First

There is something we must seek first. Are your lives tangled up right now? You have to be in the right order; you must live your life in the proper order. Today’s Bible verse says, first seek God’s Kingdom

Kingdom

Seek God’s Kingdom first. We said this during the pulpit message, but the “kingdom” refers to His reign, so the first thing we must begin with is to be reigned, ourselves.  If you’re not under God’s reign, that’s the wrong order.  No matter how you start the day, if you don’t begin with this at first, you will suffer because you live a life under the devil.

Control

God rules from heaven, but among the unbelievers, there are those controlled by Satan, but the Christians must pray for the Kingdom of God to be established first.

Kingdom of God | Kingdom of Satan

You must be controlled by God first; if you lose this, you will be controlled by Satan, and with what tool does Satan control us?

Me (Thoughts, Plans)

It is “me,” if I don’t begin the day controlled by God, I controlled by this. It doesn’t matter how diligently we live; we live diligently under Satan’s control. Satan controls you with this thing called “me,” you’re going to live your day according to your thoughts. Your thoughts become your standard.  But for us, our standard is God’s thoughts so this is why we must begin with this first.

My Things

As soon as you open your eyes in the morning, the first thing is we must receive the control of God’s kingdom; otherwise, if we just stay still, we will enter into Satan’s Kingdom. If you can’t pray throughout the day, you will be centered on yourself and your thoughts.  You have your plans, and the devil rules over you with that. “My things,” even today, I live diligently so I can get what belongs to me. Living diligently isn’t bad, but what do we live for? We live diligently for the things of God; God’s things are my things.  Money isn’t bad, but you live for your own things and your own benefit? 

If you look at guys, when they start dating, they don’t give worship; instead of being able to worship, they say, “This is mine,” and this is how this becomes the house of the devil.  I wish the kids would have a bit more discernment but they don’t; this is all they see, and I’m sure they have to do that to get married later. Everyone will get married, and even our little quails and parrots at home are paired, but what must you be controlled by?  You think your emotions are precious, “This person is precious to me,” and you must think they are precious to get married to them, but “they are mine,” and then losing hold of worship, they get seized by Satan.

My Position (Success)

Success is everything to them. Whether they go to church or not, they move according to the path of their success. This is how Satan rules over them but they don’t know that, then without a doubt, being ruled by Satan, the result is division and conflict, so even if you like someone, that’s not really liking them. If you like them now, you’ll be divided, so you must not live like that in the Kingdom of Satan.

God’s Word, God’s Things, God’s Desire

We need to be controlled by God’s Kingdom and that means the Word of God comes into my heart, that’s what it means to be ruled by God so that the Word of God controls me, so it’s no longer about my desires, but God’s desire.  It’s not about what I want anymore. What I want is to pray for my things, but it’s no longer for my things; it is for the things of God. It is not about my wishes, but it is about God’s wish, and this is what it means to be under God’s control. This is what we must seek first.

This is the first thing we must properly have. As you live your day, is this taking place or not?  We call this worship and prayer, isn’t that right?  The components of worship are the Word of God and prayer, and you look for the components of the Word throughout the day. If this doesn’t take place, then your thoughts will be seized by Satan.  You think about yourself and your things, so you fight, why? Because you think you’re correct and you can’t acknowledge other people. You have to acknowledge that other things exist, but you only think your things are correct.

You think you’re smart, but you’re seized by the devil and fight at your workplace. You may not fight with your words, but inside, you feel uncomfortable because you think your things are everything; you must seek the things of God and God’s things must become your things, isn’t that right?  Only success, you think the only thing that matters is your name, and that’s what it means to be seized by the devil.

We must begin our day with the things that God desires. Even today, when you begin your day, you must pray for God’s Kingdom to be established in you.  Word, prayer, within God’s plan for evangelism so that world evangelization can be done today.  What happens when God’s Kingdom is established?

Matthew 12:28 Holy Spirit, Demons

The Holy Spirit works, demons are cast out, and without a doubt, the Kingdom of God is established. If you can’t do this, you will be lost in your own thoughts. The Word of God reigns over you and leads you into the week; without this, you’ll be dragged into these three centers. However if you pray letting go of God’s things, the Holy Spirit will work and God’s Kingdom will be established wherever you go into the 237 nations, and that’s why you must do this before you work and study.  God told you to seek God’s Kingdom first, but you do things backwards, meaning you do things backwards.  What is that? That’s stupid, but you don’t think you’re stupid, but you think you’re smart, but if you knew the spiritual things, you would realize the stupidity. You think you’re doing a lot, living diligently, but the result is that you’re always fighting and butting heads and saying life is hard because you’re doing unnecessary things.

What happens when God’s Kingdom is established?  Righteousness, peace, and joy come to me, but what happens when Satan’s Kingdom comes? I’ll have confusion, chaos, and darkness.  If you don’t know how to pray, this is how you must pray, for Jesus Christ, the Triune God to control me, then what happens?  The Word of God with the gospel and the working of the Holy Spirit, so first the demon must flee from me.

What demon can stand against a child of God? Everyone still has their traps that Satan built in their past, Satan makes the trap called “me” and makes me fall into them. He makes you follow after the things that are only for your own benefit. If this is a monetary loss for you, you won’t follow.  People will ask you to give offering but you don’t because it’s yours, then what will happen to you?  You’ll be seized by money.  That person will live for money, imagine how pitiful that is? We have to live for God but instead we live for money? Then we are enslaved to money and that will be relayed to your kids again, generation after generation. There’s no joy; even if you go to church, you can’t make happiness.

Then there’s success, people use the name of Jesus Christ for success, and if you can’t succeed, you change; some people even change churches, they move to a different church, “If I’m surrounded by successful people, they will help me,” but these are all slaves to people, but I’m in the seat of success within the Kingdom of God.  All people on earth will be blessed through me, and this is the seat of the summit where I must remain, but instead, I go around asking for handouts; even when I go to school or work, I’m enslaved because I can’t enjoy being a child of God.

“Through me, the church and America will be blessed.”  If this doesn’t take place, then without a doubt, you’re enslaved. It doesn’t matter what we say, you can’t get by and you’re enslaved. You may have reasons, but what other reasons are there?  Through me, God’s kingdom is established and my company is revived spiritually and physically. Everything else is an excuse.  If you live with your own strength, you may have some excuse, but we are children of God.

You should never make excuses no matter where you go: the church, school or workplace.  Pathetic people make excuses, “It’s because of this person or that thing.” You don’t have to do that, just enter into God’s blessings.  The weirder someone is, the more you pray that they may receive Christ. If a company isn’t doing well, we pray so they can do well, but you run away thinking it won’t help you, then you cannot succeed. 

Everybody can do something if everything is perfect; there’s no name recognition there, but we go to places nobody can touch and we make progress there.  Nobody will go to the 5000 people groups, but all we have to do is to solve the problem. Instead of just going to work or study, change the problems: in other words, you are a missionary: My identity is a missionary to save lives. 

What must you do as a missionary? You pray for souls, don’t you? Wouldn’t you pray for your schools and company? But the world isn’t changing, and you keep trapping yourself.  No matter how much you live your walk of faith, you receive a little walk of faith, but it’s difficult. Is it hard to be a missionary?  I live as one called to be a missionary. Is it difficult? You think it is because you’re so entrenched in “me, my things, my success,” then you must keep listening and make this your imprint, root, and nature. 

If you’re not able to have this as your imprint, root, and nature, everyone will die in the wilderness after worrying about me, my things, and my position. Why would you follow the footsteps of a failure? Do you think that’s success? It’s failure. Do you think there’s success in the world? It’s failure. There’s no happiness but people are seized by it, and it looks good on the outside, but it’s rotted on the inside, and you think that’s good? 

That’s why we look at Joseph who had nothing. The only thing he had was the Covenant, the Kingdom of God, and when he opened his eyes in the morning, that was the first thing he did.  Nobody else did this as their first thing in Egypt.  Everyone else wakes up and thinks about themselves, money and success as their first thing, but they serve Satan.  You must serve God and do this first, what’s hard about that?  If you want to go into the Kingdom of God, you must give up “me, my things, and my success,” but you don’t want to give it up, do you? That’s why it’s not taking place.

I’m not telling you to give up on your life, but with these things, you cannot win against Satan, and I’m saying that you don’t pursue those things.  Satan will say, “You will fail if you let go,” but God promised that won’t happen. Still, Satan puts these thoughts into your heart, but you must do this until it takes place. If an incident happens, seek God’s plan and God’s will for God’s Kingdom to be established there. It’s not about my plan, benefit, or calculation, but it’s about the Kingdom of God.

Righteousness, People, Romans 1:17 (Gospel)

He says, “First seek God’s Kingdom and His righteousness.”  There’s the will of people, people live for their own righteousness, living to be right.  Because of that, they cannot escape from sin because that is a sin. Thinking you’re correct is a sin. Only God is correct. All people are sinners, seized by Satan, and there is no righteousness there.

Romans 1:17 says the gospel reveals God’s righteousness, what is the gospel?  It is the fact that God sent His one and only Son for us to die and resurrect for us, but without this, it’s just people.  This is the only righteousness, nothing else is right except the gospel, so we must see only the gospel.  You yourselves are like this, you must look at everything with the righteousness of Jesus. You’re not that great; you’re not correct. Can you save yourself?  If you’re correct, can you overcome the devil?  If you’re right, can you solve the problem of curses, disasters, and sin? But everyone is lost in their own righteousness.

The gospel is the grace of God, not something we do, but God does it.  The gospel reveals God’s righteousness and that’s what we seek first.  There is no righteousness outside of the gospel.  See with the eyes of the gospel. What does that mean? If you look from your righteousness, you will judge people.  If you have your righteousness, you might not say this, but you will say, “She’s so weird,” but from the eyes of the gospel, one day she will change.  Imagine how weak she is that she can’t wear proper shoes.  Why would someone wear sandals? Maybe she went surfing in the morning and changed at church, but there’s a reason why she has no choice but to be like that.  She feels like she has to go to the beach on Sunday mornings, she’s completely trapped by that.

Gospel { Sin, Satan, Hell

See the three fundamental problems through their problem: sin, Satan, Hell.  If you don’t see these three problems, you will see things from your own righteousness, and that will cause you to judge that person. Do you know how scary this is? In Genesis 3, it says, “You will know good and evil like God.” Only God can judge, but you are judging people as if you’re God, revealing your righteousness.  Make it so that God’s righteousness is revealed. To do that, you must look at every person with these three problems. Even looking at yourself, see these three problems, and that’s when Christ is revealed. 

Even when you go out into the world and see a nonbeliever, you must see the gospel for the righteousness of God to be revealed. This is what you must do first, and you must be trained in this such that no matter where you go, you have this.  You shouldn’t just end it with knowing it from Bible study. If you know it, you must apply this to your life, then why do we talk about this again?  Actually we must talk of Jesus Christ over and over again until we die, and we have to give the Lord’s prayer every worship until we die. Is there anything new here?

It’s these three problems. Do you know why churches fight? They reveal their own righteousness, but why? They don’t see sin, Satan, and separation. They don’t see people from a spiritual perspective, they can’t see that they are separated from God so they can’t forgive and can’t understand others, “How could there be such people in the church? They have to cut their friends off, “How could I be friends with someone like this?” 

That’s what I did to my friends who didn’t meet my standards, I cut them off.  If they were powerless, I cut them out because I was a nonbeliever, living my own life.  So I had to fight a lot to come out on top and that was my reason for getting up every morning to work or study. You have to be able to see this.  “This person continuously makes the same mistake!” It’s because they have been seized by Satan for a long time, so you must pray for them to receive the gospel.

This is what it means to be gospelized. You hear the gospel but you must continue to apply the gospel. You know about Satan, sin, and hell, but when you look at nonbelievers, you see the gospel.  Even among believers, they may be liberated, but they are stuck in these problems so you must see the answer in the gospel.  Therefore, first seek His Kingdom and His righteousness, then all these things shall be given to you as well.

What other things?  It’s what’s mentioned above, all the things you eat or wear, the physical necessities. God will provide all these things to you. You must have this wisdom. You study so diligently but you have no wisdom. There’s a difference between knowledge and wisdom. You don’t have wisdom just because you graduate from Harvard. There are 90 year olds who have no wisdom.  Wisdom means you utilize the knowledge to exist in the world. You have wisdom with no knowledge.

I’m sure that’s not bad, but without wisdom, it’s hard to live. First seek God’s Kingdom and His righteousness, and God will give you all these things, but you live for those things. How stupid is that? That’s why God’s grace must come upon you. Without grace, you’re dumb.  What is the standard of being dumb? You lose hold of all the important blessings, when you think you’re smart, you lose everything.

My mom said everywhere I go, I lose money. I didn’t think it was true, but if I see money on the seat by me, I don’t know if it’s mine or not.  Before that point, I never once thought I left money lying around.  But my mom asked me, “How is it you always leave money around?” I misunderstood myself.  I dropped money around without realizing it, but because I didn’t know, I didn’t think I did it.  You have to have wisdom, you must do this first.  Seek God’s Kingdom.  If you’re living in LA, you must live to establish God’s Kingdom in LA and God’s Kingdom is revealed. It’s God’s reign, and if the remnants pray about this, they will enter into the schools and conquer. You think you’re there to study but you just live holding to the covenant. 

Don’t be scarred by your teachers, but see the three fundamental problems and see why the gospel must be proclaimed here: it is not your perspective, but it is the gospel.  See the spiritual state of your parents. Don’t judge them but pray for them in the name of Jesus Christ because they need Christ, then the devil is continually broken down because your righteousness is revealed.  My own righteousness leads to division and fighting. Do you understand?

Do this first, put this into practice. In the Early Morning, do this carefully. As long as you’re not going to some Winston Churchill, wake up in the early morning, but most of you are doing something in the wee hours of the night. Or you spend your evenings on the internet, or you party and go to karaoke bars and drink until the early morning.  Everybody is different but from my experience, what’s common for everyone is that if you make it a habit to wake up early, it’s a good habit for the rest of your life, so you can do things for yourself first, but if you can’t do that, you can’t be first, then instead, your worries, work, and studies will be first. That’s why your nature must become an early bird.  Everyone is different, but I’m speaking generally, become a morning person.  That’s why you always seek this first with leisure, then that person will be victorious every day.

If you can’t do this, you’re going to be dragged along into the Kingdom of Satan without realizing it. I’m not normally a morning person; I’m a night owl, and even when I studied, I studied late at night and woke up late, so it’s hard for me to wake up in the morning.  So, every morning, my mom had to shake me out of bed, pour water on me and throw clothes on me.  But I received grace through Early Morning prayer and I liked it a lot because there’s plenty of God to seek God and His righteousness.

You might not recognize the benefits of exercise at first, but as you keep exercising, your body creates endorphins so your body feels better, and because you’re receiving spiritual grace, you’ll feel really good in a way you can’t express or calculate. Because I enjoy it, I keep doing it, even now. You have no idea how important this time is.  Especially if you’re going to do big things in the future, the first things you must do is wake up in the morning. If you’re just going to wake up and eat three meals a day, you don’t need to do this. You just go in your afflicted state. But if you want to experience something the world cannot understand, you need to even make this first.

While doing ministry at Seoul National University, there was a chemistry student who brought a skinny classmate, and he said, “This girl is the top student in our class.”  She said, last week she studied on a bench and met people from the Navigators and now she was invited here for Bible study.  She initially was part of some cult but she’s very smart and bright, but she’s so much in the dark.  Because she knew the Early Morning time, I gave her this testimony.  “I go to Early Morning prayer and receive a lot of grace, then I would listen to the message and go on a hike and it was great for me.” I met her again later, and she said she woke up at 4am and walked around a track at the nearby elementary school and listened to the message.  Nobody could compete against her diligence and waking up early. I’m not talking about diligently waking up and working, but for things like that, CEOs of companies are better.  But the reason you need this time is to seek things first, the Kingdom and His righteousness.

But people who don’t know this will lose to their nature.  As soon as she graduated, she married someone going to Boston University, so she did something strange and foolish, so she lived with her grandmother, and she was dark but she was good at studying.  What I’m saying is that there are people who are naturally diligent and wake up in the morning, but they shouldn’t be seized by Satan. Why are we talking about early in the morning? Because you must enjoy the blessing of seeking God’s Kingdom first every morning.

Such people have leisure because they begin their day with grace and leisure.  A person must have leisure.  But some people can’t do this, as soon as they wake up, they say they’re late against their time schedule.  The person will keep working and suffering, because they have to keep going to work, they rush out the door and do their makeup in the car.  In the middle of class, they put on powder. It’s so difficult. When do you have time to finish that? Do what’s important first.

You must have leisure and victory before you go, do you understand?  Not all can follow but some will, and that’s all we need.  Then they will know.  If a person doesn’t have leisure, they will make mistakes and be nervous, then if you want to wake up early in the morning, what must you do the evening before? You cannot waste your time.  If you waste your time in the evening, you cannot wake up in the morning because you’ll be so entrenched in your worries, stresses, and concerns, that you can’t wake up.  Even if you want to, you can’t because you’re so oppressed, so your evenings must be spent well as well. You have to organize everything that happened that day with the Word of God and prayer.

Even for students who study, you review everything you learned that day so that as you sleep, it goes into your memory.  The brain does that in your sleep, and it’s the same spiritually. Before you sleep, you must resolve everything that happened that day; without that, it turns into stress and darkness.  You have to create a spiritual, foundational nature while as a remnant, and that’s how God will entrust you with great things. 

If you don’t understand this at all, then read and keep in mind what the CEOs of big companies do. There are other lifestyles out there, but what characteristic do they have?  They wake up at 4am, why? Because they read the newspaper before leaving for work, they think about everyone they will meet that day and think about what they will say to them, and then they meditate. Even unbelievers meditate and receive ideas in the midst of quiet meditation.  People have that ability. That’s how the leaders lead the world.

But first, if you’re always falling behind in your studies and stressed with homework, do this first. Otherwise you’ll be borrowing from others. You will save money but it’s all being stolen away by Satan’s Kingdom. You thought it was yours but you lost it all. It’s a misconception, it’s all stolen away by the devil. You get it swindled away.  Or let’s say someone ran into your car while driving and say it wasn’t their fault and take money from you, or you take care of your health and spend money on unnecessary surgeries.  You must spend for God’s Kingdom first, then everything you need will be given to you.  May you be victorious.

Prayer

God we thank You. Bless the remnants, may they be the ones to seek the Kingdom and His righteousness first. In Jesus Christ’s name we pray, amen.