Receiving New Light in the Commandments
Mr. Yohane Kina is the son of Pastor Kina back in Okinawa, he himself was a co-worker at Okinawa 611. Hearing the Commandments under the new light in person has made a str ong impact on him. Below is his sharing.
The “heartified” series of commandments have challenged my views concerning law and legalism in my life. I come from the Japanese background, very legalistic and lawful. Our culture is saturated with rules and regulations at every inch of our lives. My life has 3 layers of “laws”, society/cultural laws, Christian/church laws, and my own family laws as a pastor’s home. Passionately I hate rules and regulations which give back nothing but boredom, suppression, and depravity. Reading the Bible myself, I found that God was extremely reasonable, not arbitrary with the way He handles justice, reward, punishment, and education with the His laws. I came into this Commandment series with a desperate expectation that perhaps Pastor Joshua will rebuke the legalistic people around me.
T he First and Second Commandment teachings sounded familiar to me, listening online, nothing new on a practical level. Yes, I do teaching camps to educate teenagers to stop worshiping idols and to prioritize God first in life, by getting rid of all their video games, mangas, por n, movies, and entertainment. And I fail every year. I even failed to rid myself 100% of every unhealthy entertainment in my own life. So, hearing the preaching didn’t really help much. The fasting that we did while listening to the series did. A lot. The fasting forced me to acknowledge that I really cannot live without online entertainments, and made me re-start my Bible reading habits which largely died down during last year. So, in the end, I did enter into “heartifying” the commandments by purifying my life from “Idols” in the form of online entertainments.
The third and fourth commandments teaching and application left a bigger impact on me. Now I watch my mouth more carefully lest I say “Oh my God”. Instead what I say as an exclamation are “oh God help us” or “God forgive us” with meaning, instead of empty and meaningless remarks which take His Name in vain.
K eeping the Sabbath is what I’m currently adjusting. Al l throughout my life, Sunday was a busy day, a workday, a serving day, as I am a pastor’s son. If I had any “free time” during the Sabbath after or between work, I would treat that time as “playtime”. So, “work and leisure” was my Sabbath, not “resting, recharging, celebrating.”
My concept of “rest” has changed significantly through the preaching of the 4th commandment. A “quality time with God” is rest, not “playtime.” I have always compared God to entertainments and leisure, treating Him as “work and business.” God is NOT “work” and He is not to be contrasted with “play.” He is the true source of “rest,” where all my creativity, love, energy, discipline, and purity comes from. “Working” did not make me more disciplined or pure, nor did “playing” make me more loving or creative. No matter how much I “work hard” my ministry did not grow, and no matter how much I “played with people” it did not leave a lifelong impact on my followers. What I should do is to refill myself with God by having a focused, quality time to receive and bask in His Word for one whole day a week. I need to change my cultural understanding of “working for God” into “resting in God, working with God.”
I ndeed, there is so much for us to take in from the Commandments. May we continue to spend as much time as needed to digest and take in what has been preached in order to “heartify” the Truth and walk our talk.