The highest honor that can be conferred to a person in the Kingdom is to be called a son, a daughter— a child of God. And I thank the Father because He honored His Son, trusted His Son to be the bearer of His message of these last days. So I thank Him that from the first time He called me, He led me to the way, took me out of the wrong way and put me into the way, which is His life.
When I was younger, I was very hungry to find the Father. He gave me a vision where He said, “If you will seek Me, you will find me in my way.”
I did not know that the way of the Father is His life and His life is in His Words. He introduced me to His life and finally to that message and I was born in His spirit, trained in His spirit, was proclaimed a son and was trusted to bear His message and to lead His people here on this earth, even unto today.
In the course of that calling, I understand so many things that I did not understand before and I want to share it all to you.
The Father let me know that in the ministry, when He calls you in salvation, to become born again in the spirit, ultimately you become a worker in the spirit. No one is exempted because everyone is considered a branch in the Kingdom of God – the branch that bears fruit, whether fulltime or part-time, you have a ministry in the Kingdom.
And after so many years, I have crystallized in my mind the wisdom He has taught me all through the years of training, teaching and guiding from the spirit of the Father.
KINGDOM MINISTRY IS FOR THE BRAVE HEARTED
This is the thing that He taught me: First, who should not go into the fulltime ministry. I did not say who should go into the fulltime ministry, but who should not.
The uncommitted should not go into the fulltime ministry. The fearful and unbelieving should not go into the fulltime ministry. The half-hearted should not go into the fulltime ministry of calling. The fence-sitters should not go into the fulltime ministry. The double-minded should not go into the fulltime ministry. Why? They will only disappoint the Father, and they will also disappoint themselves.
The Kingdom ministry as a fulltime calling is only for the brave hearted, for the overcomers, for the single-minded, with a single eye focus on one thing. It is only for the dedicated, committed; it is only for those who are willing to lose their lives for the master. It is only for the unfearful — like me.
When He called me I was alone. Tamayong is like heaven now, but in 1974 when He called me, it was like a little hell. All you see is a place void of beauty. There is nothing to desire of that place. There was no water, no electricity, no food, no road, and no transportation, except one jeepney that would go up once a day. There was no income and there was no house. In other words, the place was the poorest of the poor. That is when He called me and He said, “I will use you.”
He did not call me from that barren place to the United States where I had many friends, where I had many supporters, where I havd the means to travel all over the world because when He called me I was already a popular evangelist in my denomination. They loved me over there.
All the American and Canadian members of that denomination loved me so much. I was the only Asian member of the youth corps and I had the privilege to travel every year if I wanted to because I was a member of the youth corps that was based in the US. They loved me so much that they even wanted me to marry on of their own young people.
THE WILL OF THE FATHER
It was from this privileged position in that denomination that He called me to Tamayong. Now if you go from being privileged in my denomination, to Tamayong as it was before, what would you be in the sight of the people? If you are not already crazy then you are on the way to losing your mind. Something is wrong within you but that is how He called me. This was the first lesson I learned that when the Father calls you, the calling is only for the brave. Why? Because I knew when I answered His calling, I risked losing everything and I had nothing to gain.
If you are not brave and really hungry for God, you will lose heart. You will become a coward and you would be full of fear. You would likely back out. I knew that I will be alone in this crossing. I knew that I will be rejected. The Father let me feel I was facing a Calvary-type of life. The only thing He promised to me was His presence. “I will not leave you, I will be with you.”
He did not promise me riches or wealth, power or fame, or prestige and honor. The Father gave me the ability to be brave so I became brave to face all these.
And while I was in the process of following the Father, He stopped me and told me, “There is one thing more, you have to have only one eye.”
“What do you mean, lose my other eye and have only one eye?”
Later I understood that I have to focus only on one thing and forget everything else.
If I was brave to face the consequences of rejection, loneliness and boredom, this was quite another thing that I had to face. I thought that I was already brave but when He told me this, I found out I wasn’t so brave at all. I needed extra strength from the Father to commit to that single eye. Now your Pastor has only one eye – the Will of the Father. This means that no matter what happens, the Will of the Father be done in my life.
It took me four months to pluck out the other eye. It took me four months of kneeling down and weeping and begging to let the cup pass from me. I prayed and prayed, “Let me be accepted without passing through this. I want to have a family of my own…” Until I weighed everything in the balance of eternity. I thought, one day, if I fail my Master, I will face Him, I will grow old. My beautiful girlfriend will also grow old. And I found out that my heart weighed more for eternity.
THE SINGLE EYE FOCUS
So after four months of struggling and grappling with this reality, I finally decided for eternity. I told the Father in heaven, “Yes, I will follow you. I will have only one eye of focus for you.”
Matthew 6:21-22 says, “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. The light of the body is the eye. If therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.”
Having a single eye is having single-mindedness for a purpose. Nothing can refocus you, but your focus is on that goal that the Father has given to you.
I was given a single eye. You can see me with two eyes today but actually I have only one eye.
The most beautiful thing for me to behold is for everyone to do the will of the Father. The most beautiful thing for me to behold is for every person to come and repent and surrender to the will of the Father and say, “I will love You, Father, from now on, not my will but Your will be done in my life.”
This is the most beautiful thing that God can see in a person. I have the eyes of my Father today so when I see you, I see with a single eye the thing that is beautiful in the sight of the Father.
Are you a child of God? Surrender to His Will, repent of all your sins and focus on only one things—the Will of God.
THOSE WITH MANY EYES
Serving the Lord is not for the uncommitted because the uncommitted has many eyes—he or she has an eye for his job, an eye for his or her girlfriend/boyfriend, an eye for the family— you can have many, many considerations.
Your eye is also equivalent to your heart. When I say, you have many eyes, it means that you have many affections because what the eye sees affects the heart.
It is like a having a dress. How did you come to want that dress? Naturally, you first saw it, liked it and then your affection became set on it. Your eye affected your heart, and your heart went to that dress. So where your eye is, that is where your heart is; what you saw has become your treasure.
The uncommitted in the Kingdom actually have many commitments, but they are not for the Kingdom. The Kingdom is only one of their commitments. When you follow God and you have five commitments in life, you are not just double-minded, but you are quadriplegic-minded. You become weak minded because while you have committed to the Kingdom, your other commitments, which are tied to you, are pulling you away even while you are here.
You cannot work in the Kingdom with that kind of commitment. When God calls you to work, you have to cut-off every other commitment and be focused on one commitment – commitment to the Kingdom.
Those who have many commitments outside should not go into the fulltime ministry. Until your affections become set on only one thing, don’t go into the fulltime ministry because you will only disappoint yourself.
Matthew 6:23 says, “But if thine eye be evil thy whole body shall be full of darkness therefore the light that is in thee be darkness how great is that darkness.”
Do not set your affections on material things. Many had come into the ministry but had not severed their attachment to material things. So when they went into the ministry, they do not see souls, they only see money, clothes, and shoes. So when I sent them to the United States and when they get a green card, they did not use the green card to serve the souls that are coming to the Kingdom. They resigned from the Kingdom and got a job, and now they are earning dollars because, in the first place, that is where their affections were set. You cannot enter the Kingdom with a heart like that.
THE FULLTIME MINISTRY IS ONLY FOR THE BRAVE
Do you want to walk with the Son? The fearful and unbelieving, those with a lot of fear in their heart, who say, “I’m afraid that someday I will just go out of the fulltime ministry like some others did,” — they should not going into the fulltime ministry. This will only happen if you have so many other commitments. You have so many ‘strings attached’. Don’t go to the fulltime ministry if you are like that.
The fulltime ministry is only for the brave, for the committed, with the single-eye focus of mind. When I decided to serve the Lord, all my fears left me. In fact I was so brave that I could have faced a lion at that time and eaten it alive. I am still brave like that until now. Through these years my focus has never altered. My focus just got clearer, and clearer and clearer every day. But if the fearful go into the fulltime ministry, they will always need a baby sitter. We will always have to assure them, “Don’t be afraid, everything will be alright.”
The ministry is not a baby sitter. If you are going into the fulltime ministry, you are supposed to be a soldier, not a baby that needs a sitter. No, this ministry is for the brave. It is for the soldiers that goes into battle and are not afraid to lose their lives for the cause of their master. It is for the brave who are not afraid to lose parents, who are not afraid to lose jobs, who are not afraid to quits school, who are not afraid of criticism, who are not afraid of persecution, not afraid of famine, not afraid of anything! It is for anyone so long as his focus is on that one cause, which is the cause of the master – the cause of Jesus Christ!
The Father taught me this very, very important lesson in my life because many of those who had been with me had decided to go out of the ministry after one or two years, or three or four years, some of them eleven years, and some of them ten years. Obviously they had forgotten to have only one eye.
THE PARABLE OF THE HUNTER
Have you heard about the parable of the father with three sons who were all hunters? The father was the most known hunter in the community. Hunting was their livelihood. The father could spot a deer from three to four kilometers away and that is very impossible for the human eye, but because he was so keen, he excelled in his craft. And he wanted his ability to be handed down to his three children because he was already old.
So he gathered his three children, and he put a bird up on the tree and set it upon one of the leafy boughs. He called aside his first son, the eldest, and said. “Look at the tree, what do you see?” And the son said, “I see a tree with many leaves and so many branches. “What else?” “I see a mountain behind the tree.” “What else?” “I see a river down below the tree.” “What else?” “I see many flowers around the tree.” “What else?” “I think that’s all.” “You cannot have my ability, step aside.”
He called the second son. “Look at the tree what do you see?” And the second son said, “Oh, the tree is so beautiful. I can paint a nice picture of that tree.” “What else?” “The tree has a big trunk that can be made into lumber.” “What else?” “I see that there is a house beside the tree. It’s a beautiful house.” “Okay step aside.”
And then he called the youngest. And he said, “Look at the tree. What do you see?” and out of the thick leaves, branches, the silhouetted mountain behind it, the grass, the flowers, the house, the river, the youngest said, “I see a bird.” And so the father gave him his bow and arrow, and then said, “Shoot the bird.” And the third son did shoot the bird! The father said, “You will inherit my ability. You will be the next hunter in the family because you have a single eye. You only see one thing.”
DO YOU HAVE A SINGLE EYE?
Out of all of this world, of all the buildings, the road, the cars, and everything, what do you see? “I see only the will of God.” I don’t see the trees, I don’t see the buildings, I don’t see the roads, I don’t see the cars. I see the people, and what I see in people is their spirit. What I see in their spirit is that they are all children of the devil. They have all inherited the disobedient sin from Adam and Eve. And what I see is that they should all hear the message of repentance. And everyone that comes would repent and become a child of God, like me, doing the will of God, being born in the spirit, growing in the spirit, being trained in the spirit, becoming a worker in the spirit, becoming a soldier in the spirit.
Every worker who goes into the full-time ministry should see as I see. If you don’t see as I see, the Father will tell you to step aside. And there are so many who came into the ministry who had so many, many eyes, so many, many affections.
Matthew 18:9 says, “And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire.”
You understand the spiritual meaning of that already. You will be full of life, full of enthusiasm, full of vigor and energy in the Kingdom if you have one eye, if you have a single eye that can see only the Will of God. If you have many eyes, your eyes will be focusing everywhere that is why you cannot see the Will of the Father.
When you see filth, you would not even know that it is dirty and it is against the will of God. Because you are here but you are not here. Your periscope is set somewhere else. You are like a submarine and instead of focusing on one thing, your periscope is focused everywhere.
THE MINISTRY IS FOR THE BRAVE
The ministry is not for the fearful and for the unbelieving. You don’t come into the ministry and let me babysit you and always call you into the committee because you are not focused.
The ministry is only for the brave. It is not for the weak hearted. It’s not for those who cry in the midst of spiritual battle and cry for their mother or father. And then pity themselves in the corner while the spiritual battle of persecution and criticism is going on. Instead of standing and fighting in the spirit, they go to a corner and grumble and cry and pity themselves.
THE MODEL OF A SOLDIER
I hate to see soldiers like that. That is not my standard of a soldier. That is a weakling. The fulltime ministry is only for the brave, for the strong, for the committed, for the unafraid. That is why my model of a worker is Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Amongst the millions of idol worshipping people where they were cast into bondage after being plucked out of Israel, they stood firm for the God of heaven.
They were outnumbered. More than outnumbered. One million to one. How could one stand against such odds? But these three stood their ground when they were tested. They were brave. They did not compromise in the midst of a heavy decision either to lose or to save their life.
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