Without which one cannot receive life joyfully

“Every self exists in relation to values perceived as making life worth living. A value is anything good in the created order- any idea, relation, object or person in which one has an interest, from which one derives significance… These values compete… In time one is prone to choose a center of value by which other values are judged. When a finite value has been elevated to centrality and imagined as a final source of meaning, then one has chosen…a god… One has a god when a finite value is… viewed as that without which one cannot receive life joyfully.” 

Thomas Oden

"You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might." Deuteronomy 6:5

Friends...

Friends from Kagawa visited us and stayed over night last weekend.

We visited the Matsumoto Castle. We had to line up for 40 minutes. 

We also hiked in the mountains nearby and saw this unique French form of damming.

Whatever controls us is our lord.

“Whatever controls us is our lord. The person who seeks power is controlled by power. The person who seeks acceptance is controlled by the people he or she wants to please. We do not control ourselves. We are controlled by the lord of our lives.” Rebecca Pippert

"No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other." Matthew 6:24

Matsumoto Bible Gospel Church

Last Sunday, I spoke at Matsumoto Bible Gospel Church from I Peter 1:18-21 on the blood of Christ. This church was 'planted' by my parents over 40 years ago. Many memories!

"Knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot." 1 Pt 1:18 - 19

A period of profound uncertainty

"Japan will enter a period of profound uncertainty, ultimately leading to an unprecedented political shakeup." Masahiro Matsumura

Read more: Japan's coming political quake | The Japan Times Online

"Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. GOD, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer's; he makes me tread on my high places." Habakkuk 3:17-19

Cultural Festival

Last weekend , there was a Cultural Festival at Joshua's Junior High. Joshua's in there somewhere singing. One class sang a capella Amazing Grace and Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho. They did an excellent job.

Infinitely glorious in itself

“They whose affection to God is founded first on his profitableness to them, their affection begins at the wrong end: they regard God only for the utmost limit of the stream of divine good, where it touches them, and reaches their interest… But… in a gracious gratitude, men are affected with the attribute of God’s goodness and free grace, not only as they are concerned in it, or as it affects their interest, but as… infinitely glorious in itself.” 

Jonathan Edwards

"For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God."  2 Corithians 4:15