Kathleen Matson and her family have moved to Tokyo for 3 years. Because less than 1 percent of the citizens of Japan believe in Jesus Christ, she said that the nation can be considered unreached with the gospel.

“As we make our home in Tokyo,” she wrote, “I am especially challenged by Romans 13:12, ‘The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light.’ I need to be a light in the midst of a great darkness. My life needs to be a shining example to those who have never heard the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

Kathleen continued, “The task seems overwhelming. . . . How can I possibly do it? How can I ‘owe no one anything except to love one another’? (v.8). I can’t do it alone. It is only by putting on the Lord Jesus Christ (v.14) that I can meet this urgent need.”

The darkness of unbelief is not only to be found in faraway places like Irian Jaya or Tokyo or Tibet. The streets of St. Louis or Miami or New York or Toronto are darkened by unbelief as well. Wherever we are, our witnessing becomes most effective when accompanied with godly living. May we be lights in the darkness—pointing our world to the Source of our light, the Lord Jesus Christ.

  — David C. Egner