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June 30, 2005

Are You Truly Happy?

   In our TV programs, we often use a short video segment to introduce our guests. In most of these segments, the person who does the narrator's voice-overs is a lady by the name of Keiko Nakamura. Ms. Nakamura is well-known throughout the communications industry in Japan as the voice behind Nippon Telegraph & Telephone (NTT) Corporation's dial-up time service and the "leave-a-note-at-the-tone" automated message service. She has also worked steadily as a radio and TV narrator and her efforts for us have greatly enhanced the quality of our program. I'm very grateful for her services.

   Last week, Ms. Nakamura came to Harvest Time's studio for some recording work. While she was here, she gave me some information about a fellow she knew and asked, "How about inviting this guy to come on as a Harvest Time guest?" I'd like to use the rest of the space today to tell you about this person.

   Katsuaki Tōgo is a professor at Waseda University and a former instructor on NHK's "English Conversation" TV program. He's probably remembered by a lot of people as "the guy with such beautiful pronunciation" on that program. Ms. Nakamura first heard him speak at an International V.I.P. Club meeting in Machida, Tōkyō and was greatly impressed by his presentation. I was personally quite pleased to hear that Prof. Tōgo had become a Christian not too long ago.

   Ms. Nakamura gave me a synopsis of his presentation and I'd like to share with you all of one part of it that greatly impressed me. The title of his address was: "Are You Truly Happy?"

1. Prof. Tōgo said that he had obtained wealth, social status and fame, but that he wasn't satisfied with life. At the age of 55, he professed faith in Jesus Christ and everything changed. If his life before Christ could've been described as "black-and-white," he said, his world was now in full color. He refers to this as his "second birth." He was never satisfied with things of this world, but when he accepted Christ, the emptiness inside him was filled (I can personally relate to this experience quite well).


2. This "second birth," he said, had nothing to do with something he did in his own power. It came as a result of power "from Above." That is, an annointing of the Holy Spirit made this possible. The key to receiving blessing from God, he said, is a matter of preparing one's heart. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, change is simple. As he experienced the new life that God was giving him, he was able to have peace in his heart. Salvation in Christianity is always through Grace and by faith. As you surrender yourself to Christ -- just as you are -- the Holy Spirit begins to work.


3. Most Japanese people, from the time they are small, are taught one set of values,
   

   Prof. Katsuaki Tōgo

   which they ride on like a rail into life. However, he said, this rail leads to nowhere. We are a people that look only on the outside of things. If we have all our status, reputation or wealth taken away from us, what's left of us? What is left, of course, is the person we really are. What remains after everything is removed is the crux of the problem.


4. Typically, he said, we try to figure out what we ought to do. But who we are -- "being" -- is far more important thatn merely "doing." A results-oriented life, or a performance-oriented life merely makes you tired. Someone like that may even feel like he's living another person's life. Most Japanese present a facade to the outside world and never reveal their true selves. "For once in your life," he challenged, "try taking off the mask!" This world's "things" will never gain you peace of mind. However, he said, if you reach out and take hold of that which truly pertains to life, peace and rest will be yours. Life can only be created by God. A person who can accept and love himself or herself is blessed, indeed.


5. There's nothing wrong with being who you really are. Each of us is uniquely gifted. Prof. Tōgo related that he'd had many students come to him for counseling. When he told them, "There's nothing wrong with that" after they shared about some perceived failure, some would burst into tears and tell him, "That's the first time anyone's ever said that to me!" All of us are looking for acceptance or a place to be ourselves.


6. The most important thing in life, he concluded, is peace of mind. Those who have a confidence that there is life after death, and are grateful for the fact that they are not merely existing but are alive for a specific purpose, are the truly happy people in this world.

   What did you think? In the very near future, I hope to be having Prof. Tōgo on the program as a guest. Pray with us that his testimony would be a blessing to many more people. Have a great week.


Kenichi Nakagawa

Posted by HarvestTV at 09:58 PM | Comments (0)

June 16, 2005

More on Love...

   Last week's post, if you remember, was prompted by a letter I received from a viewer. He was wondering what I meant when I said in a recent broadcast that God's love is "unconditional." That sounded strange , he said, because of all the passages in the Bible that include words like, "if you return to Me,...", "if you repent,...", "or "if you obey Me,..." -- all conditional phrases. Since I also send out the content of this post in our weekly Japanese-language e-mail newsletter, I got an unusual number of responses about my answer to his question. Some of them were very interesting replies and I'd like to share the content of one of them with you this week:

   As you said in your article, the question about whether God's love is conditional or not is, indeed, an extremely important one. It's important not only for "Seekers," but also for what seems to me to be an awful large number of Christians who mistakenly think that if they don't repent or obey that God won't love them.

"But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: while we were still sinners Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)

   Actually, it seems to me that the reason we ought to repent is BECAUSE God loves us unconditionally, isn't it? Beginning with the book of Hosea in the Old Testament and throughout the writings of the prophets, we see the sometimes harsh warnings to repent precisely because God loved Israel with an "unconditional love."
   This may sound unusual, but I was finally able to understand this after hearing the testimonies of Holocaust survivors. Even if you think that God doesn't love one nation more than any other, the fact that God has not forsaken Israel over the course of thousands of years is living proof that His love is, indeed, unconditional.
   You'd never hear, for example, a man say to a woman he cared nothing about something like, "If you return to me, if you repent, if you obey me, then I'll give you..." Likewise, if God didn't truly love us, He'd never attempt to compel us toward repentance at all.
   Since I haven't examined the whole Bible, I don't have proof of this, but it seems to me that when phrases like "if you return to Me,...", "if you repent,...", "if you obey Me,...", etc. are used, they always seem to be followed by a phrase like, "I will be your God and you will be my people." The idea seems to be that of an attempt to restore a relationship, maybe even like in the case of a marriage. There's just really no such thing as a "if you repent, I'll love you" type of conditional love anywhere in the Bible.
   I really began to understand this in terms of the problems related to Israel. Unfortunately, the reality is that when I get into conversations and start talking about how Israel is proof of God's love, most of the Christians I know start frowning at me. If you hear "God has cast away faithless Israel" preached from the pulpit often enough, it seems to me that it'd be difficult to believe that there's such a thing as the unconditional love of God at all.

   It looks to me like this reader really understands the perspective of the Old Testament and has put his finger on an important truth. I'm thankful for that.

   In last week's post, I made a reference to the Greek term for God's love, "agapé." The word in Hebrew that is closest in meaning is "chesed." This term is a reference to God's grace, faithfulness, and unchanging love based upon His covenant. This might sound a little complicated, but the idea behind "God's unconditional love" is actually God's "covenant-based love." The God of the Bible is a covenant-maker and He always and faithfully fulfills the terms of His covenants.

   Finally, last week at our monthly "Getsureikai" meetings in Tōkyō and Ōsaka, I preached a message entitled, "What Is Christianity?" With so much about the near future that we don't know (to say nothing about what it means to know one's own heart), I felt that it was appropriate that we review the basics of what we believe. I'd encourage any of you to get a copy of the tape and listen to it (Japanese-language only).

   That's it for this week. Leave any comments or questions below and have a great weekend. Shalom!


   Kenichi Nakagawa

Posted by HarvestTV at 09:13 PM | Comments (0)

June 09, 2005

What's This 'Unconditional Love' Stuff?

   Recently, one of our viewers sent this question in to me:

I really enjoy watching your programs. Recently, however, in one of your messages, I heard you say something like, "God's love is an unconditional love." I'm wondering if, perhaps, I misheard you. Please tell me where in the Bible God's love is referred to as "unconditional love." It seems to me that it's just the opposite. I find things like, "If you return to Me...," "If you repent...," "If you obey...," etc. I'm still just a "Seeker," so please help me with this.
-- 59-year-old unemployed male

   This is truly an important question, so I'd like to give my answer to it here in this column.

1. If I were to sum up the message of the Bible in a single statement, it might be something like this: "It is God's plan for bestowing eternal life upon human beings." This summary presupposes as fact the reality that all humans are in rebellion against God and are progressing toward their eventual destruction.
      Romans 6:23 says that "the wages of sin is death," but the word that is translated as "death" here is a reference to "spiritual death" or "eternal damnation." The root concept of this is "separation from God."


2. In order to be acceptable to God, people generally think in terms of one of the following two methods:
   
   
   • Right standing based upon one's own righteousness or good works.
   • Right standing based upon God's own righteousness.
   
      It seems pretty obvious to me that the first method above can only result in our being judged as guilty before God. No aspect of our lifestyle or character can be seen as acceptable evidence that we are anything but displeasing to God. In order to possess eternal life, God's own righteousness imputed to us is the only method that will suceed.


3. Jesus Christ came to this earth in order to offer us the very righteousness of God Himself. He lived a sinless life and died on the cross to take the curse of sin upon Himself. It was the curse intended for sinful human flesh. He then rose from the dead on the third day, showing that life after death is a reality. Christ's resurrection was a victorious win over the power of death and Satan.


4. What Jesus Christ accomplished was a bringing to us of the "Good News" (i.e. "Gospel"). Christ prepared a way for us to receive "God's own righeousness" so that sinful human flesh could stand as acceptable before a holy God.
      Ephesians 2:8 says this:

   "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith -- and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God."

      This reference to "grace" here means that God unilaterally gave His love to those who were utterly unqualified to receive it. This kind of love is called "unconditional love." In the Greek language, it is "agape."


5. So, what does it mean to be "saved through faith"? Faith is not a condition for receiving salvation. Faith is the means of receiving the unconditional love (that is, the message of the Gospel) that God offers to us.
      In the Bible, there are some covenants with conditions in them. The Mosaic Covenant (Ex. 19ff) is an example of that. In a conditional covenant, disobedience resulted in the judgment of God upon the people. The purpose of this was always to train and discipline God's Covenant People. However, we see in chapter 12 of Genesis that the Abrahamic Covenant was unconditional, as was the New Covenant which was put into effect by Jesus Christ. In short, our disobedience to such a covenant does not result in our destruction.


6. In John 3:16, we find this:

   "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

   Here we have God's responsibility and man's responsibility laid out before us.
   
   
   • God offered His Son as a sacrifice for sin and the path toward eternal life opened up before us.
   • Through putting one's trust in Jesus the Son, a person receives eternal life.


7. Finally, I'd like you to remember that our salvation is by grace from start to finish. By grace, we received the forgiveness of sins (justification), by grace, we are being changed into the likeness of Christ (sanctification), and by grace, we will stand perfected before God in the end (glorification).

   I would urge any who would like to study more about this to order my tape series on Paul's letter to the Romans (Japanese-language only). And I pray that if you have not already done so, by all means receive the salvation that God is even now offering to you. That's what faith is all about. Shalom in Y'shua's precious name!


   Kenichi Nakagawa

Posted by HarvestTV at 06:20 PM | Comments (0)

June 03, 2005

The Harvest Is Plentiful, But...

   Because of the heavy nature of the things which happened from May 21-23, those three days seem to me like the passing of several weeks.

   On the afternoon of the 21st, I gave an address at the "Developing the Next Generation of CEOs" seminar, sponsored by Tama University and held in Shinagawa. The theme I had been given was "World Religions." Of the 40 or so participants, I was the only Christian there.

   There's not enough space here to give you a detailed account of everything that happened, but there's one thing I'd like to share with you. Part of the way through, there was a question-and-answer session and one fellow asked the following: "When I go to a Shintō shrine at New Years, even if I know nothing about the god enshrined there, is it ridiculous of me to throw in a coin and pray anyway?"

   This is how I replied: "The fact that you want to do that is evidence that you have within you a natural inclination for seeking God. Therefore, the need is for you to apply that instinct in the right direction -- that is, you need to seek your Creator. There's no need to go to a shrine or temple. We can all pray to the Creator God right now in this place. And, if you do that, you need to pray in the name of Jesus Christ. It's vitally important."

   In that instant, the atmosphere in that place changed. It seemed as if the ceiling of the lecture hall suddenly opened and the Presence of God Himself descended from Heaven. I've been serving the Lord for a long time now, so I can sense very quickly whether He is present in a place or not. Without a doubt, I felt God's presence in that moment. I saw this lecture event completely take on the atmosphere of an evangelistic meeting.

   Afterwards, I ate with three of the people responsible for hosting the event. In the conversation that followed, two of them agreed that the moment I described above was the most stirring point of the entire program.

   That an event designed to share intellectual knowledge could be so completely transformed into a place of spiritual significance is one of the most amazing things I've ever experienced.

   From the evening of the 21st until the next evening, I ministered at the North Ōsaka Korean Fellowship in Japan church. This is a congregation that I had worked with 20 years ago. I found one of the handbills we'd used at those meetings so long ago and a wave of nostalgia came over me. At the same time, I felt acutely the speed at which 20 years had flown by.

   On Monday the 23rd, I visited with four prisoners at the Nagoya Criminal Detention Center. Up until recently, I've never felt any sense of calling to any kind of prison ministry. In fact, I've considered it to be totally outside the province of my calling. However, I can now no longer say that. A sister in Christ from Gifu Prefecture that I started corresponding with some time back, told me that she had begun to develop a burden for people in prison several years ago. It became, in fact, more than just a casual interest for her. She told me that she had begun to pack a lunch and started traveling around from one detention center or prison to another. It got to where she began to think of the time she needed for eating and sleeping as being a shameful waste of time. She said that she felt that God had given her a special sense of compassion for people in prison. I was greatly impressed as I observed her sacrificial behavior. Through her efforts, 100 copies of the devotional guidebook we publish, Clay, were being circulated among inmates in various institutions every month. It was, in fact, because of a request from her that I decided to make the visit to Nagoya.

   All the prisoners I met with were awaiting the conclusions of their trials, but two of them were facing life inprisonment and another two the death penalty. Due to the need for protecting their privacy, I can't share everything about them here, but during the time I talked with them, they gave me their complete attention -- as if their very lives depended upon what they were hearing. The whole meeting lasted less than 20 minutes. Our conversation took place through a glass barrier and an officer sat beside us and recorded the content of our conversation. Even under those circumstances, I could tell that they were clearly fighting for their lives. I have never seen an audience that listened so intently to a conversation about the Bible.

   As I rode back from Nagoya to Mishima on the Bullet Train, I realized just how weary I was. There are actually quite a few individual Christians involved in this kind of ministry to prison inmates. However, what would it be like if the Church as a whole became involved? Ministry to prisoners and their families, ministry to the vicitims of their crimes and their families -- I wonder if we haven't completely forgotten about the needs of these kinds of people?

A wheat field at harvest time in the Shephelah of Israel. (Photo courtesy of BiblePlaces.com)

In the U.S., former-Watergate Scandal principle Chuck Colson has wonderfully developed this type of ministry as a result of his own time in prison and conversion to Christ. His organization is known as Prison Fellowship International and it could serve as an excellent model for this kind of activity here, I think.

   As I thought about this reality, it seemed as if I could hear the sad voice of the Lord Jesus in my ear:

"The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few."
(Matt. 9:37)

   The events of one day really caused me to re-think my whole philosophy of ministry. Is the Church of Christ truly serving as an instrument that communicates His love? I have the feeling that prison evangelism is a hidden mountain of treasure in terms of souls to be won for the Lord. So, what should we do? I think we have some pretty heavy-duty "homework" to do, don't you?

   In closing, let me mention a couple of events that you might want to be apprised of. Seating reservations for our "Evolution or Creation?" seminar with Dr. Kazuko Andoō are almost full. Anyone interested in attending should sign-up as soon as possible. The Tōkyō seminar will be on July 18th and the Ōsaka meeting will be on the 19th. Also, we are scheduling our 36th Harvest Time Holy Land Tour for departure at yearend. Our 37th tour will take place in March of 2006. If you have an interest in participating in either of these tours, please contact us to request a pamphlet. Both will be Japanese-language-only tours.

   Leave us your comments or questions below. Have a wonderful weekend in Y'shua's precious name!



   Kenichi Nakagawa

Posted by HarvestTV at 12:08 PM | Comments (0)