Weekly Prayer (Dec 6th, 2021): Let us pray for the Lord to draw Japanese people to read the account of the birth of Christ—the “good news of great joy...for all the people"—this Christmas season (Luke 2:10). Pray for the God-breathed Word of God to well up to eternal life in their hearts by God’s grace (John 4:14).
New Year’s is the biggest time of celebration in Japan, but Christmas has had a presence here for many decades. This presence, however, is almost exclusively commercial. People sometimes have Christmas parties at home (especially families with children). People can reserve Christmas cakes at a store or make one at home, and gifts are often given to children. If you go shopping you’ll see Christmas trees, Christmas decorations, Christmas sweets/gifts, hear Christmas music, and see Christmas lights.
In all of this, the birth of Christ is completely absent. Japanese people may know little snippets of the account of Christ’s birth, but most people don’t know most of the story. And even fewer know the life-changing significance of the birth of Christ.
So, let us pray and plead before our Father in heaven to lead those sitting in darkness to read, to hear, and/or to see the account of Jesus’s birth as we find it in Scripture this Christmas season. Pray for believers to invite their Japanese friends, co-workers, neighbors, etc to church/Christmas events, or even to sit down and read the Christmas story together.
Let us pray for those who have never heard or read of Jesus’s coming to behold it for the first time this year. Let us ask our Father in heaven to draw these people to himself, that they may drink the living water that only Jesus gives (John 4:10, 14). Let us pray that the Holy Spirit will bring these souls from death to life through the redemption found in Christ Jesus to the praise of God the Father (Eph. 1:7).
Finally, let us pray for the good news of great Joy—that the Savior of the world has been born—to bring about “exceedingly great joy” (Matt. 2:11) among Japanese men, women, and children this year. In Jesus’s holy and might Name we pray these things. Amen.
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