Our Commission; July 17, 2020

Posted on July 19, 2020 by jgarrott

Matthew 10:7-8 “As you go, preach this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven is near.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received, freely give.”

Jesus told His disciples to do exactly what they had seen Him doing. Mark tells us that Jesus’ message was, “The time has come, the kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:15) All of the Gospels record that Jesus healed, cleansed lepers, cast out demons, and even raised the dead on occasion. In other words, here He was telling them, “You’ve seen and heard me do it, now you do it.” After this first run with the 12, He later did the same thing with a larger group, and Luke records how totally excited they were when they came back, having experienced Jesus’ authority operating through them (Luke 10:17) Jesus doubled down on this after His resurrection, telling His disciples, “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” (John 20:21) To be honest, we don’t really want to hear and accept this, because we look at ourselves and look at our circumstances, and the idea of having to do stuff like this scares us witless, because we know we can’t do it. It is totally true that we can’t do it, but God never tells us to do anything He won’t enable, if we will allow Him to do it through us. I have long maintained that the world would be a different place if the Christians would wake up to who they are in Christ and do what Jesus has told and is telling them to do. That that is the case is proof of the shallowness of our faith and commitment. If we were already perfect, the world would be, too! Easy conditions tend to generate casual faith. In times and places of persecution, reports of dramatic healings and even resurrections come in even today. When we’re focused on ourselves, we miss the abundance of God.

I believe and have proclaimed this, but how much do I walk in it? I feel like I have faith, but how much do I exercise it? There was a time when I was expecting God to raise someone from the dead through me, but it never happened. In recent years I have come to believe that such temporary resurrections are strictly for non-believers, so that they may experience the reality of God and so believe, For a believer, being with Jesus is far better than being on earth! Cathy died back in 1975 and the Lord sent her back, but it was certainly not because of my faith. Rather, God knew that He had a lot more work for her to do, specifically in relation to me and our daughters. I’m very grateful He did that, but in no way can I take any credit for it. I am to keep proclaiming the kingdom of heaven and pray for people, particularly for physical and spiritual healing, and leave the results up to God, knowing that He is “able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.” (Ephesians 3:20)

Father, thank You for this reminder. Help me follow through, as well as communicate it effectively, so that Your children may indeed rise up as the mighty army You created us to be, for the salvation of multitudes and for Your glory. Thank You. Hallelujah!

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Delegation; July 16, 2020

Posted on July 19, 2020 by jgarrott

Matthew 9:37-38 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

Jesus was very aware of delegation. The verse ahead of this says that He saw the crowds and had compassion on them, but He knew that in His physical human form He couldn’t minister to each of them individually. He told His disciples to pray for more workers, and then immediately after this He commissioned those same disciples to go out and be the kind of workers He told them to pray for. We sometimes forget that when we pray for something, we need to be willing to be part of the answer to that prayer! The thing is, when Jesus Himself delegated, we have to be willing to do so as well. The task is certainly far bigger than one person, or even a few people, could begin to handle. At the same time we need to realize that we aren’t to delegate to others what we aren’t willing to do ourselves. Many Christians “delegate” evangelism to the pastor or other “professionals.” That will never cut it. Likewise, many pastors have the tendency to feel, even if they don’t say, that only they can do it right. Both sides of that are actively getting in the way of the spread of the kingdom of God, because they are a failure to submit to His Lordship.

I have always tended to have problems with delegation, mostly because I like the way I do things myself and other people might not do them that way. What stupid conceit! Jesus entrusted His Church to 11 men who were largely uneducated and had already displayed assorted weaknesses. The thing is, Jesus knew that the Holy Spirit would be poured out on them, and that was enough. I’ve got to pray for the same thing, and not sweat the small stuff. God has gifted me in many ways, but that very fact has gotten in the way of effective ministry, because I’ve tried to do everything myself. I need to pray for workers and then trust that He has sent and is sending them. My job is to equip them, (Ephesians 4:12) but not to control them. That is a hard step sometimes! As I get older I am increasingly aware that I won’t be around forever, but that is almost beside the point. Everyone in this church needs to be growing as an effective servant of God, a disciple of Jesus Christ who has no reason to be ashamed. (2 Timothy 2:15) As I tell people all the time for them to do, I’ve got to get my focus off of myself and onto Christ and His kingdom, His righteousness. I need to pay attention to my own sermons!

Father, thank You for yesterday and all it held. Thank You that the first time of the monthly interdenominational prayer group meeting here went so well. Thank You for Your anointing as I spoke. Thank You for the other things I could get done. I ended the day depressed, and I feel the enemy doesn’t like the things You’re doing here. Help me recognize attacks when they come so as to stand against them, trusting and submitting to You fully, so the enemy won’t find any gaps in my armor, but be forced to flee, for Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!

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Complexity; July 15, 2020

Posted on July 17, 2020 by jgarrott

Matthew 9:18 While he was saying this, a ruler came and knelt before him and said, “My daughter has just died. But come and put your hand on her, and she will live.”

We get a lot more detail of this story from Mark 5 and Luke 18, which makes me regret including it from Matthew’s account. However, that just points up the two factors of how different people can remember the same events with different details, and also how the Bible supports and explains itself. You get some of the same thing simply from reading different translations. Where the NIV simply says “ruler,” the Japanese specifies “person responsible for the synagogue building,” perhaps borrowing from Mark or Luke’s account. In any case, “ruler” by itself in English gives a far different image of who this person was. I am reminded of something I watched just yesterday on the Internet. It was a woman giving a TED talk about the dangers of “a single story.” We tend to look at things first as essentially one-dimensional, which gives us a single story. The woman herself was from Nigeria, the daughter of a university professor father and a school administrator mother. She talked about how in Britain and then in America she encountered so many people who would essentially accept only one story about “Africa,” as though it were one country instead of a continent made up of many different countries. She said that stereotypes – which we have about virtually everything – aren’t necessarily wrong, they’re just one story, one part of the total picture. We are all familiar with the Indian parable of the group of blind men who encountered, and then described, an elephant. Where they erred was that each insisted that their own perception was the whole story, when each only experienced a small part. We all do the same thing all the time. It’s actually unavoidable, since our knowledge and perceptions are so limited. That’s why age tends to bring wisdom: we learn from experience how much we don’t know! God is the only one who knows the whole story, and the sooner we grasp that, the happier we will be.

I’ve always been something of a “data sponge,” and more than one person has described me as a “walking encyclopedia.” Even so, my knowledge is highly limited, especially compared to God. Bill Whittle, a commentator I often agree with, has said that “experts” are often the last people we need to listen to, since their expertise is most often in a very narrow field. In other words, they give “a single story.” Situations are almost invariably complex, and I’ve got to realize that there are things I don’t know about anything I’m looking at. That doesn’t mean I can never be sure of something, or that I am to be indecisive, but it does mean that I’m to be humble, and above all that I am to seek God’s guidance. Sometimes He tells me to do something that seems in contradiction to all the physical evidence, but in the final analysis turns out to have been right, because He knew all the details. I am to accept people as I find them, but always remember that they are far deeper, more well-rounded individuals than I can perceive. I don’t even know all the details about myself! I am to be thankful for the information I am able to gain, but always, and consciously, give God the last word.

Well, Father, I really went off on a tangent on that one! Thank You. Help me be open to receive all You want to say and teach me in any situation, whether it’s what I expect to learn or not. May I be Your agent to all I encounter, relying not on myself but on You, for their blessing and Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!

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Authority and Forgiveness; July 14, 2020

Posted on July 16, 2020 by jgarrott

Matthew 9:8 When the crowd saw this, they were filled with awe; and they praised God, who had given such authority to men.

We don’t often think about how faith is intertwined with authority. Right now all sorts of things are happening because some people believe other people have the authority to do the things they are doing. That applies to rioting. If local governments said, and acted, firmly, “You don’t have the authority, the right, to be destructive,” that sort of thing would end very quickly. The same thing applies to “cancel culture.” If employers were to say, “You don’t have the authority to make personnel decisions for this company,” people wouldn’t lose their jobs. It boils down to being afraid of name calling, of all things. Not wanting to be called racist or privileged or some other pejorative of the day, people cede authority to others when they have absolutely no right to such authority. It is only because we believe, on some level at least, that they have authority, that they can wield it. That principle applies to all merely human authority, even national. However, God’s authority is on a different plane entirely. He has it whether we believe it or not, but we experience it for our benefit when we do believe it. It can be downright scary to realize just how much authority God has. In this verse, where the NIV says, “they were filled with awe,” the Japanese says, “they became afraid.” Jesus had demonstrated a level of authority in healing the man that showed He indeed had authority to forgive sins, and everyone recognized that was God’s territory. The thing is, Jesus not only has such authority, (Matthew 28:18) He has allowed His disciples to exercise it as well. (John 20:21-23) When we are operating in the Holy Spirit, we can indeed forgive sins on the level that Jesus did. However, authority is never divorced from responsibility. We must not confuse forgiveness with excusing. Forgiving sin is not the same as saying it’s OK to sin. At the same time, nursing things that have been done to us, failing to forgive them, is dangerous in the extreme. We must never forget that Jesus said, “For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.” (Matthew 6:14-15)

I’ve struggled with this myself. By God’s grace I have come a long way in being able to forgive things that are done to me, but it still often needs to be a conscious choice. However, the whole issue of authority is something I’m ambivalent about. I have fantasized about walking into situations and commanding things to be right, but when it comes to leading a church, I get scared. I have hurt people with my words, and I have also hurt people by failing to exercise the authority that is my responsibility. I will have to answer to God for that. It all boils down to the fact that I don’t have the wisdom to do it right, so I’ve got to be dependent on God every moment. I am to be His agent in forgiving the sins of Japan and the Japanese, but not divorced from their repentance. Jesus prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing,” (Luke 23:34) but we receive that forgiveness only when we repent.

Father, help me be the agent of Your forgiveness, and Your authority in other ways, that You want me to be, not drawing back from it but not being cavalier about it either. May I be Your agent, for the salvation of many and for Your glory alone. Thank You. Praise God!

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Following Christ; July 13, 2020

Posted on July 16, 2020 by jgarrott

Matt 8:21-22 Another disciple said to him, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”
But Jesus told him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.”

I have heard more than one message that, I think, correctly interpreted this seemingly shocking passage. I don’t think the disciple’s father was already dead, and Jesus was refusing permission to go to the funeral. Rather, I think the disciple was saying that he would follow Jesus after his father died, whenever that was, and Jesus was having none of it. Actually, that sort of thing happens all the time. “I’ll do what God wants me to do after (     ),” with that blank filled in by any of a number of things. I’ve heard that sort of thing often when it comes to tithing. “I’ll tithe after I get a better job,” or “I’ll tithe after I get this debt paid off.” I’ve heard it in relation to sharing the Gospel. “I’ll tell people about Jesus after I graduate from seminary.” If you aren’t telling people about Jesus, you have no business going to seminary! One of the many things I love about Jesus is that He had absolutely nothing to do with being “politically correct.” He always spoke in love, but that never kept Him from speaking the truth. He didn’t mince words, but said what needed to be said. In teaching He often used parables, to give His hearers a conceptual framework on which to hang the truth they were hearing, but that wasn’t to beat around the bush or to sugar-coat the truth. He didn’t make following Him easy! In our evangelism today we bend over backwards to remove what we see as obstacles to people coming to Christ, and in the process we sometimes dilute the Gospel to the point of making it meaningless. There can be no salvation without repentance, but we don’t want people to “feel bad,” and so we never talk about sin. I once talked with an evangelist (the real thing) who said that he couldn’t save anybody; his job was to get people lost. By that he meant helping people understand they were lost and needed to be saved, so they would ask Jesus to save them. Following Christ is not about doing things the world’s way, but about repentance and commitment to obedience.

I can preach about this, but I’ve practiced conditional obedience myself more times than I like to remember. I deal with this issue a great deal in Japan, because loyalty is such a high value here that people say they will become Christians after their parents die, exactly like the disciple mentioned here. They forget that once that happens, all their relatives will expect and demand that they take charge of their parents’ votive tablets in their Buddhist family altar, making it all the harder to follow Christ alone. Worship of the dead is an integral part of Japanese Buddhism, and is a spiritual prison for many. I am not to offend needlessly, but I am not to fail to speak God’s truth out of a fear of offending. My variation on this issue would be, “I’ll tell them the truth when they can understand and receive it.” I am indeed to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s timing, but if He says to say something, I must never hold back.

Father, thank You for this Word. Thank You for the good group in the service yesterday, and for how strongly You are drawing that one lady to yourself. I ask for Your wisdom and anointing in leading her in clear repentance and faith, to be born again indeed. May all that we say and do and are draw more and more people to You, for their salvation and Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!

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Faith; July 12, 2020

Posted on July 14, 2020 by jgarrott

Matthew 8:13 Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! It will be done just as you believed it would.” And his servant was healed at that very hour.

Faith is a very interesting thing. It’s not quantifiable except by God, nor can its quality be evaluated except by God. Jesus elsewhere famously said that the quantity is largely irrelevant, to the point that a very small faith can work miracles. (Matthew 17:20) What impressed Jesus about this centurion’s faith was that it was based on the concrete factor of authority. The man believed that if Jesus commanded something it was done, period. We seldom have that kind of faith! We tend to replace faith with wishful thinking, and that simply doesn’t cut it. Some of the things Jesus said about faith don’t seem to jive with our experience, but such discrepancies are always the result of our misunderstanding of what faith is, in a sense, of mistaken faith. Some years ago a popular “faith preacher” popularized the saying, “Jesus said it, I believe it, that settles it.” The problem with that is, it should be, “Jesus said it, that settles it.” It is our faith, but the more we put ourselves into the equation, the less effective it is. This centurion believed that Jesus was the Commander, and that was all he needed to know. We try to make it all about us, and so fail miserably.

I have been learning about faith my whole life, and I’m still learning. Much of that learning has been the hard way, through painful failures. I’m speaking on Trusting God this morning, but it’s not from a position of mastery! The thing is, I’ve learned enough to know that faith is indeed a gift of God, (Ephesians 2:8-9) and each of us has been given some. (Romans 12:3) My responsibility is to exercise the faith I’ve already been given, as a good steward. We don’t often think of faith when it comes to Jesus’ parable of the talents, (Matthew 25:14-30) but I think it applies. My faith is precious indeed, but I’m not to hide it away, rather I’m to put it to work. That’s not something I thought of when I was preparing the sermon notes, and I may include it! I’ve found that faith grows when it is exercised, certainly, but also when it is spoken out. Paul said that faith comes by hearing, (Romans 10:17) but sometimes it’s our own words we hear! We’re all familiar with people saying something so often that, though untrue, they start to believe it themselves. How much more, then, when we speak God’s truth! I need to be consistent in speaking God’s truth in love, and at the same time be careful that I don’t stop with words, but rather be faithful to follow through in obedience to God. (James 1:22)

Father, thank You for this reminder. You know who will be physically present in the service, who will watch the live stream, and who will watch or listen to it later. I pray that You would touch each one, that we may all receive and operate in the faith You offer, for our salvation and Your glory. Thank You. Hallelujah!

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Commitment; July 11, 2020

Posted on July 13, 2020 by jgarrott

Matthew 4:19-20 “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will make you fishers of men.” At once they left their nets and followed him.

Just reading Matthew you might think this was Jesus’ first encounter with these men, but John 1:35-42 describes how they first met. That said, this was certainly a decisive moment in their relationship. Peter, Andrew, James and John had doubtless spent time thinking and talking about this uniquely riveting person they had met, and here he challenges them to follow Him. It was a big decision for each of them, biggest perhaps for Peter, since he was married, and easiest perhaps for John, since he was the youngest, but it was no small matter for any of them. They really had no idea to what Jesus would lead them, but they knew they wanted to be with Him, absorbing His words and just being in His presence. It’s kind of like when people fall in love, and they simply can’t get enough of each other. They had no idea what Jesus meant by “fishers of men,” but they sure knew they had been netted! Jesus makes that call to us as well, but we have trouble grasping it because we don’t see and hear Him physically. We too need to taste and be captivated by His presence. Even though it’s not something our physical senses detect, it’s just as real as it was for those first disciples. As He said in the Upper Room just before He was taken from them physically, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live.” (John 14:18-19) As the writer of Hebrews reminds us, “God has said, ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.’” (Hebrews 13:5) Put a different way, we need to be addicted to the Holy Spirit. As the Japanese term for addiction makes clear, addiction is a matter of not being able to do without something. Our commitment to Christ needs to be on that level. This isn’t a matter of emotions, though emotions often follow. Some people go to Pentecostal/Charismatic meeting for the “thrill,” but that is poor motivation. As those early disciples decided, we need to know that fellowship with God is worth discarding everything else. Paul realized that, and he famously said, “But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.” (Philippians 3:7, 10-11) (It’s important to note that the “somehow” there isn’t that Paul doubted that it would happen, it’s that he didn’t understand the mechanism.) Jesus is more than worthy of our total devotion!

My commitment has grown over the years, just as Paul’s did. For that matter, even those first disciples had their moments of wavering, as Peter famously denied he even knew Jesus. That said, I am at this point more confident that Jesus is real than that I am. After all, in a sense I am a figment of God’s imagination! I have learned a great deal about this commitment business from my relationship with my wife. Over 51 years ago I decided that it would be impossible to get too much of her, and I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her. We really got into the “addiction” thing! We had been married a few years and already had a child when an older person took us to task and said, “You don’t have to always be together!” (Actually, she was a widow, and I think she was wanting to insulate us from some of her pain.) We each have various interests and our lifestyle is such that two cars are a necessity, since we are so often going in different directions, but simply being together is still a very deep joy, peace, and satisfaction. The thing is, my relationship with Christ is even deeper. Many things about my relationship with my wife are temporal, though I know we will both spend eternity in heaven. However, my current relationship with Christ is no more than a foretaste, an “appetizer,” of what it will be like for eternity. That awareness keeps me going, and it makes me want to “catch men” so that they too may experience that for which they were created.

Father, thank You for this reminder. Thank You for the opportunity I’ve had in the past few days to read my father’s biography and listen to the recordings of his memorial services, both in the US and in Japan, when he died. Thank You for my parents’ commitment to You. May I too draw others to such a commitment, for their salvation and Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!

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Fathers; July 10, 2020

Posted on July 13, 2020 by jgarrott

Malachi 4:5-6 “See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse.”

It is fascinating, and entirely appropriate, that this last part of the Old Testament so directly prophesies the content of the New Testament. Jesus explicitly said that John the Baptist was the fulfillment of this prophecy. (Matthew 17:11-12) In that sense it is past prophecy and might be written off as irrelevant, but we need to examine it a little more closely. The last part of it speaks of the consequences of people not heeding Elijah/John’s message, and Jesus Himself wept over what was going to happen to the land of Israel because of the response of the Jewish leaders to Him. (Luke 13:34-35) The thing is, in these Last Days before Christ’s return, we are experiencing an epidemic of a rupture in the relationship between fathers and their children. The majority of the societal ills so evident today can be directly traced to that. In fact, the BLM organization explicitly states that one of their goals is the destruction of the traditional family. That is tragic in the extreme, and obviously demonic. Whatever else you say about these present days, the masks are coming off and people are being open about what they represent. That’s ironic in the light of the physical masks being used because of the pandemic, but it is evident to anyone with an ounce of discernment. It is all too meaningful that we are seeing such attacks on the “Founding Fathers,” even George Washington of all people. It is the devil attacking the very idea of fatherhood, because he is so violently against Father God. The idea of the traditional family is being attacked as “misogynistic” or even “racist,” as though any race had a monopoly on fathers and children. The “systemic racism” that exists is in the welfare system that Lyndon Johnson promoted expressly to destroy the Black family, and he was all too successful. For America to be healed, the children of God need to stand up against the schemes of the devil and proclaim the Fatherhood of God, expressed in the nuclear family, and reject the flood of lying nonsense that has been poured out on society.

I obviously have no trouble getting up on a soap box on this issue! That said, my physical presence is in Japan. Thanks to the Internet, I do have opportunities to speak to the world at large, but I find myself fearing people’s reactions. That isn’t fearing God! I have been convinced for over 50 years that the whole sexuality/gender mess is a lie of the devil, but I interact all the time with people who are caught up in it. I even have close family members who are deceived, not seeing it as a spiritual issue at all. I am to speak the truth, always, in love, always, knowing that my wisdom is not up to the task but God’s is. I am to represent Him, not with any sense of pride but with a total commitment to being available to Him, for Him to speak through and otherwise use me, for the deliverance of others and for His glory.

Father, thank You that I do care enough about this issue to get so worked up about it. Help me not be afraid of emotion, but not be controlled by it either. May Your passion motivate me, not my own unreliable emotions! May I rightly relate to You, so that You through me may indeed destroy the devil’s work (1 John 3:8) and set many free, for their salvation and Your glory. Thank You. Hallelujah!

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Trusting God; July 9, 2020

Posted on July 11, 2020 by jgarrott

Zechariah 11:16 For I am going to raise up a shepherd over the land who will not care for the lost, or seek the young, or heal the injured, or feed the healthy, but will eat the meat of the choice sheep, tearing off their hoofs.

This whole passage is pretty depressing. However, I am reminded of something said by one of America’s Founding Fathers: “The people will get the government they deserve.” That said, this description seems remarkably applicable to various leaders in the world around us. They seem to be entirely focused on what they see as their own profit, and not at all on those they supposedly lead. That this passage exists in the Bible is an indication that God’s plans are indeed so much higher than ours that from our viewpoint they can seem entirely inscrutable. (Isaiah 55:9) This is where faith really comes in. When we are faced with leaders such as are described here, we need to seek the “great Shepherd of the sheep” (Hebrews 13:20) all the more earnestly. When we rely on human leaders, even well-intentioned ones, we get into trouble. However, God will always work good out of circumstances that are turned over to Him. (Romans 8:28) Yesterday I read the next draft of my father’s biography, and was struck by how much blessing my father said he got out of the experience of being interned by the Japanese military police for the first six months of WWII. I am reminded of the the way a Persian rug is made, with countless knots on the backside. We may only see the knots, but God sees the tapestry from the other side, and it is a thing of beauty indeed. Even when we encounter faithless leaders, such as this passage describes, we need to trust that God is still God, and the ultimate resolution will be very good indeed.

I have had some things in my life that at the time seemed terrible, but for which I am now grateful. I face things all the time that seem less than desirable, so I am challenged to trust God. Sometimes I do better at that than at other times! I am saddened to see people decide they know how things are supposed to be, and get bitter and sometimes downright nasty when things don’t go their way. I will confess to having that same tendency in myself. I am mystified at how seemingly rational people could take the positions they do, yet they probably feel the same way about me! The only answer is the solution that Jesus told us to pray for: that God’s name would be acknowledged as holy and His rule and authority be manifested as His will is done, right here on earth. He once told me personally that many, many things are not as He wants them to be, but I know that the current situation isn’t the end of the story. Like my father in the internment camp, I need to receive the blessings God has for me right now and be available for His use, not being anxious about tomorrow or next week or next year.

Father, thank You for this reminder. Thank You for what You allowed us to experience yesterday. Thank You for what You have on our slate for today. Help us indeed rest, relax, and rejoice in You, whether the events of the moment are as we would have planned or not, so that Your plans may be fulfilled on Your schedule for Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!

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The Way of the Lord; July 8, 2020

Posted on July 10, 2020 by jgarrott

Hosea 14:9 Who is wise? He will realize these things.
Who is discerning? He will understand them.
The ways of the Lord are right;
the righteous walk in them,
but the rebellious stumble in them.

This verse would be a fitting postscript to any of a number of the books of the Bible. The truths of God are indeed the foundation of wisdom and discernment. The last part of the verse seems a bit more meaningful in Japanese than it does in the NIV. Rather than saying, “The ways of the Lord are right,” it says, “The ways of the Lord are flat,” that is, easy to walk on. That points up the irony of rebellious people stumbling in trying to follow God. If you are committed to obedience, then following God isn’t difficult. If you are rebellious and resentful, then following God seems laden with pitfalls. You can say that attitude is everything. Many people have noted that it doesn’t matter what happens to you that determines your life, it’s how you respond to what happens to you. That’s why the devil works so hard to promote the victim mentality. Some people can be severely victimized but still overcome it all to rise to great success and happiness, but others can be in much less difficult circumstances and essentially throw their life away. In recent months I’ve been coming to realize more and more the depth of Jesus’ seemingly simple instructions to “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.” (Matthew 6:33) That applies to every detail of life, because it requires a focus on God rather than on yourself. A “pity party” has never done anyone any good! When we are focused on “Why me,” we can’t recognize the good that God has hidden in the circumstances that are so painful.

This applies to me as much as it does to anyone else. We have just had some rain for the record books, causing landslides and some flooding. Yesterday someone in their 20s asked me if I’d ever experienced anything this bad, and I had to say, yes. 38 years ago we had the Nagasaki Flood, that killed 299 people and caused massive damage. The past few days have been inconvenient, perhaps, but there were no reports of injury in Nagasaki (though Kumamoto has had over 50 deaths). When we are focused on God and His kingdom, we will recognize what He wants us to do and we will be blessed in doing it. Looking back, I can see that the way of the Lord for me has indeed been flat, even though at times it felt very rough and nearly vertical. God plans good for His children, and the more we focus on Him the more we will experience it as that.

Father, thank You for this reminder. Thank You that the rain has lifted now, and I will be able to go walking this morning. I pray that my response to everything, “good” or “bad,” would give You full opportunity to work in and through me, pointing and drawing those around me to You, for their salvation and Your glory. Thank You. Hallelujah!

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