Testimony of Blessing
from China, NIgeria, Zimbabwe, Kenya
Through Overseer’s sermon, “The Blessedness of Imputed Righteousness,” I came to see one thing very clearly. My real problem is not that life is difficult. It is that I have become insensitive to sin and have lived without seriously thinking about eternity.
Overseer said that people often think of this body, which will remain only for a short time and then disappear, as though it were their whole existence, while forgetting that they are eternal beings. I realized that I have been living in much the same way. I have been careless about what will happen to my soul, while spending most of my strength on things that will eventually perish. I came to see how dangerous such a life can be.
What especially pierced my heart was the message about sin. I had not only failed to guard myself against sin, but had actually lived hand in hand with it, treating sin as though it were only a small weakness. The sermon compared sin to cancer, but I had been treating it more like a common cold. I had made countless excuses to defend myself, yet deep inside I knew that every time I compromised with sin, the weight of my curse was becoming heavier. I was in a condition from which I could never save myself by my own strength.
This sermon showed me the only way. God sent Jesus Christ to bear my curse and imputed His righteousness to me. All I can do is acknowledge my hopeless condition and depend entirely on the mercy of God.
David committed serious sins and had no good works of which he could boast. Yet he came before God with a broken and contrite heart. Amazingly, God did not deal with him according to his sins. I came to understand that if God says to us, “I will not count your sin against you,” there can be no greater blessedness than this.
Another part of the sermon that remained deeply in my heart was that a person who refuses to acknowledge sin cannot receive forgiveness. I often say, “I did nothing wrong,” and shift the responsibility onto someone else, even when I know very well in my heart where the responsibility truly lies. I realized that this attitude can be even more serious than the wrong itself.
I also came to understand that no religious act—whether worship, service, or giving offerings—can become the reason for my salvation. These things are simply the natural fruit that flows from the life of someone who has already been saved. If I am still trying to gain peace in my heart through these things, it shows that I have not yet fully understood grace.
Through Overseer’s sermon, I was made to face the truth directly. There are only two ways before me: to acknowledge that I am a sinner worthy of death and depend only on the cross of Jesus, or to continue deceiving myself until I finally stand before judgment. There is no middle ground.
Like David, I want to bow down before God and confess that I have no one else to depend on. I want to look only to His mercy. I confess that receiving the mercy of God is the greatest blessedness of all.
Reflection on Overseer Sung-Hyun Kim’s Lord’s Day Sermon
“The Blessedness of Imputed Righteousness”
Sister Shen, China
August 12, 2026
At first, I thought I already knew everything. Because of that, I saw myself as a refined and spiritual person and even thought I was one step above others. When I shared the gospel, I believed that as long as a person was baptized, that person would be saved and go to heaven. Sometimes I even pressured people to believe in Jesus, and when they did not accept what I said, I became upset and disliked them.
Once, I shared Jesus with my nephew. He told me that he had no religion and did not want to believe. When I heard that, I thought to myself, “I am telling you about such a good Jesus, and you still will not believe? Then do whatever you want.” In my heart, I looked down on him.
Until I heard this sermon, I thought, “I have been baptized, so I am righteous.” I believed that the moment a person was baptized, all sin simply disappeared at once.
Over the past few weeks, Overseer has been preaching about how Abraham was accounted righteous by faith. For the first time, I came to understand that Abraham being accounted righteous was possible because of God’s mercy, love, and grace. I had never heard this clearly before. Now I am beginning to understand properly that God gave us Jesus, and that Jesus shed His blood on the cross and paid the price for our sins in our place. In the past, I was not fully convinced of this and did not understand its true meaning.
I had read Romans 4:9–12, the passage used in the sermon, before, but I did not understand it. As I listened to Overseer’s sermon, however, I began to understand it little by little. I feel that I need to continue listening to Overseer’s sermons and keep learning.
In the past, when I received the Word materials you sent, I would sometimes stop reading halfway through. Even when I finished reading them, I often could not remember what I had read. But now I am beginning to long for the Word more and more.
I am truly thankful to Sungrak Church. Thank you for making it possible for me to hear the Word of God every week. I am deeply grateful for all the effort you put into this.
I pray that God will keep me from forgetting His grace and becoming ungrateful, and that He will help me continue following His Word with a humble heart.
Immanuel!
Reflection on Overseer Sung-Hyun Kim’s Lord’s Day Sermon
“Walking in the Steps of Faith”
Sister Li Jimei, China
August 9, 2026
Thank you for not forgetting me here in faraway Nigeria and for continuing to stand with me through your prayers and the Word.
As I reflected on this message, I was reminded of the priests in the Old Testament. Thinking about them helped me see in a fresh way that through Jesus, God has now entrusted authority and responsibility to all who believe. The work of preaching the gospel, casting out demons, and leading souls into the kingdom of God has also been entrusted to believers like me. This reminded me once again that I should live in such a way that even one soul may be led into God’s kingdom.
Nigeria, where I live, is a place where persecution against Christians continues. Security is unstable, physical threats remain, and the rising cost of living makes daily life more and more difficult. Even in these circumstances, the Word sent by Sungrak Church has been a great comfort to me.
Whenever I read the letters and books you send, I am strengthened in the assurance that the blessing God gave to Abraham continues even to me today. Every passage of the Word has brought me great joy. Above all, the Word has renewed my heart to remain faithful to the end as a soldier of the cross, no matter what situation I may face.
In the past, I often became discouraged because my heart was completely occupied with the difficulties around me. But through the Word, I have come to depend more on the Holy Spirit, who is always with me and leads me. Little by little, I am learning to look to God first rather than to the circumstances before my eyes.
I would also like to share one more thankful piece of news. By the grace of God, I have successfully completed my Ph.D. program here. Considering the situation I have been living in, this was not an easy journey. Yet whenever I faced difficult moments, God gave me the strength and wisdom I needed, and by His grace I was able to complete my studies and graduate safely.
From now on as well, I want to live depending only on the Lord, trusting that He will continue to lead me in the way that is best.
Once again, thank you sincerely for praying for me and for continuing to send me the precious Word of God.
June 15, 2026
Brother U. Udofia, Nigeria
I am always thankful to the Lord for His steadfast love that nurtures me as I grow in my faith life. By being transplanted in Jesus, I have become complete in Him (Col 2:10). I am thankful for this message because I have come to have perfect assurance that I have received in becoming one with Jesus. This was not my life because I had a different understanding of the word, “Blessing.”
Human validation is like an invisible piece of clothing that people yearn for because they feel naked. Like so many people, I didn’t feel blessed if I didn’t own many earthly possessions. When I began my faith life, all my prayers were consumed with desires of material things. I thank God that in Christ Jesus we are blessed. Not only are we blessed, we are a blessing as children of God. It was only when I realized that nothing on this earth is eternal although I desired the eternal (Eccl 3:11), that I truly understood what it meant to be blessed.
I can never be blessed with the eternal blessing of God if all my heart’s fulfillment is satisfied with what I possess physically. That is a shallow way of seeing God’s love. Before I met Jesus, I was spiritually empty with no power to save myself from the desires of temporary happiness, peace, and joy. Being blessed is completely independent of my outward circumstances; rather, I have divine deep joy and spiritual well-being that comes from being transplanted in Jesus. “Being one with the blessing.”
In the past, when faced with trials and tribulations, I had no understanding that I was a blessing. I was always consumed with religious activities without hope. True peace cannot come without a heart rooted in the eternal. Yes, I can have temporary relief and possession in my body, but I thank God that my life is one with Jesus. The blessing cannot be limited to one person’s life or lifetime, one family, or one country. It is to all nations. Sungrak Church was blessed and became a blessing, and the blessing continues to nations. That’s the beauty of The Blessing of Abraham: it cannot be bottled up. It continues even past our earthly life. With this in mind, I am also aware that our time on earth is very short. For this reason, my faith life is not a pursuit of comfort but of glorifying God. It is the blessing that sustains us daily to do the will of God, not through compulsion, but by the promptings of a life that has been blessed with eternity.
Pastor L. Chitaraka, Zimbabwe
September 10, 2026
You see the world and the society in particular values what one possesses. Men with high possessions are automatically important and of high value. The poor aren’t considered as anything except useless. That’s how society defines classes of importance and effectively executes it.
This is contrary to God’s view on who’s valuable. As believers, we ought to be transformed and renewed in our minds that our life is predicated on Christ alone and that’s where abundance overflows. Notably, Jesus was made poor so that we may become rich — not in resources, but in abundance of life. This is very important to comprehend.
If material possessions could give life, then the world’s richest people would still be alive to this day, living thousands of years. But we praise the Lord for His goodness: despite struggles or lack, we have life in abundance as believers. Life cannot be bought by mammon. In fact, the Scriptures warn us of the repercussions of engaging with mammon: “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. Some while coveting it have gone astray from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows” (1 Timothy 6:10).
This suffices to mean that possessions are not everything. Wealth is good; however, if not meant for God, especially money, it is always tempting and tends to draw men away from the right direction of God. Possessions aren’t enough proof of living a blessed life — no! But Jesus Christ is everything that’s important for a believer. We truly need Jesus Christ in our daily endeavors and activities.
One may have a lot of possessions but end up in hell because of the false confidence it gives. One thing I’ve learned about rich men or people with material possessions is that they have false confidence in what they possess. They forget how temporal possessions are, and losing them is just like a wind blowing off. But the actual confidence is essentially being rooted and grounded in Jesus Christ alone, in whom we have confidence that we have abundance of all things meant for us here on earth and eternal blessings. Furthermore, Jesus is our eternal blessing that is irreplaceable.
Eternal blessing is the ultimate treasure believers can possess. The rest are meant to carry out life activities with ease; however, they are not reliable in the long run.
It’s important to understand that with Jesus Christ we are rich and have abundance of life eternally. What we have to understand is living in the Spirit with the knowledge that Christ Jesus is enough to supply us, even with opportunities for material possessions. We are truly blessed.
Thank you so much for sharing powerful insight. I’ll still think about it and meditate.
Brother S. Benson, Kenya
September 9, 2026
As I read your letter, I came to understand why my spiritual life had not been growing and why I had remained in the same place for so long. Whenever I received the Word, I did not try to understand God’s heart. I misunderstood His Word, and because of that, I lost many opportunities to grow. Through your message, I realized that I misunderstood the guidance given for a fellow worker’s growth as criticism.
I had been living inside my own world. Even when I listened to the Word, I focused only on the words and sentences and applied them to myself. When I saw that I had failed to live according to the Word, I blamed myself and became trapped in exhausting self-condemnation. The Word that was meant to give me life became a burden of condemnation pressing down on my heart. In doing so, I had completely missed God’s true heart.
God’s heart has never changed. What God desires is not for us to obey everything perfectly. He desires to change us, to make us more and more like Him, to make us His fellow workers, and to bring us into a beautiful and eternal relationship with Him. Immanuel! This is the blessing God promised to Abraham.
The Old Covenant and the New Covenant point toward the same goal, but the way that goal is accomplished is different. Under the Old Covenant, keeping the Law was the condition. But because human flesh was weak, people could not fulfill it, and the covenant could not achieve its purpose through their obedience. So God Himself changed the condition of the covenant. He sent His only begotten Son and established a new covenant with us through the blood of Jesus.
Under the New Covenant, the way is to repent and believe. Even when we fall again and again, God remains faithful to His covenant and stays with us. Through Jesus Christ, He gives us the blessing of Abraham, and He gives us the Holy Spirit as the guarantee of that blessing.
Heavenly Father, have mercy on me so that I will no longer misunderstand Your Word. May the Holy Spirit help me to understand the shepherd’s heart whenever I receive Your Word, and to understand Your heart that desires all nations to be blessed. Make me a blessing, and make me a channel through which all nations may receive Your blessing. Amen.
Minister OOO, China
July 31, 2026
Reading this week’s letter has filled my heart with overflowing gratitude toward God. What touched me most deeply was seeing clearly once again that the heart of faith is never about obsessing over rules or regulations, but about discerning the heart of God behind His Word.
You gave a simple example from ministry: regarding the same guidance from a team, some receive it as a grace for growth, while others take it as a condemning rebuke. The fundamental cause of this difference lies in whether one can discern the true heart of the teacher. This mirrors our attitude when facing God’s Word. When reading Scripture or hearing a sermon, we often struggle internally, asking, “Did I do it right?” or “Did I mess up again?” We turn the Word, which was meant to give life, into a burden of condemnation, forgetting to stop and think, “What was in God’s heart when He spoke these words?”
Following the context you unfolded, pastor, I came to see God’s heart running through the entire Bible much more clearly. I realized that the covenant God made with Abraham was His fundamental promise all along. God desires to be with humanity, to bless us, and to make those who belong to Him a source of blessing so that all nations on earth may be blessed through them. The Old and New Covenants are not two separate promises; they point to the exact same goal—they simply differ in how that goal is fulfilled. While the Old Covenant depended on keeping the Law—which human weakness made impossible to complete—in the New Covenant, God Himself changed the condition, making repentance and reliance on Him the path. Thus, even when we stumble, He remains faithful to the covenant, stays with us, and bestows the blessing of Abraham upon us through Jesus Christ. God’s heart has never changed: from beginning to end, what He longs for is not our “perfect performance,” but a “genuine walk” with us.
Looking back, I cannot help but deeply reflect on how I lived trapped in my own small world throughout my past faith journey. For a long time, when listening to sermons, I clung only to the literal text, constantly checking “Did I achieve this?”—filling myself with self-condemnation and internal exhaustion. I failed to understand the labor and anxious heart of the evangelist, nor did I ever touch the warm love embedded in God’s Word. On the outside, it seemed as though I had listened to countless sermons and done so much, but in reality, I was merely running in place—having a form of godliness, but lacking the essence of life. It was just as many people, when first encountering spiritual books, fixate on surface things like gifts or power rather than feeling the heart of the one sharing them, turning faith into a tool for self-satisfaction and straying completely from God’s true heart. Now, looking back, I realize how foolishly wrong I was.
Pastor, thank you from the bottom of my heart for unpacking God’s heart so thoroughly through this letter, helping me look beyond the letter of the law to see the essence. Furthermore, I am deeply grateful for God’s grace—that despite our foolishness and self-centeredness, He never gave up on us, but through your guidance, led us into the truth so that we could deeply read His love in our hearts.
May the Lord help me lay down my prejudices and self-righteousness, so that I no longer live trapped in my own world. From now on, whenever I receive the Word, I pray that I may quiet my heart, deeply meditate on God’s heart, and draw near to Him in truth. May I hold fast to the blessing of Abraham, live out this love and blessing that comes from God in my daily life, and become a channel that flows into the lives of many more souls.
Minister ○○, China
July 15, 2026
