August 26, 2012

Posted on August 29, 2012 by jgarrott

Revelation 1:5-6 and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.
To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father–to him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen.

This is one of a number of places where I think the person who first divided the Bible into verses wasn’t thinking too clearly! However, that’s minor quibble. There’s a lot of glorious truth in this passage. We read many times in the Bible that Jesus loves us, and that He atones for and forgives our sins, but the expression here is that He frees us from our sins, and that’s worth some real meditation. Often we seem to get stuck in sins, like a car with a wheel in a deep pot­hole. When we repent we are forgiven, but we also need to move past that particular sin in order to get on with the life God intends for us. For that we need to understand and receive God’s forgiveness, and we also need to forgive ourselves. I couldn’t begin to calculate how many people I’ve dealt with who placed themselves above God in relation to their sins. That’s not just in excusing things that God doesn’t, as you might think, but also in refusing to forgive things they have already confessed to God. If God has forgiven us, who are we to not forgive ourselves? That is a very frequent way that people get stuck in sins. It is only when we are liberated from our sins that we can function as the priests and kingdom that Christ has made us to be by His blood. And of course, all the glory for what He has done for us and is doing in and through us goes to Him.

I’ve experienced getting stuck in sin myself. Peter’s words about people who have forgotten they have been cleansed (2 Peter 1:9) have been helpful to me. As long as I am dwelling on some sin I have committed, I’m not free of it. That doesn’t mean at all that repentance is to be casual, much less insincere, but it means that once something is repented of, I need to move past it, and as a pastor, I need to help others do the same. I do indeed run into many who take their sins lightly, but I also run into many who can’t seem to let go of things that God has already forgiven. That is as much of a trap as the other! I have no wisdom in myself to liberate people, but God can use me in accomplishing that, so I need to keep myself fully available at all times. Again, I am not to dwell on the times that I have failed to communicate, but rather walk in the grace of God, expecting Him to act in and through me appropriately to His character.

Father, thank You for this reminder. You know the people who came to mind even as I was writing. I do ask Your grace for them, and for me as I minister to them, so that they may be set free indeed to walk in all that You intend for them, for Your glory. Thank You. Hallelujah!

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August 25, 2012

Posted on August 25, 2012 by jgarrott

1 John 5:18 We know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin; the one who was born of God keeps him safe, and the evil one cannot harm him.

The way this one verse is handled is my biggest single objection to the Japanese translation I use, though in general I like it very much. Amazingly, the NIV gets it right here. Traditional English translations agree with the Japanese, in saying “anyone born of God does not sin.” That not only violates the tense of the Greek verb, it violates the whole rest of the Bible! Actually, John in this very letter makes it quite clear that we don’t achieve sinless perfection on this earth, though we are continuously to aim for it. (1 John 1:8- 2:2) From the Greek tense, we know that this verse is talking about a continuing action. Anyone who is born of God is indeed uncomfortable with sin. Someone who is satisfied wallowing in sin is not born again, whatever rites they may have gone through. Having said that, I also need to point out that we don’t know what goes on inside someone else. They might be putting up a defiant front, insisting they are happy with how they are, while inwardly being miserable. This is what drives some Christians to suicide. The devil has blinded them to 1 John 1:9, they feel absolutely miserable about what they are doing, and they decide to stop doing it by stopping living. Such a person is indeed severely deceived, but I would be very hesitant to insist they are not saved. The danger of sin is that it feels good, for a while anyway. If it didn’t, how much temptation would it be? However, anyone who is born of God is quick to recognize it for what it is, and repent of it. This applies to the more subtle sins as well, such as pride, prejudice, and the like. There, the danger comes from those around us insisting those things aren’t sins (because they indulge in them too). It all comes down to the reality that anyone born of God has been given the Holy Spirit as a guide, and we need to seek to learn to listen to Him more and more accurately.

This is quite literally the story of my life. I believe my commitment and baptism at age seven were real and valid, but I got so far from them in pride and this world’s thinking that when the Lord brought me back at age 24, it was so dramatic that I requested and received baptism a second time. However, that didn’t insulate me from sin. In the 40 years since then I have been growing in my sensitivity and obedience to the Holy Spirit, but I still can’t say I never sin. However, I have complete assurance of my salvation by the grace of God. This is the truth I try to communicate to the believers around me who are stumbling, because it is a truth the devil tries to hide.

Father, thank You again for Your amazing grace. Help me be an accurate, effective messenger of that grace to everyone I encounter, for their salvation and Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!

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August 24, 2012

Posted on August 25, 2012 by jgarrott

1 John 5:11-12 And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.

It is interesting that John, the “apostle of love,” is the one writer in the whole Bible who is clearest on the point that there is no salvation apart from Jesus Christ – and that’s not to say that other writers are reticent on this point. I couldn’t begin to say how many times I’ve had someone say to me, “How could a loving God be so narrow and exclusive?” or words to that effect. We tend to forget that God is perfectly holy, and what a big deal it is that He made a way for any sinful human being to come to Him. When John was the youngest of the original 12 apostles, and even before that he was a disciple of John the Baptist, it seems unlikely that he committed any of what we would tend to call “major” sins, yet he still understood clearly that he had no hope, no standing before God, apart from the atoning work of Jesus Christ on the cross. I’m reminded of my mother, who was baptized at the tender age of five with the clear awareness that she was a sinner. As she related it to me over 60 years later, she had done something her parents didn’t know about, but that in her heart she knew was wrong, and being raised in a strongly Christian home, that conviction of sin led her to seek forgiveness and salvation in Christ. The biggest barrier to salvation for anyone, bar none, is pride. We just don’t want to admit we’re in the wrong. The problem is, we can’t receive the salvation, the forgiveness, that God has provided through His Son until we acknowledge that we are wrong. The Bible is clear that refusal to believe in Christ is in itself sin. (John 3:18 and others) This puts people who have had no opportunity to believe in Christ in a somewhat different category, which Paul deals with in Romans 2:1-16. The thing is, every human being has violated their own conscience, and pride is the chief thing standing in the way of asking God for forgiveness.

This is of course something I deal with every day. The Japanese are certainly not deficient in the area of pride, even though they are taught from childhood to be self effacing. In their case, it is often pride in being Japanese, and they see Christianity as a “foreign” religion. Also, as many scholars in various disciplines have noted, Japan has a “shame culture,” rather than a “sin culture.” To correct undesirable behavior, children are told, “people will laugh at you,” rather than “that is wrong.” Proclaiming the Gospel is difficult in the original land of Situational Ethics! However, I must not give up, because it is the Holy Spirit who convicts of sin, righteousness and judgment, (John 16:7-11) and He can use me to that end as well as anyone else. I have indeed seen strongly Christian Japanese, clear in their faith and good examples for anyone who would follow God. I need to be fully available to God for Him to use me in increasing their number!

Father, thank You for this clear reminder. I ask for wisdom and clear guidance in all my interactions. I get the “How could a loving God…” objection from American far more than from Japanese, but You love them all and desire them all to come to repentance and faith. Help me be fully available to You to that end, for their salvation and Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!

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August 23, 2012

Posted on August 23, 2012 by jgarrott

1 John 4:18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

Here we have further evidence that our usual grasp of love is deficient. When we fear anything, it’s evidence that we don’t understand God’s love for us. When we fail properly to appreciate God’s love for us, then we in turn fail to love Him fully, and fail to allow His love to flow through us to those around us. Growing in love is indeed a lifetime endeavor, as older, happily married couples will tell you. It’s no accident that the Bible repeatedly uses the marital relationship as an illustration of God’s relationship to His people. God already knows us perfectly, so we need to grow in our knowledge and understanding of Him. Since, as John says, God is love, that is the same thing as saying that we need to grow in our knowledge and understanding of love. Any time we are anxious or afraid of anything at all, we need to take that as evidence of our need to grow in our knowledge and appreciation of God’s love.

Having said that, I am reminded of a sentence that was something of a trademark of my father: “Give all you know of yourself to all you know of Christ.” He used it effectively in evangelism, because the Japanese, being perfectionists, tend to want to “know all about” Christianity before they make a commitment. His point was that, just as we continually learn more about ourselves, we should be learning more about Christ. There will never be “perfect knowledge” on this side of eternity, but that shouldn’t keep us from commitment. We don’t have a perfect grasp of God’s love, and won’t until we are immersed in it before His throne, but that shouldn’t keep us from walking in it as much as possible right now. The various reminders of the imperfection of our understanding aren’t to condemn us, but to urge us to keep going deeper, keep going higher in our knowledge of God. (And no, those aren’t mutually exclusive, despite the limitations of human language.) That’s why it’s by faith, and not by sight. (2 Corinthians 5:7)

Father, thank You for how far You have led me, and for the awareness that I still have far to go. Help me focus not on what I don’t know, but what I do, because that in itself is glorious. Help me be increasingly effective in leading others to the same position of commitment by faith, not as those who have been perfected or who know everything, but as those who have tasted enough of Your love to know that it is worth more than everything else put together, even though we only know a fraction of it. Thank You. Praise God!

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August 22, 2012

Posted on August 22, 2012 by jgarrott

1 John 4:7-8 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

If any Bible passage could convince us that our concept of love is deficient, this should do the job. Along with 1 Corinthians 13, this makes it abundantly clear that most of the time, what we mean by “love” is pretty far from agape. I have thought for a long time that the different words for love were a major reason for God choosing Greek as the language of the New Testament. Japanese usage of ai (love) is most often equivalent to the Greek storge, which simply means “like, have an affinity for.” A pet dog is “beloved dog,” and a car you take good care of is “beloved car.” Lest English speakers start looking down on the Japanese, I should hasten to say that the hippie motto of my youth, “Make love, not war,” is equally removed from what John is talking about here. As I generally point out in weddings I perform, if we were to define God in terms of what we usually call love (after all, it says right here that “God is love”) then we would come out with a very distorted image of God. Sadly, a lot of people do exactly that. We have to come at this from both sides in order to understand love and understand God. When John 3:16 tells us that “God loved the world so much that He gave His only Son,” that tells us something both about God and about love. The thing is, agape is unconditional, and we experience so little unconditional love that we have trouble grasping, or trusting, it. Even with our very distorted ideas of both love and God, we have to start with the basic affirmation that “God loves me,” and grow from there. The more we do grow in our grasp of love and of God, the better we are able to love Him and to let his love flow through us to those around us. That is pretty important, considering that the First Commandment is to love God and the Second is to love our neighbor!

Once again I am deeply, humbly aware of how blessed I am to have been raised in a family that genuinely loved God and sought to allow His love to flow through them. Daily my heart aches for the many around me who have no grasp at all of God or of agape love. I cannot convince them with words, so I have to demonstrate God’s love to them, by His grace and the power of His Spirit. I need periodic reminders of that, because I am very much a man of words. I must not let my love stop with words! Yesterday’s passage dealt with that very directly. I am to love first and explain later. I have always appreciated the saying, “People won’t care how much you know until they know how much you care,” even if I haven’t always lived it out. I need to seek God’s help in living it out, because it’s obvious I can’t do it in my own strength.

Father, thank You for the amazing privilege of being a channel of Your love. Keep me from distorting or hindering the flow of that love in any way. May Your love through me indeed open eyes and lift them to You, so that many may be brought from darkness to light, from death to life, for Your glory. Thank You. Hallelujah!

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August 21, 2012

Posted on August 21, 2012 by jgarrott

1 John 3:18 Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.

As the saying goes, actions speak louder than words. That’s not to say that words aren’t important, because they are, but it is to say that our words must be congruent with our actions, and vice versa. Jesus was big on this, ripping into the Pharisees for their hypocrisy and publicly acknowledging the faith of those who acted on their faith. Verbal confession of faith is important, as Paul pointed out, (Romans 10:9) but most of the letter of James is focused on the futility of faith that is no more than words. When Jesus, Paul, James, and John put so much emphasis on the matter, it’s pretty clear this has been an issue all along. (As a matter of fact, Moses and most of the OT prophets also bring it up!) As I point out to husbands in marriage counseling, expressing love verbally is important, but that must be backed up with loving actions, just as John says here. When the Greatest Commandment is to love God with all we are, and the Second is to love our neighbors as we love ourselves, getting this right is a matter of considerable urgency!

I have been blessed throughout my life with people who have expressed love to me both verbally and otherwise, but there are those who have not been so blessed. As I try to help parents understand, parental love includes appropriate discipline, and many have been severely damaged by problems in that area, by parents who either disciplined inappropriately, or more often today, failed to discipline. I see many who never had a healthy example of spousal interaction as they were growing up, and so have no idea how to act toward their spouse when they get married. We tend to make our love conditional, forgetting that we are no more perfect than the person we think we love. If God acted that way, mankind would have been destroyed long ago! God is indeed perfect, but He is the only one who is, and His love is unconditional. I need not only to teach that, I need to live it out in practical terms every moment of every day.

Father, the longer I live, the more I realize that life is a workshop in Your kind of loving. Thank You for not flunking me out! Thank You for Your truly amazing grace, and for the privilege of being an instrument of that grace. Thank You for those You allowed us to impact yesterday, with words and actions. Thank You for Your plans for today. Help us rest in the assurance that Your plans are good, not being anxious about anything but rejoicing in You, expressing Your love in word and action, for Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!

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August 20, 2012

Posted on August 20, 2012 by jgarrott

2 Peter 3:14 So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him.

From a materialistic standpoint, this verse is absolutely astounding. Peter has just been talking about the destruction of the world by fire, and here he talks about “looking forward expectantly” and “inner peace!” This should show us how far we need to go in having our values and priorities readjusted by the Holy Spirit. Sadly, the vast majority of people, including Christians, are in love with the world. (1 John 2:15) That’s one reason they are afraid of death, because it means leaving behind everything in the world. When our hearts are fixed on the material, it’s hard to appreciate the spiritual, however much better and more glorious it might be. That’s not to say we aren’t to enjoy and appreciate the world around us, but it is to say that God’s kingdom and His righteousness must be a higher priority, just as Jesus said. (Matthew 6:33) We experience many things as loss, and it is painful. Our goal should be to be able to say with Paul, “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” (Philippians 1:21)

I can’t say I’m totally there yet! However, I can say that the longer I walk with the Lord here, the more I look forward to being with Him in eternity. Analyzing my feelings, I think I can say honestly that I fully look forward to the end result, but it’s the process of getting there that I get a little anxious about. Shakespeare had Hamlet refer to “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.” Sometimes I really do get tired of all the junk we wade through at times, but at the same time it is all a learning experience of the faithfulness of God. In times of severe persecution, such as Peter experienced, the end of it all is certainly something to look forward to expectantly! I’m reminded of the youngest of the 26 Martyrs of Nagasaki who, when told which cross was to be his, ran and embraced it. With all he had been through in his 12 years, heaven seemed very attractive indeed, even if getting there might involve a bit more pain. I am not to denigrate the time I have here, however many years that might be, but at the same time I’m not to cling to anything in this world. My goal should be to take as many with me to heaven as possible, whether we get there individually or whether the Lord returns for us all together.

Father, my priorities seem to be somewhat on-again-off-again, and that’s not good. Thank You for the Word You spoke through me in the service yesterday. Help me apply it fully, indeed loving You above all and loving those around me as I love myself, on a very practical level. Help me desire people’s salvation enough to make whatever effort is called for, being totally available to Your Spirit for leading them to repentance and faith. Help me operate with prayer being as much of a priority as it should be, so that I may stand firm against all the deceptions of the enemy, for Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!

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August 19, 2012

Posted on August 19, 2012 by jgarrott

2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

We have great difficulty grasping God’s time frame, as the very famous verse just before this says. People down through the ages have accused God of not keeping His promises, when later generations have been able to look back and see how, on the contrary, God has kept His promises with amazing faithfulness and detail. You would think that by now we would have learned the lesson, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. The thing that Peter is wanting to point out is the reason why God delays (from our perspective) putting everything right. It is of vital importance that God doesn’t desire the destruction of anyone. In the chapter before this Peter talks at length about false teachers and their destruction, but God doesn’t want even them to be destroyed, He wants them to repent. The devil has made quite a thing of “God sends people to hell. How could a loving God do that?” The thing is, He doesn’t send them, they choose their own ticket. God desires the salvation of every human being, but it must be their own choice as well. The thing is, God is perfectly holy, which means a lot of things, the most basic of which being that He cannot dismiss sin. That fact, coupled with the fact that He is love, is why He sent His Son to die, taking the penalty for our sin. When God did that, how can we doubt that He desires the salvation of anyone?

This is of course the foundation of the Gospel I proclaim, and as such its importance can’t be overstated. It’s interesting how much trouble I have getting people to believe it! Those who haven’t yet met and acknowledged Jesus don’t want to admit their sin has purchased them a ticket to hell, and even many Christians have doubts that God would desire to save some of the people they can think of. That last is one of many reasons forgiving others is vitally important. If we won’t forgive them, we won’t desire and work for their salvation. Those who are committed to evangelism have this truth of God’s heart firmly planted in their minds and hearts.

Father, keep me from forgetting this even as I teach it to others. May every part of my life accurately reflect Your heart, seeking the salvation of all I encounter, proclaiming Your love, grace, and holiness, so that as many as will may repent and believe, for their salvation and Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!

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August 18, 2012

Posted on August 19, 2012 by jgarrott

2 Peter 1:3 His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.

In either English or Japanese this sentence gets pretty complicated, but the thing that stands out to me is that we are given everything we need through knowledge of Christ. Since it’s given to us, it isn’t something we have to work to earn, but that doesn’t mean we are to be passive. Verse 5 speaks of “make every effort.” Christian faith isn’t for people who give up easily! However, the effort we are to exert is in knowing Christ better. Recently I quoted Paul’s famous declaration about knowing Christ in Philippians 3:10-11. Peter is using different terminology, but he as much as Paul says that knowing Christ is vitally important. The better we know Christ, the better we demonstrate His character. Peter gives a list of character traits in verses 5 and 6, but Paul listed them as the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23. We cannot really manifest the character of Christ without both knowing Him and being filled with His Spirit. We will never manifest them perfectly on this earth, but the point is to keep growing in them, as Peter says in verse 8. God gives us everything we need – indeed He has already given it to us – but we are responsible for our stewardship of what He has provided. We are called to keep pressing in and keep growing!

This is a lesson I’m still learning myself, even as I seek to teach it to others. We are all prone to give up on ourselves when we have failures, but understanding that we are all still growing should help insulate us from that. I deal with people all the time who are so disappointed in themselves that they want to give up. I must not dump on them, even when admonishment is called for, but rather come alongside them, encouraging and giving direction. At the same time, I am not to give up on anyone. Sometimes I have to back off, and do my ministry exclusively through prayer. However, any time I pray, I need to hold myself available as an instrument for the answering of that prayer. I must not refuse to interact with anyone, if God wants to use me to draw them to Himself.

Father, You know the various people who came to mind as I was writing just now. I do pray for each one, that they would realize all that You have provided and press in to take hold of it, just as Paul did. (Philippians 3:12) I pray also that I would not teach others and then fall short myself. May I continually press in for more of Christ, more of Your Spirit, so that I may more effectively proclaim and demonstrate Your grace and love to the world around me, for Your glory. Thank You. Hallelujah!

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August 17, 2012

Posted on August 19, 2012 by jgarrott

1 Peter 5:8-9 Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings.

I feel the Lord just gave me more understanding of this passage than I have had before, even though it is very familiar. I had always thought of “resisting the devil” in strictly spiritual terms, but the Lord used the current US political context to help me understand that this is resisting on every level. Being “meek and mild” doesn’t mean being a doormat! The devil wants Christians to “roll over and play dead,” or at least cower in a corner, every time he roars, but that’s not the image I get from this passage, and it’s not the Biblical example, either. People are quick to point to how Jesus didn’t resist when He was arrested, tried, beaten, and crucified, overlooking the fact that He had a very specific reason for acting that way. Paul, on the other hand, used “ninja techniques” to escape capture, (Acts 98:23-25) and famously made full use of his Roman citizenship as a political tool later in his ministry. Recent events in the US demonstrate that standing up to anti-Christian bullies can make them get ugly, but it can also make them back down, or make their efforts backfire on them. Particularly in the American context, with a Constitution founded on Biblical principles, there is every reason for Christians to stand up and not back down. The caveat here is that it must be done in humility and love, but there is no reason to cower in fear. The devil attacks on all levels, and if he can get us to adopt his methods, he’s won, whatever the short-term effects. We are to resist him in the power of the Holy Spirit, not with “dirty tricks.” (2 Corinthians 10:4-5, Ephesians 6:10-12)

In following the US political situation via the Internet I am encouraged by some of what I see going on, but I am saddened by some of the comments I see written by people who are supposedly “on the right side.” Sometimes it gets really ugly, and I realize that such people have already been defeated, and I pray for them. I am not in the physical location to be politically active, but my prayers are indeed part of the overall battle. At the same time, with all of that going on politically, I must not be distracted from the twin realities that Jesus is Lord, and true victory comes when someone is born again by grace through faith. The fact that God has given some people over to a depraved mind (Romans 1:28-33) doesn’t mean that He doesn’t still love them and desire that they repent. I am to be diligent and faithful in praying that His Name be hallowed, His kingdom come, and His will be done, both in the US and in Japan.

Father, sometimes I get caught up in the excitement of the battle. I spend too much time reading about it! Help me seek and apply Your priorities for my time and energy so that I may resist all the tricks of the devil, the small as well as the large. Thank You for all You enabled me to do yesterday. Help me be faithful at every task You have for me today, so that Your will may be done on Your schedule for Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!

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