Preaches the Gospel
10. Living is Christ and dying is gain
11. Strive First For the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness
12. Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much
10.Living is Christ and dying is gain
More than a dozen years ago a couple of my acquaintance in their sixties were killed by a car accident, who exceeded the center line while making a motor trip and clashed head-on with a dump truck. People say that they may have made a mistake in their driving because of a moment drowsiness. It is not too much to say that car drivers drive side by side with death. The Bible tries to awaken us the fact that we live everyday next door to death.
Our Lord Jesus told a story as follows,
" Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions." Then he told them a parable: The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself,'What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?' Then he said, 'I will do this: I will put down my barns and build large ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.' But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?' So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God." Luk 12:15-21
Those who are not rich toward God are people who live ignoring God and His ambassador Jesus and who do not seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and who are engrossed in pursuing riches on the earth.
People regard his life to be kept by themselves. And they think it loss not to enjoy themselves while living, for dying, they suppose, is losing everything. This thought, however, is completely wrong. Your life is kept in the hand of God. Everybody has his own life after death. One who repented his sins and believed in Jesus has eternal life in the New Heaven and New Earth recreated after the second advent of Jesus. On the other hand, those who lived all his life ignoring Jesus the only savior have to live the life of hell in eternal shame and agony because of his own sins, where they want to die, but they can not die, for the death flee from their hands forever.
God is patient with you, not wanting you to perish, but to come to repentance (2Pet 3:9). It is for God to give you chance to repent that you are permitted to live here on earth (2Pet 3:3-13). If you neglect the patience of God for you, you live your life in order to increase your sin and its judgment on your head, as if swine are fatten until the time to be slaughtered.
Through flood the world of that time was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word the present heavens and earth have been reserved for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and the destruction of the godless (2Pet3:6,7).
To us Christians living is Christ and dying is to acquire eternal life ( Phil 1:21).
11. Strive First For the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness
If a taxi driver did not recognize the destination indicated and could not have taken the passenger to the goal, he has no right to demand payment from his fare.
One night a taxi of Tokyo carried a fare to Yokohama next to Tokyo. On the way back to Tokyo, he was stopped by a drunken man. It is lawful for a taxi of Tokyo to take a passenger of Yokohame back to Tokyo. But the passenger told him, " To Karuizawa (a famous summer resort about 40 mile northwest away from Tokyo)". The driver was very glad with the fare of the long distance and he picked him up knowing it unlawful to take him not to Tokyo. He flew to Karuizawa with the drunken fare who fell asleep after having told the goal. Having arrived at the goal and woken up from the sleep, the passenger was astounded to have understood that the place was not his goal. His Karuizawa was not the famous summer resort in Nagano Prefecture, but on the suburb of Yokohama. His home town has the same name with the famous resort only different in place. It is needless to say that he had to pay the operating income for himself.
When you were called out in the presence of God for your accounts after having finished walking on the way of your life, will you have arrived at the aiming point where God predestined? The aiming point is neither your job achievements nor reputation of your humanity, but the objective point which God want you to clear, that is, the way of life which God want you to walk and live.
There appear two sisters named Martha and Mary in the New Testament, who are disciples of Jesus. One day Jesus was invited to their home and preached sermons to the audience assembled. The younger sister Mary was listening to the talk of Jesus with her whole heart. On the other hand the elder sister Martha was busy about kitchen work thinking it the best to entertain Jesus. And she was angry with her sister when she saw her sister sitting in front of Jesus and listening to Jesus wholeheartedly, she said to Jesus, " Lord, tell her to help me". But the Lord answered her, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part,which will not be taken away from her." ( Luk 10:38-42)
Don't you have walked on your life as you liked, without listening to the Master of your life to know how He want you to live a life? In order not to be called to account for having not confirmed the accurate goal of the passenger like the driver above, listen to the word of God and search the teaching how to live right now.
"But strive first for the kingdom of God ( to invite God into your heart and allow Him to control whole of your life) and his righteousness (forgiveness of sin and holy and righteous life), and all these things will be given to you as well". (Mat 6:33)
12. Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much
It is a hard time to find a job now in Japan. But it is comparatively more easy to get a job in taxi business in Tokyo, because many new comers quit soon for the difficulties of giving satisfactory results. The business manager of our company talked one of new comers pressed him for answer saying, "I entered this company because your advertisement said that we were able to get 3000-5000 dollars a month. But I do not get even the half. When will you pay me so much?".
The advertisement is not a puff, but certainly true. The top class drivers bear fruits so much every month. But a beginner can not make so much income so soon in this business world. The top class workers make every efforts for bearing much fruits in their long experience.
There are some experts in every business world. It is a thing to be regretted that some technical skills and abilities disappear with the death of their owners. But the Bible tells that "after believers in Jesus died, their deeds follow them" ( Rev 14:13). That is, when a Christian dies, his works as a believer and a laborer in this world follow him: not only his Christian character, but also his skills and abilities as a laborer. And their character and skills and abilities are used in their new life on the New heaven and New earth.
The New heaven and New earth being created again after the second Advent of Christ are the place for believers to rest (Heb 3:18-4:11), but not the one to spend their time doing nothing. If I say it is the place to work, it may disappoint you. If it disappoints you, it is because you think the work on that place is the same to the one on this earth. Almost all the works on the earth are hard, because God said after the fall of Adam the first man of human race that everyone of us mankind should eat bread by the sweat of our face (Gen 3:19). There are not many laborers in the world who are satisfied with both the work itself and its pay. Especially in these depression days, there are many laborers, I think, who are in the same state of mind with the one of Takuboku Ishikawa a famous poet of Japan singing of his daily life, "I work and work hard, but I do not live comfortably. I only gaze at both of my hands (translated by Hiroshi Shin-ya)".
Watching a TV, I heard a scholar said that Christianity regarded labors as the punishment of God for sin. But both the Church and the Bible do not teach like that. As you read in Genesis in the Old Testament, it is before the fall and purge of Adam from Eden that God gave him the labor to till the Garden (Gen 2:15-17). Labors are given to mankind as a blessing and grace before the sin enters into mankind.
In the New Heaven and New Earth, works are given again as blessing and grace. Whoever is faithful in the work of this world is counted as faithful in the work of the next world, and is committed a work which is suitable for his character and ability and pays enough and makes him happy and hopeful.
Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much, whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much (Lk 16:10).
16 April 2006 Published
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