'New Morning Mercies' Provides Hope for Japanese Believers

The Joy of Giving

A gift’s greatest value is often found in the heart behind it, not its cost. It’s the kind given with thoughtfulness—because the giver truly knows your season of life, your interests, or your needs. Can you think of a time you received a gift like that?

In Japan, Ms. M¹ loves gifting the book New Morning Mercies: “I bought it to give to two sisters in Christ for their birthdays. They were so blessed by the content of the devotionals because it spoke the exact encouragement they needed. The devotions are wonderful and I would like to give them again to more close brothers and sisters (in Christ) for their birthdays.” You’re probably familiar with this book—maybe you were gifted it too. In 2023, New Morning Mercies was translated into Japanese and published in partnership with Brett Rayl and CBI Press, thanks to a ministry grant made possible by Crossway donors. Since then, believers like this sister have received a devotional they can both use for themselves and gift to others.

Over the past several years, the Crossway Global Ministry Fund has supported the translation of hundreds of titles. Our prayer is that, by making these resources available, spiritual transformation will occur even in some of the least reached places—like Japan.

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An Investment in Unreached Peoples

When Brett first had the vision to publish gospel-centered resources in Japanese, it was out of a desire to reach more people with the gospel. “We’re looking at the world’s second largest unreached people group. . . . We want to invest in the Japanese church and in Japanese church leaders. We want to use the resources of God’s kingdom around the world to do that and make those resources available for the church in Japan.” The Joshua Project reports that more than 120 million people in Japan are considered unreached.¹ This number is intimidating. But books are something that can reach further and faster than we can on our own.

Books also provide a good opportunity for those curious to learn more about Christianity. The honor/shame dynamics of Japanese culture often create barriers that keep people from exploring Christianity, which Brett sees firsthand.

Social pressures provide a different kind of persecution. If someone becomes a Christian, they may receive a ton of persecution from their family—anything ranging from threats towards them or threats of the parent to harm himself, like “If you don’t stop going to that church, then I’m going to hurt myself.” I hear of lots of shame-based tactics to try to bring conformity in a situation. And generally the Japanese people are fine with the idea of dabbling with Christianity, but once you get baptized and actually begin to follow Christ, that’s when you’ve stepped outside the realm of what is acceptable.

These realities are enough to keep people away from confessing Jesus as Lord, but reading a gospel-centered book like New Morning Mercies is a great place to start—a few minutes each day of reading gospel truth.

CBI Press is specifically interested in providing resources for those who are curious. Some may not have made the commitment—many have, but they haven’t taken the next step. As Brett explains, “[For some of these brothers and sisters,] it’s not that they haven’t been Christians for a number of years; rather it’s because in their discipleship, they haven’t read a lot of books or studied topics to help them grow.” A lack of resources inhibits spiritual growth, but providing even just one book that applies to and encourages the Japanese church is a gift treasured by many.

Sharing the Impact

In the first four months of distributing the New Morning Mercies translation, Brett reports that “CBI distributed 649 copies. That number may not seem large, but the average print run for an evangelical book in Japan is 250–500 copies because titles often do not sell more than that. Distributing over 500 in a few months was a very encouraging start.” Through the support of donor partners, Crossway has worked with CBI Press to shoulder the costs of the printing and publishing of this book—not an easy feat in this area of the world. Translators are expensive and hard to find, since they are required to know the kind of audience they’re writing to in order to make the translation applicable. Thus, adequate funding was key.

With the translation work fully funded, CBI Press began giving away many of these books for free. But after finding that recipients could and would prefer to pay, they started charging a small fee. This change has allowed for recipients to purchase additional copies for friends and family, like Mrs. L: “This book has meant so much to me. I’ve shared it with my sister and it’s been really impactful for her too. I actually sent some copies to my friends as well and it’s been really impactful for them.”

CBI Press is working on the translation of another Paul David Tripp book: Marriage. “What’s so special in that book,” Brett shares, “is looking at the intersection between the gospel and marriage which is what Paul Tripp does so well. . . . There are a lot of marriages in trouble in Japan—it’s not necessarily worse than anywhere else, but we’re less resourced to navigate it well.” The CBI team has a heart to continue responding to the needs of the Japanese church, represented in comments from those like Mr. H. “When you read [New Morning Mercies] with a deep understanding of the Bible’s message of salvation for sinners, it brings healing and refreshment to the heart. I’m so thankful to have found such a good book.”

Through gifts to the Global Ministry Fund, partnerships with ministries like CBI Press continue to bring hope and truth to believers around the world. By the power of the Holy Spirit, lives are being transformed as biblical resources reach those who need them most. What greater gift could there be than placing in their hands books that speak, in their own language, of salvation?

Pray for the conference CBI Press is holding later this year where they’ll have the opportunity to distribute many books. Pray that these books will find their way into the hands of those who need them.

Pray for continued impact of the Japanese translation of New Morning Mercies. Pray for the hearts of readers to come to know and love Jesus, and to be courageous to share the good news with others.