Luke 15:11b - 32

Staring from the reverse side

　

by: Pastor Hironori Furuya

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"Staring from the reverse side"

◆ In the north section teachers' meeting held last week, we invited Mr. Yoshio Kanayama,
who was the chairman of the board of Murasaki Sports Corporation and JTJ seminary.
He stated about himself that his mother land is Japan and his father land is Korea, that is, he has double nationalities of Japan and Korea.
He is 74 years old now. He works his muscle out with a roller board every day and provide free meals for homeless people in Ueno Park twice a week.

◆ When he graduated from Meiji Gakuin University, Japanese job market had eliminated the people from Korea and China.
Only area where those people were accepted was so-called knocking shops such as bars, cabarets or clubs.
His young heart having ruined to depend heavily on alcohol, he attempted unsuccessful suicides repeatedly, but experienced a conversion during such hard times.
He learned to awe the Lord but not the human beings, then he went to a seminary but was devastated because he failed to be settled with them well.
Instead, he made up his mind to aim at becoming an entrepreneur to help pastors.

◆ His loved the "Lord with James" as his practice of his faith. He understands that Jacob sought the Lord so eagerly.
The roots of the Bible seemed him to seek the Lord. (Palsm Chapter 116.)
Any faithes with no practice are no good. (James 1:22-25)
The practice means to obey the commandments by the Lord (Mark 12:28-31).
Make his all-out effort and seek the Lord, observe the order by the Lord by any means.
Introducing his path as above, he told us that the benediction comes from the bottom, not from the above.
Seeking and obeying the Lord, the discriminated person like him was benedicted as above, but not everything goes well though.
He meant that two out of six of his children suffer from serious sickness.
He believes that he had been given a prick in this point, and so he testifies.

◆ Mr. Kanayama, bearing in his mind the viewpoint from the reverse side i.e., focusing that the Lord's benediction comes from the bottom, and put importance on gazing at the pricks and benediction given by the Lord over and over again.
Today's holy words describes a man who had enjoyed prodigality exhausively, furthermore ate locust beans, and subsequently determined to be a servant of his father after despairing himself.
Luke's gospel leads our viewpoint to a person who is far away from the Lord instead of the world of rabbi and Pharisee without any sinners , through stories as one sheep out of one hundred, one silver coin out of ten, precious younger brother are found from the lost.

◆ The son who lavished in prifligacy without limit, did whatever he wanted with forgetting his father.
His father dare to agree with his son's decision to live in the life his father did not expected and finally give the property to hte son.
He did not care how his property was consumed. This is how the father behaved, that is, he stared his son from the reserse point of view.
Once he throwed away, he contribute unmeasured way. This is how the Father loves his son, the Christ.
Younger brother made successive failures and consumed all the property, and applies to his father who is parmanent supervisor to come back to his father and live with him as his servant all hands down.
With addmitting how the elder brother thinks of him, however, the father takes a curing measurement with heartful yeux on his prodigal son.

◆ No matter how unmatured son he is, the Father keeps pouring his mercy for his recovery for nothing, he tries to rescue any deserted persons out.

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