The Year of Jubilee

The Year of Jubilee

I just got up from a long, long night sleep after traveling Saturday and Sunday to and from Tokyo. What an incredible time! I got to meet the missionary family who wanted me to do a story about internationalized Japanese accepting Christ, and I met again with the family who showed me around Tokyo the first time I arrived in Japan. I'm writing news article again! Praise God!!

Not only that, but I wound up going with the Millers to an awesome church in Tokyo where some of the Japanese Christians (and other nationalities living in Japan) that I met during the Olympics in Australia go. They have prayed for me, kept in contact with me and encouraged me so much to come to Japan as a missionary. Now I'm here! It was like a dream to see them again.

Watching the nations come through the doors and standing together singing praises to God was one of the most powerful and beautiful experiences I've ever had.

Praise God that heaven will be like this!! I saw Africans with headwraps, Japanese playing the guitar, Filipinos, Australians, red-haired Americans, Indians. I was beside myself.

Together we sang, filling the church to the rafters with these words:

"Behold He comes riding on the clouds
Shining like the sun at the trumpet call
Lift your voice it's
Year of Jubilee
Out of Zion's hill salvation comes!"

Praise God, praise God - He CAME! He is HERE! And He is COMING SOON! Because of the cross all of this is possible. Because of the cross I can live again, I can sleep at night without fear. Because of the cross I am free. Because of the cross I am no longer a slave to myself but have a new heart and a new purpose in life.

Because of the cross I can live in a city thousands of miles from the U.S. and call it "home" because HE is here.

Because of the cross I can claim the verse God gave me on my first days in Tokyo: "The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has annointed me preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release the prisoners from darkness, to PROCLAIM THE YEAR OF THE LORD'S FAVOR..." (Isaiah 61:1-2).

So lift your voice - it's the Year of Jubilee!
And out of Zion's hill salvation comes!!