Gospel for Asia

There seem to be thousands of Christian bookstores today filled with “how-to” books—“How to have a happy life,” “How to have a happy marriage,” “How to raise your children,” “How to be financially solvent.” We like quick and easy fixes. It’s like putting food in the microwave and pushing the button—“pshht”—just like that, it comes out ready. Instantaneous Christianity! But brokenness in our lives is a process, one that we continually learn and grow in. May the Lord help us all as we go through this life. Slowly but surely we are learning. God never gives up on us. Consistently He works with us. He never says, “I can’t work with you anymore. You are hopeless.” Even when we are faithless, He remains faithful. We can trust Him always, even when we fail. He is all good, all perfect and all love to us. Prayer Lord, please help us to choose those opportunities to give in, to bend, to break and to walk humbly with You and with our brothers and sisters. Thank You for the example ...

In the ancient town of Bethany there lived a woman, whose story we read in Mark 14:3–9. One evening she traveled to the house of Simon the leper, because she had heard that Jesus was there. She came seeking to do one thing—to pour out her costly perfume to Jesus. “A woman came having an alabaster flask of very costly oil of spikenard. Then she broke the flask and poured it on His head” (v. 3). Please notice that Scripture does not say she came and poured out two or three drops and then closed the flask and went home. She did not pour out half of the contents and then decide that was enough. No. She broke it. All the contents were poured out as the vessel was broken and the entire area was filled with fragrance. My brothers and sisters, the Lord desires the same for us, for these earthen vessels, these jars of clay, to be thoroughly broken before Him, that Christ within may come flowing out in all His beauty, making our lives a blessing to all those around us. Inner Trans...

If there is one verse in the entire Bible that speaks volumes of what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit or to experience the fullness of the Lord and have His rivers of living water flow out of us unhindered, it is Galatians 2:20— I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. It’s a familiar verse to many of us. But please, take a moment to pause and think about what it is saying. This “I,” this “me” who is so important, has “ . . .been crucified, it’s no longer I who live . . .” Someone once said, “There is a cross and there is a throne in all our lives. If ‘I’ is on the throne, then Christ is on the cross. If Christ is on the throne, then ‘I’ is on the cross.” The measure in which we will allow the cross to operate in our lives, to bring death to our own selfish ambitions, our ways, our rights, our r...

  Chapter 3 of K.P. Yohannan's booklet, The Beauty of Christ Through Brokenness - The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit” (Psalm 34:18, NIV). It is very interesting to note how this verse says “the Lord is close.” So what is the opposite? The Lord is far away. He is distant from someone who is not broken. The way to have God near to you is to be humble and broken. As long as we are stubborn and hard and unbending, He will be far from us. But the kind of people God will never despise or walk away from are the individuals who live with a broken spirit and a contrite heart. “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart—these, O God, You will not despise” (Psalm 51:17). Imagine someone dying of hunger. There is food placed before him, but no matter how hard he tries, he cannot eat. The problem is that his mouth is stitched closed and his hands are tied behind his back. Even if someone tried to feed h...

Unbrokenness is a fearful thing. It is the spirit of Satan, whose nature is incurable pride that can forever resist God. God’s greatest problem is not our sin (for He dealt with that on the cross), but the hardness and unbrokenness of our hearts. That is God’s greatest problem, the root of all our troubles. The Bible has its lists of unbroken people. Consider Pharaoh as one example. Pharaoh could have been Moses. What an incredible opportunity. He could have become like Ruth of Moab or Rahab the harlot. He could have been the most incredible individual in history to join with Moses and lead the children of Israel. He could have said, “Moses, we grew up together. You left Egypt and I thought you were an idiot to give up all you had. But here I sit on this ivory throne with all the power in the world, yet I am so empty, lost and hopeless. My power and possessions are just a show. I am nothing. But Moses, I see in your eyes such authority. With stammering tongue you simply ...

In the book of Isaiah, we see a glimpse into God’s heart for the broken. In Isaiah 66:2 (NIV) God says, “This is the one I esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word.” But we have a problem. By nature, we all are the opposite of the one whom He esteems. We are all unbroken . We are as solid as the hardest substance you can find—unbending, self-centered, self-ambitious and never wanting to give in. We are part of a world in which we are told, either directly or indirectly, “Fight for your rights! Be your own person! What matters is success, ability, personality, position, being important and first class in everything.”This is ingrained in us. I remember some years ago a man applied to join GFA’s home staff. He was a computer expert, a brilliant man whose ability and talent would help the ministry in a significant way. As he was getting ready to soon join us, he called our current office manager to ask a question that was very important t...

“But on this one will I look: On him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, and who trembles at My word” Isaiah 66:2 My reason for sharing on this subject, which I believe is close to the heart of God, is for us as the Body of Christ to understand the most crucial, fundamental element in the Christian life—brokenness. As the Body of Christ, we are called to be a people who live together, strive together, pray together, suffer together, agonize together and—if need be—die together, for the sake of proclaiming His merciful salvation to a lost and dying world. And what kind of people must we be to fulfill that call? The purpose of God was not to make us into His workers. If He needed workers, He could have produced 10 billion trillion more angels to do the job. He created man not to tend the garden and just do all kinds of work. He created man to manifest His image, in His own likeness. How do we daily, in each situation and throughout every season of our lives, refl...

Let us look forward to the day spoken of in 2 Corinthians 5, where Paul reminds the believers to live in the fear of God because we all will stand before the judgment seat of Christ. This is not a punitive judgment; it is not as though we are being tried for a crime that was committed. Rather, it is like the Olympic games, where one receives the gold medal, another the silver and another the bronze. We will stand before the judgment seat of Christ, and He will evaluate the life we have lived—our words, our attitudes and motives, the way we obeyed, how we spent the resources He gave us, the things we did and the things we did not do. “Therefore we make it our aim . . . to be well pleasing to Him” (2 Corinthians 5:9). This is what Abraham did. In total obedience he walked away from everything comfortable and familiar and lived his life for the purposes of God. And he could only do this because within him was a reverent fear of the Lord. Because of that fear, he was blessed and bec...

Unless we are careful, we can be deceived by the Enemy’s whisper that tells us, “This obedience stuff is too hard. Abraham was only able to do what he did because God was showing such extraordinary favor to him. You’re just an ordinary, struggling human being with a lot of problems. You could never achieve that kind of life. Maybe Abraham could do it, but not you.” If we believe this lie, we are sure to remain spiritually stagnant, never walking any closer with the Lord. We need to remember that Abraham was no superstar—he had the same struggles and emotions as you and I. You see, whenever God invites us to make radical commitment, He always does it with the promise that His grace is sufficient for us to obey whatever He tells us to do. God always seeks to do the most impossible things through weak, struggling people. The only requirement is that we come to the place of total surrender and absolute trust in Him, just as Abraham did. The truth of the matter is that God has pe...

The fear of God is greatly treasured in heaven. It is a mark of one who is special in God’s eyes. Listen to what God says of His servant Job: “There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil” (Job 1:8 NIV, emphasis added). Job was well-off and had many things to be proud of. But God didn’t mention anything about how amazingly wealthy, wise or strong Job was. He didn’t talk about his good looks, his good deeds or his many children. Even though these are things that we value, God mentioned none of these. More than anything else, God valued Job’s fear of the Lord. Over and over again we see this is the case. When God had Moses select leaders, He said, “But select capable men from all the people—men who fear God . . .” (Exodus 18:21, emphasis added). In the Psalms, it is made clear that those who fear God are promised blessing upon blessing: honor (Psalm 15:4), salvation (Psalm 85:9), love (Psalm 103:11), security (Psalm 112:8) an...

“Friendship with the LORD is reserved for those who fear him. With them he shares the secrets of his covenant.”    Psalm 25:14, NLT There are plenty of books that tell about “how” to receive God’s blessings and how to obtain material blessings for a more comfortable life on earth. Yet we see through the life of Abraham that true blessing is much deeper than the material and comes only through a holy fear and love for God. So often our Christianity starts with us and ends with us. It is all centered around ourselves. Even when obeying some Scriptures (like “giving”) we are focused more on what we can get from it! May the Lord bring us to the place at which we obey Him because we love Him and do all for His sake because He is Lord. May our comfort, joy and peace not be the issue, but what our Lord wants. And only out of a life lived in the fear of the Lord and in love with Him will we find that our lives are blessed and we are a blessing. © 2003 by KP Yohanna...

Psalm 111:10 says, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom.” More often than not, the “fear of the Lord” is just a vague spiritual term. But the way to become a friend of God and to have our lives built on the correct foundation is to understand what it means to walk in the fear of the Lord. In Genesis 22:12, God says to Abraham, “ ‘Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.’ ” This passage is the first time in the Bible that the fear of God is mentioned. For most people, when we hear the word “fear” it brings a negative connotation. But to fear the Lord is not to be afraid of Him. Rather, it is to have a deep reverence for Him, to realize that He is God—all-knowing, all-powerful, all-encompassing. A.W. Tozer said, “If there is one terrible disease in the Church of Christ, it is that we do not see God as great as He is. We’re too familiar with God. I think we ...