Living by faith, along the road to reality,
next.
Welcome once again to the Road to Reality,
the ministry of Gospel for Asia.
In a minute, we'll be hearing from Brother
K.P. Ohana, the founder and director of
Gospel for Asia.
Today, K.P. will focus on faith.
Now, most of us realize that we're saved
by grace through faith, but does that mean
once we exercise faith to become a Christian,
it's, well, no longer needed?
Today, we'll discover God wants us to live
by faith every day of our lives.
So, let's learn together how we walk in
faith as we turn to Mark 11 on
the road to reality.
K.P. first recalls a time in his
life when the Lord called him to exercise
faith and trust, trust in God, and God
did something incredible.
Listen to this.
Some years ago, with some of our brothers
and sisters, we went to a meeting.
If I'm not mistaken, we had maybe about
25,000 people or more.
And as the meeting just began, we saw
the dark clouds descending all around us.
And I just didn't know what to do
because we were going to get drained on.
And I never claimed I'm a man of
faith, and I struggle a lot of times,
and I pray for sick people all the
time, and also get healed, but when I
get a headache, I look for aspirin.
I do pray also, of course, but I
said to myself, you know, this is a
test.
The Lord brought us here for this meeting,
and it's my choice to believe.
And I thought about Elijah, a man just
like us with all the struggles and weakness
and confusion, but by just believing, he was
able to stop the rain.
So I quietly said, Lord, I know Elijah,
and I wish I had some faith, but
I can trust you and ask you to
give me some faith tonight.
The little bit of faith, like a mustard
seed, because I have seen enough of God's
grace and intervention in answering prayer that I
said to my colleagues, let's pray and believe
God for God to intervene and answer prayer.
So we prayed.
Well, thank God, the Lord answered prayer, and
all of a sudden, all the clouds moved
away, and it's a clear sky just for
us.
But the strange thing, after the meeting was
over, we discovered just about a couple of
kilometers away from us, all around us, it
was pouring rain.
And after the meeting was over, we gave
the invitation, prayed for people.
As we drove away just about a few
seconds, it began to rain there on the
ground also.
God is pleased when we, even in our
struggles and unbelief, come to him and say,
Oh Lord, I believe you to answer prayer.
All the fasting and prayer and crying and
weeping will do no good unless we engage
faith with it.
That's the key.
Now, the fig tree Jesus cursed, you know
the story, he went to get something to
eat from the fig tree, and I like
figs, and they are sweet, amazingly sweet.
And I have no question about Jesus ate
a lot of figs, and this time he
was hungry, and he went and looked for
it, but there was no figs, only leaves.
And he cursed the tree, of course, in
all kinds of interpretations, but let it be,
Jesus used this also as a means to
teach his disciples about faith.
He said, have faith in God.
If you can believe, you can say to
the mountain, it will move.
You can do the same thing I did.
And then he explains to them how to
practically handle faith.
That is what you see in verse 24.
Therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask for
in prayer, okay, here it is, whatever, we're
going to spend some time in prayer.
Subjects are many, but how sad it would
be, we go through all these prayer requests,
like a ritual.
We do the same thing we did last
week.
But how sad it is for us to
go through this exercise and have no expectation
and absolute, rocky, strong, militant conviction.
I ask my God, and he will answer.
And there is excitement, there is thrill.
How sad it would be for us to
go through another evening and not to have
that.
And Jesus said, when you pray for something,
you ask, this is what you should do.
Believe you have received it, past perfect tense.
You ask for something, you believe you already
got it, and then you will have it.
Now, this is illogical.
This makes no sense.
Why?
How can you say you got something that
you don't have?
Think about it.
I didn't say this, Jesus said it.
You're praying for something, you're asking for something,
and you start thanking God for receiving, getting,
having received what you asked for, then you
will have it.
How do you explain it?
How do we understand it?
Jesus is saying, this is how you walk
in faith.
How may I illustrate this?
My journey of faith is brief.
I don't have 10 million illustrations or fantastic
events to report to you, but a few
that I know that I, in my own
life, experience as real.
Some of you, you have seen and walked
into our office building, which is a five
-story building, and I think we had the
building now 15 or 16 some years or
more.
I remember the time when my leaders, we
felt, as we are praying and thinking about
the ministry, that it's important to have a
place where we can have offices, but also
to have some training done for brothers that
want to go to the mission field, but
we didn't have the resources at that time,
and we said we'll pray, and we did
pray.
But that was the time I was beginning
to learn about living by faith and trusting
God.
You see, if you can do something by
your own strength, your own resources, or you
can do it by asking someone or getting
through some other means, then you don't need
faith.
You can do it on your own.
But this was a situation at that time,
and I simply couldn't see where on earth
we would find the money to build a
building like that.
But as I was beginning to learn about
faith, I said to myself, well, you know,
I mean, it is impossible.
I just don't see on earth how we
could do it, but my God is able,
and I can trust him to do the
miracle.
And it was during that particular week I
saw this ad in the magazine saying they
are discontinuing a certain brand name washing machine,
a certain kind that was used for overseas,
using the 220 watt electricity and all these
different things.
Actually, they were making it for countries like
India, and they were going to stop making
it, and they had just a few left
if anybody wanted it.
At that time, there was no washing machines
you can buy here.
So I said to myself, well, you know
what?
We are going to have this building, and
we need two washing machines so we can
wash clothes for our brothers who live in
that building.
So I called the company and said, I'd
like to order two of those washing machines.
And they sure sent these two washing machines
in this large cardboard case, and the truck
came and delivered it, and I said, oh
no, what am I doing with it?
It's two huge boxes.
So I said, they put it in our
garage, and so they put it there, and
it sat there.
My wife asked me, what on earth have
you done?
I said, this is the washing machine that
is going to sit in our building and
wash clothes.
She said, what building?
I said, it's by faith.
Some of you may have heard this story,
and I'd like to hear it again, so
I'm saying it.
So those large cardboard boxes sat there forever,
it looked like.
Once in a while, I would open the
door and go and look at these washing
machines still sitting unwrapped in these cardboard cases,
and I would say quietly, you washing machines
are going to wash clothes in that building.
And nobody heard me because I didn't want
anybody to hear me.
I couldn't see the building, and there's no
way I can explain or give evidence or
convince anyone this is going to do the
job one day sitting in a building on
the other side of the world.
It's not possible.
But I want to learn that God is
able to do it.
Years goes by.
The miracle takes place.
The building is built.
Those washing machines came, and it is still
washing clothes.
Maybe you can think of a few examples
yourself where God lovingly and graciously responded to
your faith in Him.
Well, there's more encouragement along those same lines.
We'll have that for you in just a
moment on The Road to Reality with Brother
K.P. Yohannan.
But first, I'd like to tell you about
K.P.'s latest book called No Longer a
Slumdog.
I think you'll find this one hard to
put down as K.P. shares how the
suffering children of Asia are being clothed, fed,
educated, and loved in the name of Jesus.
But there are still many who are wandering
the streets without hope, and the opportunity is
astounding.
K.P. says never before have so many
people in Asia been so open to the
message of love found in the gospel.
As followers of Christ, we must respond while
we can.
We'll gladly send you a free copy of
No Longer a Slumdog if you'll stop by
WinAsia.org today.
Again, go to WinAsia.org or call 866
-WinAsia.
That's 866-WinAsia.
If you're in Canada, go to the GospelForAsia
.ca website.
That's GospelForAsia.ca or call 888-946-2742.
As we get back into the message, K
.P. will have us recall a story in
the life of Abraham.
Abraham, just like us, made a bunch of
mistakes in life, but the most amazing thing
about him, he had this incredible quality that
honored God.
He believed God.
When he made a mistake, he acknowledged he
did wrong, but would come back to faith
again.
The Bible says Abraham realized, recognized his body
is dead.
There's nothing left biologically.
All the tests in the world you can
do, every test will say you will never
have a child.
But some years ago, the problem was not
with Abraham, but with Sarah.
So he could get a son through someone
else, and he did get Ishmael.
But another 25 years would go by.
Now, 100 years, an old, broken, worn out
man, it says he looked at his body
and recognized it is finished.
He looked at his wife.
Impossible.
It's all over.
But then God says, be circumcised.
Philippians chapter 3 tells us what is the
meaning of circumcision.
We are the true circumcision who place no
confidence in the flesh.
That's what it is.
God, I give up trying to figure out
logically, reasonably, how I'm going to do it.
I don't understand.
I have no way to know this.
God, I do not depend on myself for
anything.
Oh, Father, I don't.
I trust you.
My dependence is on you.
And after he made the declaration, he received
the son of promise, Isaac.
How long did Abraham say to his friends
and his wife, God has given us a
son?
Because you read in Romans 4, he gave
thanks to God.
He said, Lord, thank you for the son
you gave me.
And nobody could see the son by faith.
But here's the thing.
Why on earth Jesus will tag on that
verse after saying about prayer?
Did you see that?
That's kind of interesting way to do things.
Look that.
Verse 25.
I mean, he just talked about, said, whatever
you ask in prayer, believe you have received
it and you will have it.
Don't doubt it.
But then the next statement he makes, it
seems it has nothing to do with faith.
I mean, look at that.
And when you stand praying, if you hold
anything against anyone, forgive him or forgive her
so that your father in heaven may forgive
your sins.
For us to exercise God-pleasing faith, for
us to have no hindrance to believe God,
for us to have no guilty conscience bothering
us, holding us back to trust and believe
God.
It is an important factor that our hearts
must be cleansed from bitterness, unforgiveness.
This afternoon, someone said to me, so-and
-so wants to give you a letter.
I said, well, I receive all kinds of
letters and I'm glad to receive a letter
from anyone.
As such, this individual said, the letter is
talking about forgiveness.
I said, what do you mean?
And he explained, you see, he wanted to
come and see you but he didn't want
to do that.
So he thought to write a letter to
you asking forgiveness.
I thought it's strange, so that you are
not left in terrible confusion.
So, you know, this individual, you know, three
or four years went by, that much time,
why on earth he lost this much time?
Think about those about three and a half,
four years now, possibly the guilt he's living
with, the anger he's living with, the confusion.
And for the life of me, I cannot
recall one thing in my mind that I
did to him or he did to me
that there has to be some clearing up
of it.
I don't know what it is.
But the deception of the enemy makes us
sometimes live in our own world of darkness
and unforgiveness while we pretend to be clever
and smart and we go on like everything
is right.
But God is not answering our prayer.
Our faith is not effective.
It is like you try to start this
engine for the car to go but there's
no way because the petrol is mixed with
water and all kinds of messy stuff.
It just don't fire.
I want to ask you tonight, is there
something, is there anything in your life that
you need to get rid of, especially something
you hold against someone?
I do not know who that person or
who those people are, but please listen to
me.
And I'm going to close in a few
minutes here.
Time will never be the answer for sin.
Time will never heal.
Your wounded heart, bitterness, unforgiveness never will.
Only repentance, admitting, releasing, forgiving, let go is
the only way.
No other way.
There's not one individual here, not one person
who can say, all through my life I've
never been hurt.
Nobody wounded me.
I never experienced betrayal, betrayal, criticism, slander.
No.
We all, every one of us, sometime in
our life, from your dad, from your mom,
your parents, your teachers, your colleagues, and a
thousand names we can maybe mention, we all
have been sometimes, somewhere, been hurt, abandoned, wounded.
But the question is this, have you come
to the place of understanding Christ, who experienced
the worst of the worst of pain, agony,
loneliness, betrayal, he experienced it all.
The question is this, is there a time
in your life you ever came to receive
grace from the Lord and deliberately forgiving others
and releasing others?
Why?
It gives you freedom to trust and believe.
Let me conclude.
We often do not see answers to prayer,
miracles that we long for, supernatural intervention of
God, because we do not have faith to
believe what we pray for, that we have
already received it.
We are not able to exercise that pure
faith like a little child and trust God,
even when you have the knowledge, because our
hearts are polluted through unforgiveness and bitterness.
And the Lord wants us to come to
the place where we see what He said
and be like He is and experience the
Father's grace.
God is so gracious to us and willing
to extend His grace and forgiveness to us
as we come to Him through repentance and
faith.
Today on The Road to Reality, we heard
a portion of a message from K.P.
Yohannan called, The Principle of Faith.
It is our prayer and desire that it
brought encouragement your way to live by faith.
The Road to Reality is the radio arm
of Gospel for Asia where our desire is
to share the good news of Jesus Christ
to the millions of people in Asia who
have never even heard the name Jesus.
Many of them are widows and abandoned children.
Imagine being shunned from society and ignored even
by your close relatives simply because you're a
widow and your husband is no longer alive.
That's the reality for widows in South Asia.
Or imagine having to search for food in
waste dumps and making your home with the
trash and rubble that you search for food
for.
That's the reality for the abandoned children of
Asia.
Is there anything we can do to sure
is.
We can tell you how at winasia.org.
That's winasia.org.
For more in Canada, go online to gospelforasia
.ca. The Road to Reality is brought to
you each week on this station by Gospel
for Asia.
Until next time, may God richly bless you
as you place your trust in Him.