by Sam | Feb 19, 2019 | Inspiration, Reflection
by Josh Kim In part one of this blog series, I shared that it is always God’s will to heal due to the sacrifice, or atonement, of Jesus. The atonement of Jesus through the cross purchased full salvation for our entire being: our spirits (reconciling humanity with God), our souls (forgiveness of sins and renewing of the mind), and our bodies (healing of sicknesses and suffering). In part two of this blog series, I want to briefly explain the various reasons that may perhaps prevent healing. But ultimately, I want to clarify the nature of the kingdom of God, and the time we are living in, to help make sense of the mystery of divine healing. FACTORS PREVENTING HEALING Having faith in God’s will to heal is the biggest factor for healing as I have mentioned in part one. But it is often human tendency to oversimplify things that we do not fully understand. So when healing does not take place, our tendency is to create over-simplifications, such as a particular person was not healed due to their lack of faith. This only produces false guilt within people, which is never God’s will. In order to avoid these simplistic answers or approaches to healing, here are a few reasons why a particular person may not be healed (for more in-depth descriptions, you can refer to a great resource for healing called Healing by Francis MacNutt): Lack of faith. In Matthew 17:14-20, the disciples are rebuked by Jesus for not being able to cure a epileptic demoniac due to their lack of faith. Everyone, even for those who do believe...
by Sam | Feb 12, 2019 | Inspiration, Reflection
by Josh Kim Does God always heal? I have personally struggled with this question for the majority of my life. We hear and read stories in Scripture about God performing miracles, being powerful, and even being willing to heal (Luke 5:13). Yet when we look at the world around us, there are still many believers and non-believers suffering with all different kinds of sickness. In this part one of a two blog posts series, I want to share with you my personal journey of God’s healing, give a biblical overview on healing and sickness, and confirm that God is good, powerful, and always willing to heal. PERSONAL JOURNEY Back in 1998, I was a normal second-grader who contracted chickenpox like most kids at that age. As I was quarantined in my house for 2 weeks, all I looked forward to was playing baseball outside with my friends once I was healed. Eventually, the doctors cleared me and I played outside all day. However, when I came back to my house, my mom freaked out because I had blisters all over my face and body. We went back to the doctors to get re-examined and we found out that I had a skin condition where my body reacted to the sunlight with fever blisters. I was no longer a normal second-grader, but a second-grader allergic to the sun of all things. It changed my life in many ways. Initially, my parents and church members all prayed for healing over me saying, “God, you love him so out of your power, heal him.” But when nothing changed, the prayers eventually...
by Sam | Jan 29, 2019 | Frontier
After a short hiatus, we are finally back with FRONTIER! Recently I had the privilege of going to Atlanta to minister at a multi-church retreat for youth. While there I met a lot of amazing people. One of them was Edward, who was serving behind-the-scenes with media. I appreciated his hard work and dedication, and we got a chance to talk in between sessions. Most of our conversations revolved around faith and dreams. That’s when I found out he was a rapper! Here’s more about my new friend, Edward, aka Kaptivated. Tell us who you are. My name is Edward. I’m 24, and I was born, raised, and currently reside in Atlanta, Georgia. I’m a full-time graphic designer and a part-time rapper. On stage, I go by Kaptivated. How did you get into rapping? It was two things. First, my older brother Eric had been rapping for a while before I picked it up. I didn’t hear much of it until after he became a Christian and he started showing me some of his songs. He used to record and make beats all the time—seeing this as a middle schooler made me realize that music production was accessible. It wasn’t just something for the celebrities to do; it was something I had the resources to accomplish myself. Second, I heard the song “Stan” by Eminem. That song made me realize the power that hip hop could have. It made me realize that music—hip hop especially—could be leveraged as a tool for great influence in the world. These two realizations naturally led me to start writing my own songs and...
by Sam | Jan 15, 2019 | Testimony
One of the questions that I get asked the most is how can someone learn to hear the voice of God. I believe that is actually one of the most important and pressing questions that can be asked today, especially given the times we are living in. Today, any and every voice can have a platform thanks to social media. There’s more noise, distraction, and opinions than ever before. In such a climate where the world is constantly fighting for our attention and our allegiance, we need to hear God. Without His voice, we have no anchor, compass, or hope. And with such a great need, we couldn’t stand idle. We had to act. We had to give. We had to train and equip. Above all, we had to obey God. Hosting God’s presence and hearing His voice are foundations to who we are and why we do what we do as a ministry. In everything we do, we want the presence of God to be at the center and we want our actions to be in response to what He’s saying. One of the things we felt like God was saying was that we were to help people in this pursuit of learning to hear God’s voice. In response and in faith, we hosted our very first workshop this past Saturday! Leading up to it, we faced tremendous opposition and spiritual warfare, but as always, God proved faithful. It was an honor to partner with Catalyst Agape Church to host this all-day workshop. We had people come from all different backgrounds and from all over the region,...
by Sam | Jan 8, 2019 | Inspiration, Reflection
As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!” “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” Luke 10:38-42 The weekend had been circled for over a month, and it couldn’t have arrived at a better time. I was just coming off a brutal stretch of traveling and working mixed with holiday busyness, where I just knew I needed this. One of the rhythms I wanted to set in my life was to regularly go away on personal retreats, but it had already been a year since my last one. The past year had been marked with tremendous growth and fruit, but also difficult tests and trials. A change of pace and scenery to slow down and rest was imperative. But honestly once I got to the retreat center, I found it extremely difficult. My greatest temptation was to capitalize on the momentum of the previous year and get work done. It was to plan and strategize for the sake of ministry. Yet the whole goal of the...
