Student of Faith

I’m currently pursuing integrated PhD from University of Hyderabad, which is one of the premier institutions in the country specifically with respect to research in diverse fields. Do I want to do research? Duh!! Obviously. Am I Having fun? Well, I guess...

Last Sunday, this is what I understood!!!.. A student commonly faces 3 emotions while in the student period of his life. What are these????

1.      Loneliness

2.      Hopelessness

3.      Worthlessness or valuelessness

After listening to the speaker, I had a lot to process. Do I feel all these sometimes (either just one or all three together)??? I have to admit, when I was listening to the speaker at church, I was like, wow! I do feel these sometimes. As a student with so many pressures in life and ambitions and goals, we tend to feel these because we are constantly in dire need to satisfy the society and yourself at the same time. Also, we would want to be part of the crowd at all times and achieve all that we hoped for. As believers can we have it all????? Think it over????

Let me answer it this way... can a slave be better than the master? Can we be  better than our own teachers? No! If the Lord of all creation was thrown around and despised, we needn’t expect everything to go all rosy for us. We might just face more than our unbeliever friends. And it is worth it all. Because we have the saving grace. We have been set apart.

Anyway, getting back to the 3 strong student emotions, the speaker specially mentioned about Elijah (1 Kings 19). He faced all these three emotions at the same time. He expected to take his last breath the very next day, but what did the angel say to him?? The angel encouraged him by saying thus (verse 7) “Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you”. He continued his journey right up till he was taken up to heaven. He never saw death!!! Amazing right! That’s what faith does...

I was wondering of a few others who would have felt the same.(please go ahead and read about how David was constantly feeling lonely and how he continued to reassure himself (psalm23:1”The LORD is my shepherd” and he goes on to say in Psalm121:2 “My help comes from the LORD”), how Job kept aside all the comments he kept hearing from his friends and even his wife and yet he goes on to say (Job 42:2-“ I know that you can do all things..”), how Jeremiah, Nehemiah, Abraham and countless other walked alone in all loneliness.) These brave men of the Bible were always at the cliff, just a few inches away from the pit of hopelessness and the feeling of valuelessness. But did they ever fall? NO!!!

Why be called a believer if you don’t have faith and can’t believe? It’s the hard truth, but know, that in all your struggles, whatever they might be, the LORD has a plan greater and far far better for you than you can imagine (Jeremiah 29:11-“For I know the plans I have for you”, declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future”) What more do you want than this?????

Tomorrow, if you feel even a hint of loneliness, hopelessness or worthlessness, kick it off and say “LORD, if you are there with me and for me, how can I be alone and who can be against me????

Think it over and do it. Be a student of faith!

Promises...

You know how it is,  right? When you promise somebody and you know you  have to keep your word. Not always can you stick to that promise, neither can you always fulfill it completely. The Bible is full of amazing promises. But unlike us, the LORD keeps each and every one of them.

At our church, we have a watch night prayer service, where we end the year (31^st of December) with prayer and thanksgiving and begin the new year(1^st Jan) with worship and thanksgiving. Towards the end of the prayer meeting we have this small tradition of picking up promises. The various promises of the bible are individually printed out and we pick one of them. We prayerfully pick up one of these and we believe that the LORD has promised that particular verse to us. You might say, if the bible has all those promises and I claim that each of those promises apply to us then why select one? Well, to answer that, we believe that by doing so, we get to claim this chosen promise in our prayers to the LORD. This encourages us through different stages of that year and you know what........ The LORD fulfills those promises. Moreover, we are to remember that these promises tend less to the materialistic needs and caters to our spiritual requirements. It constantly reminds us of our heavenly Father who would never forget the promise he made to us.

What is so special about these promises of the Bible? If you are an unbeliever you would think that the Bible is just a book of stories or if you are a believer then you would wonder why would we pick promises at all? I’ll answer both. The Bible is a book inspired by the Holy Spirit which encompasses all that has happened and all that is to come. It revolves around Jesus Christ and how and why one needs to accept him as their personal Saviour. We pick promises because we believe that we can claim this one special promise in our prayers to the Heavenly Father.

The promise that I picked up this year is “ ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people- Exodus 19:5”. Awesome and amazing , isn’t it????

I know the Lord would fulfill this promise in my life because of the following reasons:-

1.      His promises are good. 1 Kings 8:56 “.... Not one word has failed of all the good promises he gave..”

2.      His promises are Holy. Psalm 105:42 “For he remembered his holy promises...”

3.      His promises are great. 2 Peter 1:4 “ Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises so that .....”

4.      His promises are precious. (same verse as above)

5.      His promises are better. Hebrew 8:6 “ But the ministry of Jesus  has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is mediated is superior to the old one, and it is founded on better promises.”

6.      His promises are unchangeable. Hebrews 6:17 “Because God wanted to make the unchangeable nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath.”

If these promises are unchangeable, good and precious, why would the Lord not keep it? He keeps his word. Did you pick up your promise? If so, what is it? If not, go ahead and select one and let me know........

Have a blessed week!!!!!