This past Wednesday night when I was going home at about 10PM after the shepherds’ meeting, I got rear ended at the corner of Beltway 8 and I-10. It wasn’t anything severe but it was hard enough for me to bang my head against the side of my door and bleed. I was taken aback because of the recent surgery on my right eye. And thinking about all the hassle I would go through with insurance companies because it was a rental car I was driving made me a little frustrated.
After getting the necessary information from the person who hit me, I got into the car and cautiously drove home. While I was driving, however, I couldn’t help but keep asking why all these things are happening to me and my family back to back. On February 11, my wife, Caleb and his friend got into a major car accident on their way to Bible study. The car got totaled. On February 19, I finally went to see my optometrist because my right eye was bothering me. To my surprise, I was told that I had a retinal detachment and that I needed emergency surgery right away. I ended up going into surgery that very night. Then, this past Wednesday on March 13, just three weeks after the surgery, with my eye not yet fully healed, I got into another car accident and hurt my left eye area.
Only God knows the reason why. But I can’t shake off the thought that the devil is behind all these incidents. When we pray to God and get our prayer answered for the first time, we can possibly think about attributing it to coincidence or “luck.” But if our prayers consistently get answered, then we must be wise and honest enough to know and acknowledge that it is God who is doing this for us. The same is true when accidents or disastrous things happen back to back. It most likely is the work of the devil.
Then, why is he attacking me and my family? I think the answer is obvious. I have been asking New Life to pray for the past three to four years that we will become a resource church to those pastors and churches that sincerely want to build their churches according to the New Testament and its spirit. As a way of becoming a resource church, we have been offering house church seminars, one for pastors and one for lay leaders. I also recently called a meeting for those pastors who are already doing house church ministry in order to help and support them by listening to their concerns and challenges.
Furthermore, this coming April 8-11, we are planning to host the annual KBEMF (Korean Baptist English Ministry Fellowship) conference, during which I will be teaching them about house church ministry. Then, just two weeks later, we will once again host our annual House Church Seminar for Pastors.
We are serving and training these church pastors and leaders because if they understand the biblical reasons for house church based on the Three Axes and Four Pillars and commit themselves to do house church ministry, then many unchurched unbelievers will come to know Christ and God’s kingdom will expand as a result. This obviously makes the devil very upset and angry. Therefore, in order to stop this from happening, he will have to get to me and my family first and foremost. I am sure there could be other reasons and explanations as to why my family and I are going through these difficult and unusual events. But my desire for New Life becoming a resource church probably is the main reason.
I don’t know why but I strongly feel that God is going to do something special during the KBEMF conference. We didn’t ask to host this conference. Instead, we were asked to host. I didn’t ask them if I could speak about house church or about anything just because we are a hosting church. But they asked me specifically to talk about house church because the participants are very curious about it. And this will be the biggest gathering of pastors that I will be standing before to teach them about house church. If God is pleased with us and uses this event to speak to the hearts of the pastors, wives and seminarians, then the kingdom impact will be huge. The devil surely doesn’t want to see this happening.
So we need to be more alert as we approach the month of April preparing for these two events. I am going to fast and pray one day a week for the next three weeks until the conference begins. And I would like to have many of you join me in fasting and prayer. We will become weak and vulnerable without fasting and prayer. With fasting and prayer, however, we will become strong and courageous because we are not relying on ourselves but on God!
The battle is on! Bring it!
Your pastor,
Eric
Ps By the way, my right eye is not affected due to the accident! ☺
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