The Abundant Life Church

The Abundant Life Church. Please pray for us.

"Pray at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel,... that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak." Ephesians 6:18-20

Potential idols

“All sorts of things are potential idols… If this is so, how do we determine when something is becoming or has become an idol?... As soon as our loyalty to anything leads us to disobey God, we are in danger of making it an idol… An idol can be a physical object, a property, a person, an activity, a role, an institution, a hope, an image, an idea, a pleasure, a hero…” 

Richard Keyes

"I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me..." Exodus 20:2-3

Picnic

Picnic at Matsumoto Airport, last Saturday.

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