By Karine Keyser—
At age 13, Japanese Hideaki Amano found Christ – by playing a video game.
He really loved the game of fighting between different characters that were powerful. But the names of characters were angels, like Gabriel. Wanting to improve his game, he looked up strategies online and stumbled across stories about real Biblical angels and other Biblical personages.
“From Gabriel, I jumped to John the Baptist, then I ended up on the page of Jesus Christ,” he remembers. “It was a church website, and the simple Gospel was there.”
What stood out was how easy it was to be saved. He had always believed in spirits and Heaven and Hell because his parents chanted Nenbutsu, reciting the name of Amitābha Buddha as an expression of faith and mindfulness.
But he gathered that making it into Heaven was very difficult. “I thought you couldn’t enter Heaven unless you piled up good deeds,” he says. “But here it said that all I have to do is believe and I’ll be saved.
“Wait, seriously?” he was startled. “What?! All I have to do is believe and I get saved? I have to believe this; it’s such a good deal!
“And that’s when I believed.”
Hideako Amano has continued in his faith since then. Today, he is a missionary and evangelist. He goes on mission trips around Asia, spreading the Word to people who have never heard the name Jesus Christ.
Hideaki explains that Japanese people tend to feel a strong sense of shame, so there is a strong culture of NOT being vulnerable and showing what you feel to others. Secretly, they envy people who can share their feelings openly.
“I’ve become much freer as a Christian,” he said. “No matter how weak or sinful I was, Jesus’ love always pursued me. He really loves you too. It doesn’t matter how hard you’ve tried, whether you’ve succeeded or failed, Jesus really loves you and will never give up on you.”
Related content: And this man wants to reach more Japanese through gaming, Japanese woman got free from demons, 6000 North Korean saved by Chinese missionaries. Source: Ignite Japan.
