KneEmail - a devotional by Mike Benson associated with Forthright Magazine
Peace
ON MARCH 10, 1974, Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda, who had been a Japanese lieutenant in the Philippines during World War II, became the last Japanese soldier to surrender...
The war ended in 1945, but Onoda hid in the jungles of the island of Lubang for almost three decades, sucessfully avoiding all efforts to find him.
The Japanese and Philippine authorities, aware of his presence, repeatedly broadcast reports of this war in the Japanese language and left Japanese newspapers on the beach where he could find them. But Onoda thought all these were ruses to lure him to surrender, so he continued his one-man war.
THOUGHT: Onoda's situation is similar to that of the sinner's condition before God. Christ's death on the cross does not automatically bring him peace and save him anymore than the peace concluded between Japan and the Philippines brought peace to Onoda. Onoda had to believe that peace had been made, then he had to surrender and accept it. In a similar fashion today, Jesus makes peace available to us, but we can only enjoy it when we surrender to the Lord, and and then accept it in faith and obedience to the gospel ( 1 Corinthians 15:1-4; 2 Thessalonians 1:7-9; Hebrews 5:8-9).
KneEmail: "For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle way of separation, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace." Ephesians 2:14-15
Bible reading for 01.15.10: Matthew 10:21-42; Genesis 36-38
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