Dear Family and Friends,

“Love God with all your heart, soul, and mind, …and love your neighbor as yourself”.  (Matt.22:37-39)

We are commanded to love our neighbor with the same love (agape) that we have toward God.  Each person that we meet throughout the day is “our neighbor”. In our hearts we can say to them, “Jesus in me loves you”, and express His love in ways that are appropriate to the needs of the person and of the situation.

 

In addition to acts of service and acceptance, love may require confronting error, and using Scripture for “reproof, correction, and training in righteousness” (2 Tim.3:16).  Reflecting Christ’s love is a high calling and a life task.

As I approached an elderly man who had lived in a small mountain village all of his life I asked him, “How do you like living way out in the country?”  He answered, “Well, I wouldn’t know that. I’ve always lived in this here city!”

A WORK of the Lord in Japan.

 

Everyone has neighbors. Even Jesus did, when He lived in Nazareth. CFN-Japan was blessed to have Mr. & Mrs. Shimizu (above) as neighbors. As CFN-Japan enrollment increased, they were asked, and were willing to sell their land and home, and move to another suitable lodging nearby, so that a dormitory (below) for Married Students and their children, could be built on the property next to the Singles Dorm.

 

Good relationships continued, and as the love and the Good News of Jesus was shared with them by CFN-J Staff,  Mr. Shimizu (age 92) and his wife (age 75) accepted the Lord as their Savior in Nov. 2007, and together have found new joy in their relationship with HIM.  Now, Jesus is not only their Neighbor, but lives in them. They are “Temples of the Holy Spirit”. (I Cor. 6:19)

 

Standing together with you as “Temples of the Living God” (II Cor. 6:16),