PDF file: 20201220_Meishu-sama’s Birthday Service_Kyoshu-sama
The Portuguese audio version of the Sacred Word of Kyoshu-sama is available here.
Congratulations everyone on today’s World Church of Messiah Meishu-sama’s Birthday Service.
First, I would like to thank all the staff at Grand Nikko Tokyo Daiba hotel for their understanding and cooperation as well as their tremendous support. They made this service possible, and for that, I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to everyone at the hotel. Thank you very much.
In deep awe and fear of God, the will of Lord God our Creator is to unite all humanity to the name of Messiah and bear children in His likeness and image.
From our viewpoint, this means to accept this divine will, be born anew as children of God, as Messiahs, who inherit the consciousness of God, and become eternal beings.
Meishu-sama was born into this world with a visible, physical body, just like us.
He walked through life with us, his followers, in order to fulfill the mission he was assigned by God. On his way, Meishu-sama suddenly collapsed due to a brain hemorrhage at the age of 71. But to our astonishment, after receiving the stroke, he announced that he was born anew as the Messiah even though the symptoms from the stroke persisted.
He said that “I am not just saying this. This is a fact,” and with great joy he told us that he himself was surprised by it.
The following year after receiving the stroke, Meishu-sama, just like we do, completed his life on earth and made his ascension.
Just like the rest of us, Meishu-sama was born into this world through his physical parents and became their child. But not only that, Meishu-sama was able to be born anew as a child of God.
I have no doubt that, through his life example, Meishu-sama demonstrated why we too have been born into this world.
God sent Meishu-sama to the earth for us—no, actually, for all humanity—to follow in his footsteps.
I, together with all of you, would like to offer my deepest gratitude, first, to God for sending Meishu-sama to the world as a prototype, a model to be followed; and also to Meishu-sama who is working hard even now together with Lord God so that all humanity can be born anew as children of God, as Messiahs.
Today is Meishu-sama’s Birthday Service. What do we celebrate? We celebrate the fact that Meishu-sama came into this world to become our model. This is what we are celebrating today, and I am grateful to be celebrating it together with all of you. Thank you, everyone.
One of the important prayers that the Christians have been saying for a long time is the Lord’s Prayer.
According to the New Testament, this is a prayer that Jesus Christ imparted to his disciples, teaching them the exact words of the prayer.
As mentioned in the greeting of President Narii just a moment ago, all the ministerial staff of World Church of Messiah, who are at both churches and the headquarters, with their unanimous will, asked me for my permission to offer the Lord’s Prayer in the grand services as well as in the monthly, morning and evening services at the headquarters, churches and in homes.
I felt that this request was the result of their enthusiasm and willingness to respond to the will of Meishu-sama, who said he wanted to act in concert with Christianity. I reported the request to Meishu-sama, received his permission first and then humbly granted my permission.
Currently, the Lord’s Prayer is offered at grand, monthly and daily services in more than 40 overseas countries in churches that are affiliated with World Church of Messiah. This amounts to approximately 90 percent of all the churches overseas.
Practically speaking, this means that if we exclude the Japanese members, almost all the members who belong to World Church of Messiah are already praying the Lord’s Prayer daily.
Still more, two billion Christians also offer the Lord’s Prayer to God.
I am really excited to know that as you, the Japanese members, will be saying the Lord’s Prayer from now on, you will be firmly united to the members around the world and also to the Christians—in this way, you will be moving forward to fulfill the true salvation revealed by Meishu-sama.
We will start the praying of the Lord’s Prayer from January 1 of next year.
For this, I have made some arrangements to the Lord’s Prayer we have known and prepared something new.
I will now read out the Lord’s Prayer that I newly prepared for World Church of Messiah:
Our Father in heaven, / Hallowed be your name, / Your kingdom come, / Your will be done, / On earth as in heaven. / Give us today our daily bread. / Forgive us our sins / As we forgive those who sin against us. / Save us from the time of trial / And deliver us from evil. / For the authority, the glory, and the blessing are forever yours, God, / You, who are one with the name of Messiah. / Amen.
Through Meishu-sama, we have come to know that Lord God, our Father in heaven, lives within us.
Through Meishu-sama, we have been made into ones who worship Lord God and the name of Messiah, which is one with Lord God.
Through Meishu-sama, we have come to know that God’s kingdom of heaven exists within us and that we are ones who belong to heaven.
Through Meishu-sama, we have come to know that God’s will is already done both in heaven and on earth.
Through Meishu-sama, we have come to know that we are nurtured by God not only through the food that we put into our mouths but also through the food of God’s sacred words.
Through Meishu-sama, we have come to know that even though many—including our ancestors—have become like a burden to us as they continuously rely on us to receive salvation, they have been redeemed and forgiven through the sacred blood that Jesus Christ offered.
Through Meishu-sama, we have come to know that even though we ourselves have been seeking salvation the whole time and have become a burden to God for this posture, we, together with our ancestors and many others, have been redeemed and forgiven.
Through Meishu-sama, we have come to know that it was not God who tried and tested us, but it was we who did not trust in God and tried and tested Him the whole time; yet God forgave this sin of ours and delivered us from evil, that is, our posture of putting God to the test.
In this way, it was through Meishu-sama that we have come into contact with the true life of the true God and that we have come to believe that forgiveness and salvation have already been accomplished within us.
But we must realize that there are many, including our ancestors existing within us, who do not know this truth and the compassionate grace of God; they are still waiting for the arrival of heaven, begging for forgiveness and seeking salvation.
I believe Jesus himself offered the Lord’s Prayer for those who were ignorant of the truth, and I believe he is still offering this prayer for them.
I also believe that Meishu-sama, through receiving and accepting Jesus and God’s will embedded in this prayer, is offering his prayers to God in unity with Jesus.
Representing all humanity, Meishu-sama is always offering his prayers to God within us and together with Jesus.
As Jesus Christ and Meishu-sama are serving Lord God in unity, we should also offer the Lord’s Prayer to God with the belief that, through offering this prayer to God, we are here to intercede on behalf of many people, and offer it with the conviction that we are existences that belong to heaven and to the church that bears the name of Messiah.
Through the Lord’s Prayer, let us also praise Lord God who is the source of all salvation and return all authority, glory and blessings to Him who is one with the name of Messiah.
The final word of the prayer is “amen.” This word appears numerous times in the Bible, and just like the word “Messiah,” it derives from Hebrew.
Originally, the word meant something similar to “truly,” but later, Christians began to say this word at the end of prayers with the meaning of “so be it.”
When we offer the Lord’s Prayer, let us say the word “amen” with the belief that the salvation through the name of Messiah that exists within us is the true salvation, and let us thank God for allowing us to offer this prayer.
There is one more thing I would like to covey to you today, and that is about the divine names we chant to God every day.
For a long time, we have been chanting the divine name Miroku Oomikami when we face Lord God at our altars. But at this time, considering the tremendous advancement in the divine work under World Church of Messiah, I, with Meishu-sama’s permission, decided to change this divine name to a new one.
The new divine name is Sushin naru warera no Kami (Our God, Lord God).
And, as I told you in this year’s Grand Ancestor Service that Kakuriyo no Ookami we chant in front of our ancestral shrines or a grave actually refers to Lord God, I have decided that the divine name Kakuriyo no Ookami will henceforth be Sushin naru senzo no Kami (The God of Our Ancestors, Lord God).
As I said earlier, we will be offering the Lord’s Prayer from January 1 of next year, and the same goes for the divine names, too. In front of the altar of God, we will chant the divine name Sushin naru warera no Kami, and in front of our ancestral shrines or a grave, we will chant the divine name Sushin naru senzo no Kami.
We must never forget that God for us and God for the ancestors who exist within us are the same one and only Lord God. There is only one God; He is one.
Under Lord God, who is also the Lord of creation, the spiritual world and the material world are one. Lord God rules both of them as one kingdom.
There may be many deities in the world, but their source, without exception, is Lord God. Without Him, nothing can exist.
The Lord’s Prayer starts with the phrase “Our Father in heaven.” Regarding this, we have the following hymns of Meishu-sama:
“Jesus Christ preached God the Father. / I preach the Lord God. / My followers, know this as I do: / Jesus and I are preaching the same God!”
“The one who possesses the almighty power is God. / He is known to us as Jehovah (Yahweh), / And there is no other God besides Him!”
Lord God is God the Father of Jesus Christ, of Meishu-sama and of each one of us.
Before sending us to this world, Lord God—God the Father—promised us, saying, “I will make you My children.”
On our part, before coming to this world, we promised Lord God, saying, “I will be Your child.”
We are here on earth now only because we exchanged this promise with God.
Coming into this world, in itself, is the very proof that we will be born anew as children of God, live with Him and attain eternal life. We will experience the joy of serving in God’s work of creation—the work of giving life to all creation, returning all creation to the source of life and making all creation anew.
We may feel that “I am such an insignificant person,” or we may want to deny ourselves, or perhaps not. Regardless of all that, God is using us—the undisguised and honest us—for the accomplishment of His divine will.
How immense and deep is His grace!
Since we were made to know this grace as God’s free gift to us, let us share it with as many people as possible, and at the same time, let us, in the name of Messiah, return to heaven with many people and surrender the whole of ourselves together with this grace that God granted us.
This, I believe, is what makes Meishu-sama the happiest.
To close, I would like to thank all of you who have walked this path of faith throughout the year with courage and hope as followers of World Church of Messiah since this year’s Risshun (Beginning of Spring) Service. And I pray that the coming new year will be a fruitful one filled with grace and peace for you and for everyone.
Thank you very much.
