This devotion marks the start of our “I Heart Japanese Monsters Month,” where all month long, we are talking about Japanese Monsters and our love for them. Now that being said, we are not talking about a particular Japanese monster, Godzilla, as we have done an entire month devoted to him, which if you would like to the following playlist!
This month we are talking about Mothra, Ultraman, and a couple other exciting monsters and we are partnering with The Monster Island Film Vault podcast and we are very excited about content coming your way and at the end of the month our episode will be brought to you via our friend, and host of The Monster Island Film Vault Nathan Marchand.
Today though, we are talking about Mothra, whom most of you may be familiar with due to the latest Godzilla film, “Godzilla: King of the Monsters.” If Godzilla is King of the Monsters, then Mothra is probably the Queen of the Monsters. It’s really quite interesting how the internet has taken this duo and made some really adorable memes of the two of them. But we are not talking about that Mothra, no today we are taking you guys back all the way to 1961’s “Mothra.”
The essential storyline is this, there is an island that is found, and It’s filled with these little people, and there is this evil tycoon looking dude who takes these two particular twins who happen to be the priestesses of Mothra and he carts them off to be a type of traveling sideshow of sorts. Unbeknownst to him, the song they keep singing is summoning Mothra to come to save them, while potentially destroying all who stands between her and the twins.
Now to the outside world, Mothra looks like this angry beast who is just rampaging. Destroying everything in her path because she is just this evil divine being, but in reality, she’s not. She’s just doing what is just. Her mission in life is to protect these individuals on the island. So Mothra in her justice, is going after these twins to save them. It’s not that she’s evil, it’s not that she’s mean; it’s just that she’s doing what she was designed to do. She is bringing justice. The problem is that people are falling into the gap between what’s happening here.
One on-going issue in society is that we view justice through the eyes of our own view of what is good. The problem is that we have a habit of seeing good and justice through our very fleshly desires. If it doesn’t work for me, is it really right? Is it really Justice? And the reality is your flesh; your desires have very little to do with what is just what is good and what is right.
Unfortunately, we have overlapped these things with the true divine, with God. Some people look at God, and they see this angry divine old man with a beard who is just ready to zap people. And that is not who God is. Yes, God is just and He has to release justice on the world. See when God created man and woman, He made them good. Adam and Eve, those two individuals are the ones who kind of screwed things up. They introduced sin into the world and when sin entered the world, God had to, in His justice, judge it. Unfortunately, to the flesh that doesn’t seem right, it doesn’t seem right for Him to be judging our sin. But that is exactly what Justice does. Justice is calling into account the sins of an individual. So then how is God good? How is God a good God? God is a good God because He provides hope.
So what is the hope that God provides for us? Well, similar to the way that at the end of Mothra, they look to the symbol of the cross and all of a sudden, it clicks on how to save the day; we have to look to the cross of Jesus Christ. That was God’s grace upon us. See in God’s justice, He must judge sin, but in God’s graciousness, He provides a way for us to be saved from the wrath of that justice upon our lives.
“Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice blessed are all those who wait for him.”
Isaiah 30:18
In that verse, we see that grace and justice are to attributes of who God is. Yes, God is a God of justice and He will judge our sins in a just manner; however, His grace is abounding in much. How is His grace demonstrated? Well, as we stated earlier, we need to look to the cross. See God, in His grace, has provided a way for you to not have to suffer the wrath of God. Jesus has suffered the wrath of God for you. Jesus has taken the punishment of your sins and all you have to do is surrender to Him. The gracious timeframe where He is waiting for you to do that is your life, your life right now. God is constantly calling you, saying you are my son, my daughter. All you have to do is repent. Accept the grace of Jesus, and walk in that.
Does that mean we live perfect lives? No, Not at all! Most people do not live perfect lives. But we walk with grace and when we mess up, we confess our mistakes, we get up and we keep walking in that grace, continuing to better ourselves. I’m not telling you that as a Christian, you need to be a perfect individual, but I’m also not telling you that as a Christian, you just throw it all to the wind. It’s a process. But it is possible to walk in grace. Gods not angry at you, He is not some divine being trying to zap you every 30 seconds. That’s not the God we serve. He is a God of grace and of mercy. He sees you as a son or daughter that He is raising up, and when you make a mistake, He says, “Ok, let’s get up and lets fix that, repent and move forward.” Don’t stop moving forward.
Question of the week: What’s Your Favorite Japanese Monster?