OUR GOD IS AWESOME!

OUR GOD IS AWESOME! OUR GOD IS REAL! OUR GOD PROVIDES! WE ARE COMING TO AMERICA! GOD IS AMAZING!
~Mike

Jesus Loves Me, This I Know

When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. “Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed, suffering terribly.”
Jesus said to him, “Shall I come and heal him?”
The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”
Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! Let it be done just as you believed it would.” And his servant was healed at that moment.

The gospels are full of these kinds of stories – people asking Jesus for help, and Jesus responding to their faith. In fact, sometimes we almost look at these stories like magic formulae for tapping into cosmic power. Because Jesus healed people based on their faith, if we just have enough faith, He will heal us too! Maybe. But have you ever thought about the people that Jesus healed who didn’t have faith? In this story, Jesus says that he hasn’t seen faith as great as the centurions in all Israel – but we know Jesus was healing all over Israel. We also have the story of the servant in Gethsemane – when Peter cut off his ear, Jesus healed him, even though the servant didn’t ask for help and likely was trying to arrest Jesus or kill Peter. But Jesus healed him anyway. You see, we sometimes forget that Jesus loves us – all of us – unconditionally. Jesus wants to heal people, because he loves them and cares for them. This is one reason we can be sure that any suffering we experience is for our own good. Jesus is in the habit of relieving suffering, and if he delays it is not because he hates us, but rather that he loves us enough to let us grow! So don’t worry about how much faith you have; instead look to Jesus, and rest in the fact that you are loved by Him.

More Than Meets The Eye!

The other day I was watching the Transformers Movie, and I remembered back to the days when I had watched the Transformers cartoon show. And I kept remembering the famous line, “More than meets the eye.” This was said because the robots were first seen as different types of cars, trucks, planes, or vehicles in general, and then they would change or “transform” into these autonomous, intelligent, humanoid-like, robots.

1 John 4:4 “But you belong to God, my dear children. You have already won a victory over those people, because the Spirit who lives in you is greater than the spirit who lives in the world.”

Have you ever considered the wonder and the awesomeness of this truth? God is with us! We belong to God! He is not only with us, He is also IN us! There are a lot of times that I forget this truth!

There are many times when I feel like a failure as a husband, father, teacher, and pastor. There are even times I feel like I can’t overcome the sins I wrestle with. And every time I fail, I hear the devil laughing at me, saying that I am not worth it, and that I will never be able to do anything for the Lord. BUT……

This is not what GOD says –I believe that God’s Word is God Breathed - IT IS God’s promise! And TRUTH! Take heart today fellow believers! We are not our sins, we are not our failures, we are not what other people say we are, WE ARE CHILDREN OF GOD, WHO BELONG TO GOD, AND GOD ABIDES IN US!

So remember, THERE IS “MORE TO US THAN MEETS THE EYE!”


-Mike

Happy Fathers Day!

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. ~ 2 Cor. 1:3-4

Happy Fathers Day! We spend this day celebrating fathers, and giving thanks for the gift of fatherhood. Unfortunately, not all of us had a father. Some of us had bad fathers. But we all have a Father who loves us completely and unconditionally; a Father in heaven who will never leave us nor forsake us. 

Notice how Paul describes our Father: he is the Father of compassion; the Father of all comfort. All comfort! God is not a harsh father, but a God who draws close, who draws us close, and comforts us in all our troubles. No matter what kind of earthly father you have - or didn't have - we can all rejoice that we are loved dearly by our heavenly Father, who gave his own son that we might be close to him.

The Red Sea Saw Them Coming and Ran!

So these past several weeks I have been struggling with a desire of returning to the states in July to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Liberty Church. There are many reason for this - from wanting to build relationships with the members of the various campuses in our Liberty Church Family, to getting to further prepare for all the in and outs of planting a church in Japan. I want to see and spend quality time with my parents, and present about our work in Japan to the members of the Church Foundational Network. I want my children to play with their cousins, and learn to read English. I want to buy some much-needed clothes, and see some of my oldest friends that I have not seen in years. I want to eat American food, and take my kids to Chucky Cheese. I want to do all of this and so much more, and yet, we have been going through a time of financial testing, where we have seen God perform amazing miracles of provision, but still no definitive provision for the month of July. Everyday this past month has been like this, and God has always graciously provided our food and bills, and yet I find I have this uncontrollable urge and desire to be in the States for the month of July. I feel that so much could be accomplished, and yet I am struggling with knowing whether or not it is God’s Will or my own desires. So all of this has been building up in me and then the Lord brought me to Psalm 114 where it says this:

“1 When the Israelites escaped from Egypt— when the family of Jacob left that foreign land—
2 the land of Judah became God’s sanctuary,
and Israel became his kingdom.
3 The Red Sea[a] saw them coming and hurried out of their way! The water of the Jordan River turned away.
4 The mountains skipped like rams, the hills like lambs!
5 What’s wrong, Red Sea, that made you hurry out of their way?
What happened, Jordan River, that you turned away?
6 Why, mountains, did you skip like rams?
Why, hills, like lambs?
7 Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord,
at the presence of the God of Jacob.
8 He turned the rock into a pool of water;
yes, a spring of water flowed from solid rock.”

I had been worried that if I didn’t go back to the States this July that that was it! My thinking is that I wouldn’t get the training or support needed, people would lose interest in our work here, I would never see my parents again, my kids would never learn to read English, and I would cease to have clothes to wear.

But after the Lord brought me to this passage I saw several things – First the world trembled when God named His people, and in Psalm 114:3 It literally says that the Red Sea saw them (the people of God, the people whom God had chosen, the people who were being led by God) coming and hurried (aka RAN) to get out of their way! Why? Because they were worthy? Because they were special? No! Because God had chosen them to declare His glory to the world, as He has all who bear His name. So who are us? Us is all who have bowed our knees to Christ and have declared Him King. Now we are seen as Children of God and fellow heirs with Christ, and as such God has promised us that His presence will always be with us! And this is Good News because the Earth literally trembles at the presence of God.

I realized that there are different seasons in all of our lives, and as Paul said there are seasons of want and plenty, and seasons of ease and hardship, but God’s presence never leaves us, and as it says in Psalm 114:8 God can do the miraculous in any situation, from making a rock produce fresh water enough for a nation of a million people to drink from, or from turning water into wine for a small wedding party. Christ is sufficient in all circumstances, and His help and provision and ministry is not limited by our perceptions of reality, because the ministry is not about us but rather about Him. Take Heart!

So will I go back to the states in July? Who knows? Stay tuned – If not I am looking forward to the miracles that God will perform regardless! Our God is Amazing!


~Mike

Faith in the Deep End

Last weekend I took my daughter to the pool for the first time. It is hot here, but the pool was freshly filled and the water was cold. It was refreshing to me, but not so much to my daughter. She was at once fascinated with the way the sunlight played upon the water, and terrified of getting wet and cold. I tried to put her in a floatation device, but she immediately began screaming her head off. As soon as I picked her up and carried her across the pool, she was fine. She even enjoyed dipping her toes in the water.

It reminded me of our Christian walk. Sometimes we look at the pool of life and are terrified. And why not? To my daughter, even the shallowest part of the pool is deep enough to drown in. But to me, it is only a cool respite from the summer sun. When I placed her in the floatation device, she felt alone, and cold, and scared – but the truth is that she was just as safe as when I was holding her close.

This is a good reminder about our God. Sometimes the water seems cold and deep. Sometimes we feel alone and scared. But the truth is, we are just as safe, and God is just as near, as all the other times when God holds us close and we feel warm and comforted. And of course, we will never learn to swim if God is holding us all the time!

So have faith and courage, when life seems deep and cold. God is watching over you, and he will never let you drown.

Moving to Kyoto

Hi there, my name is Chris McKee and together with my wife Maiko and boys Daniel (aged 6) and Sion (aged 2), we are part of the Liberty Church Kyoto team!

We never really imagined ourselves living in Kyoto but now that we are here we can say that God is faithful and always always always has a great plan for us! We are so delighted to be teaming up with the amazing Wogsland family to help with LCK.

Let me tell you how we got here…

Maiko and I met in Manchester University in the UK where we both studied theology. After getting married (I’m skipping so much here as you can guess!) we moved to Maiko’s hometown, Osaka. In Osaka, where we stayed for eight years, we were in involved in a church planting ministry and eventually began pastoring one of the churches we helped plant.

Hope Chapel Sakai was a church focused on one thing: sharing the love of God with children and young people. It is kind of unique to have a children’s/youth ministry without a main church to support us but we strongly felt that that was what God wanted us to do. He sent us so many children and young people from broken families; and in so many cases the parent’s (mostly just moms) were delighted to have a place to send their kids on the weekend and know that they would be safe. God did some amazing work there and we learnt so much about serving God through all the ups and downs of ministry!

After more than five years at Hope Chapel Sakai we felt it was time to hand over the church to a Japanese leader, which we did in June 2013. At that time we returned to my native UK for what we thought was going to be a minimum of a year. However, after seven months Maiko was refused an extended visa and we kind of had to move back to Japan!

This was a huge shock for us but it was no a shock at all for for God! He had a better plan. We had met Mike and Seira the previous year and were just blown away by their vision and commitment to it. I immediately felt like Mike was a guy I could work with. Not just ‘could’ work with, but ‘really really wanted to work with’! So when we returned to Japan we met up with the Wogslands and have now teamed up with them at Liberty Church Kyoto.

When we think about these last few years we can only praise God for always knowing best, always guiding in the best way and always providing the best. Our prayer for Kyoto is that this city too would experience God’s love and power and sheer awesomeness in a way it never has before.

Please pray with us as we live and work here and also please come visit anytime! God bless!