Of One Mind in the Lord

The devotion of the apostle Paul carries a love that none of us could ever hope to imitate. His labor to make Jesus Christ known is like a lamp giving out light: it brightens people’s hearts and leads them in the good way.

When I look at Paul’s faith, I think of a bent tree. He seems like a tree that has bowed itself low so that children, the old, and the weak can all step on it easily and climb up high. People trod on him again and again on their way to Jesus Christ, until his bark grew hard and scarred to the point of ugliness; yet Paul, who could smile at those wounds, was a man for whom nothing was impossible in the Lord.

When Paul arrived in heaven, having finished the work he was given, God would have met him and told him that he was not a tree growing straight like a cedar, but that his shape, bent this way and that, was all the finer and more lovely for it. As I preached through Philippians, it struck me that Paul, whatever it made of his own appearance, lived for salvation alone, like a tree that bends lower still so that more people can receive Jesus Christ. We ought to follow the faith of Paul, who even in prison grieved over the quarrels in the church and longed that they would not obscure the glory of God. We who have met Christ must also be humble, so that many others can meet him too. Paul knew he would die, yet he pleaded with the church to live by faith, and he did so because of his assurance of salvation. The people of Watercourse Church have that assurance too, and that is why they keep publishing books, with a deep desire that more people will receive Christ. We are living through a time of hardship brought on by COVID-19, yet my prayer is that people will meet Christ and set their hope on heaven. I bless the members of our church, who rejoice each time a book is published. I give glory to God, who led us to publish Philippians, the fourteenth book in Watercourse Church’s Good Seed series. Thank you.

January 2022
Pastor Cho Chun-sook, Watercourse Church