Today’s Scripture reading speaks of the prayer that the Lord has taught us. The Lord said, “Do not pray just in form to show off to others, nor emulate anyone who prays in such a manner.” He told His disciples, and us as well, not to pray hypocritically like the religious people of the world. Today, let us consider the content of the prayer that the Lord has taught us.
We need to pay close attention to what the Lord said in Matthew 6:9: “In this manner, therefore, pray.” The prayer that the Lord taught us starts with this: “Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name.” The Lord told us to pray in such a way that the name of the Father is hallowed. We need to reflect on this Word and think about whether the kind of prayer we are giving these days is correct. So many Christians recite the Lord’s Prayer ritualistically out of rote memory, but such prayers do not meet God’s requirement. In the prayer that the Lord taught us, He instructed us to pray so that the name of the Father in Heaven may be hallowed. The Lord told us to pray in this way.

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When Christians think of ways to commune with God, they generally think of the following.
Prayer: Prayers are private conversations with God, and they include telling God our hopes, thanking Him, confessing to Him, and asking Him for help. It is therefore through prayer that people open up their hearts to God, obtain His help and guidance, and express their gratitude and respect.
Reading the Word: It is important to read the Bible and other writings of faith, so as to understand and apply God’s teachings and revelations. Such writings provide us with lessons on how we can apply our faith in God to our everyday lives.

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It is written in Genesis 14:18, “Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine; he was the priest of God Most High.” When Abraham was returning from his battlefield victory, Melchizedek the Priest, who was king of Salem, brought bread and wine to him and blessed him.
That Melchizedek the Priest brought out bread and wine and blessed Abraham like this in the days of the Old Testament is a shadow of what was to come in the age of the New Testament, showing that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, would shoulder the sins of this present world through the baptism He would receive from John and become our propitiation.

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Let us begin by carefully considering Matthew 11:25-26 first from today’s Scripture reading: “At that time Jesus answered and said, ‘I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight.’” The will of God our Father was revealed as the following: He hides the true Word of salvation from the wise and prudent in this world, and reveals it to those who are like little children. Put differently, when Jesus reveals His Truth of salvation on this earth, He is rejoiced to reveal the gospel Word of salvation that enables one to be born again to those who are like children, while He hides it from those with hardened hearts who consider themselves to be wise and prudent.

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When Jesus came to this world, He took upon the sins of this world once and for all by being baptized by John in the Jordan River at the age of 30, and He has thereby blotted out our sins. And at the age of 33, He was crucified, shed His blood, and rose from the dead again, and He has thus granted the blessing of resurrection to His believers. This blessing of resurrection is written in the Bible, and people can participate in the Lord’s resurrection by believing that Jesus shouldered the sins of this world by being baptized by John and rose again from His death on the Cross.
However, even among those who believe in Jesus, there are some people who cannot believe in the Lord’s resurrection, and as a result their hearts are troubled. There are some Christians who just can’t bring themselves to believe that the Lord rose from the dead again. Even though such people do believe in the Lord as their Savior, they are unable to believe in His resurrection, and therefore they doubt their own faith and struggle with it. These people are incapable of having the faith of resurrection no matter how hard they try, for they have not been delivered from their sins by believing in the Lord, and therefore they do not have the Holy Spirit in their hearts.

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When we know God, who is the “Word,” trust Him, and follow Him, we can realize who God really is and believe in Him unwaveringly. The Bible says, “He was in the beginning with God.” This passage tells us that God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit were all together in the beginning. It is also written, “All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.” The pronoun “Him” here refers to Jesus Christ, who came to this world as God Himself, who is the Word. That the world was made by Him means that all things were made by Jesus Christ.
We are grateful that, thanks to the Apostle John’s testimony, we can know God the “Word,” and we can also believe in His work. John 1:2-3 says, “He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.” From John 1:1, John is bearing witness of the work of the “Word.” The Apostle John is teaching us that the “Word” alone created all things.

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In today’s Scripture reading, we see Joseph of Arimathea standing before Governor Pilate. “Arimathea” here refers to a city. Why does the Bible specifically mention the name of this city? It is the Prophet Samuel’s ancient home, where he used to live and worship God. Joseph of Arimathea was well-aware of the fact that Jesus had shouldered the sins of this world and washed away the sins of mankind with the baptism He received from John the Baptist.
Joseph of Arimathea was unafraid of revealing his faith clearly for the whole world to see. When we look at Joseph of Arimathea, it is like getting an early glimpse of the age of the Antichrist and seeing the courage of those who believe in the baptized Jesus as their Savior.

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Today’s Scripture reading tells us that the Word of the baptism that the Lord received from John the Baptist on this earth and His Cross constitute the light of this world. It is written in John 1:9, “That was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world.” The “true Light” here speaks of the Light of Truth that is “trustworthy, without any falsehood, pure, and truthful.” In other words, the true Light is the complete opposite of any man-made light, and it refers to the pure, veritable, and perfect light of salvation.
The origins of today’s Christianity are traced back to the Protestant reformers of the 16th century. These reformers’ faith, however, were rooted in the Apostles’ Creed rather than the true Light. Historically speaking, the basis of the Apostles’ Creed lies in the Nicene Creed. Although its adherents claim that the Nicene Creed is a confession of faith that inherited the faith of the apostles of the Early Church, in reality, it destroyed these apostles’ faith. The Nicene Creed was a fabricated creed, for it left out the Word of the baptism that Jesus Christ received from John the Baptist and through which He took away the sins of this world.

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I would like to testify about the Lord, who became the sin offering of atonement, through today’s Word. The word ‘atonement’ has the meaning of ‘appease, compensate, or cover.’ The meaning of this atonement can be understood by looking at God’s retaliatory war to avenge His people in the Old Testament times. If the Israelites won the war by retaliation against the enemy, the war itself could be a way of atonement for their own people. Let’s assume that a war breaks out, and the king and people of a country fight against the enemy, but in the first war, they lose and many of their own people die. And, in the next war, if the king of that country avenged the enemies of the people by killing all the opponents and winning, this can also be said to be atonement. The meaning of atonement is the same as when our heart longs to take revenge on our enemies, and when that wish is fulfilled, then our heart is appeased. We may describe this as atonement, or expiation.

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Today, I would to like to share with you God’s work that has saved us from our sins, whereby God annulled the first covenant and established a second covenant. The Prophet Jeremiah speaks to us of two covenants established by God. Today, if we are able to understand the new covenant that God has established for us, our souls that had been wandering in confusion will find clarity thanks to an even brighter light of salvation, and our faith in salvation will be made even more steadfast in our hearts.

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