In last weekend’s sermon, Pastor Kong Hee taught the congregation four ways to constantly tap into the power of the Holy Spirit.
“We have been learning about the Holy Spirit and Jesus wants us to experience the power of the Spirit, His best Friend,” preached Kong Hee, City Harvest Church’s senior pastor, as he began his sermon on the weekend of Feb 19 and 20.
Christians need the Holy Spirit to live a righteous life, to overcome sin and temptations, and to produce the fruit of the Spirit. “Even though it is done in Jesus’s Name, it’s the power of the Spirit that actually brings the healing and deliverance down,” the pastor asserted. “You must never belittle the power of the Spirit.”
Having established the importance of the power of the Holy Spirit, Pastor Kong went on to teach four things a believer must do to live in the constant atmosphere of the Holy Spirit’s power.
1. Think The Thoughts Of The Holy Spirit
“You’ve got to fill your mind with the thoughts of the Spirit—not just thinking about the Spirit, but filling your mind with the thoughts He wants to give you,” Pastor Kong elaborated. He urged the church to meditate on what the Holy Spirit is showing them.
God is the source of all knowledge and even Jesus filled His mind with all the thoughts that the Holy Spirit wanted to give Him (Isa 11:2). This is why Jesus had spiritual intelligence and was full of understanding when He counselled.
To illustrate his point, Pastor Kong shared the story of how Hyundai rose from a small local business to a global brand. In the 1970s, upon receiving a letter from the King of Saudi Arabia inviting Korean companies to help them with construction work, the president of South Korea commissioned Chung Ju-Yung, founder of Hyundai for the task. The heat of the desert and the lack of water made it near impossible. However, instead of looking at what the desert did not have, Chung saw the abundance of sand and pebbles in the desert which were essential to any building project. He creatively came up with plans to work in the night to escape the heat and bring in water tanks to solve the water issue.
“Everything changes the moment you allow the Holy Spirit to fill your mind with His thoughts,” the pastor exclaimed, reading from Romans 8:5-6.
“Don’t just read and listen intellectually. Ask the Holy Spirit to give you His explanation and His interpretation because after all, this (the Bible) is His Word. He is the source and the author of the Bible. Whatever the Holy Spirit teaches, it is always better than the best translations out there,” he continued. “Ask the Holy Spirit to give you a rhema—to make a verse come alive and jump out at you.” He encouraged the church to go into deep fellowship with the Holy Spirit and learn to commune with Him daily.
2. Visualise What The Holy Spirit Has Shown
In Ephesians 1:17, Paul prays “that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened…”. Pastor Kong explained that the eyes of a person’s heart refer to his imagination.
Ephesians 3:20 reads, “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.” God works through the believer’s imagination—according to His power. The way of the Spirit is to first think it, then visualise it.
Pastor Kong revealed to the congregation that he used to suffer severe bronchial asthma and was in and out of the hospital many times in his childhood. Some people told him that he would not be able to live a normal life. However, after he got saved, he received a rhema word from the Lord one day and started to visualise himself completely healed and living a normal life. By the time he was 14, he was completely healed.
“You must learn to visualise because the power of the Holy Spirit is released when you can see yourself living in His promises,” he added.
3. Believe What The Holy Spirit Is Saying
The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of faith. “This means that He loves it whenever we believe,” Pastor Kong explained. On the contrary, it grieves the Holy Spirit when Christians have no faith—that is why the Bible says, “without faith, it’s impossible to please God” (Heb 11:6).
Pastor Kong noted that Hebrews 11 mentions “by faith” 18 times, while “through faith” was only mentioned twice. From this, Christians must understand that they can only receive the blessings of God by faith.
4. Speak Forth What You Believe
Pastor Kong encouraged the congregation to not just believe in and expect a miracle to happen, but to speak it forth (2 Cor 4:13).
Reading from Mark 11:23, Pastor Kong taught that the Holy Spirit releases His power to intervene in a Christian’s situation when the person starts speaking to it. “The first thing the Holy Spirit wants you to do is to speak to your situation,” he said.
The Six-Day War is an excellent example. In 1967, Israel was attacked by 12 powerful nations. With just a small army, it faced an impossible situation against larges troops and the weapons of its enemies. Israel’s minister of defence, Moshe Dayan told the press that they had a powerful weapon and everyone speculated that it was an atomic bomb.
When the press questioned Dayan on Israel’s secret weapon, he quoted Psalm 121:1-2: “I will lift up my eyes to the hills, from whence comes my help? My help comes from the Lord, Who made heaven and earth.”
In six days, Israel had won one of the most decisive battles in modern history with minimal casualties and losses. Pastor Kong encouraged the congregation saying that if they can be like Dayan, believing and speaking the Word of God, the Holy Spirit will release His power on their behalf.
Having said that, Pastor Kong emphasised that these four practices are not a formula. God is sovereign and He blesses His people with what He knows is good for them, not what they want.
“If I do this, 90 per cent of the time, miracles happen. But if I don’t, 90 per cent of the time, nothing happens,” he said in closing, encouraging the church to seek the power of the Holy Spirit in their lives.
Church Without Walls: Reaching The Unwed Mothers, Youths & People With Special Needs
Earlier in the service, Pastor Kong invited representatives of three Church Without Walls projects to share some new initiatives this year.
The church watched a video testimony of Sherly Loo, one of the beneficiaries of the Youth Tuition Programme. She shared about her challenges growing up, how she was left unsupervised, and how her studies suffered. After she started attending CHC, her cell group leader signed her up for the Youth Tuition Programme. It helped her a great deal because her family was not able to afford tuition fees. Because of the tuition programme, she managed to improve her O-level score from 23 to 11 and was able to enter a course of her choice in the Polytechnic.
Pastor Lee Yi Lun, who oversees the tuition programme, shared that last year, they rolled out 232 classes in 10 weeks for 213 students. This year, they hope to recruit 20 volunteers to help 50 poor and needy students.
Next, Pastor Veronica Tang and Pauline Kong, who oversee the Nurturing Circle for unwed mothers shared about their initiatives last year. Besides visiting the unwed mothers and giving them groceries and Bible study, the volunteers also arranged a special photo shoot for the mothers and their babies. This May, they plan to bring the mothers out for a meal on Mother’s Day to give them a nice treat.
Thereafter, Pastor Lily Yong, who oversees the JAMs service shared about their outreach to People with Special Needs. The church watched a video of Jesslin Ong, a member of the JAMs service who shared how she has been missing JAMs service since the pandemic hit. Bernard Chua and his cell group visited Jesslin and brought her gifts. She was elated when she saw them and enjoyed the time spent with the cell group.
Last year, 345 church members were involved in serving 112 JAMs members through the giving of hampers and free haircuts. This year, Pastor Lily wants to reach 100 caregivers with a happy kit and they are appealing for 50 cell groups to sponsor and pack the kits. They are also looking for volunteers to befriend and connect with 10 new families.
If you would like to sign up as a volunteer, please sign up via www.chc.org.sg/cww.
