From Yakuza to Yeshua
The Meek Shall Rule the World
When asked if a Yakuza (Japanese mafia) is capable of feeling guilt, Pastor Tatsuya Shindo had this to say, “any human beings have conscience for they received God’s breath of life when they were still a foetus. A Yakuza had merely ignored his conscience, otherwise, he can’t become a Yakuza.”
In other words, we are made of love, so that we can love, for God is love. Everyone is capable of love, even the Yakuza, the liars and the sinners in our midst.
We sin when we ignore who we truly are; we ignored the love in us. Although, we can momentarily in our life ignore the love in us but it is not lost. It remained a kindle, that needed a spark to reignite the love in us. That spark, is grace disguised as second chances.
After 15 years of criminal activities, whereby he was arrested 15 times, convicted of a felony 7 times and incarcerated 3 times, Pastor Tatsuya, gave his life to Jesus in 2003 and set up, “ The Independent Friends of Sinners Jesus Christ Church”, where he welcome sinners from all walk of life.
He was led to God when he read how Jesus’s apostles were not chosen from the elites but of lowly station and these “losers went on to change the world.” He saw how he with his long list of undesirable records of a Yakuza qualified him to follow Jesus and to receive God’s grace.
The grace of God through Jesus is that of second chances.
Pastor Tatsuya now dedicate his life to be an example for others to repent and to help rehabilitate the fallen especially those with prison sentences to the Japanese society.
I pray that you and I, will find the strength in us to be gracious to first ourselves and to others whom the society has deemed a failure. That act of grace is merely to give ourselves and others a second chance.
The meek shall rule the world.
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Some of my older writings for your reading
Fascinating!! Thank you for sharing Ivan :)