[Message] Pastor Jung Myeong Seok
[Scripture] Luke 22:44
And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly,
and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.
Prayer is a basic element of faith.
Just as conversation is a basic element of life,
prayer is a basic element of the life of believing in God.
Prayer is conversation.
You have to create conditions in order to entangle.
That condition is prayer.
When you pray, you become entangled with God
and He will carry out things and work with you even on things that are your responsibility.
Those who pray earnestly and those who ask for appropriate things receive
answers to their prayers.
Not only your conversation and prayer but also your thoughts and actions
have to be earnest and perfectly in line with God’s Will.
Why?
It is because your thoughts and actions become your prayers and conversations.
Therefore, by taking action earnestly and perfectly according to God’s Will,
your actions and life must become earnest prayers.
Then, what does it mean to do things earnestly?
To do things earnestly means
to take action to the degree that your liver aches and your intestines are strained.*
(Translation note: figuratively.)
To do things earnestly means
to take action to the degree that cabbage is soaked and pickled in salt.*
(Translation note: before making kimchi, cabbage must be pickled in salt
so that it can be softened.)
Just having an earnest heart is not enough to make everything work out.
Just like a wild persimmon tree and a true persimmon tree must become one
in order for true persimmons to be produced,
when your thoughts and body become one, the purpose is fulfilled.
When grafting a true persimmon tree to a wild persimmon tree,
you must graft one onto the other devotedly, meticulously,
and earnestly in order for them to become completely attached.
In the same way, you must take action earnestly as one. Then the Will is fulfilled.
With that earnestness, you must converse, pray, think, and take action honestly and earnestly.
I hope that all of you will make the Lord your head and earnestly do things until the end,
to the point that your earnestness will get soaked up into God’s heart.
