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D. Meares: Address to Rally of Hope IV
Written by Bishop Don Meares, Founder and Senior Pastor, Evangel Cathedral, USA
Saturday, December 5, 2020
Address to Rally of Hope IV
December 5, 2020
Greetings to all the Christian pastors throughout America, Korea, and the world. It is a great honor to speak at this 1st Anniversary of the World Christian Leadership Conference.
I want to offer a very special, a very heartfelt thanks to you, Mother Moon, from myself and my wife Marion, for your efforts to try to create peace on the Korean Peninsula. There has been tremendous progress, and I am sure this progress was made at a great personal sacrifice on your part.
I was so blessed to be able to attend and address the 2017 Global Rally for the Peaceful Reunification of the Korean Peninsula. We were in the Seoul World Cup Stadium on a very chilly, windy, cold day in November and the stadium was packed with over a 100,000 people. Mother Moon had asked for the Korean Christians to come out to the stadium to pray, because of the power of prayer, to pray for the safety of South Korea from North Korea and the hostilities. And they came, putting their faith on the line during a time when we were literally on the very edge of war between America and North Korea. God certainly heard those prayers. The dialogue between the two Koreas began just about 40 days after those prayer meetings and North Korea participated with the world in the Olympics in South Korea. That was a miracle from God.
This is why they call you the Mother of Peace.
Today I recognize that I am speaking to spiritual leaders. Therefore, I want to ask a question: “Do you have Peace for these troubled times? Not the peace of the world, but do you, as a leader, have the peace of God?”
Jesus said: “Peace I leave with you! My peace, I give to you! Not as the world gives, do I give my peace to you!”
Do you have God’s peace as a spiritual leader?
You know, there are four areas in our lives that have to be controlled by us, if we are going to keep the divine peace of God that God imparts to us! The first one is your multiple environments. Number two is your ego or your self. And then number three would be your enemies. And then lastly, it would be your economics. Four distinct areas. Each one starts with an “e.”
You see, the first word I want to speak to you about is focus. Where the focus goes, the power flows. The reason that we have to understand the importance of these first 4 words—environment, ego or self, enemies and economics—is because they basically tell us what it is we are focusing on, the direction of our focus of life. Whatever you focus on, you empower.
That is what I love about David in writing the Psalms, because he gives us this whole picture! David does not always start the psalms with praise and thanksgiving, but he is so down to earth in telling you exactly what he is feeling! He says things like, “How are they increased that trouble me!” I mean, he is upset, he is angry, because he is looking at his enemies and they seem to be doing better than he is. And then he stops, changes his focus: “But thou, O Lord, art a shield for me!” Once he turns his attention away from the prosperity of his enemies and puts his attention back on God, then the peace of God comes back into his heart! Focus is so important, because where your focus goes, the power flows.
The next word is the word faith. If you are going to have divine peace, and keep that peace, you have got to get your faith right. Your faith tells you why you believe something, and it tells you what your belief is in. This becomes literally the foundation in your life to make all your decisions.
You have to know what you believe and why you believe it, so that you can make your decisions based on what you believe, and not based on the circumstances or the situation, or the things that you are facing. You cannot get involved in everything that gives you the most prosperity, or more prosperity.
You have to have some core-value beliefs that say, “I’m going to serve God, period!” There is no comma after that. “I am going to serve God, period.” So often I have watched leaders who think God is going to do something, and He doesn’t do it. And then they forsake God, because it’s not, “I’m going to serve God, period!” It is based on if He does this, or if He does that, or this happens.
And the next word I want to give to you is this word “future.” The first word that I gave you was focus. The second word was you have to have your faith settled. And the third word is “future.” If you have no tomorrow, if you do not know that you are a child of destiny, a child of purpose, and you do not have a future in front of you that is settled in your life, then things that are nothing can get you upset.
But when you have a future in focus and you have faith in where God is taking you, and you realize that you are headed somewhere, then it helps you to become disentangled from all of the things that people are trying to hold onto you with.
And that brings me to my last word: forgive. You are still not going to be in control of your life as long as you are holding yourself and someone in close proximity to a situation that is beyond your control! One day you have got to cut the cord on your past and move toward your future and say, “I’m forgiving this situation! I’m forgiving this person so I can move on with my life!”
Once again, I want to congratulate you, Mother Moon, for your successful work for peace.
God bless you.
Bishop Don Meares is the founder and Senior Pastor of Evangel Cathedral, USA.
To go to the Dialogue and Alliance: Toward a Unified World of Peace, click here.