The Word This Week !

World's Greatest LOVE story

2012-02-13T08:53:00.000-08:00

Contributed the following article to the February 2012 issue of VANAMUTHAM,

a Tamil Christian Monthly magazine published by Serve India Mission,

that attempts to connect the world (with its events and practical issues) to God's word.

Social Networking: Youth's boon or bane

2012-01-25T03:03:00.000-08:00

Contributed the following article to a Magazine's January 2012 issue . . .

thinking aloud what should be one's New Year resolution with regard to Social Networking,

particularly for someone in their budding years - in school or in college.

Video & Online Gaming: Refresher or a Distraction?

2012-01-12T06:18:00.000-08:00

Contributed the following article to the November 2011 issue of VANAMUTHAM,

a Tamil Christian Monthly magazine published by Serve India Mission,

that attempts to connect the world (with its events and practical issues) to God's word.

Ravi Zacharias: "FAITH is NOT ANTI-THETICAL to REASON"

2011-11-15T03:38:00.000-08:00

Contributed the following article to the October 2011 issue of VANAMUTHAM,

a Tamil Christian Monthly magazine published by Serve India Mission,

that attempts to connect the world (with its events and practical issues) to God's word.

CORRUPTION: Are we Immune?

2011-09-24T07:18:00.000-07:00

Contributed the following article to the August 2011 issue of VANAMUTHAM,

a Tamil Christian Monthly magazine published by Serve India Mission,

that attempts to connect the world (with its events and practical issues) to God's word.

TITHE (One-Tenth) and CHARITY

2011-07-24T10:47:00.000-07:00

Contributed the following article to the Feb 2011 issue of VANAMUTHAM,

a Tamil Christian Monthly magazine published by Serve India Mission,

that attempts to connect the world (with its events and practical issues) to God's word.

The english version that was adapted for the Tamil magazine can be found at

Giving-as-we-should

God's sure Judgment and a New BEGINNING

2011-07-02T17:36:00.000-07:00

[Continuing from Chapter 16 of Revelation. This concludes my 4-part summary of Greg Albrecht's Exposition of Revelation (in Revelation Revolution)]

In Chapter 16, the angels pour out the bowls in quick succession. Those who follow the beast are stricken with boils, the sea turns to blood, the rivers and springs turn to blood, the sun becomes intensely hot, and the kingdom of the beast is plunged into darkness. River Euphrates is dried up, preparing the way for the evil kings of the east to come and battle the army of God at Armageddon. These judgments are most possibly not a blow-by-blow description of coming judgment but graphic, metaphorical illustrations of the sure judgment of God.

We see (in chapters 17-18 of Revelation) a portrait of God’s earthquake-like devastation on the religious-political system of Babylon. God minces no words, comparing the enticements, temporary pleasures and ultimate emptiness of religion to a whore. This whoredom is not sexual prostitution. This is a sign of infidelity and includes power and money, key elements of prostitution. Many who profess the name of Christ can fall for the temptation of selling themselves for the price of self-sufficiency and vanity. The whore is described as riding the beast with seven heads and ten horns, introduced in Ch 13.

An angel explains that the seven heads of the beast represent seven hills or mountains and seven kings. The ten horns are ten lesser kings who rule with the beast. The beast revolts against the whore, who represents a religious system that rules the world.

For Christians in the first century, this city would have represented Rome. The beast would have represented the political power of Rome; its seven heads corresponding to the seven hills of Rome as well as the succession of emperors in the first century. However, the whore and the beast are the archetypes of every evil system opposed to God throughout the ages. The whore is the great religious system that has controlled the history of the world. She is the economy and the culture. The rulers of the world hate her because she controls them; but they are in bed with her because they want what she provides. This system could be communism, materialism, atheism, or even counterfeit Christianity. Chapter 18 gives a detailed account of God’s judgment on this system. It contains a funeral dirge for the system of Babylon.

In Chapter 19, Jesus is the rider on a white horse. He has destroyed Babylon. The chapter contrasts the whore and her lovers from Babylon with the Lamb and his bride. The bride is the church, the people of God down through time. Christ’s bride wears white clothing in contrast to the purple and red clothing of the great whore. The whore of Babylon earns her purple and red clothing by her profession that degrades and abuses her. The bride is given her garments, which symbolize righteousness, reminding us that our righteousness is given to us because of Jesus Christ, by God’s grace. She accepts the love of the Lamb who died and gave Himself for her. A wedding supper is given for her.

The battle between the forces of Christ and the armies of the Kings of the world turn to be a non-contest. The beast and the false prophet are thrown into a lake of fire and the rest of the army is killed, the birds gorging themselves on their flesh in a great supper of God to which all the fowls are invited.

Chapter 20 talks about a thousand-year reign of the saints. In Psalms 50:10, the psalmist tells us that God owns the cattle on a thousand hills. The one thousand years of Revelation could well be symbolic of a long, long period. Three views have prevailed about the one-thousand years. Postmillennialism was the prevailing Protestant idea until about mid-nineteenth century. In this view, Jesus’ second coming occurs after the millennium. It looks for a thousand year period of peace brought about by the evangelistic work of Christianity, after which Christ will return to defeat Satan and rule forever. Obviously, such a millennium has not started as peace does not reign supreme on earth. Premillennialism is now popular among evangelicals and teaches that Christ will return, followed by an exact thousand year reign followed by Satan’s removal. Dispensational Premillenialists believe that Christians will be raptured seven years before the millennium, requiring two second comings of Jesus. Historic Premillennialists see rapture at Christ’s second coming, immediately preceeding the one thousand years. Ammillennialsm believes that the thousand years is symbolic of an imprecise period of time of the ‘Church age’ between Christ’s resurrection and his return.

What can we know for sure? During this time, Christ and the saints reign and Satan is bound and sealed in the abyss. Initially, earth is a ‘Satan-free’ zone but towards the end he is released, deceives and is again soundly defeated by fire from heaven. This points out that even under the best of circumstances the human heart is deceitful. Perhaps Satan will be allowed back to prove that even when we have been exposed to perfection, we are still capable of being deceived. This lesson may not be for some future time, it could be for Christians of all times. Satan is finally cast into the lake of fire where the beast and the false prophet await him. We come back to the heart and core of GOSPEL: We are saved by grace.

The next scene depicts Judgment. At least two books are opened. One of them includes names of those who will be judged ”according to their works”. We might call this ‘The book of Human Merit and Works’. We often think that our evil deeds will be outweighed by our good deeds. But James 2:10 says that anyone who stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all the law. No one can come out of the Last Judgment looking good based on his or her deeds. This book is contrasted with another book, the book of Life. Only those whose names are written in this book is saved from eternal damnation.

At the end (chapters 21 & 22) of the book of REVELATION, Jesus tells us that all things will become new. We have only known an earth of suffering, sin, pain, heartache, warfare, inhumanity lust and greed. A new world is coming that will be without all these. The new Jerusalem is referred to as a bride, which tells us about God’s personal relationship with his people, for all eternity. Towards the end of the book Jesus reminds us that He is coming soon. Twenty centuries from the time the book was written does not appear to be “soon”. Some say that these prophecies have already been fulfilled but it is obvious that many of these have not. Death still lurks, the first heaven and earth are still around and the bodily second coming of Jesus has yet not taken place. “Soon” could therefore be when the believer dies and goes to be with God. It is just that since we do not live longer than 70 or 80 years, on average. Whether we live in the first or the twenty first century, Jesus is coming soon. The Revelation is always current.

[The CROSS was in essence God's LOVE at cross-roads with God's Righteousness and Judgment. God's REVELATION to John too, was of God's LOVE at cross-roads with God's righteous judgment. If only we understand its message, will we accept his Grace, become his Bride and join him for eternity. Greg Albrecht of PLAIN TRUTH MINISTRIES has fascinatingly brought out this clear message in his exposition. I recommend that you read this book to soak yourself with a clear understanding of God's message of love and hope, conveyed through John's REVELATION.]

Sealed of God, kept through centuries-old conflict

2010-12-12T10:32:00.000-08:00

[Picking up my summary of Greg Albrecht's Exposition of Revelation (in Revelation Revolution) from Chapter 12 of Revelation. We had left at the end of chapter 11 in my previous post.]

The woman (in chapter 12 of Revelation) is the eternal home and dwelling place of Jesus Christ. Galatians 4:26 uses similar language when speaking of Jerusalem above as our mother. Jesus is the male child who came out of eternity to become one of us. The enormous red dragon identified clearly as ‘that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world’, persecutes the woman who not only symbolizes heaven but also the individual Christian within the body of Christ in whom Jesus lives his risen life. Christians live physical lives in which we suffer pain and tribulation, but the spiritual reality is that we are saved. After Jesus’ bodily ascension to heaven, the woman is in conflict with the dragon and all who represent him. The woman is taken care of by God for 1,260 days probably not a literal time period but a limited period of human history that the church will be subject to the dragon’s anger.

The beast (in chapter 13 of Revelation) that comes out of the sea represents political authorities, religious powers and civil governments that have opposed authentic Christianity through the ages. Multiple heads and crowns represent not just one government but many over time. The blasphemous names on each crown represent government and religion that presumptuously claim to directly speak to God, to be His representative and to bear His authority. To the early Christians, the seven heads and ten horns of the monster may well have symbolized the emperors of Rome after Augustus, seven significant emperors but ten in all. Roman emperors demanded worship as Gods. The fatal wound that had been healed may have been understood to be the death of Nero in AD 68 followed by the restoration of order under Vespasian. The monster of Revelation is not confined to any one legal entity, religious incorporation or religious-political alliance. All larger than life heroes that have demanded worship derive their power from the devil himself (as identified by the seven heads and ten horns on the monster like that on the dragon).

The second beast that comes from the earth speaking like a dragon has two horns like a lamb, an obvious reference to counterfeit Christianity that is based on the unique Lamb of God. It forces the world's inhabitants to worship the first beast. A way of life that glorifies meterialism, relativism, pluralism, consumerism, socialism, humanism while claiming to represent Christ is the spirit of the Antichrist. Remember Jesus' warning in his sermon on the mount of False Prophets who come in sheep's clothing while inwardly being ferocious wolves. The two beasts, one from the sea and one from the earth, work as a team for the dragon on earth. The first may be symbolic of military-politico-economic power with the second representing religious leadership that provides rituals and ideologies to deceive the earth. This co-mingling of the powers of religious influence with civil authority is one of Revelation’s themes. Speculations in different parts of Christendom has been focused on beasts outside their religious traditions and national origins. They could well be blinded to such powers within.

The mysterious mark of the second beast is described as his name, or the number of his name calculated as 666. Religious frenzy has led to concocting methodologies that would twist 666 to point to some human being present or future whose name equates to 666. The number 6 is often used throughout the Bible to represent human sin and imperfection compared to the holiness and perfection of God. Six hundred and sixty six is triple imperfection and sin, a reference to the complete moral failure and bankruptcy of human governments and religion. People have been widely speculating about technological advancements that would be used to place a tattoo or sytemic advancements such as a National Identity mechanism to brand the individuals. The mark of the beast is simply the alternative of being sealed by the Lamb of God. It simply means to be in accord and agreement with the cultural, political and religious systems that are enemies of God.

What happens to those who die for refusing to receive the mark of the beast and what happens to the beast and his followers. The 144,000 who were sealed earlier are seen standing victoriously (in chapter 14 of Revelation) on Mount Zion. “They are virgins” means that they are redeemed men and women who are not corrupted by the spiritual adulteries of Babylon. This group of 144,000 represents the universal body of believers. An angel issues a final offer of gospel to all the earth. A second angel proclaims that Babylon, the world’s anti-God and Antichrist system of materialism and idolatry, is fallen. A third angel warns that those who receive the mark of the beast will receive the punishment of the beast as well. God’s judgment upon evil is then depicted by three metaphors: wine in the cup of God’s wrath, the earth being harvested as grain, and the earth being harvested like a vineyard.

The scene again returns (in chapter 15 of Revelation) to the victorious saints in heaven, who watch seven angels receive seven golden bowls filled with God’s wrath ready to be poured on the earth. These plagues could be the third ‘woe’ announced earlier. We see a parallel between the continuing crisis that faces the body of Christ and the historical crisis that faced the people of God in Egypt. As the people of God were delivered from Egypt, believers are here redeemed by the Savior’s blood under the New Covenant. The song of Moses along with the song of the Lamb is on their lips.

(To be concluded in the next post . . .)

God is in Control of WORLD HISTORY

2010-11-28T23:45:00.000-08:00

[Greg Albrecht in his book REVELATION REVOLUTION, has looked at Bible's Revelation with the purpose of gleaning what God is telling everyone who has inhabited the earth between His ascension and His Second Coming, rather than going to it as a Prediction Handbook (like say, Nostradamus’s book ‘The Prophecies’).]

God’s Throne Room (in Chapter 4 of Revelation) shifts our focus from the earthly religious imperfections in chapters 2 and 3 to heavenly perfection. It redirects our horizontal vision preoccupied with here and now to the vertical dimension of eternity and heaven above. The scroll with seven seals in God’s hand represents the will of God for his children -- the inheritance of the saints, the kingdom of heaven, given as a gift by God’s grace because of the death of the Lamb of God. Only one person is qualified to open the seals and reveal the purposes of God.

The scroll is opened only when all the seven seals are broken, but as Jesus begins to break the seals (in chapter 6 of Revelation) something happens. Four Horsemen corresponding to the first 4 seals are symbolic of God’s avenging judgment (Zec 1:8;6:1-3).

They do not represent any particular historical figure or any specific era, but depict chaos, terror and destruction whenever it is unleashed. They bring misery and pain that is allowed by God but caused primarily by the evil that humans inflict upon themselves. The White horse represents conquest, the Red horse represents war, the Black horse represents famine and the Pale horse represents death.

When the fifth seal is opened, we see the brutal reality of death by martyrdom suffered by Christians. More people have died in the 20th century for being Christians than in the 19 centuries put together. When the sixth seal is opened, there is a gigantic cosmological upheaval (great earthquake, sun becoming dark, moon turning into blood and stars falling). If we interpret keeping the literary genre used to write Revelation, this upheaval could be describing a spiritual upheaval. Founding of the church on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1-21; Joel 2:38-32) was a new beginning – a sign of the beginning of the end for suffering and inhumanity.

The Bible says that Christians will be ‘caught up’ (raptured) in the air, at the second coming of Jesus Christ. It does not talk about Jesus coming twice again with a period of tribulation in between. The dispensational Rapture, appeals to the human desire to avoid pain and suffering. While the Bible tells us that God loves us and protects us, nowhere does it teach that Christians will not suffer with non-Christians or that we will saved from physical suffering in some super-natural way.

Suddenly (in chapter 7 of Revelation) everything is put on hold until a very important piece of business is taken care of. The servants of God must be ‘sealed’ by the blood of the Lamb and protected by grace. One hundred and forty four thousand, 12000 from each of the tribes of Israel, that are sealed could be a symbolic number representing the spiritual Israel, the universal church. The great multitude that no one could count could represent another view of God’s faithful who come out of great tribulation. Even in spite of the overwhelming situations that we endure and sometimes cause, that we wonder if we or anybody could be saved by God, the message is that God not only saves a specific group like the 144,000 but also saves a huge group like the great multitude.

For a short time after the opening of the seventh seal (in chapter 8 of Revelation) nothing happens while the prayers of the saints ascend to God. This could be a window into how prayer “works” in God’s time. The angel takes the collected prayers of the saints and hurls them to the earth symbolizing God’s answer and resulting in divine judgment upon all wickedness perpetrated on God’s people. Jesus Christ, the slain Lamb has opened the scroll and judgment has begun. Seven angels sound a series of seven trumpets. Hail and fire, sea turning blood, falling star poisoning a third of all fresh water, and darkening of sun, moon and stars that accompany the first 4 trumpets are all symbolic. Each trumpet signals a different disaster sent to drive an unrepentant humanity to its knees.

The fifth trumpet (in chapter 9 of Revelation) together with the first “woe” brings stinging locusts from a bottomless pit to torment the earth’s inhabitants. The sixth trumpet together with the second “woe” unleashes an army of two hundred million horsemen killing a third of the world’s population. Regardless of ‘when’ the woes, judgments and plagues come, Jesus tells us that in spite of the consequences there are those who refuse to accept Him as Lord.

In the interlude between the sixth and seventh trumpets (in chapter 10 of Revelation), John is given a vision of an angel descending from heaven and planting his right foot on the sea and left foot on the land, depicting God’s power over all things. He is accompanied by seven thunder-like messages but John is instructed not to publish them. This reminds us that some of God’s work are simply not revealed to us and we must be content with an incomplete understanding (including exact meanings for every symbol and metaphor).

Two witnesses (in chapter 11 of Revelation) who are given authority to prophesy for one thousand two hundred and sixty days has been the subject of much speculation. When they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up from the bottomless pit makes war on them and conquers them and kills them. After lying dead for three and a half days, the two witnesses are called up to heaven. The period of their ministry mirrors the duration of the ministry of Jesus on the earth, and their death and resurrection mirrors the death and resurrection of Jesus. They remind us that accepting suffering in the name of Christ will conquer evil.

When the seventh trumpet sounds, the kingdom of the world becomes the kingdom of God. Then God’s temple in heaven is opened. A literal interpretation of Revelation has insisted upon a series of event that culminate in the rebuilding of a literal temple in Jerusalem. The book of Revelation, on the other hand, emphasizes Jesus, the new covenant and the new Jerusalem above.

In the first eleven chapters, Revelation shows who is in control of the great themes of human history. The major events, trends and movements of history are never out of the supervision of Jesus Christ. The disasters that confuse us and disorient us and leave us asking ‘why?’, never come as a surprise to God. There are times when it seems that God is not acting but He is still on His throne, deeply involved in human events and lives.

(To be Continued . . .)

What does the Bible say about END-TIMES ?

2010-10-29T08:18:00.000-07:00

Popular notion is that REVELATION, the last book in the Bible, indicates a sequence of end-time events -- Rapture (in mid-heaven), 7 years Tribulation period, Jesus' second-coming to the earth, 1000 Years reign, Great White Throne judgment followed by New Heaven and New Earth. How old is this interpretation and when and where did it start? Greg Albrecht of Plain Truth Ministries, in his book ‘Revelation Revolution’, provides a fascinating insight into the book of Revelation.

The theological roots of what many believe to be special knowledge about eschatology (biblical prophecy), based upon the book of Revelation, goes back to a man named John Nelson Darby (1800-1882). Darby’s teachings became known as dispensationalism, a method of Bible Interpretation that grew in popularity by the 1870s. While dispensationalism covers more than just eschatology, the impact of the prophetic implications of it are significant. William Miller (1782-1849) one of Darby’s peers too had come to similar conclusions, and had proclaimed 1843 as the date for the second coming of Jesus Christ. When his prediction failed, he set a new date in 1844, which then came to be known as the ‘Great Disappointment’. Ellen G White (1827-1915) a follower of Miller soon founded the Seventh Day Adventist Church.

Towards the end of the nineteenth century, Cyrus Ingerson Scofield (1843-1921) emerged as a leading advocate of dispensationalism, when prophecy conferences became a standard feature of Protestant fundamentalist churches in North America. Eventually in 1909, he published his Scofield Reference Bible, one of the first Bibles to have a human interpretation alongside the divinely inspired message of the Bible. Unfortunately many failed to distinguish his interpretations printed in marginal notes from the inspired Word of God, and accepted the teachings of dispensationalism without any question.

The twentieth century was filled with preachers and teachers who applied the prophetic “end times message” to their respective generation. Dallas Theological Seminary, founded in 1924 by Lewis Sperry Chafer (1871-1952) attempted to give academic credibility to Darby’s eschatological methodology.

Hal Lindsey and Tim LaHaye were two most popular eschatological authors who popularized the “end times" message of dispensationalism. The Last Great Planet Earth (1970), There’s a New World Coming (1973) and The 1980’s Countdown to Armageddon are some of Hal Lindsey’s best-sellers. In 1995, Tim LaHaye together with Jerry B. Jenkins, began a series of novels called the Left Behind series, propagating a fictional message of the end times. Again, as with Scofield’s marginal notes in his Reference Bible, the vast majority has taken these fictionalized narratives as gospel truth.

Earlier on, right in the middle of the second century, Montanus and his followers predicted that the new Jerusalem was about to descend upon the nearby village of Pepuza (in today’s Turkey). His influence spread rapidly among Christians throughout the Roman world, but his prophecy failed. By misinterpreting Revelation, Monatnus tarnished the book’s reputation to the point that some Christians thought it should not be part of the Bible. From Montanus to the present, the claims of Christian groups that Revelation pinpoints the events, personalities and time period of the ‘end of the world’ have all failed. This record of failed predictions should be a red flag for Christians against using Revelation as a predictive handbook.

Four Methods of understanding Revelation

Preterism – believes that most of the prophecies in the book of Revelation were fulfilled (Praeter = past) during the time of the Roman Empire.

Classical Preterism believes that much of Revelation was fulfilled in the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70, and certainly no later than the destruction of Jerusalem that followed in AD 135. Classical Preterists believe that the book was written a few years before the fall of Jerusalem in 1970. They believe that the last chapters of Revelation alone, with visions of a new Heaven and a new Earth are to be fulfilled at some point in the future.

Historicism – believes that the images of Revelation refer to the entire history of Christianity, and that its prophecies have been fulfilled throughout history and are still being fulfilled today.

Many of the great leaders of the Reformation and Bible commentators from the 19th century or earlier were historicists – Wycliffe, Knox, Tyndale, Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli. Most Protestant historicists believed that the Antichrist of Revelation referred to the pope and the Roman Catholic Church, the two witnesses referred to Luther and Calvin and the ultimate victory promised referred to the triumph of Protestantism over Catholicism. The challenge for the historicists is to be flexible enough to revise their interpretations over and over again, in the light of ongoing world events.

Futurism – is the view held by many contemporary evangelical pastors and teachers. Ironically modern futurism originated in 1585 with Francisco Ribeira, a Spanish Jesuit preacher for the purpose of refuting the anti-Catholic historicist view of the Protestant reformers.

Its most popular version today is dispensationalism – that teaches a secret rapture of the church followed by the ‘Great Tribulation’ and the ‘Millennium’. They insist upon a literal interpretation of Revelation and ignore the style of writing that John was inspired by God to use. This view has been greatly influenced by the peace and prosperity in North America. They have failed to identify the horrors produced by Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Mao Tse-Tung, Idi Amin, sadam Hussein and their like, as Tribulation.

Idealism – believes that most prophecies in the book of Revelation portray an ongoing cosmic conflict of spiritual realities. It takes into account the apocalyptic style of Revelations and sees the central theme as triumph of Christ over Satan. While other approaches may take certain passage as chronological, idealists take these as recurring realities in history. Though this view minimizes the focus on the ‘when’ factor in prophecy, that kind of focus is not fully removed.

Many Christians today are not aware of these four views. They think that the futuristic view that their Pastor or Evangelist holds is the only way to understand the book of Revelation, and believe that it talks about the ‘end times’ for today. A more serious problem is that they also label other views as inferior and even non-Christian, just because they interpret the book differently.

The word revelation in translated from the Greek word apokalupsis, which means ‘unveiling’ or ‘revealing’. In English, apocalypse has come to mean disaster but the word originally referred to a revealing of things not generally known. Revelation is not written in a straight-forward style but in a literary style called apocalyptic. This style uses poetic language, metaphorical messages and figurative images and symbols to convey its message. The symbols, figures, numbers and colors in apocalyptic writing were not intended to be taken literally. The original readers of Revelation would have had a better sense of how to interpret because of their culture and familiarity with apocalyptic literature. We will need to decode its “true” meaning instead of taking the symbols to be literal.

Revelation was written to Christians who were suffering because of their faith. Some may have wondered if real power and future were in the earthly political and religious authorities like Rome’s emperor. This book answers that question. The real ruler of all things is Jesus Christ, not evil oppressors. Though Christians may suffer and die, we are safe in God’s hands and in the end He will destroy all wickedness. It not only looks forward to Jesus’ second coming but also insists that Christ has already won the decisive victory.

(To be continued . . . )

Why don't CHRISTIANS always Win?

2010-08-06T10:30:00.000-07:00

(Contributed the following article to VANAMUTHAM, a Tamil Christian Monthly magazine published by Serve India Mission, that focuses on current events to give its readers a Christian perspective. This article has been featured in its August 2010 issue.)

GIVING as we should . . .

2010-06-13T10:25:00.000-07:00

“Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the Lord Almighty "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.” (Malachi 3:10)

What is the storehouse, here? It was initially associated with the Tent of Meeting and later with the Temple at Jerusalem (Neh 13:4,5). Why should there be food in His house? It was to meet

the expense for worship at the temple and to provide living to the Priests and Levites who work while serving at the Tent of Meeting (Num 18:21). Every third year, the alien, the orphan and the widow may also eat of it and be satisfied (Deu 14:29; 26:12).

Where is the Lord’s work being done now? In churches, in mission fields, in various ministries that take the gospel to the sick in hospitals, the inmates in jails, and in various services being rendered to the orphans, the destitute and the sick. Pastors, Missionaries and Evangelists who take the Gospel to people, and doctors, nurses and caretakers at the orphanages, old-age homes and hospitals run by missions, all need to be taken care of. God’s children who have received from the Lord need to share a portion with those laboring for the Lord.

Ephesians 4:11-13 talk about the five-fold ministry (apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers) in the church. Romans 12:6-8 talk about various ministries involving gifts (prophesying, serving, teaching, encouraging, contributing, governing, showing mercy). Combining the 2 lists, we see atleast 9 ministries (which is not an exhaustive list but only indicative). Acts 6:1-4 talk about widows receiving daily distribution of food, and I Tim 5:3-9 talk about widows being put on a list and served. James (in Jam 1:27) writes to the Christian Diaspora exhorting them to take care of orphans and widows in distress.

I Cor 9:11-14 lay down the principle that those preaching the gospel must receive their living from the gospel. Paul talks about several others receiving such support from the church in Corinth, to whom he had ministered (maybe more than they did). Paul tells Timothy that every elder who is involved in ministry (particularly those who preach and teach but additionally those who take care of widows) is worthy of double honor.

The Bible does not say that the ministry that brought them to salvation or the Pastor of the local church is alone the Levite, and must therefore receive the complete Tithe.

‘GIVING’ TODAY

Since perfection could not be attained through the Levitical priesthood, there was the need for Jesus to come as our High Priest. When there is a change of the priesthood, there is also a change of the law. (Heb 7:11, 12) The sanctuary together with its sacrifices and rituals were an illustration for the reality that was yet to come. He has now set aside the first to establish the second (Heb 9:9; 10:9). Christ himself is the High Priest as well as the sacrificial lamb, and we are all his royal priesthood (I Pet 2:5,9). The old covenant was with the Jews only, which has now been set aside with a new covenant with all his children. Christ himself is the fulfillment of the first covenant.

Now, every believer is a temple of the Holy Spirit that lives in him, and he is not his own. He is bought at a price, and he is required to honor God with his Body (I Cor 6:19, 20). Like Christ who said,

“Sacrifices and offerings you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me…I have come to do your will O God (Heb 10:5-7)”, we too are to honor God with our Body. We are to offer our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God. This is our spiritual act of worship (Rom 12:1). We are to honor God not with just a tenth of our possessions and finances as with the Old Covenant, but with all our being – all of our senses, our priorities and our possessions.

There were numerous occasions when people selfishly held on to their money rather than give it to the Lord in regular tithes and offerings. During the building of the second temple, the Jews seemed more interested in building up their own property, while leaving God’s house in ruins. Haggai and later Malachi highlight this (Haggai 1:3-6; Malachi 3:8-11). Because God’s people refused to give Tithe, he judged them. Today, he looks at our hearts. He is pleased with one who gives enthusiastically for the building of his kingdom. A Christian gives not out of greed for material prosperity or out of fear for punishment but out of reciprocation. Having received God's love that gave even His only begotten Son on the cross for him, he is filled with love and gives himself back to God.

With the Old Covenant, salvation came through a faith expressed by obedience to his law and its sacrificial system. With the New Covenant, coming to the Lord with faith and obedience brings grace and blessing.

HOW IS ‘ONE-TENTH’ SIGNIFICANT TODAY?

Today, God does not mandate that each person gives one-tenth to God. We are expected to give ourselves completely. We are to consider ourselves as stewards of the blessings God has placed into our hands. As faithful stewards, we are to manage what God has entrusted to us according to His will for the establishment of His kingdom and for administering his grace to the world he created, to His glory. It is not true that one-tenth belongs to God and nine-tenth belongs to us. All the tenths belongs to Him and so it is important not just what we do with the one-tenth but also what we do with the nine-tenth.

So if all tenths are God’s and what we do with all of it is important, what then is the significance of one-tenth for a New Testament

Christian? It is this -- He can use that as a scale (or a reference point) to measure himself and see if he loves money more than God, if his possessions are more important to him than fulfilling God’s wishes. If he is not even giving one-tenth to God, chances are, he is after money more than after God. On the other side, there are those like John Wesley, who were intent on not increasing their lifestyle so that while they started with one-tenth for God, over time, they could move on to two-tenth, three-tenths and more.

May God give us the grace to value money for just what it is so that we master it for God’s glory rather than be mastered by it. The bible says, the desire of money is the root cause of all evil. Let us beware.

Faith - what is it ?

2010-04-18T23:51:00.000-07:00

‘Faith’ is a very important subject but has also been the object of great confusion caused by diverse interpretations. Bible defines faith as “being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see” (Heb 11:1).

A boy flipped through television channels and listened to a message on faith. He then prayed telling God that he desired to have a bicycle if it was His will and at the time of His choosing. A few days went by and there was no sign of a bicycle, and he was wondering if he prayed right. Another day, he watched a different preacher on TV and then prayed a different prayer. He announced to God his need for a Blue bicycle of a certain brand and his desire that it be delivered at his doorstep within the next 48 hours, and then said that he was claiming that bicycle by faith. A few days went by and again there was no sign of a bicycle. He grew frustrated and watched a third preacher on TV. He then grew restless causing his mom to wonder what he was up to. At bedtime, his mom approached his bed and found him fast asleep. Underneath the bed he had put a statue of Jesus that he had picked from elsewhere within his house, and underneath the statue he had put a paper with a prayer written on it. It read “Dear Jesus, If you want to see your mother, give me my bicycle.”

Some people almost go to the extent of preaching that when you desire to own a car, if you strongly hope that you will have it, that is faith. You do not see the car physically, but with your spiritual eyes if you can see yourself owning that car, that is faith. Is that what the author of Hebrews has hinted at? If not, what are the things that we hope and do not see that we need to be sure and certain about?

Paul writes to the Corinthians, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him” (I Cor 2:9). We do not see today the glorious eternity that God has in store for us. We do not see the glorious purposes that he accomplishes through us every day, when we measure our accomplishments through the world’s yardstick. Again Paul talks of God’s invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature - in his letter to the Romans (Rom 1:20). We do not see his goodness, his love, his personal attention to each of us and his power. These are things that we do not see but we need to sure of and certain about.

God is loving and good. He spoke through Prophet Jeremiah, saying “I know the plans I have for you . . . plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (Jer 29:11). Elsewhere through the same prophet he said, “My eyes will watch over them for their good . . . I will build them up and not tear them down; I will plant them and not uproot them” (Jer 24:6).

I remember a time when I was learning to ride bicycle as a 10 years old. A cousin who was in college used to take me and my twin brother to a large ground on his bicycle, while pulling with one hand a small bicycle from a cycle rental shop around the street corner. While we learned to ride, he was always running behind us and after we had started cycling on our own, he still used to catch hold of the cycle to help us alight when we were done. One day he refused to help me alight and cried out that I should try getting down on my own. Despite frantic protests, he refused to budge. I then ran the cycle between two heaps of dust and got down safely but was fuming inside that he had withheld help and refused to speak to him for days. He humbly kept explaining and apologizing but I was adamant. When I now look back upon that incident, I understand that he had done that so that I could learn to be more complete as a bicycle rider. My little mind did not understand then.

It is the same with God. He allows certain trials and difficulties so that we grow and become more complete. We have faith if we are certain of God’s love and goodness, even when we are passing through life’s turbulences.

God is all-knowing and yet personal. He spoke through Prophet Isaiah, saying “I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come” (Isa 46:10a). We do not know our future, but he has our future in his hands.

A girl in New York became pregnant outside marriage and was let down by the man who caused her pregnancy. Since she was malnourished herself, she had to deliver a premature baby. The hospital that facilitated the delivery discharged her the same day due to paucity of beds. Having no food and not able to breastfeed her baby, she soon decided to go to work, leaving her newborn baby in the attic that was her home. When she returned from work in the evening, to her horror she found that a dog had ravaged her baby. So much had gone wrong in one life and when a city councilman was questioned how no one could check her plight, he responded, “Life is too busy and complicated for me to hear the cry of every person in my community. As a matter of fact, I struggle to find time to even hear the cries of my own family. If I had to listen to the cry of everyone in New York city, you may as well ask me to listen to every blade of grass growing and to the heartbeat of every squirrel. The noise would be deafening on the other side of silence”.

Our God not only knows the big picture, he also knows the details. He is not overwhelmed by the volume of details or the cacophony of human cries. Jesus asked, “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father” (Mat 10:29). Scores of people die of heatstroke in summer. If not a sparrow can fall without his permission, not one human life can be lost without his permission. He continued, “And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered”. Wow! Not just life, not even a strand of hair can be lost without his knowledge. He therefore reassured, “So don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows”. He told us through Prophet Zechariah, “whoever touches you touches the apple of his eye” (Zec 2:8)

We have faith if we are certain that God’s knows our every circumstance and that the God who allowed it will also see us through, even when our problem looks big and appears to have no end in sight.

God has the power to accomplish his plans. He had spoken through the same Isaiah, saying “My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please” (Isa 46:10b). King David said of Him, “For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm” (Psa 33:9). He not only has good plans for us, he also has the power to fulfill them.

Imagine a spark developing in a flight flying at 30,000 feet above sea level. The pilot hurries to land the plane, establishing contact with the control tower of a nearby airport. As the plane lands, there are vehicles all around to attend to any emergency – fire engines, ambulances and police vans. As the doors are flung open, air gets sucked in, causing the flame to grow. The pilot and his crew – co-pilot, flight stewards and air hostesses – help children, aged ones and disabled passengers to come out even as able people help themselves. Finally after all passengers have been evacuated, the air hostesses, flight stewards and co-pilot come out. The pilot is the last one to emerge out, his uniform ablaze and fire fighters quickly roll him over in a blanket and whisk him away. Though the pilot had been noble in seeing every passenger out of the hazardous zone before saving himself, there are bound to be casualties depending on the age, amount of injury sustained, state of general health before the incident and the place they occupied inside the airplane. But he had done his best, and if you were to take your first flight the subsequent week and came to know that this very same heroic pilot is in charge of the cockpit, are you not sure to feel confident as you take your maiden flight?

Our God is not just good and loving, he is also able to protect those in his loving care from harm’s way. We have faith if we are sure that God is all-powerful and his inability to save is never a reason for our plight. If we do not see the solution we desired, it is just because he has a better way of solving our problem.

The Opposite of FAITH is FEAR. If we have faith, we will never be afraid when trials come our way. If we are afraid, we are not having faith.

In India, though parents often find a match for their son or daughter, it is inconceivable to think that the boy or the girl would leave the decision completely to the parents without even seeing the prospective bride or groom. One would not tell his or her parents , “I leave this completely to you; I do not want to see the girl or the boy (not even in a photo), as you know my mind, my taste and what type is an appropriate match for me”. I am not suggesting they should. I am saying it is understandable given that parents, though wiser by experience than their son/daughter are still not all-knowing and certainly not infallible. However, can we trust our Lord with such faith, saying “you know what is best for me”? “What I ask from my limited knowledge and wisdom may not be the best; you are the best person with your infinite knowledge and wisdom to determine what is best for me”.

“ Let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Rom 12:1b,2). Let us have the faith that Jesus had. Let us be sure of what is ahead of us, and not be frightened by the dangers we see around us.

Life is unfair but GOD is GOOD

2009-10-31T23:54:00.000-07:00

Do all of us have something to thank God for? We find ourselves spread across different strata in life – physically, economically, intellectually, and so on. Some are beautiful, attracting a second look while some are ugly. Some have so much that they splurge, not knowing how to use their money, while some have nothing or so little that they struggle to make both ends meet. Some are brilliant in thought and in expression while some just don’t seem capable of thinking new or big. Does each one of us, no matter which side we fall off the dividing line, have something to thank God for?

Some suggest that a positive attitude is required to feel gratitude towards God. When looking at a cup that has some water in it, while one calls the cup as half-full and feels thankful for what he has, another may call the cup as half-empty and complain for not having enough. In the same way, while looking at a rose, one may appreciate the richness of its color or the sweetness of its scent while another may be distracted by the presence of thorns all around. They ask us how we see God, when we look back at our life? Do we remember him for all the good things that we have received -- health, education, profession, family, income, etc., or do we complain that we did not receive sufficient goodness? It is true that the way one looks at the cup or the rose, colors his emotions, but the emptiness and the thorns are very much reality. Does one always have to look at someone less privileged to feel thankful to God?

Let’s face it – Life is unfair! While one has no logical reason to expect why one should have been born in a wealthier family or with greater beauty or intellect, one can’t resisting comparing with someone more fortunate (lucky?), who equally has no reason and has yet been gifted with greater wealth and beauty. Now wait a minute! Gifted by whom? That is when one starts attributing this unfairness to God. If God is sovereign and has absolute control over circumstances, why does he choke one with all goodness while depriving another of even the basic necessities. We tend to expect that if God has been fair, life too would have been fair. We conclude that life is unfair and therefore God too is.

Let us look at God and try to figure out if he is fair or unfair. He has revealed himself through his word and through his own Son who became flesh 2000 years ago, and what do we find? Jesus’ disciples were emphatic in reiterating that God shows no favoritism. Peter told a group of people in Cornelius’ house, considered gentiles by the Jews, “I realize now how true it is that God does not show favoritism" (Acts 1o:34). Paul wrote to the church in Rome that “God does not show favoritism" (Rom 2:11) and to the church is Ephesus that “He who is [everyone’s] master is in heaven and there is no favoritism with him" (Eph 6:9). If this is what the disciples found and had to say, what do we see directly from Jesus’ own life on earth?

While no one could choose the family he would be born into, God who could do for his own Son when sending him into the world, chose the family of a poor carpenter. Can we be sure that Joseph was a poor carpenter and not a rich one? While the rich sacrificed a lamb as offering, Joseph could only offer a dove that was a poor man’s sacrifice. While the Roman imperialists who ruled the Jews in Jesus’ time, rode on horses as they demonstrated their power to the world, Jesus chose to ride on a donkey while being greeted as Saviour. He associated himself with fishermen and social outcasts such as the Samaritans and Tax-collectors.

At a time, when God gave the civil rules to the country of Israel, his objective was that “there should be no poor among [them]” (Deu 15:4). He commanded them to “not take advantage of a widow or an orphan” and warned them of punishment if they did (Ex 22:22). Moses talked loftily about God in the following words: “For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien” (Deu 10:18). King David, Israel’s most cherished King, had realized this and sang (Ps 146:7-9) :

  "He upholds the cause of the oppressed
   and gives food to the hungry.
   The Lord sets prisoners free,
   the Lord gives sight to the blind,
   the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down . .
   the Lord watches over the alien
   and sustains the fatherless and the widow”

Elsewhere, he called God, “a father of the fatherless, a defender of widows” (Ps 68:5).

If God is good, how do poverty, sickness and death rule the day? If God’s desire is to see poverty removed, sickness healed and families restored, how did all these come here in the first place? God made man in his own image as a free being. The moment man decided to be his own God and not obey his creator, sin entered the world. Fallen man is depraved and has become very much unlike God. While God is love, man is full of hatred causing violence and making many widows and orphans. While God is selfless, giving himself for us on the cross, man is selfish, hoarding and accumulating, leaving sections of the society poor. Socialism, Communism, Capitalism have all failed to combat life's unfairness. Nature itself has fallen along with him leading to diseases and death.

But if God is certainly a father to the fatherless, and a defender of widows, we wonder why the world still finds injustice meted out to the weaker ones in society – the orphans, widows, immigrants and all who are poor? Why is God not wiping out everyone who does injustice? The hard truth is that there will be no one left on earth if he were to do so. God is therefore going through a slower process of working inside out. Today, he comes to live inside us through his Holy Spirit to renew us and transform us. He gives us the strength to bear the unfairness of life, so that together with Paul we may also say "Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day" (2 Cor 4:16). Great many renewed people have then been transformed to wage war against illiteracy, poverty, suffering :

Mother Teresa who founded Nirmal Hriday for the destitute and the dying of Calcutta;

Dame Cicely Saunders who founded the modern hospice movement that helps people die with dignity and without pain;

Bill Magee, a plastic surgeon whose program Operation Smile has repaired facial deformities on more than thirty-six thousand children;

Millard Fuller who founded Habitat for Humanity with the belief that every person on earth deserves a decent place to live;

Dr.Paul Brand who inspired several medical missionaries through his work with leprosy patients;

and countless others who did what they did because they were being obedient to Jesus.

Would we realize today, how depraved we are and thank God for not snuffing us out, from impatience, but waiting to live through us to not just transform us but also uplift a needy and impoverished world!

God in History

2009-08-02T02:19:00.000-07:00

I have always wondered what kind of evidence for Jesus' life and teachings exists outside the Bible. I was fascinated to find that Lee Strobel, an award-winning former legal editor of the Chicago Tribune, a one-time atheist educated at Yale Law School, had set out to determine how reliable the New Testament is and what evidence exists outside the Gospel. He had cross-examined experts to find this out for himself, and here are the highlights:

First, how much are the Gospels (of Mathew, Mark, Luke and John) credible as biographies of Jesus ? How much are they immune from possible legends developing over time?

Craig L. Blomberg Ph.D., widely considered to be one of the foremost authorities on the biographies of Jesus, states, “The standard scholarly dating even in very liberal circles is Mark in the 70’s, Mathew and Luke in the 80’s, and John in the 90’s. That’s still within the lifetimes of various eyewitnesses of the life of Jesus, including hostile eyewitnesses who would have served as a corrective if false teachings about Jesus were going around.” He goes on to make a very instructive comparison. “The two earliest biographies of Alexander the Great were written by Arrian and Plutarch more than 400 years after Alexander’s death in 323 B.C. Yet historians consider them to be generally trustworthy. Yes legendary material about Alexander did develop over time but it was only in the centuries after these two writers. In other words, the first five hundred years kept Alexander’s story pretty much intact; legendary material began to emerge over the next five hundred years. So whether the gospels were written 60 years or 30 years after the life of Jesus, the amount of time is negligible by comparison. It’s almost a non-issue.”

Blomberg then goes on to prove how these eyewitness accounts must be dated much earlier than that held by liberals. “The book of Acts written by Luke ends apparently unfinished. – Paul is a central figure of the book, and he’s under house arrest in Rome . With that the book abruptly halts. What happens to Paul? We don’t find out from Acts, probably because the book was written before Paul was put to detah. That means Acts cannot be dated any later than A.D.62. Since Acts is the second of a two-part work, we know the first part – the gospel of Luke – must have been written earlier than that. And since Luke incorporates parts of the gospel of Mark, that means Mark is even earlier. If you allow maybe a year for each of these, you end up with Mark written no later than A.D.60, maybe even the late 50’s. If Jesus was put to death in A.D.30 or 33, we are talking about a maximum gap of thirty years or so.” Here is how he summarizes the authenticity of eyewitness accounts in the Gospels: “Historically speaking, especially compared with Alexander the Great, that’s like News Flash.”

Now comes the next logical question: When I hold a Bible in my hands, essentially I am holding copies of ancient historical records. The original manuscripts of the biographies of Jesus and all the other books of the Old and New Testaments have long ago crumbled into dust. So how can I be sure that these modern-day versions – the end-product of countless copying through the ages – bear any resemblance to what the authors originally wrote?

Bruce M. Metzger Ph.D., who has authored or edited 50 books, several of which have been translated into German, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Malagasy and other languages and who is considered an authority on the New Testament text, responds, “This isn’t an issue that’s unique to the Bible; it’s a question we can ask of other documents that have come down to us through the ages. But what the New Testament has in its favor, especially compared with other ancient writings, is the unprecedented multiplicity of copies that have survived. The more often you have copies that agree with each other, especially if they emerge from different geographical areas, the more you can cross-check them to figure out what the original document was like.”

Metzger goes on to show how much greater cross-check is possible in the case of the New Testament. “There is something else that favors the New Testament. We have copies commencing within a couple of generations from the writing of the originals, whereas in the case of other ancient texts, maybe five, eight or ten centuries elapsed between the original and the earliest surviving copy.” He continues, “In addition to the Greek manuscripts, we also have translations of the gospels into other languages at a relatively early time – Latin, Syriac and Coptic. In addition to that, we have what may be called secondary translations made a little later, like Armenian and Gothic. And a lot of others – Georgian, Ethiopic, a great variety.” He cites these to show how if we even lost the Greek manuscripts today, by piecing together information from these translations from a relatively early date, we could actually reproduce the content of the New Testament. Not just that; if we even lost all the early translations, we could still reproduce the contents of the New Testament from the multiplicity of quotations in commentaries, sermons, letters and so forth of the early church fathers.

In terms of multiplicity of manuscripts and the time gap between the originals and our first copies , how does this compare with other ancient texts? Metzger points to the Annals of Imperial Rome written by Tacitus in about A.D.116. “His first six books exist today in only one manuscript, and it was copied about A.D.850. Books seven through ten are lost. Books eleven through sixteen are in another manuscript dating from the eleventh century. So there is a long gap between the time that Tacitus sought his information and wrote it down and the only existing copies.” Metzger also points to The Jewish War written by the first century historian Josephus. “We have nine Greek manuscripts of his work and these copies were written in the tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries. There is a Latin translation from the fourth century and medieval Russian materials from the eleventh or twelfth century.” Lee was stunned that there is but the thinnest thread connecting these ancient works to the modern world.

The contrast with the New Testament is striking. According to Metzger, more than five thousand Greek manuscripts have been catalogued. “Today we have 306 of uncial manuscripts which are written in all-capital Greek letters, several dating back as early as the third century.” 2,856 of miniscule manuscripts exist, which are written in a new style of writing, more cursive in nature, that emerged in roughly A.D.800. A total of 2,403 lectionaries have been catalogued, which contain New Testament scripture in the sequence it was to be read in the early churches at appropriate times during the year. In addition to the Greek documents, there are 8,000 to 10,000 Latin Vulgate manuscripts plus a total of 8,000 in Ethiopic, Slavic and Armenian. In all, there are about 24,000 manuscripts in existence.

Metzger adds, “Next to the New Testament, the greatest amount of manuscript testimony is of Homer’s Iliad, which was the sacred book of the ancient Greeks. There are fewer than 650 Greek manuscripts of it today. Some are quite fragmentary. They come down to us from the second and third century A.D. and following.” When you consider that Homer composed his epic about 800 B.C., the gap is a thousand years. The manuscript evidence for the New Testament is overwhelming when compared against revered writings of antiquity – works that modern scholars have absolutely no reluctance treating as authentic.

Thirdly, Do we find corroborating evidence for Jesus’ life outside the gospels, in the writings of contemporary historians?

Edwin M. Yamauchi Ph.D., a graduate in Hebrew and Hellenistics, and a Master and Doctor in Mediterranean studies, who has delivered papers before learned societies and has participated in excavations cites references from Josephus, Tacitus and Pliny the Younger.

Josephus records in The Antiquities, a history of the Jewish people until his time that he completed in about A.D.93, of how a High Priest name Ananias took advantage of the death of the Roman Governor Festus, to have James killed. “He convened a meeting of the Sanhedrin and brought before them a man named James, the brother of Jesus, who was called the Christ, and certain others. He accused them of having transgressed the law and delivered them up to be stoned.” He has recorded more directly about Jesus in a section called the Testimonium Flavianum. ”About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man [if indeed one ought to call him a man]. For he was one who wrought surprising feats and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. [He was the Christ.] While Pilate upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing among us, had condemned him to be crucified, those who had in the first place come to love him did not give up their affection for him. [On the third day he appeared to them restored to life, for the prophets of God had prophesied these and countless other marvelous things about him.] And the tribe of Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared.” Given the nature of Josephus' writing, Yamauchi thinks that the statements shown within braces above, may have been added by some copyists at a later date.

Tacitus in A.D.115 explicitly states that Nero persecuted the Christians as scapegoats to divert suspicion away from himself for the great fire that had devastated Rome in A.D. 64. “Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign on Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome . . . Accordingly an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their influence, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind.”

Pliny the Younger, governor of Bithynia in North-western Turkey , wrote the following in his correspondence with his friend, Emperor Trajan, that have been preserved to this day. “I have asked them if they are Christians, and if they admit it, I repeat the question a second and third time, with a warning of the punishment awaiting them. If they persist, I order them to be led away for execution; for, whatever the nature of their admission, I am convinced that their stubbornness and unshakeable obstinacy ought not to go unpunished . . .
“They also declared that the sum total of their guilt or error amounted to no more than this: they had met regularly before dawn on a fixed day to chant verses alternately among themselves in honor of Christ as if to a god., and also to bind themselves by oath, not for any criminal purpose, but to abstain from theft, robbery and adultery . . .“This made me decide it was all the more necessary to extract the truth by torture from two slave-women, whom they called deaconesses. I found nothing but a degenerate sort of cult carried to the extravagant lengths.”

Yamauchi adds, “It was probably written about A.D.111, and it attests to the rapid spread of Christianity, both in the city and in the rural area, among every class of persons, slave women as well as Roman citizens, since he also says that he sends Christians who are Roman citizens to Rome for trial. And it talks about the worship of Jesus as God, that Christians maintained high ethical standards, and that they were not easily swayed from their beliefs.”

The conclusion this leads to is that there is no dearth of evidence. Rather, men tend to suppress evidence because of its implications for them. If Jesus had indeed walked planet earth 2000 years ago, and if indeed all he said and did were as recorded in the gospels, it implies that men's intent are evil and they need God's redeeming love. It would be prudent to accept the truth and experience freedom, than to buy a lie and remain in bondage.

Sweet fellowship that carries us through!

2009-07-12T21:58:00.000-07:00

The God who on several occasions rescues us, at other times chooses to carry us and sustain us. To see how he does this, we need to live in a close relationship with him. Without the relationship, time deepens the hurt and drives us towards despondency. ‘Time is the Healer’ goes the popular proverb. However as someone in the audience once resonated with Dr. Ravi Zacharias, “Time is not the healer, it is just the revealer of how God does the healing”. One needs to have a personal relationship with his Saviour, to be able to discover this.

The Lord is known by names such as Jehovah Shammah (The Lord who is present) and Emmanuel (God with Us). He cherishes fellowship with man who he has created. In John 14:23, we find Jesus telling his disciples, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him and we will come to him and make our home with him." In Rev 3:20, John is told by the Lord to write to the church in Laodicea, "Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me." Imagine Jesus dining with you inside your humble home, talking with you, always available for help in your difficult circumstances. What an encouragement such a presence will be?

One finds this blessedness in the serenity at the Home for the Dying and the Destitute, run by Mother Teresa and her nuns. The sisters rise long before the sun, at 4 o'clock in the morning, awakened by a bell and the call, "Let us bless the Lord". "Thanks be to God", they

reply and file into the chapel, where they sit on the floor and sing and pray together. They immerse themselves in worship and in the love of God, before they meet the first needy. They begin their day with God and end their day with him back in the chapel for night prayers; and offer everything in between as an offering to God. God alone determines their worth and measures their success. Philip Yancey notes in Reaching for the Invisible God, "If I tackled such a daunting project, I would likely be scurrying about, faxing press releases to donors, begging for more resources, gulping tranquilizers, grasping at ways to cope with my mounting desperation. Not these nuns."

We find that heroes in the Bible had this experience. The weeping prophet Jeremiah, who prophesied to the people of Judah in the last 40 years of its history, and who lived to see the Babylonian invasion that resulted in the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, realized what kept him while there were afflictions all around. "Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, "The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him. The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord." (Lam 3:23-26) God told the Israelites through Prophet Isaiah, "Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near" and in Proverbs 8:17 "those that seek me early shall find me (KJV)."

There are however challenges in meeting with an invisible God. What we see hits us very hard that it is difficult for us to think of the Invisible God. Distractions push God away from our consciousness altogether. C. S. Lewis points out how the way we live keeps us from sensing God's presence. "Avoid silence, avoid solitude, avoid any train of thought that leads off the beaten track. Concentrate on money, sex, status, health and (above all) on your own grievances. Keep the radio on. Live in a crowd. Use plenty of sedation. If you must read books, select them very carefully. But you'd be safer to stick to the papers." He also offered help. "What is concrete but immaterial can be kept in view only by painful effort. That is why the real problem of the Christian life comes where people do not usually look for it. It comes the very moment you wake up each morning. All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of you, letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in. And so on, all day . . . We can do it only for moments at first. But from those moments the new sort of life will be spreading through our systems because now we are letting Him work at the right part of us."

If we can wait for God in solitude and in silence, we can hear God whispering in our hearts. Jesus had this experience of rising up in the silence of the wee hours of the morning, and going out in solitude to pray and to be in His father’s company. We find in Mark 1:35, “Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.” While starting a new day, following a very busy day, he knew that this was the way to restore him.
He knew the promise in Isa 40:31, “but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”

The eagle is a powerful bird with very large hooked beaks for tearing flesh from their prey, strong muscular legs, and powerful talons claws. It has very good eyesight with a resolving power 8 times more powerful than a human and can spot prey from a long distance. This keen eyesight is primarily contributed by their extremely large pupils that ensure minimal diffraction (scattering) of the incoming light. It has long and broad wings, and a direct fast flight in which it can quickly swoop down and pick its prey. It is a powerful flier, and soars on thermal convection currents. It may ascend in a thermal and then glide down, or may ascend in updrafts created by the wind against a cliff or other terrain. It reaches speeds of 56–70 kilometers per hour when gliding and flapping, and about 48 kilometers per hour while carrying prey. Its dive speed is between 120–160 kilometers per hour. It lives for 30 to 50 years and it is fascinating to learn how the Eagle grows in strength with passing years. Every year between April and July (which may sometime extend all the way from March to October) it loses a third of its feathers through a process known as molting, when it slows down and waits to get new ones and fly again with renewed strength. We too can grow in strength like an eagle, if only we will wait on the Lord each morning.

Paul compares the Christian life to a (marathon) race in his letter to the Corinthians. "Everyone who competes in the games go into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever." (I Cor 9:25) Philip Yancey notes how we live in a society that honors professional football players who work out with weights five hours a day and undergo a dozen knee and shoulder surgeries to repair the damage they inflict on themselves in the sport, and yet cannot comprehend those who fast or carve out two hours for a quiet time. He writes, “Love is what God wants from a relationship with us, but we humans tend to experience love like any emotion: intermittently, waxing and waning. Discipline nurtures in us a spiritual staying power - the kind of love a couple enjoys on their golden anniversary, not at their wedding."

Brother Lawrence, a cook in a seventeenth century monastery, has explained his spiritual discipline in a devotional classic The Practice of the Presence of God. “He does not ask much of us – an occasional remembrance, a small act of worship, now to beg his grace, at times to offer him our distresses, at another time to render thanks for the favors he has given, and which he gives in the midst of your labors, to find consolation with him as often as you can. At table and in the midst of conversation, lift your heart at times towards him. The smallest remembrance will always please him. It is not needful at such times to cry out loud. He is nearer to us than we think.” Frank Laubach, the father of modern literacy movement who strove to put Brother Lawrence’s principles to practice throughout his lifetime, reported that his efforts were duly rewarded. “After months and years of practicing the presence of God, one feels that God is closer, his push from behind seems to be stronger and steadier, and the pull from front seems to grow stronger . . . God is so close then that he not only lives all around us, but also all through us.”

This then is the lesson. Rather than seeking confirmation of his presence in our emotion, we need to put ourselves in God’s presence. I need to remind myself that God is all around me and strive to conduct my life in a way appropriate to his presence. As David who said in Psa 16:8, “I have set the Lord always before me”, can we refer back to God whatever happens today, as a kind of offering? We will then be able to say like David, “because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.”

God's Active PROVIDENCE

2009-06-22T08:04:00.000-07:00

Some feel that God after fashioning the world like a master clockmaker, has let it slowly unwind on its own. On the contrary, the Bible tells us that He continues to take care of all His creation as a Father cares for his little ones. Jesus himself said “If [that is how] God clothes the grass of the field which is here today and tomorrow is thrown in to the fire, will he not much more clothe you . . . So do not worry, saying ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow.” [Mat 6:30-34] When sending out the twelve disciples, Jesus gave them an assurance while also providing an eternal perspective. He assured them that nothing can happen outside the will of God. Jesus told them “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet none of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid, you are worth more than many sparrows.” [Mat 10:29-31] We have record of several glorious promises in the Old Testament. “Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.”[Isa 46:4] “Whoever touches you touches the apple of his eye.” [Zec 2:8] “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.” [Isa 49:15, 16] “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.” [Isa 43:2]

We might wonder then, “How come we find so much suffering!” The Bible tells us that this is so because the devil is the ‘God of this age’ [2 Cor.4:4] and that “the whole world is under the control of the evil one.” [I John 5:19] However, the devil cannot touch God’s children without His permission. When Pilate threatened Jesus saying, “Do you refuse to speak to me? Don’t you realize that I have power either to free you or crucify you", Jesus answered, “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above.” [John 19:10, 11] We find the same principle in the case of Job. “Does Job fear God for nothing”, Satan replied. “Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has?” [Job 1:9] We find this in Peter’s case too. “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail.” [Luke 22:31] We will do well to remember his parting comments during the Last Supper. “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” [John 16:33] All the promises and the assurances that we looked at earlier all stand good. The God of Love who cares for us is also powerful to keep us safe in His care. No evil or suffering can thwart the purposes of God. He has said, “I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.” [Isa 46:10]

I have heard Dr.Ravi Zacharias speak of a miraculous escape of an Eastern Airlines plane that took off from Miami to a resort destination. Suddenly, while it was cruising at 35,000 feet above the sea level, one of its engines lost power. Soon, the 2nd engine too lost power and the plane began to plummet down to the sea. A frightened pilot spoke on the microphone, “Ditching is inevitable”. As the plane was about to hit the waters, just a few feet about the sea, one of the engine started and the pilot was able to lift the plane to safety. I am sure the passengers onboard the flight and the pilots thanked God for the wondrous escape. However, our problem is that not all accidents are averted! And we struggle for an answer.

In his book “Disappointment with God”, Yancey records an account by a disappointed Richard of a Sunday evening church service. After the usual testimonies and praise, one report in particular rankled him. Earlier that week, a plane carrying nine missionaries had crashed in the Alaskan outback, killing all aboard. The pastor solemnly related the details and then introduced a church member who had survived an unrelated plane crash the same week. When the church member finished describing his narrow escape, the congregation responded, “Praise the Lord!” The pastor prayed, “Lord, we thank you for bringing our brother to safety and for having your guardian angels watch over him. And please be with the families of those who died in Alaska.” That prayer triggered revulsion, something like nausea, in Richard. “You can’t have it both ways”, he thought. “If God gets credit for the survivor, he should also get blamed for the casualties.”

Saint Augustine writes of God’s providence, “You give us many things when we pray for them, and whatever good we received before we prayed, we have received from you. We have received it so that we might afterwards know that we received it from you. I was never a drunkard but I have known drunkards who were made sober by you. It was from you that they who never were drunkards should never be so, and it was from you that they who were drunkards should not be so any longer. And it was by you that both might know from whom they came”. It is the same God who rescues on certain occasions while sustaining us or carrying us through the suffering on other occasions.

We see this contrast at several places in the Bible. In Acts 12, we find that the King Herod had James, the brother of John, put to death with the sword. When he saw that this pleased the Jews, he proceeded to seize Peter also. While God allowed James to die, yet he sent an angel to rescue Peter. [Ver 3-17] In I Kings 19:20, we find Elijah praying “The Israelites have . . . put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left.” In Jer 26:23, of the two prophets who prophesied against king Jehoiakim, Uriah is struck down with a sword, but Jeremiah finds support so that he is not handed over to the people to be put to death. We can be absolutely sure that nothing, not even death can touch us, until God’s purpose in our life is fulfilled.

God does not always intervene in the way we want, but He has all along been intervening in line with his purpose. People often want God to be predictable. C.S.Lewis wrote of Pantheism in his book Miracles, “An ‘impersonal God’ – well and good. A subjective God of beauty, truth and goodness, inside our own heads – better still. A formless life-force surging through us; a vast power which we can tap – best of all. But God Himself, alive, pulling at the other end of the chord, perhaps approaching at an infinite speed, the Hunter, King, Husband – that’s quite another matter . . . People who have been dabbling in Man’s search for God suddenly draw back. . . . It is a sort of rubicon. One goes across, or not. But if one does . . . One may be in for anything”. Even Christians often think of God as a Genie. They want to be able to tap into His power to serve their ends. They do not want to submit to His will as their King, as the Church’s groom. When we intend to 'use' God rather than 'be used' as an instrument to serve God’s purpose, we are set for disappointment. On the other hand, if we submit to His purpose and have a close relationship with Him, we can trust Him even when God’s intervention does not come along the lines we expect. We will then be able to see how he carries us and sustains us.

Let me sum it up with a quote. In the words of Dr.Ravi Zacharias: "Faith is confidence in the person of Jesus Christ and in his power, so that even when His power does not serve my end, my confidence is in Him because of who he is.”

God, Why do you let me suffer?

2009-05-11T00:25:00.001-07:00

When we are hurt the first question that comes up in our mind is "Why Me?" It is easy to philosophize and explain away sorrow and suffering in this world until it hits us personally. C.S.Lewis once remarked "I can write another chapter on pain, if only my toothache will go away". Years after coming out with an excellent treatise on "The problem of Pain", when it struck him personally in the demise of his loved wife, he wrote "Meanwhile, where is God? This is one of the disquieting symptoms. When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him, if you turn to Him then with praise, you will be welcomed with open arms. But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence. You may as well turn away."

When trouble comes our way, we are confused by the cacophony of voices that we hear around us.

"Surely you must have done something that has displeased God. He is trying to tell you something."
"Suffering is never God's will. Have you not read in the Bible that faith can move mountains? Name your promise, muster your faith and claim victory."
"Praise God for everything that happens, good ones and bad ones."
"You have been appointed to suffer for Christ because of your great strength and integrity. He is using you as an example to others. You should feel privileged not bitter."

And the resultant confusion just adds to our misery:

What unconfessed sin do I have ?
Why am I not able to muster enough faith to see deliverance ?
How do I thank him for the suffering ? Is he a sadist who will hurt me and then desire to see me thank him for the hurt?
Couldn't God choose someone more stronger than me to suffer for Him ?

Philip Yancey begins his book Where is GOD When it Hurts? with an appreciation for pain. Pain alerts us of dangers and keeps us from harm. When we have a ligament tear in our ankle, the pain alerts us of the problem and demands that we provide rest so it can heal. A hurt in our soul such as guilt helps us to locate the cause and undo the wrong. It is said that you appreciate shade only when you are out in the sun. Even so, to appreciate the benefit of pain, one needs to look at what absence of it does. For thousands of years it was believed that the loss of tissue in leprosy patients was caused by a certain fungus. Dr. Paul Brand through his pioneering research uncovered the fact that the ulcers were actually caused by abuse of body parts in the absence of pain. He therefore relishes pain as God’s gift. He points out how to even mop a floor without hurting or to dress nicely and walk normally, one needs the gift of pain. In Dr.Brand's words, "Pain is often seen as the great inhibitor, keeping us from happiness. But I see it as a giver of freedom." People generally tend to view pain as God's singular mistake in an otherwise wonderful creation. Why not alert of danger through some means that does not hurt? Simply alerting does not lead one to respond; the stimulus has to be unpleasant to demand action. The Bible tells us that “suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope”. (Rom 5:3,4). The pain network in the human body is a brilliant design by the Creator to keep us from danger and to build our character.

But what about pain that rages out of control? In patients suffering from Cancer or Arthritis, even after pain has given away the underlying problem and treatment has commenced, pain refuses to die. What do we make of such pain? Yancey points out that just as pain is a symptom of a deeper problem, sorrow and suffering in this world are symptoms of a world that has gone awry. He points out that we now live on a groaning planet. Paul tells the Romans in Rom 8:22, "We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time". 24,000different types of bacteria have been identified and only a few of them cause illness. The earth's climatic system needs major disturbances such as the Tropical storms to bring rains. But why permit hurricanes? God looked at His creation and found it to be good, but today we see the consequences of man’s fall. C.S.Lewis said, "God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience but shouts in our pains. It is His Megaphone to rouse a dead world." Three centuries before him, John Donne used a different phrase to describe the same concept. "I need thy thunder, O my God; thy music will not serve thee." His father-in-law got him fired and brought his law career to a halt. He then turned to church and took order as an Anglican priest. A year later his wife Anne died of cancer and a few years later he himself contracted the bubonic plague. On his death bed, he wrote the book Devotions which contains the celebrated passage: “No man is an island . . . Never send to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee”. Suffering and death serve as stark reminders of what everyone spends a lifetime trying to forget -- We will all die.

Thirdly, Yancey looks at what the Bible tells us about suffering and how Jesus himself responded to suffering while on this earth.

Many Old Testament passages warn against painful consequences that follow specific actions. Proverbs is full of such advice: Laziness brings on deep sleep; shiftless man goes hungry (Prov 19:15). A person who speeds on rain-slick highways courts the danger of hydroplaning. A person who eats all fried-foods exposes his body to health hazards such as heart-attack and cancer.

Some Old Testament passages show God causing human suffering as punishment for wrong behaviour. Amos, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Habakkuk, Hosea and Ezekiel all bristle with dire warnings of judgment but also hold out the hope that God will restrain himself if Israel turns to God. The people of Israel know why they were being punished; the prophets had warned them in excruciating detail. They do not sit around asking “Why?” They know very well why they are suffering. To be effective a punishment needs to be clearly tied to a behaviour. A parent who sneaks up at odd times and whacks the child with no explanation, will not produce an obedient child. Therefore, unless God distinctly reveals that we are being punished, it would do us good to look at other models in the Bible. [In the New Testament too, we see suffering as punishment -- as in Paul’s warning about participating in the communion without due regard (I Cor 11:29,30) and in the case of Ananias & Sapphira (Acts 5:1-11).]

When we turn to Jesus, we find him extremely sensitive to suffering and setting about to remedy. He never spoke about “accepting your lot in life” or “taking the medicine God has given you”. In Luke 13, Jesus talks about Satan causing the disease of a woman bound for 18 years (v10-16). But early on in the same chapter, Jesus is asked about 2 “current events” that had evidently prompted much local discussion – the parallels to today’s accidents and gruesome crimes. One was an act of political oppression in which Roman soldiers slaughtered a religious minority, and the other a construction accident that killed 18 people. He does not answer the question most on their mind with a “Here’s why these tragedies occurred”. But he makes it clear that they did not occur as a result of specific wrong-doing. "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no!" He quickly adds, “But unless you repent, you too will all perish." He implies that we “bystanders of catastrophe” have as much to learn from the event as do the victims. It does not help to ask "Why?" He will not answer just as He did not explain the cause to Job. A tragedy should rather alert us to make ourselves ready in case we are the next victim of an accident or an act of terrorism.

We see that Pain is God’s grand design to protect us from harm. We also see that Pain that today ravages out of control, is a result of Adam’s fall in the Garden of Eden. However, the Lord who transforms and redeems pain has allowed it to serve as His Megaphone, His thunder to remind us that we are not to find comfort in temporal things but to set our sights on what is eternal. In the meantime, pain hurts. But he has given us a glorious hope that lightens the pain and makes it bearable.

“Our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who . . . will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.” (Phil 3:20,21)

“We ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for . . . the redemption of our bodies.” (Rom 8:23)

“The God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.” (I Per 5:10)

“For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” (II Cor 4:17,18)

“For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality." (I Cor 15:52,53)

We all seek deliverance from pain and suffering. Our good Lord gives all of us a sample of his miraculous healing at some point in our life, but it is just a sample. Anyone who has experienced God’s healing may still experience pain or suffering again at some later point in life. Even Lazarus and the widow’s son who were raised by Jesus had to die again. We will all experience perfect deliverance only in eternity. In Hebrews 11, we find two types of deliverance. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Rahab, Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jeptha and the prophets all received miraculous deliverance. Others were tortured, jeered, flogged, chained, imprisoned, sawed, killed by sword. They did not receive what was promised in this world but will be made perfect together with us in the world to come. Cheer up. A glorious future awaits us.

We'll NOT be Consumed

2009-03-29T21:00:00.000-07:00

There is a promise in the Bible that has absolutely blessed me right from my youth. In Isaiah 43:1,2, God tells his children, "Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze." This verse subtly warns us that we may see torrents and infernos, but we are not to lose heart. Humans have a tendency to imagine the worst when the see the slightest indications of danger, but God tells us that we can be sure of the final outcome. We will not be consumed, annihilated, devoured, utterly defeated !

This promise was given to the Israelites about 700 years before Christ. It is likely that Daniel, Shadrach, Mesach and Abednego who were part of the royalty that was exiled from Judah to Babylon about a hundred years later, had read this promise while studying their scripture. When Daniel's 3 friends later came across the prospect of being thrown into an inferno, I am sure, this promise weighed heavily in their minds, as can be seen from their response to King Nebuchadnezzar: "If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it . . ." What a confidence on God's power! They continued ". . . he will rescue us from your hand, O king. But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up." They seem to have had a small amount of uncertainty about what God will do . . will he save or will he not -- that is for his sovereignty to decide. But they had no doubt on whether he can. And knowing that He besides being an all-powerful God is also faithful to his children, let them experience perfect peace with no anxiety about their future. They serve as ideal role models for us in these turbulent times.

In the new testament, we find similar trust on God's promise in Paul. While writing to the Corinthians, we find Paul stating in his second letter: "We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed." (II Cor 4:8,9) Here was a man who had gone through lot of suffering in life -- great endurance; troubles, hardships and distresses; beatings, imprisonments and riots; hard work, sleepless nights and hunger. His circumstances were such that should leave him dying, beaten, sorrowful, poor and having nothing. Yet he says he is living on, not killed, rejoicing, making many rich and possessing everything. (II Cor 6:3-10) How could he speak with such courage. Because he knew that the Lord who had given wonderful promises was living inside him.

We too may face failures in life - failure in a critical exam, a broken relationship, loss of a loved one's life, etc., but we do not respond like those who have no hope. We do not handle a failure by commiting suicide or by resorting to addiction to forget the failure or by even becoming slothful and wallowing in self-pity. We are never crushed to the point of losing hope and giving up -- we have a glorious promise "you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze".
When critical illness or a loss of job hits us, we may not know why they happen, but we will rest assured in the fact that the one who cares for us more than we ourselves do, is fully aware of what is happening to us and is sufficient to ensure that the worst does not hit us. We do not despair as the one who has promised to be with us has told us "Fear Not".
People who we trusted may let us down when we expected them to defend our cause, but we never feel abandoned and alone. The one who said "I will be with you" came down to live among men as Christ. Is he not called Immanuel (God with Us), Jehovah Shammah (The Lord is present) and Ebenezer (The Lord who helps)? Today, through his Holy Spirit, he lives right inside of us even when we find ourselves in the eye of life's storm.
We could fall in sin, lose to temptation again and again, but our Lord has promised that the Righteous shall rise up even if he falls seven times. We and not the Devil our adversary will have the last laugh.

Three things should comfort us. One: Our Lord knows our every situation. There is nothing that can come to us except with His knowledge, because we are His. Two: He loves us so much that he never lets go our hands and is always with us to help us tide over our situation. Three: The one who promised that we will never be swept away or set ablaze knows what he says and is able to keep his word. Therefore, Fear not . . Take heart . . and Cheer up!

Do I respond in Faith!

2009-03-15T10:20:00.000-07:00

Philip Yancey in the second part of his book ‘Disappointment with God’ looks at Job to find how we too can have his faith in the face of disappointments. He acknowledges, “Studying someone like Job as an example of faith is a little like studying the history of civilization by examining only the wars.” However, he does that because there are others that promise victory alone and make no mention of the wars.

The book of Job portrays one man confronting misery that makes no sense. He lost 7000 sheep, 3000 camels, 5000 oxen, 500 donkeys and numerous servants. He then lost all children – seven sons and three daughters – in one mighty gust of wind. Finally, his last consolation too failed – he lost his health as sores broke out from the sole of his fee to the top of his head. Yancey asks us to think of it as a “mystery play”, a “Whodunit” detective story. Before the play begins, we in the audience get a sneak preview. The plot and the main characters are described to us and every mystery is solved except one: How will the main character respond? He points out, that the book is not about suffering as most people think; it is primarily about faith in its starkest form. The book is not about ‘Where is God when it Hurts?’, the preview settles that issue; it is about ‘How does Job respond?’ Will he trust God or deny Him? Satan scoffs that God, unworthy of love in himself, only attracts people like Job because they have been ‘bribed’ to follow him. When God accepts the challenge to test Satan’s theory, calamities begin to rain down on unsuspecting Job.

God’s critics protest that Job paid one hell of a price to just make God feel good. Yancey points out that the wager, the bet, the wresting match was not between Job and God. Satan and God were the chief combatants – Job was just performing in a cosmic showdown before spectators in the unknown world. Many people get up, eat, drive their cars, work, make phone calls, tend to their children and go to bed without giving a single thought to the existence of an unseen world. Hence they find it absurd to believe that one human being, a tiny dot on a tiny planet, can make a difference in the history of the universe. Job’s friend Elihu too had the same thought: “If you sin, how does it affect God? . . If you are righteous what do you give him? Your wickedness affects only a man like yourself”. But according to the Bible, human history is a staging ground for the battle of the universe. The opening and closing chapters of Job prove that God was greatly affected by the response of one man and that cosmic issues were at stake.

The bible rustles with hints that something like The Wager is played out in other believers as well. Apostle Paul, borrowing an image from gladiators being lead into the Colosseum, pictured himself as on public display, “We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to men”. He is emphatic, “The whole creation is on tiptoe to see the wonderful sight of the sons of God coming into their own”. God who had created from nothing and ended up with an universe rich in splendor is now engaged in Re-Creation employing the very humans who had spoiled his work. Creation progressed through stages: stars, sky and sea, plants and animals and finally man. Recreation reverses the sequence, starting with man and culminating in the restoration of all creation. Yancey is convinced that The Wager is a stark reenactment of God’s original question in creation: Will man choose for or against me? Satan denied that human beings are truly free. Man has freedom to descend . . . but freedom to ascend, to believe in God for no reason at all? Often disappointments with God begin in Job-like situations. The death of a loved one, a tragic accident or loss of job may bring on the same questions that job asked. Why me? What does God have against me? We may beg God to change the circumstances – the ill health, the bank account, the run of bad luck. In our own trials, we will not have the insight that we got as readers of Job’s story. Will we trust God? Job affirms that our response to testing matters.

The book of Job does not answer the question ‘Why?’ When God himself arrives on the scene, one would have expected God to say, “Job, I’m truly sorry about what’s happened. You’ve endured many unfair trials on my behalf, and I’m proud of you. You don’t know what it means to me and to the universe”. God says nothing of this kind. He rather seems to guide Job through a course of appreciation for the created world. Perhaps God keeps us ignorant because enlightenment might not help us. No intellectual answer will solve suffering. Perhaps this is why God sent his own son as an active and personal response to human pain, to experience it and absorb it into himself. Perhaps God keeps us ignorant because we are incapable of comprehending the answer. A tiny creature on a tiny planet in a remote galaxy simply can not fathom the grand design of the Universe. In Yancey’s view, the book of Job substitutes the question ‘Why?’ with another question ‘To what end?’ Every act of faith by every one of the people of God is like the tolling of a bell, in the struggle to reverse all that is wrong with the universe.

At some point, everyone confronts the question –- Is God unfair? Yancey lists out several ways in which we respond.

Some respond like Job’s wife who advised Job, “Curse God and die”. Why hold on to a sentimental belief about a loving God when so much in life conspires against it. Still they cannot avoid a tinge of outrage, as if they have been betrayed. They overlook the underlying issue of where their primal sense of fairness comes from.
Others equally mindful of the world’s unfairness cannot bring themselves to deny God’s existence. They propose that perhaps God agrees that life is unfair but cannot do anything about it. Rabbi Harold Kushner, author of the best-seller ‘When Bad things happen to Good people’ portrayed God as compassionate but powerless, and millions of his readers found comfort in such a conclusion. If God is indeed less-than-powerful, why did he choose the worst possible situation (when he was being tried by Pilate) – when his power was most called into question – to insist on his omnipotence?
Still others evade the problem of unfairness by looking to the future when an exacting justice will work itself out in the universe. The Hindu doctrine of Karma calculates that it may take a soul 6.8 million incarnations to realize perfect justice. At the end, a person will have experienced exactly the amount of pain and pleasure he deserves.
Yet another approach is to flatly deny the problem and insist that the world is fair. Echoing Job’s friends, these people insist that the world does run according to fixed laws: good people will prosper and evil ones will fail.

Is God unfair? The cross settled that issue for ever. God is not, but surely life on earth is. No one is exempt from tragedy or disappointment – God himself was not exempt. Jesus offered no immunity, no way out of the unfairness, but rather a way through it to the other side. Just as Good Friday demolished the belief that this life is supposed to be fair, Easter Sunday followed with its startling clue to the riddle of the Universe. Out of the darkness, a bright light shone. Someday, God will restore all creation to its proper place under his reign. Until then, it is good to remember that we live out our days on Easter Saturday.

Was Job’s case exceptional? Yancey finds from reading through the Bible that Job stands as merely the most extreme example of what appears to be an universal law of faith. The kind of faith God values seems to develop best when everything fuzzes over, when God stays silent, when the fog rolls in. Yancey gives a new label “Survivors of the Fog” to Hebrews 11, a chapter most have labeled ‘The Faith Hall of Fame’. He draws distinction between two kinds of Faith: child-like Faith and the greater Fidelity. David exercised childlike faith when he strode out to meet Goliath, as did the Roman Centurion whom Jesus commended. Today, “faith missionaries” write stirring accounts of miracles – houseful of orphans being fed and mountains being moved - resulting from “seed faith”, a childlike trust. Childlike trust may not survive when the miracle does not come, when the urgent prayer gets no answer, when a dense grey mist obscures any sign of God’s concern. Such times call for something more – hang-on-at-any-cost faith that can be called fidelity. God did not exempt himself from the same demands of faith. Job sat on ashes, scratching his sores. Jesus hung on a cross, unable to reach his wounds. In a sense, God tied his own hands in The Wager over Job; in the most literal sense, he let his hands be tied the night of crucifixion. The three day pattern – tragedy, darkness, triumph – will someday be enlarged to a cosmic scale. We have little comprehension of what our faith means to God. According to the Bible, human beings serve as the principal foot soldiers in the warfare between unseen forces of good and evil, and faith is our primary weapon.

Why doesn’t GOD intervene? Living in a seen world of trees and buildings, we have difficulty in believing in another, unseen world existing alongside it. “We want proof”, we say. “How can we be certain that God even exists if he will not enter into our world?” We look for a blinding difference between the natural and supernatural worlds; a gulf separated by barbed wire. But in reality, we do not stop being ‘natural’ persons when we pray; we still get sleepy and lose concentration. Yancey quotes C. S. Lewis who talked of the obvious continuity between things which are admittedly natural and things which are claimed to be spiritual. He talked of the reappearance of all the same old elements which make up our natural life in what is professed to be our supernatural life. The modern world can reduce most natural phenomena and even most spiritual phenomena, to their component parts. Should it surprise us then to find the same universal principle operating in the realm of the spirit? From below we tend to think of miracle as an invasion, a breaking into the natural world with spectacular force, and we long for such signs. But from above, from God’s point of view, the real miracle is one of transposition: that human beings can become vessels filled with his Spirit; that ordinary human acts of charity and goodness can become nothing less than the incarnation of God on earth. Jesus Christ, said Paul, serves now as the head of the body. The risen Christ accomplishes his will through us, members of his body.

A final objection that one might have: Job got a personal appearance by God, but how does that help me who has not had a visitation from God, with my struggles? In a sense, our days on earth resemble Job’s before God came to Him in a whirlwind. We too live among clues and rumors, some of which argue against a powerful, loving God. We too must exercise faith. Paul told the Corinthians that in spite of incredible hardships, he did not ‘lose heart’. “Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary [!] troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal”. Let us fix our eyes on eternity and respond to God in Faith.

Are you there, GOD !

2009-03-01T08:44:00.000-08:00

Is God Hidden, Silent and Unfair? Philip Yancey gives voice to these questions that no one asks aloud, in his book Disappointment with God.

“Is God hidden? Why doesn’t he simply show up sometime, visibly, and dumbfound the skeptics once and for all?”
“Is God silent? If he is so concerned about our doing his will, why doesn’t he reveal that will more plainly?”
“Is God unfair? Why doesn’t he consistently punish evil and reward good people? Why do awful things happen to people good and bad, with no discernible pattern?”

He looks at what many consider to be the golden period and yearn for as the panacea for disappointment – the Old Testament days when God was so visible, vocal and indulgent – to see if indeed that is where the solution lies. God showed up in Moses’ time in a pillar of cloud by day (and fire by night) and spoke to him face to face as he might with a friend. He had simplified matters of guidance for the Israelites in the wilderness. A glance at the cloud over the tabernacle was all that was needed to determine if they should move today or stay put. Most things were pre-decided and communicated to them in a set of rules, codified into 613 laws that covered a wide range of behavior. For the rest, God had set up Urim and Thummim. And he had set up a “fair” system based on rewards and punishment -- health and wealth in exchange for obedience, and sickness and misery if they were to disobey. We would think that all this would produce great results. Yet, as one scans through Joshua and Judges, one finds that within fifty years the Israelites had disintegrated into a state of utter anarchy.

Yancey then turns around to consider from the Bible, God’s point of view -- “What does it feel like to be God?” Genesis begins with God’s creation and his exuberance that everything he had made was very good. He designed man and woman -- creatures unlike all others, reflecting back God’s own likeness and with a moral capacity to rebel. God had taken a risk and when the first man and woman chose to rebel, intimacy between man and God was spoilt leading to disappointment in man’s relationship with God ever since. Following Adam, Cain rebelled and soon the entire human race rebelled so much that the Bible tells us, “The Lord was grieved that he had made man on earth, and his heart was filled with pain”. Each time he intervened like a parent of a rebellious child and punished. God’s intention to have a mature relationship with free human beings was met with child-like behavior.

God then set in motion a new plan for human history, starting with Abraham. He set before man alternating experiences of revelation and lonely waiting, as if to help man reach a new level of maturity. After dangling a bright dream before Abraham, he seemed to sit on his hands and watch as Abraham advanced towards tottery old age. Isaac married a barren woman and so did his son Jacob – Sarah, Rebekah and Rachel, all spending their best child-bearing years in despair. Joseph's valiant stabs at goodness - visiting his brothers in obedience to his father, resisting a sexual advance in Egypt and interpreting a dream to save a cell-mate's life - brought nothing but trouble. In Yancey’s words, “A gambler would say God stacked the odds against himself. A cynic would say God taunted the creatures he was supposed to love. The Bible simply uses the cryptic phrase “by faith” to describe what they went through.” Faith was what God seemed to value as the expression of man’s love for God.

During Israelites' wandering in the wilderness, just as God found it nearly impossible to live among sinful people, the Israelites too found it nearly impossible to live with a Holy God in their midst. The elaborate rituals laid down for the Israelites to approach God with zero margin for error, made them feel distant and cry out, “Let us not hear the voice of the Lord our God nor see this great fire anymore, or we will die”. Looking back at that period one might ask, “Who wouldn’t lose heart in harsh circumstances? If only there were happier times, when God seemed close and granted heart’s desires!” God granted exactly that in Solomon’s time. He ruled over a golden age within a long tormented history of the Hebrews. With everything working in his favor, Solomon at first seemed to gratefully follow God. But by the end of his reign he had taken Israel from a fledgling Kingdom dependent on God for bare survival to a self-sufficient political power that took God for granted once his presence centered in the temple.

When the Kings who followed Solomon continued to lead Israel away, God turned to the prophets. But after spectacular demonstrations through Elijah and Elisha for a brief while, he seemed to rein in his supernatural power, turning from spectacle to word. Isaiah, Hosea, Habakkuk, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, all had no stunning displays of God’s power but only words. After all, miracles had not had a lasting impact on his people’s faith; he decided to inscribe a permanent record of how He felt. He felt like a betrayed lover and poured out emotions pent up for centuries. It was He not Israel, that was truly the disappointed party. The books of the Prophets reveal God struggling for a language, any language that might break through to his people. To the prophets too, it seemed like God was getting farther and farther that they protested loudly with disappointment. However God did not consider his ‘words’ as an inferior form of proof. Heaven then went silent for four hundred years.

What else could God do? God then set to win his people’s love through suffering, what he could not win through power. Supernatural encounters had always caused fear , sometime sounding like thunder, sometimes stirring the air like a whirlwind and sometimes lighting up the scene like burning phosphorous. God decided to span the vast chasm of fear that distanced him from his creation. On Christmas day, God became a baby, giving up language, muscle coordination and the ability to eat solid food or control bladder. God took on a shape in the world, acquiring a face, a name and an address. He made possible an intimacy that had never existed before – a bridge between ordinary human beings and a perfect God. Because of him, we can come directly to God. But his very ordinary appearance did not let Israel accept him as their Messiah, as it did not match with their expectation of what God should look like.

The problem of unfairness just did not go away and only seemed to worsen. Jesus’ own life ended in the greatest unfairness of history: the best man who ever lived becoming yet another victim of a cruel world. Though Jesus fed five thousand, raised Lazarus from the dead and calmed the raging storm, people disappointed with God are more interested in the miracles that Jesus did not perform. Why does a God who can right any wrong, choose not to sometimes? Why heal one paralyzed man at Bethesda – but only one? His selective miracles far from solving every human disappointment serve as previews of what God would someday do for all creation. Jesus refused temptations from the devil – to pull out a miracle to satisfy his hunger after forty days of fasting, to pull out another to defy nature and guarantee his physical safety, and to take the shortcut to achieve his messianic goal of making the world his own. The spectacle of the Cross – the one event that took place in the open for all the world to see - reveals a God who would not prove himself through power but rather through love. He had come to become one of us, and live and die as one of us. He passionately loved the people he had made but had a terrible urge to destroy the Evil that enslave them. On the cross, God’s son absorbed the destructive force and transformed it into love.

During his life on earth, after the seventy he had sent out returned with reports of people being healed and devils being cast out, Jesus jubilantly exclaimed, “I see Satan fall like lightning from heaven!” During the last supper on the eve of his arrest he told the disciples with a finality, “I confer on you a kingdom, just as my Father conferred one on me”. While his disciples anticipated a call to take arms and overthrow the Roman Empire, he asked them to wait for the Holy Spirit and ascended to heaven. He had indeed come to settle divine justice and to show us what God is like. But more than that, he came to establish a Church, a new dwelling place for the Spirit of God. The New Testament uses the phrase “body of Christ” to refer to this church. Humans on earth in whom God himself –the Holy Spirit – was living, extended the arms, legs and eyes of God on earth. Here, God took another risk, of letting us represent him badly and Christian have indeed represented him badly – Slavery, the Crusades, pogroms against Jews, colonialism, wars, Ku Klux clan. A prefect God now lives inside very imperfect human beings. According to Dorothy Sayers, after the Incarnation and the Cross, the Church is his third humiliation.

In the Old Testament days, God's voice was thunderingly loud. When the voice spoke from the trembling mountain at Sinai or when fire licked up the altar on Mount Carmel, no one could deny it. Yet, amazingly those who heard the voice and feared it soon learned to ignore it. Its very volume got in the way. For a few decades the Voice of God took on the volume and rural accent of a country Jew in Palestine. It did not cause people to flee and was soft enough to kill. After Jesus' ascent, the Voice of God speaks to our spirit, as close as breath and as gentle as a whisper. It is the most vulnerable voice of all and the easiest to ignore. The change from the visible presence of God in the wilderness to the invisible presence of the Holy Spirit involves a certain kind of loss. We lose the clear, sure proof that God exists. But he has elevated us from being a permanently stunted child to becoming a mature lover. For a baby, dependence is everything; someone else must meet its every need or the child will die. A lover, on the other hand, possesses complete freedom, yet chooses to give it away and become dependent. He desires not the clinging helpless love of a child who has no choice but the mature, freely given love of a lover. His Spirit in us will not remove all disappointment with God. His titles – Intercessor, helper, Counselor, Comforter, - imply there will be problems. However, his Spirit inside us reminds us that such disappointments are temporary, a prelude to an eternal life with God.

[Philip Yancey's Disappointment with God includes 2 books that treat the same subject from two different perspectives. In the first book he looks at the whole Bible from beginning to end, to find an answer to our disappointment. In the second book he looks for an answer from 'Job'. I would be naive to believe that I can summarize 152 pages of rich arguments put forth by the author in the first book, in a few pages here. I therefore greatly recommend that you read Philip Yancey's insightful book to glean more of the Answer. I just hope that your appetite has been sufficiently whetted by this summary.]

Plead, Submit and Rest assured

2009-02-15T19:59:00.000-08:00

God is sovereign. We find so many in the bible addressing the Lord GOD as Sovereign LORD. Dictionary defines sovereign as ‘supreme ruler’ or ‘a person with supreme power or authority’. Our Lord is the only true sovereign in this world. Paul writes about God to Timothy in I Timothy 6:16 calling Him “the blessed and only Ruler, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords”. The dictionary also has another set of meanings for Sovereign -- ‘preeminent’, ‘indisputable’, ‘self-governing’ and ‘independent’. God alone qualifies by these criteria. He says in Exodus 33:19, “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” He is absolutely free to act as he will. He is not bound by any rules. Very often we do not realize this when we address God as ‘Sovereign’ in our prayers; 'sovereign' has just become a meaningless adjective in front of his name. If he is sovereign, we cannot demand from Him as we demand from our peers. If he is indeed sovereign, we cannot command Him as we command our servants. The only way we can approach this most High God to act on our behalf is to plead for his grace. The next time we go down on our knees or look up in prayer, shall we PLEAD for his mercy.

God is absolutely sovereign. Since he is indisputable, we cannot question his fairness or wisdom in how he deals with us. Paul asks the Romans, “Who are you, O man, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ ”(Rom 9:20) Earthly sovereigns may be arbitrarily unjust, but our Sovereign Lord in his arbitrary mercy has decided "I will call them 'my people' who are not my people ; and I will call her 'my loved one' who is not my loved one." (Rom 9:25) Knowing that he is not just all-powerful but also all-knowing and loving, we need to submit to whatever is his plan for us. Paul continues, “Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?” (Rom 9:21) In this fallen world, there will be poverty and prosperity, health and sickness, literacy and ignorance, honor and rejection, all side by side. Whatever is the situation that we are in, we are not to question Him but remind ourselves, that “in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Rom 8:28). In the limited light that we have, we will not see the greater good that awaits us. Today’s ‘seed faith’ theology may say that we are to visualize what the solution to our problem will be, in all its details and pray for that solution. I would think that any solution which we can think of cannot be the best, given our limited knowledge. After we have pleaded for a solution to our problem, it is in our interest to leave the actual solution to His infinite wisdom. We will do well to SUBMIT to his will.

Finally, God is not just sovereign over us; he is sovereign over all circumstances. We are safe in His hands. Too often people are afraid not just for this life, but even if their salvation and eternal destiny is safe. Paul asserts in his letter to the Romans, “Who can separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? . . . No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom 8:35, 37-39) What is his confidence? We find it in verse 34 -- Christ Jesus is at the right hand of God. Christ Jesus is on the Throne and He reigns supreme. He reiterates in 2 Timothy 1:12, “I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day.” We can certainly REST ASSURED in his SOVEREIGN Love.

If at some point in life, we have truly committed our life to God and have accepted his gift of Salvation, we can rest assured that he will keep us safe from falling. Even when we falter on the way, fall to temptations and drift away from him, His gentle love continues to tug us back towards him. When we stray away, we get to face the consequences, lose precious years and miss several blessings he had planned for us, but He does not let the devil steal us. He will chastise us and do all it takes to bring us back to him. Dr. Ravi Zacharias recounts the fascinating experience of one of his translators of yesteryears, Hien Pham. A young teen in the early seventies, he had been his interpreter in Vietnam when he ministered to the American troops. From those early promising days, so much went wrong in his life but God was faithful to bring him back to Himself. What a great assuring Rest we have in Him.

"When Vietnam fell, Hien was imprisoned and indoctrinated, and had decided to abandon his Christian faith. Then he came across a page from Romans 8 that had been used as toilet paper while cleaning the prison latrines. After finding the Scripture, Hien asked the commander if he could clean the latrines regularly, because he discovered that some official was using a Bible as toilet paper. Each day Hien picked up a portion of Scripture, cleaned it off, and added it to his collection of nightly reading.The day came when, through an equally providential set of circumstances, Hien was released from prison. He promptly began to make plans to leave the country and to construct a boat for the escape of him and fifty-three others. All was going according to plan until days before their departure. Four Vietcong knocked on Hien's door and said they had heard of his escape. He denied it and they left. Hien felt relieved, but at the same time disappointed with himself. He made a promise to God—fervently hoping that God would not take him up on it—that if the Vietcong returned, he would tell them the truth. He was thoroughly shaken when only a few hours before they were to set sail, the four men returned. When questioned again, Hien confessed the truth. To Hien's astonishment, the men leaned forward and in hushed tones, asked if they could go with him!In an utterly incredible escape plan, all fifty-eight of them found themselves on the high seas, suddenly engulfed by a violent storm. Today, he lives to say that if it were not for the sailing ability of those four Vietcong, they would not have made it. They arrived safely in Thailand, and years later Hien arrived on American soil where today he is a businessman." What providence we find in His sovereignty!

Jesus is our greatest example. When faced with the prospect of losing his Father’s presence and his soul was overwhelmed with sorrow, he pleaded, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me.” Having pleaded, he submitted to his Father’s will and prayed, “Yet not as I will, but as you will.” He was then prepared to face what he feared and rested assured in his Father’s divine providence. Let us follow our saviour's footsteps.

He's very fond of me

2009-02-01T08:46:00.000-08:00

When asked who is the most important person on earth, most might answer that it is the President of the United States of America. Do we not call the occupant of that chair as "The Most Powerful Man on Earth"? Christians could possibly point to some Minister who is seen to be powerfully anointed of God, as most important. We find from the Bible that 'the greatest prophet of all times' Samuel was no exception either. When asked to anoint a son of Jesse as the 2nd King of Israel, he considered the appearance and height of Eliab the eldest and thought he was the Lord's anointed to be Israel's King. He had to be reminded by God, "The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart". Even Jesse who had been instructed by Samuel to assemble his sons and join him for a sacrifice to the Lord, had made the same mistake. While he called his first 7 sons for the worship, he did not consider his youngest son important and had left him to continue to tend the sheep. How radically opposite are our outlook comapred to our Lord's. Here is David, the youngest and the despised in the family away tending sheep and God has Samuel waiting to receive him so he could anoint him as King.

Very few people in this world look at it in the same way that the Lord looks. There are very few like Teresa who said, "I see God in every human being. When I wash the leper's wounds I feel I am nursing the Lord himself". Teresa could see God the Creator in every neglected person who had been created in the image of God. She could do so because she had come to share the Lord's burden for the lowly

Let's look at some of the civilian laws that God had given the nation of Israel through Moses, that will help us get a ringside view of his concern for the poor.

'When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the alien." (Lev 19:9,10)

At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts. . . Every creditor shall cancel the loan he has made to his fellow Israelite. He shall not require payment from his fellow Israelite or brother . . . you must cancel any debt your brother owes you. (Deu 15:1-3)

Do not take advantage of a hired man who is poor and needy, whether he is a brother Israelite or an alien living in one of your towns. Pay him his wages each day before sunset, because he is poor and is counting on it. (Deu 24:14,15)

Look at the Lord's heart. It can clearly be seen in 2 verses in Deuteronomy 15. Ver 4 says "There should be no poor among you." If the rich would take care of the poor and needy, realizing that God's riches are not meant for their individual use but have been given them in their capacity as Stewards, there would not be any poor. The world wants to make the poor still poorer through their debts and Credit cards but God had wanted the old nation of Israel to cancel the poor's debts. Ver 11 says "There will always be poor people in the land." As long as we are on this fallen earth, there will be poverty and prosperity side by side. It is the Lord's will that his Stewards will administer the riches in their hands generously and alleviate poverty. He told the Israelites that they are to deal this way with the poor because He is the Lord their God (Lev 19:10) -- God of both the poor and the rich. How often we forget this and live as if God is on the side of the rich? What a different place this world will be, if we will begin to see like God sees?

We considered how our 'outward look' at the world should be. Let us now see how our 'inward look' - the way we look at ourselves - should be. What should our identity be -- our profession, our prosperity or our family connections? Philip Yancey in his book 'What's So Amazing About Grace' quotes Brennan Manning "If John were to be asked, 'What is your primary identity in life ?' he would not reply, 'I am a disciple, an apostle, an evangelist, an author of one of the four Gospels,' but rather, 'I am the one Jesus loves.'" Brennan Manning also tells the story of an Irish priest who, on a walking-tour of a rural parish, sees an old peasant kneeling by the side of the road, praying. Impressed, the priest says to the man, "You must be very close to God." The peasant looks up from his prayers, thinks a moment, and then smiles, "Yes, He's very fond of me".

Irrespective of who we are - rich or poor, educated or illiterate, high or low - will our identity be that "I am the one Jesus loves"? That will keep us from pride as well as from self-pity. Some of us could need the humbling that this identity brings while others could need the encouragement. Again, for some of us there could be times of success when we need to be brought to our senses that there is nothing we can do to earn God's love, and other times of failure when we need this encouragement that there is nothing we can do to make us lose his love. Jesus loves me because he created me in His own image. How comforting this is !

Fasting: a spiritual exercise

2008-10-07T09:40:00.000-07:00

I once used to reject fasting as starvation, as I often ended up spending the hours without prayer and without food. I used to tell myself that unless I am also able to pray while I am abstaining from food, I am not fasting but merely starving. I had probably considered Isa 58:3,4 - "'Why have we fasted', they say, 'and you have not seen it? Why have we humbled ourselves and you have not noticed?' ‘Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please . . . You cannot fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high'" - while coming to this conclusion. Hence, over time, I stopped fasting. But today, I begin to see that fasting by itself is a spiritual exercise just as praying is.

I now see Isa 58:3,4 not in isolation but within the context of the whole chapter. God is not displeased about the fact that they carried on their work while fasting. Rather he is displeased about the fact that their hearts were not in right alignment with him. In fact, their hearts were set all out against his tenets of justice. Their fasts were acts of hypocrisy, hoping to please God with their outwardly righteous acts while their hearts were far from him. They hoped to impress God and keep his eyes away from their quarreling and exploitation, so he could bless them. But our God is a flaming fire who examines our heart and searches our soul. He therefore called their bluff.

Just as prayer itself may be offered either sincerely where one is fully focused on God or lightly without much thought to what is being said and to who it is being said, a fast too may be offered sincerely to God or offered without any thought of God. The fact that one is working while fasting should not make it inappropriate. The human mind is capable of doing several things together and over time one should be able to learn to focus on God even in the midst of work, especially when he is fasting. Charles Spurgeon writes on Exclamatory Prayer in his book The Power in Prayer, "The mind can be praying while it is studying. It can be looking up to God while it is talking to man. One hand can be held up to receive supplies from God while the other hand is dealing out the same supplies that He is pleased to give." Just as we do not advise people to stop praying because they do not pray the right way when they begin to, but rather to grow in prayer by focusing their thoughts on God, even so, a weak attempt at fasting should not be discouraged but one should rather be encouraged to make his fasting more meaningful and effective.

How is a fast that one offers in the midst of a busy day, an act of sacrifice? To understand it, let us first look at what any act of sacrifice to the Lord signifies and accomplishes – be it prayer or praise.

Firstly, we honor God with our sacrifices. Pro 3:9 tells us to “Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the firstfruits of all your crops". In Heb 13:15, Paul exhorts us to “continually offer to God a sacrifice of Praise – the fruit of lips that confess his name”. Just as we honor God, when we do not take the firstfruits for ourselves, and instead consecrate them for God, we honor God when we forego what is by default ours. In India, when we have guests at home and do not have enough cots for everyone, we honor the guests by giving them the cots for a good night’s rest and settling on mats on the floor ourselves. In the same way, when we give away the food that is rightfully ours, to focus on the food from heaven, we honor God. It is not that God is honored because he has the firstfruits; God is honored by our giving hearts.

Secondly, we humble ourselves before God. Ezra tells us that when he had to lead a large group from Babylon to Israel, he was ashamed to ask the King for soldiers and horsemen to protect them from enemies on the Road, and instead chose to ask God for a safe journey (Ezra 8:21). There was a great hazard on the way and he needed protection. He could have deceived himself by thinking that the King's supply will make him self-sufficient. But he chose to humble himself before God through fasting, together with the group he was leading, knowing well that it was not wise to trust man. By going to the Lord fasting, we declare that we are not self-sufficient in ourselves and the resources at our hands, and we are totally dependent on the Lord. Fasting expresses humility, self-denial and submission to God.

Thirdly, we express our regret over our sins. We find Samuel leading the Israelites to fast and mourn for their sins, and he himself interceded for them and cried out to the Lord on their behalf (I Sam 7:5-9). Elsewhere in Neh 9:1-3, we find the Israelites who had returned from Babylon, having revived worship in the temple and rebuilt the wall of Jerusalem, assembling to fast wearing sackcloth and with dust on their heads, to confess their sins and the wickedness of their fathers.

Fourthly, we show repentance and make way for God to change his declared intention of judgment. When David sinned and God warned him through Nathan that he will have to pay with the life of his new-born son, he fasted and spent the nights lying on the ground until the child died. He explained it later, “When the child was still alive, I fasted and wept. I thought ‘Who knows? The Lord may be gracious to me and let the Lord live.’” II Sam 12:7 We find elsewhere (I Kings 21:17-27) how Ahab tore his clothes, fasted, lay in sackcloth and went around meekly, when he was warned by Elijah of the coming judgment on him. The Lord took notice and told Elijah, “Because he has humbled himself, I will not bring this disaster in his day”.

We know that it is important to feed on His Word and listen to what He has to tell us. We know that it is important to seek God's presence and speak to Him in prayer. Therefore, irrespective of where we stand with regard to reading and meditating the Scriptures and praying, we always yearn to grow in these disciplines. Let us realize that Fasting too, is a very important discipline that the Lord has made available for us to grow closer to him, and begin to exercise it in our spiritual walk with God.

Do I need to fast ?

2008-10-04T06:00:00.000-07:00

Jesus responded to the query from John’s disciples about why his disciples did not fast with a question, "How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them?”. He then went on to elaborate saying, “They cannot, so long as they have him with them. But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and on that day they will fast.” (Mark 2:19,20)

Jesus did not say fasting was not necessary. Rather, he anticipated that they would fast at a later point in time. But before they could be expected to fast, he was at work in them. He was preparing their hearts so that when they fast they would not do it as an obligation to keep the law. Instead, they would do it for the right reasons. Jesus conveyed this through a metaphor. "No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the new piece will pull away from the old, making the tear worse. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, he pours new wine into new wineskins." (Mark 2:21,22). He was giving them a new robe of righteousness. He was transforming their hearts that were old wineskins into ones capable of being home to his Holy Spirit. With his righteousness, they would then fast so that they are with the Lord even as their bodies are away from Christ. With fasting we seek him and draw near to him.

Today, some people fast as the pharisees did. They do it for all the wrong reasons . . . to be seen to be holy by others, to earn brownie points with God, or to wring God's hands into acting out what they desire. There are others on the other extreme who reject fasting as mere observance of the law that is no longer required, or as a dead tradition that yields nothing good. Jesus did not consider fasting to be an inconsequential and unnecessary practice.

In fact, Jesus thought and taught ‘Fasting’ to be an essential part of a child of God – putting it in the same league as praying and helping the poor – as can be seen from another passage in the Gospels. In his sermon on the mount, he preached saying, "When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” (Mat 6:16-18)

Why should we fast? If we know why we should pray, we would then know why we should fast. Fasting can be considered as an intense form of prayer. When we pray God often works changes within us though at times he additionally works out changes outside us too. Anyone who spends time with the Lord is transformed by his presence. In Exodus we find that whenever Moses returned from the Lord’s presence after speaking with him, his face was radiant (Exo.34:34,35). On most such occasions, his prayer was also accompanied by fasting. Prayer and fasting bring such glorious transformation. Fasting helps one to humble himself before God in order to experience God's intimate presence and more grace.

How is fasting an intense form of prayer? In prayer, we fervently petition God. In fasting, our prayer is all the more fervent and potent. A poet wrote “More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of”. It is all the more true of fasting. In Mark 9:17-29, we find Jesus rebuking and driving out a deaf and mute spirit that also threw the boy it possessed to the ground, making him foam at his mouth, gnash his teeth and become rigid. His disciples wondered why they could not drive the spirit out. Jesus had a short reply, "This kind can come out only by prayer and fasting." Fasting is needed to save people from bondage to evil.

In the early church that got established soon after our Lord’s ascension, we find the apostles and the early Christians praying and fasting. In Acts 13:2 we find that while they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, "Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them." As they reaffirmed their consecration to God through fasting, he set out to do wonderful things in their midst. In verse 23 of the next chapter we see that Paul and Barnabas appointed elders for them in each church and, with prayer and fasting, committed them to the Lord, in whom they had put their trust. Here, when they set out on a new task, they fasted to seek his grace for the task, even as Christ himself fasted ahead of his ministry (Mat 4:2).

Jesus fasted. His disciples fasted after he was taken up from the earth, true to the words he spoke while he had been with them. The early church fasted. All this should certainly encourage us to fast more than we do now, even as we are driven in our hearts to increase and abound in prayer.

Bread for life's deepest hunger

2008-09-22T10:01:00.000-07:00

In John 6:5 to 14 we find Jesus feeding a crowd of five thousand with five loaves and two fishes. What a great miracle! It is therefore no surprise when the crowd crosses the Sea of Galilee (Tiberias) and looks for Jesus in Capernaum, the next day. On seeing the crowd Jesus tells them, “you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill". Now wait, what is he trying to dissect – thousands indeed had their fill and they had indeed seen this miracle with their own eyes. He seems to be implying that following because they saw a miracle was right but following because they were filled is not right.

A close examination of this outburst reveals a certain disappointment in Jesus. He had hoped that they will see the feeding of thousands with little food, as a miraculous sign pointing to the presence of God among them. A statement by Jesus to a different audience underpins this expectation: "Unless you people see miraculous signs and wonders, you will never believe." (John 4: 48). Such believing will lead them towards seeking more of God himself who can fulfill their hearts’ deepest longings. But here they were, not realizing any truth but just hanging around hoping to get free food.

In Acts 8:9-19 we see a similar response from Simon when he saw people being anointed miraculously by the Holy Spirit. Simon had practiced sorcery for some time in the city and amazed all the people of Samaria. He had boasted that he was someone great, and all the people, both high and low, had given him their attention. But when he heard Philip preach the good news of the kingdom of God, he himself believed and was baptized, and followed Philip everywhere, astonished by the great signs and miracles he saw. Later when Simon saw that the Spirit was given when Peter and John placed their hands on the people, he offered them money and said, "Give me also this ability so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit." (Acts 8:19). He too had missed the point. Instead of seeing God himself at work and holding on to him, here he was trying to maintain or better his livelihood -- he had only changed the source for his power; it was devil and sorcery earlier and he now thought it could be God.

Jesus after pointing out that they were following him so they could continue to get food, implores them “Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you”. (John 6:27) Does this ring a bell? The bible says that "if for only this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men". (I Cor 15;19)

God often uses miracles that address one’s physical and material needs – success in studies, progression in career, healing, etc., - to reveal himself and to grab one’s attention so one will hold on to him unto eternal life. He says in Hosea 2:14, “I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her”. His expectation is that she will no longer call him ‘my master’ but move to a closer relationship where she calls him ‘my husband’. (Hos 2:16). In Deu 8:3 we find Moses explaining to the Israelites, “God humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord”. When people cling on to the blessings rather than clinging to the one who blesses, he is disappointed.

Jesus fed thousands in a miraculous way to let people see that He himself is the bread from heaven that can satisfy one’s deepest hunger -- to know God intimately and to understand God's purpose for one in this life. Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty. (John 6:35) The bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world." (John 6:33)

The Word of God as bread . . .

How do we live on the bread from heaven -- the word that comes from the mouth of God? Jesus said, "I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me". (Mat 4:4) "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work". (John 4:34) . This Jesus has now given us his word (John 17:14) and has sent us into the world just as he himself was sent by the Father (John 17:18). If we keep his word and do his will, we will feed on the bread from heaven.

The Living Word as Bread . . .

John recorded at the start of his Gospel, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the word was God. . . The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us". It is therefore not surprising that Jesus said "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day . . . Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him". (John 6:53-56) How do we quench the thirst and satisfy the hunger that only heaven can meet, with the word that was the express image of the invisible God? By accepting the sacrifice he made on the cross -- believing that he gave his body to be torn and shed his last drop of blood, that our sins may be forgiven and we may have eternal life. He also promises to live inside us and take us to heaven. Each time we partake in his last supper, we are reminded of his sacrifice to make us partakers of his heavenly glory and his indwelling presence to transform us from glory to glory.

Let us take our eyes from food that satisfies our physical and material needs of this life - success, prosperity, health - and set our eyes on the food from heaven that will lead us to eternal life. The word of God is the food from heaven that has come out from the mouth of God, and we feed on the heavenly manna by keeping his commandments while living on this earth. Jesus himself is the word that is the ultimate expression and revelation of who God is, who has given himself for us as the bread of life. Let us take this bread . . . have Jesus himself in us, that we may share in his glory.

Short-cuts lead us nowhere

2008-09-16T09:46:00.000-07:00

We often look down on Jacob (whose name means 'deceiver') and look up to men like Abraham, Joseph and Daniel, all along assuming in our sub-conscious mind that we are somewhere in between Jacob and the other greater men in the Bible. We do not realize that if we can readily identify with someone in the Bible, it is Jacob.

Jacob was a man of short-cuts. He wanted to quickly grow up in life, without the attendant effort and hard-work. My 6-year son who fondly watches stories on Kids' channels, and is greatly amused by the magical powers of the whiz-kids that star in them, once remarked that he would love to have those powers as he can get great grades without having to study !! Grown-ups too are often like that -- only not so naive but very sophisticated and subtle.

Let us focus on Jacob for a while. Two of his infamous short-cuts readily come to our mind. His elder brother Esau by way of birthright probably was poised to inherit twice as much property (sheep, cattle, men-servants & maid-servants) from his father as Jacob himself will. Certainly, over time Jacob can get wealthier than Esau -- it could only require patience, hard-work and perseverance. Jacob figured an easy way out. He took advantage of his brother's despairing moment. When Esau once returned from the open country, without success in hunting and famished, and desired to have the stew that his brother was cooking, Jacob demanded that he sells his birthright and got it for the bread and lentil stew that he let him have (Gen 25:29-34).

Do we not do the same? We try to inherit the result of someone else's hardwork. At the workplace, when something good comes out of collective work, or worse still, out of the efforts of all the rest in the team, have we not tried to be the first to announce it to the Company and together with it be the beneficiary of all the accolades and rewards. If we have, we have been a Jacob. In Lev.19;11,13, we are commanded "Do not steal. Do not lie. Do not deceive one another. Do not defraud your neighbour or rob him".

There are those who may not stake claim of others' deeds, but decry and belittle anything that others did. Such people use different yardsticks for themselves and for others. When they do something, it is heculean; when others do the same, it is just extra-mile. When they commit a blunder, it is just a mole-hill; while others commit the same, it is himalayan. The Bible warns us of using different yardsticks: "Do not have two differing weights in your bag -- one heavy, one light. Do not have two differing measures in your house -- one large, one small" (Deu. 25:13,14).

Jacob attempted short-cuts not just with men but even with God. Having deceitfully got the birthright, he did not hesitate to have heaven's blessings too - that his father would pronounce on his favourite son Esau - through deceit. Teaming up with his mother, he set out to decieve his father who was going blind with age. He put on his brother's clothes that carried scent of the open country he goes hunting into, covered his hands and neck with goatskin to impersonate his hairy brother, took the meat that his mother cooked from the choice young goats in his father's flock, and decieved his father that it was Esau who has come back with his wild game as his father had wished (Gen 27:6-29).

Is this not very common with us? We think we can decieve God with our praises, our offerings and tithes. We think that it does not matter who we are internally, as long as we present ourselves in the right way to God. We are often the Jacob deep within, presenting ourselves as Esau who deserves the heavenly father's blessings. We do not forgive others but presume ourselves to be broken-hearted pleading for God's mercies. One who attempts to deceive God is in effect deceiving himself. The Bible clearly admonishes us, "Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart" (I Sam 16:7).

Jacob had to learn his lesson the hard way. He had to run away from his home, to an uncle at Paddan Aram he has never seen, for fear that his wronged brother would kill him. The man who thought he had won wealth and God's blessings is reduced to a desperate state. He pleads with God at Luz (which he renamed Bethel) on his way to Paddan Aram, "if you will be with me and watch over me on this journey and give me food to eat and clothes to wear, and bring me safely to my fathers house . . . (Gen 28:20)"

Jacob ultimately realized that one's smartness (read it as conniving) does not bring prosperity. The twenty years of hardship and toil tending his uncle Laban's flocks ( 14 years for having Rachel's hand in marriage and another 6 years for flocks as wages during which time he got his wages changed unfavouably ten times) taught him the lesson of his life: "If God had not been with me, I would have been sent away empty-handed. But God has seen my hardship and the toil of my hands (Gen 31:42)".

We all need not have to learn this lesson the hard way - by commiting the mistake in our lives and receiving correction at God's hands. We can rather learn it from Jacob's life. Let us trust God for our growth and lean not on deceit. In due time, he will lift us up.

Balm to soothe our Pain

2008-09-08T23:30:00.000-07:00

No one can escape pain in his lifetime. It therefore helps to understand how God views our pain and where he figures in our world of sorrow and pain. The Bible makes it amply clear that our creator God feels our pain, helps us bear the pain, redeems our pain and ultimately removes our pain.

The King on the Judgment throne tells the righteous on his right, "whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me". When they fed the hungry, gave drink to the thirsty, invited a stranger, clothed a naked, cared for a sick and visited a prisoner, they had done it all to Jesus. Every time a hungry, thirsty, naked, sick, stranger or prisoner was comforted, Jesus himself had been comforted. He also tells those on his left, "whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me". So whenever a hungry, thirsty, naked, sick, stranger or prisoner continued in his predicament without comfort, Jesus himself had been denied comfort. (Mat 25:34-45). How comforting to know that our God feels our pain -- whether it is that of hunger, thirst, loneliness, sickness or shame.

God reveals through prophet Isaiah, "In all their distress he too was distressed, and the angel of his presence saved them. In his love and mercy he redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old". (Isa 63:9) Irrespective of how the pain was caused - by devil's specific targetting as with Job, by accident when a nature's law is violated, or by rebellion against God as with the Israelites - our Lord does not leave us alone. He has promised in Isa 43:2, "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze". How heartening to know that our Lord helps us in our pain - he will be right beside us in our hour of grief to carry us through.

He is a god who brings out streams in the desert. He is our eternal Provider who bestows on us a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair (Isa 61:3). The greatest example of how he redeems pain can be seen in Jesus. When Jesus hung on the cross, he was considered stricken by God, smitten by him and afflicted. He was in effect taking away our infirmities and carrying away our sorrows. We were brought peace from the punishment that was upon him. We were brought healing from his wounds. How encouraging to note that our Saviour redeems our pain - what our foes (including the devil) intend for harm, he intends for good.

The whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time (Rom 8:22). Sin has caused God's beautiful creation to stray from the trajectory that the creator had launched it on. The creator's finger is on the button like that of the Authority watching a Rocket's launch to determine if it is on erratic line of flight and needs to be commanded to self-destruct. A day is coming, when all the stars of the heavens will be dissolved and the sky rolled up like a scroll (Isa 34:4). He will then wipe every tear from all eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain. How glorious when our Healer will remove our pain - he has already provided the way through the cross.

Therefore in times of pain, let us persevere. Peter tells us that "when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised (Heb 10:36)".

On Life's Journey

2008-09-02T09:51:00.000-07:00

Our journey in life towards eternity very much mirrors Israelites' journey from slavery to Canaan. The Lord heard the cry of the Israelites from their state of slavery in Egypt and decided to take them into a land flowing with milk & honey. (Exo 2:23b,25, Exo 3:7,8, Deu 8:7-9) In life's journey too, we face sickness, death, catastrophes, etc., in this world (Rom 8:22) but we are headed towards a new Heaven and new Earth, where there will be no death or mourning or crying or pain. (Rev 21:1,4)

We can learn 3 things from the Exodus which is a 'type' of the real journey called life:

1. The Lord gave 3 miracles for Moses to perform and prove to the Israelite leaders that the Lord has indeed seen their plight and has sent Moses & Aaron. The people believed their message after seeing the signs (Exo 4:29-31) but at the first difficulty they faced, they got discouraged and pleaded to be left alone. When Pharaoh asked the slave drivers to make work intense, they forgot God's message and His signs. (Exo 5:1,6,9,20,21, Exo 6:9b) Even so, a lot of us come to Christ and start on our journey after God intervenes in our life - say through a healing or a miracle in answer to our prayers - but we get discouraged so quickly when we face difficulty. We fail to recognize that the Lord who gave us 'starting' power can also sustain us with 'staying' power. This mistake comes from lack of right knowledge and expectation. The Bible tells us that in this world we will have troubles (2 Tim 3:12) but asks us to be of good cheer as he has overcome the world. (John 16:33b) Our expectation is not like that of the pessimist or the Stoic who anticipates the worst and thinks that is the best way to handle it. Our expectation is that there could be difficulties but He will be with us and see us through.

2. When they faced the Red sea with the Egyptian army charging behind them, they were again dismayed. (Exodus 14:11-13) Very often when we face difficulties, we assume there is no way out. We think of some solutions to our problems and when we do not see those solutions materializing, we lose all hope. We fail to understand that what we think as solution with our limited knowledge need not be the best or the only solution.

When caught in traffic, someone inside a car may have no idea how to get out of it. A police man on the road, at the intersection may have a better idea of what is the best way for any vehicle to get out of the jam. Better still, someone hovering about 50 feet above in a helicopter may have the best idea how long this will take to clear and what is the best way for vehicles to untangle. Our view is like that of the person inside the car, or with some additional research/ knowledge like that of the policeman, but our good Lord has the best view.

God's response to the Israelites in this juncture was to be still. (Exo 14:14, Psa 46:10a) It is possible to remain still only if we have faith that our Lord is with us and will see us through. Let us trust the Lord who told "if you believed, you will see the glory of God" and stand firm until we see the miraculous deliverance from the Lord, just as he lead the Israelites on dry ground after parting the sea.

3. When they had no water, and again when they had no meat, the Israelites complained and even cried, and pined for the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, garlics and meat that they had in Egypt. (Exo 16:3, Num 11:5,6,10) Of the hundreds of thousands who started on the journey to Canaan, only Moses, Joshua and Caleb lived to see the land of plenty because they strained towards what is ahead forgetting what is behind. Like the majority of the Israelites, we often get fixated on some material losses and lose sight of our destination -- we trade with the eternal for the temporal. We often direct our efforts and prayers at getting material blessings (of this world) but remain weak spiritually. The bible says if you falter at times of trouble, your strength is feeble. (Pro 24:10) We need to wait on the Lord, and renew our strength as the eagle, and rise up. (Isa 40:31, Psa 103:6) Very often we just interpret this verse physically and ask for good strength even as we age but fail to realize that inner strength is important. Our faith in times of adversity will be only as strong as we are in our spirit. We need to consciously keep building up our inner man. Else, the devil will use life's difficulties to deter us from our path.

Let us never forget that we are on our way to heaven. The Lord who brought us onto his highway with signs and wonders is an Almighty God and his arm is never too short. He is a God who makes a way for us, where there seems to be none. He has promised to break down gates of bronze and cut through bars of iron. (Isa 45:2) While we will see his glory if we believed, we are also to remember that if only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men. (I Cor 15:19) Let us therefore look ahead to our reward and not be bogged down by what we have or do not have in this world. We have miles to go.

Living out life's purpose

2008-08-25T10:11:00.000-07:00

You would have often heard it said that ‘Man is the crown of God’s creation. Generally it is used in the sense that having been created in God’s own image, we are the highest forms of life, more glorious than animals and even angels. However, it is also true in another sense. Just as a crown gives glory to the King who wears it, our purpose in life as crown on God’s head is to bring him the Glory that he is worthy of.

The Bible affirms that man's purpose in life as intended by God is to bring glory to HIM. Peter tells the church (I Pet 2:9), "you are a chosen people . . . that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkeness into his wonderful light". Paul writes to the Ephesians (Eph 1:11,12), "In him we were also chosen . . . in order that we . . . might be for the praise of his glory". Man finds ultimate fulfillment when he serves this purpose. Often we look at our accomplishments and material success hoping they will give us fulfillment, but at the end we find only weariness in life. Our heart finds true pleasure in being in fellowship with God. In the Bible, 'Glorifying God' has been expressed in different ways as "declaring his praise", "worshiping" and so on.

God's purpose for man is so unmistakeable in the Bible, that you can find it from Genesis (Gen 4:3,4) right till Revelation (Rev 22:9).

Meaningful Worship

NOW, if man was created to declare his praises, is he a VAIN God excessively concerned about how great he is that he can be deceived by flattery which is passed off as praise? Does God fall for sycophancy and dole out blessings, like our politicians do?

The Bible says that God discerns 'flattery' from 'genuine praise'. The Psalmist sings of such people "they would flatter him with their mouths, lying to him with their tongues; their hearts were not loyal to him, they were not faithful to his covenant" (Psa 78:35-37). God accepts only the praise that comes from a loving heart and his word says that if we love God, we will obey his commandments.

He is not deceived by the quality or sophistication of our 'praise' when our heart is not loyal to him. He says of the offerings by people who have not listened to his words and have rejected his law, "What do I care about incense from Sheba or sweet calamus from a distant land? Your burnt offerings are not acceptable; your sacrifices do not please me".(Jer 6:19,20)

We are not to approach "praise" as a success-formula or as a ‘Guaranteed to work’ methodology for obtaining God’s favour, as is often made out by some. Of such people, the Lord says "These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men".(Isa 29:13).

God is not interested in mindless worship that one indulges in as a matter of mere habit/routine. The Lord speaks to prophet Ezekiel, "My people come to you, as they usually do, and sit before you to listen to your words, but they do not put them into practice". He knows when worship is born out of a selfish greed that hopes to gain from praising God. He tells the prophet, "With their mouths they express devotion, but their hearts are greedy for unjust gain". He discerns when worship becomes mere entertainment. "Indeed, to them you are nothing more than one who sings love songs with a beautiful voice and plays an instrument well, for they hear your words but do not put them into practice" (Eze 33:31,32).

Beyond lip-service

True worship from a loving and obedient heart is not confined to just community and private prayer. Deriving fulfilment from serving life's purpose too, is not limited to just Sundays and quiet hours. In fact, God expects us to be a living sacrifice (Rom 12:1). We can do that by striving to glorify God in all that we do. When we do not seek our own good but the good of others, we cause many to praise their creator (I Cor 10:31-33, Mat 5:16). When we look at ourselves as stewards of all the blessings we receive and help God bless the whole world through us - his body - we glorify God as we turn multitude of hearts to be thankful towards their creator (Heb 13:16, II Cor 9:8). This is how we can praise God, round the clock, all days of the week, around the year and be a living sacrifice.

Let us find meaning in life, through worship that is acceptable and pleasing to God. Let our worship come from a heart that is overflowing with love for God and thankfulness for HIS love. Let it not come out of greed or as a matter of following a rule. Let us ask God to help us understand His love so that our hearts will overflow with love for Him and offer genuine praise. Let us extend this meaningful worship to all parts of our life, by seeking the good of others and realizing that we are His stewards.

Meaningful worship will not only bring true happiness in this world, but will also earn us our master’s accolade when we meet Him in glory. 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!'

Considering how the heroes lived

2008-08-18T09:58:00.001-07:00

Paul exhorted the Jews of his time "Remember your leaders . . . Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith." (Heb 13:7). He had just produced a long list of warriors of faith that reads like a Who's Who of the times past - a Hebrew hall-of-fame - a couple of chapters before making this exhortation. He had also asked them to look up skyward at this great cloud of witnesses and at Jesus the Morning Star, and run with perseverance the race marked out for us, without growing weary and losing heart (Heb 12:1-3). We too will do well to heed this advice and look at the giants of faith amongst our ancestors and in the 20 centuries since Paul's exhortation, and follow their footsteps.

While I would want to look at the faith of some modern-day giants at a future date, today I would like to look closely at the early Patriarchs - Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. All three obeyed God under circumstances that were not conducive.

Abraham's was a life of faith - believing he will be a father when he was without child and already 99 years old, believing he will be a father of nations when he had just one child, and obeying God's command to sacrifice even this only begotten son -- a bundle of joy he had awaited for atleast 25 years if not more . . . And it all began about 25 years earlier when the Lord told him "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great Nation." Abraham, then Abram, was a resident of the UR of the Chaldeans. Ur was a thriving city inside Mesopotamia (corresponding to modern Iraq, North-East Syria, South-East Turkey and South-West Iran) - often referred to as the cradle of Civilization. Ur, according to one estimate, was the largest city in the world from 2030 to 1980 B.C. Here was a man who was being called from the most developed part of the world at the time, to an obscure, under-developed part by God. Imagine someone in the U.S. being called by God to go to the dark continent to live among tribals -- not many can palate such a thought, leave alone heeding such a call. And this man, stepped out in faith. The Bible says, he took his wife, his nephew, all the possessions they had accumulated and all the people they had acquired, and set out for the land of Canaan. His caravan would have had to walk across deserts, braving the bandits, defying the desert storms, all in faith on the one who called.

Abraham's son Isaac, we see, had excelled where his distinguished father had failed. Earlier in Abraham's time, there had been a severe famine (Gen 12:10). The Hero of Faith who had journeyed to Canaan all the way from Ur, did not have the faith to stay in Canaan. He had tried to escape famine by running to Egypt and was apparently successful acquiring, livestock, menservants and maidservants. Little would he have realized that one of these Egyptian maidservants - acquired when his faith wavered for once - would prove to be cause for torment not only for him but for all generations. Fourteen chapters later, in Isaac's time, there is again a famine. Isaac was probably contemplating moving to Egypt, while in Gerar among the Philistines, when the Lord tells him "Do not go down to Egypt; live in the land where I tell you to live. Stay in this land for a while, and I will be with you and will bless you. For to you and your descendants I will give all these lands . . .(Gen 26:1-3). In verse 12, we find that Isaac planted crops in that land. Imagine someone planting crops during a famine, during years of drought . . . he would have been laughed at. He had faith on the Lord who promised to bless him even when there was a wasting famine around. And we find that he reaped a hundred-fold because the Lord blessed him. He became rich, and his wealth continued to grow until he became very rich. (Gen 26.12,13). Did not Jeremiah say centuries later, "blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in him. He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit. (Jer 17:7,8) "

Jacob was probably the most unlikely hero. Here was a man trying to be successful in life through deceit. He is now running away from his brother who is seeking his life, anxious for food and clothing, despairing for life itself. His 'gate of heaven' experience at Luz, leads him to place his trust on the Lord. At Paddan Aram, he finds his match in his maternal uncle Laban, who is a master of deceit. He first tricks him into hard-labour for 7 years for a wife, tricks him again into another 7 years for the girl he loved, by marrying off the other daughter through deceit, and attempts to trick him by changing his wages 10 times in the next 6 years. After 20 years of settling in a far-off land, having learnt to thrive under the nose of the deceitful Laban, he hears the Lord telling him "Go back to the land of your fathers and to your relatives, and I will be with you." (Gen 31:3) Paddan Aram is now his home. The one who had just a staff when he came over, now has livestock, menservants, maidservants and two groups (of family). But instead of trusting his possessions, he trusted the Lord who showed him kindness and faithfulness that he was totally unworthy of. He dared to meet his brother again, risking the lives of his wifes, his dear children and his own, in obedience and faith on the one who said "I will make you prosper". (Gen 32:10-12)

Abraham, Isaac, Jacob . . . all were sure of what they hoped for, certain of what they did not see, placing their faith on the one who spoke to them. And God was not ashamed to be called their God. Do we trust God with our lives - having seen God's love and faithfulness expressed unambiguously in his son Jesus ?

Deceitful Pretense

2008-08-10T10:05:00.000-07:00

Last week, we looked at the right way to dress up that will bring us growth -- imitating Christ towards perfection. This is a slow and painful process of constantly looking into the mirror of His Word, and being taught, rebuked, corrected and trained in righteousness. (2Tim3:16). This is a process that works inside out. This growth process constantly reminds us about what we lack in love, humility, forgiveness and faithful response to suffering. This reminds us that by ourselves we are selfish, proud, unforgiving and looking out for self-gratification, and that we need to lean heavily on His grace to bring forth the fruit of righteousness.

This is much like how a small manufacturing company would like to emulate a leader that has already grown to enormous proportions. It would want to emulate the engineering processes that guarantee quality work-products, the training methodologies that produce well-equipped work-force, and HR practices that keep the work-force motivated, for the industry-leader. However, this is a slow process that can not be completed overnight. This company would need to identify gaps, bring changes to bridge the gaps, and let the processes, methodologies and practices mature. Growing to be a Son of God is very much the same except that we grow by leaning on HIS grace and not on our own efforts.

Since this is often painfully slow, most of us often look for a quick way to grow. We look out for short-cuts that will quickly take us where we want to be and in the process we are deceived. Since there is no short-cut to growth, we often find ways that give us a feeling of having grown, where in reality we have not progressed much. We start focusing on the outward results without bothering if anything has changed on the inside. This is akin to a small company learning to advertise like a leader while continuing to produce inferior products. Or worse still, a company deciding to produce counterfeits and be an impostor in a market place that has unsuspecting consumers. This is what a desire for quick-gratification often leads us to.

It is the same in the spiritual world too. Paul warns Timothy that in the last days, there will be people 'having a form of godliness but denying its power". On the outward they will look like godly people – either professing to be godly people, or showing themselves to be godly with all external marks of godliness – but denying the fruit of godliness. Instead of loving others more than themselves, they will be lovers of themselves and lovers of money. Instead of regarding others as honorable than themselves, they will be boastful, proud, abusive and disobedient to parents. Instead of forgiving others as they themselves have been forgiven by the Heavenly father, they will be without love, unforgiving, slanderous and brutal. Instead of being patient in suffering, they will be ungrateful, unholy and lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. (2Tim3:2-5)

Why does this happen in the spiritual world? It could be because we, like the Pharisees, love praise from men more than praise from God (John 12:43). The Pharisees loved to pray standing in the synagogues and on street corners to be seen by men (Mat 6:5). When they fasted they looked somber and disfigured their faces to show men they were fasting (Mat 6:16). When they gave to the needy, they announced it with trumpets in public places. Do we spend time with God alone in our rooms more than we spend in community worship? If not, we better beware of the trap of enacting righteousness before men to be seen by them. Jesus warns that such people have received their reward in full.

If we are not playing out to the crowd, we could be playing out to God himself. We do this when we trust God for this life alone and for things of this world. In a world that is heavily focused on wealth, success and fame, we could be attempting to deceive God, hoping to be blessed. We try to hide the dirt inside and hope that God will be pleased by our prayers and praises. But rather than deceiving God, we will be deceiving ourselves. For God is not fooled by our appearances. Paul warns the Ephesians, "No immoral, impure or greedy person has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God . . . for because of such things God's wrath comes on those who are disobedient (Eph 5:5,6)

A third possibility is that our conscience could have become seared as with a hot iron. We might listen to the word but not do what it says. The Bible likens such a person to a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like (James 1:23,24). Paul calls them as men who are always learning but never acknowledging the truth.

Where do we stand today ? Are we imitating Christ and growing to be like him, or are we being an impostor masquerading as Christ? The difference is in the intention. The imitator is looking up to Christ, while the impostor is looking out to deceive. While we find how fallen we are, we could either be driven to our knees in humility, painfully conscious of our insufficiency and seeking His grace, or we could be driven to put up a facade of righteousness, unwilling to admit our inadequacy. A dangerous line divides the Imitators and Impostors. On which side are you?

Dress Up to grow

2008-08-03T10:27:00.000-07:00

Growth is something that we would all like to experience ourselves and see happen in those we love. No matter how lovely a baby's talk is, no mom would be happy to continue to hear the child talk without any improvement in structure and pronounciation. No matter how fascinating an year old's walk is, no pop would be delighted to continue to watch the child stumbling and faltering at every step. It is the same with God about his sons. He wants us to grow by bounds and measures --a figure each day, a form every hour.

Paul writes to Corinthians in I Cor.13:11, "When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me". How does a child grow? A boy keenly observes his father's actions, speech & mannerisms, and tries to imitate him. He tries to copy, duplicate or reproduce the style that his father exhibits, and in the process he grows to be like him. Which is why, we often see the traits of the father in a son. You must have heard people say 'Like Father, Like Son'.

It is the same with the Sons of God. God calls us to learn his ways and imitate him. Jesus cried to the God in Heaven from Gethsamane, calling him "Father". Earlier, he had taught the Sons of men (who would grow to be Sons of God) the Lord's Prayer, teaching them to pray to God calling him 'Our Father in Heaven'. Jesus who said 'Iam the Light of the world'(John 9:5), also told the people who followed him "You are the light of the world (Mat.5:14)". He spoke of his followers as 'not of the world' even as He himself was 'not of the world' (John 17:16). We are called to become like our Father.

Paul instructs us to imitate God. He beseeches us to imitate his attitudes and actions -- his sacrificial love, his humility, his forgiveness, his response to suffering and his faith. We see in Him:

sacrificial love [he came to give his life as a ransom for many (Mat 20:28)];

Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us.."

Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

humility [the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve (Mat 20:28)];

do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves

forgiveness [Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing (Luk 23:34)];

We work hard with our own hands. When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; when we are slandered, we answer kindly...I urge you to imitate me

calm response to suffering [yet not my will, but yours be done (Luk 22:42)] and

in spite of severe suffering, you welcomed the message with the joy

faith in His father [into your hands I commit my spirit" (Luk 23:46)]

Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith.

While we imitate Him, we are growing. While imitating him, we will realize that we are just sons of men who have been asked to imitate the Son of God, so that we are transformed to his likeness. We will come to know our limitations and confines, and learn to depend on His grace. We will then understand that we are not there yet, but we are on our way towards his perfection and need his grace every step of that way. This is the path the Lord has set before us to make us Sons of God. C.S.Lewis calls this process "dressing up as Christ". Let us allow our good Lord to dress each of us as a "Little Christ", for that is the divine purpose to which we have been called.

On man's trail

2008-07-27T02:08:00.000-07:00

Have you wondered any time how Jesus's life on earth 2000 years ago, is of any significance to a man living today in the 21st century ? We often think of it as one act of intervention by God, which is now history. We think of it as God's sacrifice that lasted no longer than about 33 years. In reality, it is an intervention that lasts for eternity and that has changed the face of humanity on earth.

Several men in the old testament had agonized over the triviality of human life. Bildad while advising Job in Ch 25 compares a son of man negatively to the moon and the stars and says he is less likley to be pure as he is only a maggot and a worm. King David in Psalms 8:3-5 muses, "When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings". Again in Psalms 144 he wonders, "O LORD, what is man that you care for him, the son of man that you think of him? Man is like a breath; his days are like a fleeting shadow." In Numbers 23:19, we find that man is called a liar who speaks and does not act, one who changes his mind and does not fulfil his promise. Man who had been created in God's image, had stooped to this depth over time, and God was about to act to restore him to his original glory.

Phil 2:5-7 states that Jesus, "being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross!" He did not hold on to his status as the Son of God, but came down to become a Son of Man. In Eph 5:23 we find that "Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her", as an ideal husband does for a wife he loves. In verses 32 and 33, we find that marriage on earth is a type of God's union with man. "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." Paul calls this a Profound mystery.

His union with man is not a 33 year old affair that is reversed and forgotten for eternity. It has forever changed the Son of God. God who is a spirit, and who does not live in a body of flesh, came down to inhabit a body and forever carries the mark of that intervention. That is what we find in John 20, where on the evening of that first day of the week after his death, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!" After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. Jesus showed him once again to Thomas who said "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it", and asked him "Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe." Apostle John in Rev 5:6 sees Jesus as " a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing in the center of the throne". Even today, he carries marks that will remind him of the days he walked among men.

Why did he intervene in an irreversible manner as this? In Heb 2:9-11, Paul says that we see Jesus, who as a Son of Man was made a little lower than the angels, "now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering. Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers. Further in verses 14-15 we read, "Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death".

Jesus descended to depths, enmeshed himself with us, and has picked us up into glory together with him. Son of God became son of man, to help the sons of men become Sons of God. Paul points out to the Hebrews in 2:16 that he did not do such a thing for the Angels. From this intervention we see that the sons of men are precious in His sight, more than anything else. Today, we need not despair as Job or David did. We need not doubt if God really cares for man. When God looks at Jesus, bearing the marks of the cost he had borne to make us his brothers, he forgives us and accepts us as His children. Today, we know that we are worth all the trouble he has taken to restore us to former glory and have the hope of becoming Sons of God. That is what Christ's sojourn on earth 2000 years ago, has done for humanity.

Power to overcome

2008-07-20T08:30:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wondered what happened to the promise in 2 Cor 5:17, of all things becoming new. "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" You probably expected a miraculous change overnight. If you can recall your first commute back home from the evening evangelistic crusade where you gave your heart to Christ, you might remember the feeling you had that all your old nature is gone. Then over the next couple of days, as some of those defects slowly began to show up again, you might have been surprised and shocked that they were still lurking below the surface. And over the ensuing days, you might have slowly given up and finally started to believe that nothing happened when you experienced new birth.

What is the reason for this common experience. In 1 Cor.1:22, Paul tells the Corinthian church that "Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom". We too like the Jews who repeatedly wanted God to prove himself with some miracle, probably expect God to work magic with our lives. In Mat 16:1, we find that "the Pharisees and Sadducees came to Jesus and tested him by asking him to show them a sign from heaven". We want him to transform us in an instant in a painless manner. When we don't see that happen, we get disappointed. Or like the Greeks who looked for wisdom to live the right way, who listened to the likes of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, look for some wonderful formula out of the bible, that will help us live victoriously without much labour and pain. Paul adds "...but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles (I Cor 2:23)". Paul says that we do not need a miracle or some new wisdom, but we need to learn of the crucified Christ. Why did he not qualify this Christ with some other adjective such as the 'coming King', or 'the son of God'; why talk about his cross?

What is the message of the Cross that Paul speaks of loftily, in many of his epistles. It is true that cross signifies agony and shame that Christ had to suffer, to pay for our sins. But there is something more to Cross than these. If we look at Christ hours before he hung on the cross we see him praying, "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done (Luk 22:42)." It is the submission of the human will to God's will that so roundly defines the cross. In Heb 5:8,9 we find "Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered, and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him". Learning obedience is the path to eternal salvation. He has shown us the path that we may follow, and has thereby become the source of eternal salvation. It is not by an overnight miracle or through some quick and easy formula, but through minute-by-minute submission of our will to God's will. Paul reiterates this to the Galatians "Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. (Gal 5:24)"

To them that obey him and learn to submit their wills to God, Christ gives strength and power to overcome. Paul therefore concludes in I Cor 1:24, "but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God." In I Cor 2:2 he asserts, "I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified". This he says he did, so that our faith might rest on God's power, and he later goes on to add, "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him" (I Cor 2:9). We have the example of Christ and Paul, who were enabled by God's power when they submitted to the cross. Consider the following verses. "For to be sure, he was crucified in weakness, yet he lives by God's power. Likewise, we are weak in him, yet by God's power we will live with him to serve you (II Cor 13:4). "For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— because anyone who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. (Rom 6:6-10)"

Let me now summarize in one verse. Gal 6:14,15 shows us this relationship between new creation and the cross. "May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world...what counts is a new creation." If we remain in Christ, we are a new creation, and we remain in Christ by continually submitting our wills to God's will. When we are wronged, do we repay the wrong or submit to Christ's command that tells us to repay the evil with good. When someone slaps us on the cheek, do we show the other cheek as Christ commanded or do we say it would be foolish to do so. To the greek, Cross is foolishness but to him who is called to follow Christ, it is the Wisdom of God.

The Prime Victim

2008-07-12T09:46:00.000-07:00

In Mat 9:2, Jesus tells the paralytic man that his sins have been forgiven. Now wait! This paralytic man like any of us could have wronged a lot of people, but how can Jesus write away all his wrongs. Only the victim can forgive the wrongs. But we may say that He is God and therefore can forgive. The Jews in Jesus's time too,like us, thought God can forgive except that they were not willing to believe that this Jesus was God. "Who can forgive sins but God alone? (Luk 5:21)"

But there could be others who question the Christian Gospel on the grounds that how could even God simply wipe away all of one's sins when one has wronged so many people in his lifetime. The reason why Jesus can forgive sins is because he suffers along with any victim. He is the suffering God who suffers with his children in the world.

Consider Jesus's statements about judgment day: "Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?' "The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.(Mat 25:37-40)' Similarly he tells that those on the left also will answer "'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?' "He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.(Mat 25:44,45)' He makes it plain that the good we do to the least in the family, neighbourhood or society, we do it to him, and the good we deny to the least, we deny it to him. He is impacted positively or negatively by all our deeds.

Consider Paul's caution to the labourer and to the housewife: "Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord (Eph 5:22)". "Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but like slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men, because you know that the Lord will reward everyone for whatever good he does, whether he is slave or free (Eph 5:5-8)". These are just 2 illustrations by Paul to highlight the fact that whatever we do on earth, impact our Lord. Not just the wife's obedience or the worker's service but a whole lot of other acts that we do, actually reach our Lord and impact him.

Probably to highlight this fact, our Lord shows the prodigal son as pleading to his father, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you (Luk 15:18)". Joseph seemed to know that committing adultery with Potiphar's wife is not just sin against her husband but also against God. "My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God? (Gen 39:9)"

Let us know for sure this day, that whatever we do, impacts the Lord. May the Lord give us this understanding, and let this knowledge keep us from sinning against our Lord, in all that we say and do.

Vital Connection

2008-07-06T00:19:00.000-07:00

We have been created for a purpose and that is to bear fruit. In John 15:16, Jesus tells his disciples ".. I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last". In ver 5 Jesus says "I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit". Imagine the world to be the Father's garden (John 15:1). He has sent his son Jesus into this world to bless the world by placing him as the Vine at the center of the garden. The vine can take its fruits to all parts of the garden through the branches that reaches out in all directions. In the same way, Jesus can bless all sections of the society through us his children. The world will see love, know joy and obtain goodness through us who will bear the fruit of "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Gal. 5:22,23).

His purpose for us then is that we are loving, joyful, peacable, patient, kind, good, gentle and self-controlled while we live on this earth. We might know already that we are to be people of this kind, but all too often we might be running out of love, patience, kindness, goodness and gentleness. At the drop of a hat, we might be losing our joy and peace and controlling our minds can only be easier said than done. We then start questioning if that really is the purpose when God does not seem to help us bear fruit.

Our God is a good God who does not expect something from us without providing for it. He is Jehovah Jireh who provides for our needs. He has told us how we can bear fruit and serve our purpose on earth. Let us look closely at the 'vine & branches' metaphor to unlock the secret. If you see fruits on some branches and don't see them on others, what can be the reason? They are branches of the same vine, so the problem does not lie in the soil or in the vine. It is in the "connection". "No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine (ver 5). A branch that is not connected to the vine is actually cut off from it and soon withers and dies (ver 6). It is the sap in the vine that carries the nutrients to the ends of each branch and helps it to bud, blossom (into flowers) and ripen (into fruits). For us to bear fruit and be a blessing to the world we must remain - stay connected - in him.

In John 15, Jesus specifically talks about 3 connections. Remain in me (ver 4). Remain in my love (ver 9). Let my word remain in you (ver 7). He is the Living Word, and all 3 connections are related to His word. We remain in his love by obeying his commandments (ver 10). To obey his commandments, we should be instructed in his word (his word should remain in us). And how can we be expected to receive instruction unless we remain in him, wait on him in prayer, and in reading and meditating on the Bible. When we think we are God's children and that missing one morning's devotion or one night's prayer will not matter too much to God, we will do well to remember that we are slowly losing connection and a branch that loses connection is sure to wither and die. We often forget this and then wonder why we don't seem to be the new creation that God has made us into. We often doubt our salvation or the word that implies a saved person to be a changed person -- "if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come (2 Cor 5:17). That is because we are not remaining in him, though we have come to know him and have experienced what it is to be in Him. We then start trying to be good by ourselves before finally giving up.

The secret is to "keep remaining in Him." Let me close with 2 verses that tell us clearly that we can bear fruit only through God working in us when we are remaining in him. Paul tells the Colossians that he prays that they "may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, . . . being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might (Col. 1:10,11)". He calls this power "his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet..(Ephes. 1:19-22)". We can win over flesh, sin, devil and self and bear fruit, ONLY with his power.

Paul calls our hope for such glory "a mystery" and that secret is "Christ in you" (Col 1:27). When we remain in Christ, he remains in us and enables us to bear fruit.