, “If someone doesn’t agree with you, cut them out,” so it cuts you from people. No matter how much you get what you want, you’re never happy. The result of this life is darkness.
Genesis 1:2
I remember one time in college, I met with my grandma and told her, “I feel so angry but I don’t know why. My brain is just filled with a dark cloud.” That was the best way I could describe it, it was a dark cloud in my brain so I was upset all the time. She told me to read this verse, and of course that made me mad because my grandma is always telling me to read the Bible, and I was like “Oh my goodness,” but the Bible verse was actually crazy.
Genesis 1:2 says, “Now the earth was formless and empty, and darkness was over the surface of the deep.” That’s exactly how I felt. There was chaos inside of me, but I was so empty. Even though I was really successful in the view of the world, I was so dark inside. Now, what happens here is usually, people feel that darkness and emptiness and try to fill it. There’s a book, “The Phantom Tollbooth,” I’m pretty sure my sister and Tim read it, oh, Gospel read it? She looks so offended.
There’s a book called “The Phantom Tollbooth,” and in the book, there’s a soup called subtraction soup, and the more you eat this soup, the hungrier and hungrier you get . The main character of the book was so hungry, he ate seven bowls without thinking and he realized later, “I’m so much hungrier than before,” and the world keeps going like that, filling, filling, filling without thinking. 20, 30, 40, 80 years go by like that, and you die with nothing.
This is the result of Satan making you chase after your greed. But don’t fall for Satan’s lies because remember, you can have this, just not the way Satan tells you. The only way to get this is if God gives it to you. He wants to give it to you.
Genesis 2:7 Life
That’s why He created you. He literally created you to bless you. He created this beautiful world so He could show you. Let me prove it. In Gen. 2:7, God created the man out of dust and breathed into him the breath of life. This is the only way to defeat the darkness, so God breathed into us life, and then in Gen. 2:9 it says this.
Genesis 2:9 Blessings, Mission, Guidance
The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground, trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. A little later it said, a river watering the garden flowed from Eden, and from there, it separated into four rivers. The name of the first was Pishon, the winds through the entire land of Havilah where there was gold. Genesis 2:11. And it said the gold of the land was good, aromatic resins, and onyx was there too, so God created all these blessings and the beautiful nature of the world, and He put humans there. Then He said in Gen 2:15, “The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.”
Then in Genesis 2:16-17, “You are free to eat from any tree of the garden, but not from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it, you will surely die.”
Prepared
When God created you, he gave you life, and He provided all the blessings for you. All the trees in the garden, the gold, and the water, it was all there for humans to rule over, so God prepared the blessings and then gave them a mission. After God gives them the mission, he guides them on how to do it, all He says is, “Remember my promise and I will do everything else for you.” The way I know that is because God brought every animal to Adam to name. Adam didn’t have to go naming all the animals; God brought them to him and gave him wisdom to name them.
How many times does it feel like you guys are forced to do what you don’t want to do, or that you can’t do what you want to do? That’s because you are living outside of God’s blessings. Inside of God’s blessings, it naturally turns into a life of blessings.
Family/People
Later on, He even gives family and people because in Genesis 2:18, “The LORD said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” God has all of this for you right now. A lot of our friends are worried about what they’re going to do, or what college they are going to go to, or what job they are going to get, or a lot of people are wondering what their talents and skills are, but within God, you don’t have to worry about that because as long as you’re within the life, God takes you step-by-step through this.
THis is the end of the word portion, this is just the promise we’ve been given, Satan’s lies that take this away, and God’s blessings to give this to you. If we remain within God’s guidance, we can see the blessings all the time. Now I’m going to go through a little testimony section and I’ll keep it short, maybe, we’ll see.
You guys all know how I got my job, right? I was doing the same thing everyone else was doing, I went to career fairs and stuff, and at one of the random career fairs I went to, I talked to a grandpa, and I don’t want to offend anyone, but he was very pro-Trump. I personally don’t like Trump that much, so I said, “I’m definitely not applying to this company.”
A few weeks later, I got a call from him. I didn’t apply, but he called me, so I scheduled an interview. He said, “Of all the people, the 100s of kids he talked to that day, I remembered you.” I’m telling you, at those events, there are 100s of kids, and 75% of them are Asian. The fact is that he called me and I got a second interview, then I got a job.
But who cares. Once I got the job, I was very mistreated. I worked 80-100 hours a week and one time, I was leaving the office at 3am, and I got into a car accident and then I came into work the next morning at 6am or 7am, and I finished the project given to me, and even the customer I gave it to said, “Good job.” But at the year end review, my manager said I was an average worker. I cried. I was like, “What?” Because there was another person who literally slept in his cubicle every day, but that wasn’t the only situation.
I had a mentor who wouldn’t let me speak. Every time I asked a question, she said, “Stop challenging my authority; just do what I say,” so it was hard for me to learn because I couldn’t ask any questions or say what I thought. I worked really hard, and she said, “That’s a classed part, I’m not going to do that” and she gets the recognition for it.
Not only that, but even in the church, I was shut up. Around that time, it was when Jon Lee moved to LA from the East Coast, and around that time, they were like that. “Esther Han is a DA, and Jon Lee is a financial analyst, and we have these elite young adults,” But nobody cares about Tiffany, all she has is Honeywell. So always at these vision talks, it was always Jon, Esther, Tim, and never me.
Even though I was getting so many answers! I wondered, “God, why won’t you let me speak? You’re giving me answers but you won’t let me share them.” So it felt like I could never speak and that’s when God gave me this word. I was so frustrated with God and my company, I wanted to leave the church and Honeywell, but at that time, God gave me the word.
The Israelites followed the pillar of cloud, and when the pillar stayed, the Israelites stayed. Everyone around me was telling me to look for another job, but I stayed. Even though I hated it, I didn’t even update my LinkedIn. Only the college kids are laughing. The second word God gave me was in Job. “Trust me, what do you know? You’ve only lived 20 years of your life, God created the Universe.” God was telling me to shhh.
Pray and trust God. So I did. I was really upset but the Word was so clear. Right now, the flow of the Word is, if you want to save the church and save the pastor, don’t talk because answers save, talking doesn’t save. Okay now, moving onto my next stage of faith, 2020 hits, and it’s COVID. You guys know what happened during COVID, I started living at the church and this is my process of healing and training. During this time, I learned about 24 hour prayer. I’m not there yet; I’m still learning but this is the very beginning of it, and it happened when I got into a fight with my sister. I was so mad and I had to fold laundry, which I was also mad about. I was folding the laundry and I started thinking, “God is with me,” and all I said was, “God is with me,” and already I felt so embarrassed for being mad, and I felt peace.
While I was folding laundry, I was thinking, “That’s right, I’m a child of God, it doesn’t matter,” so now whenever I get angry or upset, that’s my reminder to pray and remind myself. Yesterday, my mom got really mad at me, and I didn’t think it was a very big deal at all. Usually, I think, “What is wrong with you? This is not a big problem. “ Of course, I wouldn’t say that out loud because we respect our mom, but that was the first time I saw, “Wow, this is literally darkness, this is literally demons twisting her thoughts. For the first time, I started really believing that Jesus Christ could bind the forces of darkness in my mom, so I didn’t say anything; I started praying for her.
These are the ways that since 2020, God has shown me about prayer, the importance of prayer, church, worship, and offering. I’m not going to go into the details about how He has led me through all of this, but yes, that’s what He did. Fast-forward to 2021, I started receiving the Word about the 10 mysteries, the 237 nations, and the 5000 people groups. Around 2020 they were talking about the ten mysteries which were, go from nobody to everybody and from the dead place to the live place. The 5000 people groups are the empty places where nobody wants to go.
For me, that was another job because someone reached out to me and it was a boss in the company that everybody hated. In fact, when that person became the manager, three people quit their jobs. That’s how much of a monster she is. I hope she never sees this. but this job would help me train people from China, India, and all across America. So, I chose that job because nobody wants that job and it’s the job that would take me to the 237 nations.
I took that job and it’s now 2022 and I’m so busy. Yeah. 2022, I started feeling my limitations. At my job, of course she’s making us work overtime, and that’s her basic expectation, but at church, I’m also doing the Elementary messages, interpretation, and the accounting. With these three things, there were a few times when I said, “This is too much,” but the word I’m receiving is, “We do the work by God’s grace and power,” so I was receiving this word from God but it made me so mad because I was like, “Then give me the grace and power! How are you going to tell me to do it by grace and power ,and not give me grace and power?”
Pastor Park said, “Stake your life on it.” I was like, “Bruh.” So on top of that, I got more roles. Now we’re starting to do the children’s evangelism school on Saturdays as well and I was talking to Samonim on the phone, “I can do this, but maybe I can’t do the Elementary school messages on Sunday.
Guess what happened that night? Do you guys remember Kevin from Mongolia? I haven’t talked to him in months, but he facebook messaged me and said, “Can you keep sending the messages?” “Oh, okay.” That’s where I’m at right now. The Word God keeps giving me is first, it’s by God’s grace and power, not me. The second Word God is giving me lately is, “It’s faith in Jesus Christ, not my actions.” So it doesn’t matter how much I worship and pray, if it doesn’t give me faith in Jesus Christ. 2-3 week ago, I started praying, “God, I’m at my limit, I can’t do this anymore.” From that point on, I feel like I’ve been getting God’s grace and power. That being said, I’m still missing all my deadlines. I still haven’t done anything but I’ve received God’s grace.
One thing I’ve noticed is that my boss who’s really really crazy, right? She makes us tell her everything we did, every single day. We have to write it down in three different places. When am I actually supposed to work? But what I realized is, God is using this crazy lady to train me. Through this, God is forcing me to learn time management and prioritization. So I’m really thankful for her, even though she says things really meanly, and at first I get hurt, I think about it and think, “That’s right.” Other People in my team, everybody else wants to quit. But what I see through my manager instead is this.
Matthew 28:18-20
It is this blessing, God is with you, you will be fruitful, you will increase in number, and you will conquer. Matthew 28:18-20 is this blessing, God has all the blessings prepared for you already. If you believe it, you can see it more quickly, and God has a mission for you already. If you believe it, you don’t have to waste as much time. God will guide you and will prepare all the people in your life. So if you’re struggling really hard to get anywhere in life, realize that the answer is in being with God. Your spirit being with God will truly give you everything you need at once, regardless of the circumstances, but if your spirit is more focused on you than being with God, then even if you get everything you want in the world, you’ll be in darkness.
The end, let’s pray.
Prayer
Heavenly father God, thank You so much because Jesus Christ has finished all our problems and we are with God. we have the mission and your power. Please help every member of the church enjoy these blessings. Give us your grace and power so we can make disciples of all nations. We give all glory to the Triune God. In Jesus Chirst name we pray, amen.