19 March 2017
Dear Phyllis,
The
hills are alive with the sound of music. An auto harp that is. An auto
harp has been a major item in my life for well over 50 years. Three
months ago a string on my harp broke and that reduced everything to
silence. Fortunate my good friend Sam Benedict in Japan was able to get
me a new set and my harp burst into life again last week.
There
is another sound that may not be as melodic to others as it is to me
but my shop is back humming again. Three years ago I gave away all my
tools, and ever since then I have been like a cowboy when his horse
died. Dave Moore has given back a large potion of the tools I gave to
Abba House three years ago and I have got my shop back to about 2/3rd
operational. Oh that is a joy to see a board pass through the thickness
planner! It was because of Pammy complaining about dust that I closed
my shop, but Pammy has decided she can tough out a little dust if we can
get some work done.
Pammy
tries to have devotions for the five guest we have living with us, and
the other night we had an unusually good meeting. I am going through
John with them and that night we came to the text - “In Him was life and that life was the light of men.” I told the folks, “Life is our one great need. Most churches are dead but occasionally you will find one with life in it.”
Takako
Yamamoto was the pillar of the karuizawa Fukuin Kyokai (Gospel Church).
Then after many years she moved to Tokyo and started going to Gothold
Beck's Kichijoji Shukai. She went slam bonkers for that fellowship. I
knew Gothold Beck very personally but was bewildered by Takako's radical
change. I asked her, “What is the difference?” She fired back, “Tsukare
wa nai” (No fatigue). I knew instantly what she was talking about.
There
are some churches where you get up Sunday morning and the sun is
shinning. You really feel great and are looking forward to going to
church. But at 12:30 you go home with a head ache and feel wore out. There are other churches where you wake up in the morning with a head ache.
You really would rather stay home than go to church. But then at 12:30
the head ache is gone, you feel so refreshed and alive you don't want to
go home. What is the difference? Life! One church has life the other
one is dead. I real admire the Japanese believers in most Japanese
churches. You really have to be tough to hang in there. In 90% of the
churches in Japan it is just plain shukyo (religion). There is no life
in religion. Life is in Christ. In Him was (and still is) LIFE.
When
I first went to Korea in 1959 I learned a new song – Where Jesus is
'tis heaven there. It was a strange phenomenon. I had only been saved
two years. I didn't know a word of their language. Poverty was ghastly
and sanitation was only an imagination. Naturally speaking, sitting in
those chicken coop, reeking, churches that were filled with flies, was
the last place you would like to spend a day. But oddly enough I far
preferred being with those simple Korean believers than with GIs in the
base chapel. What was the difference? Jesus was there.
I
have said for years the spiritual thermometer of a church is the church
parking lot. If you drive past a church at 12:20 and it is empty you
know that is a pretty chilly inside. If you drive past another church at
1:00 o'clock and there are still five or ten cars sitting in the
parking lot you know there is some spiritual life in there. The
spiritual climate in some churches is so cold that on Sunday morning you
can see your breath in July. And there are some places where the
janitor almost has to call the police to get people to leave so he can
lock it up. There is so much life in there nobody wants to go home.
When
I was living with the Hirotas in 1991 I challenged them to have a home
meeting. Miyuki called a few friends and we got together at 7:30 or 8:00
o'clock on Saturday night. Midnight came and we were just getting
started. Miyuki fixed some more coffee and sandwiches. One o'clock came
and we were still going strong. Two AM came and someone said, “Look we
have got to close this down and go home.” But nobody wanted to quit. It
was 2:30 or 3:00 AM before we finally got in bed. The next week when we
got together someone said, “We can't have a rerun of what happened last
week. We have got to close this down by midnight.” Yappari, it was
another 2:30 – 3:00 AMer. The presence of the Lord was so tremendous.
The life in those meetings was so strong you could put it in bottles.
This
is our one great need – LIFE. Ten years ago my friend Scott and I were
having meetings for college kids on Saturday night at his house. Oh my
goodness we had some good times. One night I had been talking for an
hour and a half. We had to quit at 9:00 so the kids could get back to
their dorms. One night a girl looked at her watch and her head literally
popped backwards. She thought it was 8:00 o'clock. Scott later told me
he wondered why I was quitting so soon. He thought I had only been
talking 15 minutes and he couldn't believe it was 9:00. But then Scott
said even after he took the kids back home the meeting was still going
on full bore as they were talking about the Lord in the truck. That is
what happens when you have life.
And
it is at those times when you get the greatest light. That life is the
light of men. There is no light in dead churches. Why is it that so many
Christians can go to church for 15 years and they are blind ignorant of
the Word of God? Why is it that so many Christians can be saved 20
years and see so little growth? Most people can't remember the Sunday
morning message by the time they get home for lunch. There is so
pitifully little light because there is so little life But those times
when Jesus is there speaking to us, those messages stick like they are
on the hard drive in our mind.
But this message goes well beyond church life. The same principle applies to our personal walk with Jesus. Jesus said, “I am come that you might have life” (Jn. 10:10). This isn't church life – this is personal. How do we get that life? By spending a lot of quality time with the life Giver.
It is impossible to have much of a walk with the Lord by reading one
page of Our Daily Bread and a brief prayer before breakfast, and then go
to work. Our Daily Bread is no substitute for spending a lot of time at
the well drinking deeply of the water of Life.
The
Lord certainly was with us that night. And He waits every morning to
fill any sincere seeker who has patience to wait long enough for Him to
fill us with His life.
Lord tighten Your grip on us,
bill