Top 3 Concerns

Contributed the following article to the JAN '14 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.

My Friend,

   I wanted to share my views on three issues that I believe will be weighing heavily on the mind of any individual.  It is for you to accept my view or reject it, but I cannot withhold it from you for fear of either being rejected or mocked.  It has helped me handle three of the biggest problems in my life, and it is out of friendship and love that I want to share it with you.

   All of us have done things that we are not proud of -- Things that we did out of some compulsion that we felt in our body and mind; Things that we did hoping it would bring us happiness.  We might have lied to someone who trusted us, cheated our elders, grabbed what is rightfully someone else’s, hurt those who suddenly turned enemies, disobeyed our parents, disrespected our teachers, and humiliated someone who was not as wealthy or handsome (beautiful) or knowledgeable as we are.  All of us may not have done all of these things, but I am sure there is none who has not done any of these things. 

   Memories of some of these things haunt us.  Depending on the values we hold today, we try our best to erase memories of these or justify them.  Some of us justify these by looking at people around us and concluding that none is exempt from these and therefore to be human is to be imperfect.  Others among us justify these by attributing our past actions to impulses in the body which are determined by our Chromosomes, something that we are not responsible for.  To be sure, I have had a good share of these from all the years of my existence.

   Next, all of us want to rise above ourselves. We all want to be good people who will not lie, cheat, grab, hurt or disrespect.  We want to be good, kind and do good to others. But our dormant nature rears its ugly head, just when we think we have moved on.  When we stand in any queue, be it at the Post Office, at the Ticket Counter or at a Wedding Reception, the urge to edge out some and gain a few slots up just would not die down. When we are in a crowd, be it at a social party or a team meeting, the urge to stand up and be counted, even at the cost of putting down someone else, just would not go away. When we are moved in our hearts and would want to extend a helping hand, the thought of what it will cost us in time, money and effort just does not help our actions to match with our intentions.

   We are all struggling with these contradictions within us.  We want to do something beautiful but end up doing something else.  But we tell ourselves that we will improve.  We read self-help books and attend camps.

   We are told that we are intrinsically good; that it is what we have acquired over the years through our up-bringing and environment that is causing our actions to be incongruent with our true self; and that they can be shed by inward gazing to see our self in isolation from our actions.  But we have not become any better.

   Others have asked us to wake up the lion inside us.  But we feel ever smaller as we realize again and again that we just don’t measure up to our own expectations.

   Finally, given our past and our present struggles, we wonder what life is all about.  Is there any meaning in life?  Is it not all about finding happiness?  If happiness is what is paramount, does it really matter if we are kind or cruel?  Does it make any difference whether we are proud or humble?  Despite all our blemishes, if we can still be happy, is that not what we should pursue rather than be bogged by this discussion about good and evil?

   We are told that there is no over-arching meaning in life; that we are to give small meanings to our day-to-day activities and events that we come across; that if we can have small things line up our lives that bring us a smile, or a laughter or happiness, we can provide meaning to our life.

   Accordingly, we have crowded our lives with parties, celebrations, ceremonies and travels.  We have arranged trainings, competitions and performances for our children.  But the emptiness refuses to go away.

   If you have read thus far, it is likely you agree with me that you share the Top 3 concerns for life:

1. We all have done things we are not proud of.  2. We want to rise above ourselves.   3. We want to find what will bring meaning and purpose to life.  I will now want to share how I have got these concerns addressed in my life.

   When I have done things that I am not proud of, obviously they are things that are not right.  I find a moral law written in my conscience that is telling me what is right and what is wrong.  If I know they are not right, I deserve punishment.  My own conscience will judge me as a culprit, as someone who has trespassed.  If my own conscience judges me, God the maker of you and me, is greater than my conscience and He being just is sure to judge me.  I therefore deserve and await God’s judgment.  It is this burden of knowing I deserve punishment that is called GUILT.

   I cannot wish my Guilt away.  The fact that others are equally guilty or worse does not help me.  I still deserve God’s punishment, like all others.  Thankfully God understands and He has provided me a way.  He loved me so much that He came down to pay the penalty so I can be free.  I have chosen to trust Him and enjoy freedom. The alternative will be to refuse to acknowledge His kind act for me, and continue to grovel in guilt.

   When I have found that no self-help helps, obviously I need help from outside.   I find that no matter how hard I will, I just don’t have it in me to carry it out.  It is true that when I sow an action, I reap a habit, when I sow a habit, I reap a character and when I sow a character, I reap a destiny.  But the trouble is with the start.  If I am brutally honest with myself, sowing a thought is not necessarily helping me reap an action.  Despite the amount of good books I have read, the discourses I have listened to and the trainings I have attended, being good is something alien.  I am just too selfish.

   Here again, if I am not too proud to recognize my limitation, help from outside is available.  God Himself comes to live inside me.  He gives me a sensitive heart that easily recognizes His prompting. When I obey His prompting, He enables me to carry it out.  The power of Him that created the universe and all that we see around us with His word is available for me to resist the tug from my weak self. God living inside me transforms me by renewing my mind, and enables me to act as He would.

   Now that I have accepted God’s forgiveness and have Him living with me, fellowship with Him has become a reality.  I am no longer alone.  The all-knowing God is living in me.  He knows best and that is true with knowing what brings me happiness and fulfillment too.

   He made me for Himself.  He did not make me for myself, nor did I create myself.  I am therefore incapable of defining purpose.  My creator alone knows what He made me for.

   He does not give me a blue-print about my future.  He does not tell me what I will become in the next 5 or 10 years, and how I will get there.  He tells me what I should do every moment and in every situation.  He has laid out principles in His written word for me, by which I should direct my steps.  When it is His pleasure that becomes paramount to me, I can be sure that my life will be lived out beautifully and meaningfully.  Any time I turn back and look at how my years have been spent, I will see how wonderfully He has accomplished His purposes through me.

   Would you like to have Him, know His purpose, and enjoy His Enabling presence and power to make your life meaningful?

Power to overcome

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.

Vital Connection

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.