Ephesians 2:5 “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)”
I was born in Tokyo to parents who were very much culturally Buddhist as most Japanese people are. I grew up practicing Buddhism in the temples, at the shrines in my grandparents’ homes, and during festivities. Although I had never considered myself a Buddhist, looking back, that’s probably what I would most identify with. I moved to the US when I was eight years old because of my father’s job. A little over a year after our move, my grandfather, whom I was very close with passed away. As I witnessed life pass right before my eyes, the idea of death began to haunt me. At night I would ask myself, what is death?, where is my grandfather now?, when is death coming for me?. It was at this time that God began to create in me a need for Him. I sought answers to these questions, but no one had answers for me. About a year after my grandfather’s death, our neighbors invited us out to their church. My mom and I went to church with them one Sunday. We had gone to catholic masses and other church services with other people before, but this was the first church that we kept going back to. Because I was still learning English and had no background in Christianity, I didn’t understand what was going on in church for a very long time. A few years later, with the assistance of Sundays at church, Awana, and VBS, I came to believe in the existence of God. At the same time, my questions about death were answered. However, I lived under the misconception that salvation was only about believing in the existence of God. I began to call myself a Christian because I knew and believed that God existed. On top of that, I was under the false pretense that being a Christian made you perfect. To my dismay, I was shown my imperfections and sin daily. Rightly, I doubted my salvation. It was not until seventh grade when I entered a Christian school that I began to see what the true Christian life looked like. My teachers in middle school were very humble and helpful in guiding me towards gospel. I can’t say exactly when I came to the saving knowledge of Christ, but under the guidance of my teachers and friends, I came to understand that I was helpless in my imperfections and those imperfections would lead towards eternal death, something much scarier than the physical death that I had feared before. Just like Ephesians 2 says, “BUT GOD” intervened and offered me life. I could not earn nor do I deserve God’s gift of life to me, but purely by His grace am I freed from my sins and imperfections. Although I had previously thought that calling myself a Christian would make me perfect, it is actually the opposite in that because we are imperfect, we need Christ and His death on the cross, and because only Christ is perfect, He had to be the One to pay for our sins. Christianity, a life lived out in thanksgiving to Christ, is not like the Buddhists rituals I used to follow because I was told to, but I have the privilege of serving a living God, who loves me so much that He would sacrifice Himself for me.
I was born in Tokyo to parents who were very much culturally Buddhist as most Japanese people are. I grew up practicing Buddhism in the temples, at the shrines in my grandparents’ homes, and during festivities. Although I had never considered myself a Buddhist, looking back, that’s probably what I would most identify with. I moved to the US when I was eight years old because of my father’s job. A little over a year after our move, my grandfather, whom I was very close with passed away. As I witnessed life pass right before my eyes, the idea of death began to haunt me. At night I would ask myself, what is death?, where is my grandfather now?, when is death coming for me?. It was at this time that God began to create in me a need for Him. I sought answers to these questions, but no one had answers for me. About a year after my grandfather’s death, our neighbors invited us out to their church. My mom and I went to church with them one Sunday. We had gone to catholic masses and other church services with other people before, but this was the first church that we kept going back to. Because I was still learning English and had no background in Christianity, I didn’t understand what was going on in church for a very long time. A few years later, with the assistance of Sundays at church, Awana, and VBS, I came to believe in the existence of God. At the same time, my questions about death were answered. However, I lived under the misconception that salvation was only about believing in the existence of God. I began to call myself a Christian because I knew and believed that God existed. On top of that, I was under the false pretense that being a Christian made you perfect. To my dismay, I was shown my imperfections and sin daily. Rightly, I doubted my salvation. It was not until seventh grade when I entered a Christian school that I began to see what the true Christian life looked like. My teachers in middle school were very humble and helpful in guiding me towards gospel. I can’t say exactly when I came to the saving knowledge of Christ, but under the guidance of my teachers and friends, I came to understand that I was helpless in my imperfections and those imperfections would lead towards eternal death, something much scarier than the physical death that I had feared before. Just like Ephesians 2 says, “BUT GOD” intervened and offered me life. I could not earn nor do I deserve God’s gift of life to me, but purely by His grace am I freed from my sins and imperfections. Although I had previously thought that calling myself a Christian would make me perfect, it is actually the opposite in that because we are imperfect, we need Christ and His death on the cross, and because only Christ is perfect, He had to be the One to pay for our sins. Christianity, a life lived out in thanksgiving to Christ, is not like the Buddhists rituals I used to follow because I was told to, but I have the privilege of serving a living God, who loves me so much that He would sacrifice Himself for me.