Lynn Green

Tag: Reconciliation

  • What Happened In Japan

    What Happened In Japan

    **This is a personal website and reflects my thoughts and convictions. It does not represent any official position held by Youth With A Mission.**

    How do we know when there has been a breakthrough in “the heavenlies”? 

    We know various scriptures refer to fighting “principalities and powers” and that Old Testament stories sometimes refer to, or illustrate, that idea.  But for most of us, the spiritual realm, or the heavenlies, is hard to understand.

    In spite of my limited understanding of this dimension, I can say with some confidence that there was a spiritual breakthrough in Japan during the first week of May, 2015.  Though the population of Christians in Japan has been stuck for many decades at less than one percent, that is about to change.  Watch this nation because many more people are going to become followers of Jesus.

    Just a few decades ago the Church in China was also stuck at less than one percent with persecution and martyrdom eroding the numbers fast.  In spite of those very hard times, the Chinese church has grown more than 100-fold. So it will be in Japan.

    My confidence is based upon what we experienced in Kobe, Japan over a period of four days.  The four thousand people who gathered spent the great majority of the time in worship, and the Chinese setting the tone with their love for Jesus.  They were there in good numbers and for the first time so were the Koreans.  (These nations have invaded, dominated and plundered one another for centuries with Japan usually being the most powerful.)  The worship flowed into times of repentance, forgiveness and commitments to love one another.

    Their mutual commitments were formalized in a statement in all three languages by which they covenanted to love on another no matter what politics, media or any other influence might do.  There were hundreds of pastors from all three nations and also from Taiwan and other East Asian nations all hugging one another in heart-felt commitment.

    There were other breakthroughs too.  These cultures have not had loving family models.  Most men are aloof, harsh husbands and fathers.  People in leadership positions are expected to be even more stoic and inscrutable.  So when a senior Japanese pastor talked humbly and transparently about his failings as a father, it softened everyone.  When his two sons joined him on stage to express their forgiveness and their admiration, we could sense how their humility was changing a culture for the better.

    This year marks the 70th year since WWII and 400 years since thousands of Japanese Christians were martyred.  Israel was exiled in Babylon for 70 years, and then restoration began.  So it will be with Japan.  With leading believers from China, Japan and Korea joining together in unity, we can expect extraordinary growth in the Kingdom of God in all of the Far East.

    On a more personal note, I was surprised and deeply moved by a conversation with a leading Chinese “father”.  He is the senior leader of the largest network of churches in China and he greeted me with a big hug and tears.  Through an interpreter, he explained that our presence at the Hong Kong Gathering in August of 2013 had imparted a new level of missionary vision for the Body of Christ in China.  We had already been told that the government had given him a passport for the first time in his life, so the trip to Japan was his first time to be allowed out of the country.  (He has been in prison for much of his adult life.)  He went on to say that the government in Beijing has had a change of mind about the role of the Church and about foreign missionaries— at least partly based upon viewing the video of our act of repentance for the Opium Wars at that same event in 2013.  I was amazed!!

    This entire journey with the Church in East Asia has been another illustration of a powerful truth:   God often presents us with a task that seems sacrificial, but when we say yes, He makes it a joy and also makes it more fruitful than we could ever imagine.  God is good—all the time!

    Lynn Green

  • Jewish & Arab Believers: A Marriage Made In Heaven

    Jewish & Arab Believers: A Marriage Made In Heaven

     

    **This is a personal website and reflects my thoughts and convictions. It does not represent any official position held by Youth With A Mission.**

     

    Just a few days ago I was rushing around the corridors of the back stage area of the International Conference Centre in Jerusalem looking for a man named Asher, telling myself not to worry and muttering urgent prayers.  Out front in the main theatre and the overflow hall were about 3,500 people from scores of nations and this was the session where we were going to hear from the Jewish and Arab leaders.  Asher was the spokesman for the Jewish leaders and was nowhere to be found.

    My expectations for this session were very high because of what had happened a month earlier in a retreat centre a few miles away.  But, without Asher we couldn’t publicly declare what a massive breakthrough had occurred those few weeks previously.  “Had his courage deserted him?” I wondered. I thought he had been looking pretty nervous when I saw him in the preparation room a half hour earlier.

    I began asking the sound engineers, video technicians, singers, dancers and stage hands if they had seen Asher and gradually concluded that he had suddenly begun to feel very unwell and left.  “So,” I told myself, “perhaps the look I had seen on his face earlier was not nerves, but nausea.”

    I was one of the leadership team for this event and we had met for two preparation meetings in Israel, one in May and another in September.  At the first one we saw Arab and Jewish congregation leaders draw near to one another, but during the second one I saw and heard things that I never really thought I would see.

    It began with one of the older and highly respected leaders of the Arab Christians.  He stood in front of the 70 leaders gathered from many nations and began to speak in great humility about how God had been dealing with him.  He said it reminded him of when he was in pre-marital counselling, except that he felt like this time he was preparing to be the bride.  Then he turned to the Jewish (Messianic) Congregation leaders and said, “God has been dealing with me about submission and respect and I have to ask you a question.  I have been talking with the other Arab leaders and we want to ask, ‘Will you marry us?’”

    All of us began to weep and the Chinese leaders travailed in prayer.  (They had been carrying this issue of unity between Arabs and Jews as a prayer burden for years, or even decades.)  After many tears, Asher stepped forward to speak for the Messianic leaders and asked for forgiveness for not protecting the Arab leaders and for assuming racial superiority.  As this unfolded over an hour or so, I had feelings I struggle to describe because I have been in and around meetings of reconciliation between Arabs and Jews for decades, but I had never seen anything that came close to being this deep.  This could happen only by revelation from the Holy Spirit.  I was convinced that the very deepest roots of distrust between these believers in Israel were being pulled up and destroyed by humility and forgiveness.

    But why is this so important? Jesus said that all men would know that we are his followers when we have deep, unshakable love for one another.  When there are divisions within the Body of Christ, we lose credibility in the eyes of the general population, but more importantly, we lose our spiritual authority to be ambassadors of the Kingdom of God.  Real and deep unity between Arab and Jewish believers is therefore very important to God’s purposes.

    That’s why I was so concerned that Asher had gone missing.  Eventually, I went back into the main theatre and found that worship was continuing and there was a very strong sense of God’s presence.  The Arab and Jewish leaders did share some of their experiences of living as believers in the land of Israel where faith in Jesus is still despised by most of the population.  It was all very good and it completely filled the time available for that session, but I still wondered, “Would we see a public declaration of what had happened those few weeks earlier?”

    The next morning Asher was back and in good form and so were all the other Messianic leaders and the Arab congregation leaders.  I don’t mean to imply that all the leaders in the land were there, because they weren’t.  But those who were there were senior spokesmen for each of these two groups and were, therefore, representative of the believers.

    The time had come. Arab and Jewish leaders were joined by many Chinese on the platform, along with leaders of several other nations.  Then, in the presence of thousands, both in the Conference Centre and via webcast, the “two became one” as Paul wrote to the Christians in Ephesians.  Jews and Arabs made a covenant based upon Ruth’s declaration to Naomi, “Your people will be my people and your God will be my God.”

    So, you might ask, “What will be the outcome of this?”   All I can say is that the believers in Israel will have more authority, more of God’s Presence with them, more impact on the nation around them.  For the specifics of that, we will have to wait and see, but Marti and I returned home knowing that we had witnessed an occasion of great significance and it had been a privilege!

    Click here for the full report: JERUSALEM REPORT FULL