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!!!!!

To be one’s shoes………

He loved us so much that  He came down to be in our shoes and........... he sacrificed himself for us. That is love!!!

Often enough while grieving over our problems and comparing ourselves to others we say, “They do not know our problems. They would only understand when they stand in our shoes.” Thus the moping continues. Little do we realise that we believers have a far greater proof and an example of one who has been in our shoes.

Our loving Lord Jesus Christ did that for us. Leaving all the heavenly and princely powers and glory, he came down to earth and for three and thirty years stood in our shoes and proved that there are things beyond the worldly displeasures and pain...... an eternal joyous life. By being homeless he stood in the shoes of the homeless. By being disgraced, mocked and scorned by relatives and neighbours alike He stood in the shoes of those who endure the same. By being poor he stood in the shoes of the poor and by being doubted and distrusted he stood in the shoes of the many who bear this daily.

Our saviour, Jesus Christ proved how it was to be in other’s shoes. In fact he proved it to such an extent that even though he was faultless, blameless and sinless he stood in the shoes of a sinner and for 3 difficult hours was even banished from the presence of the heavenly father. He stood in our (sinner’s) shoes and took the penalty on himself. To have a saviour who has experienced how to be like us is a wonderful gift for a believer. Think it over, who else has done so much for you? He went through everything that a believer would go through, be it pain, suffering, mocks, scorns or even the burden of sin. That is why he understands us the best and tells us to take all our burdens and grief and submit it at the cross of Calvary.

Because he understands he becomes the best mediator between us and God the Father. The word of God says that we must consistently try to transform ourselves to be like Jesus. One would say it is too difficult to be done but if we think again……. Not as hard when we have the help of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.

In between the mocking and scorns our Jesus remained quiet. Why don’t we become quiet and submit every problem in the LORD’s hands instead of taking our decisions on our own. When would we begin trusting him?

Each day and every step of your life submit to the LORD and ask him for his guidance, that in everything He is glorified. 

Giving and Tithing

A few Sundays back I heard a message on tithing and the different emotions behind giving. I think it is very significant that we realise the importance of giving and practise in our daily lives and improve ourselves.

The origin of tithe we would all say starts in the New Testament days, but not so. The practise of giving and tithing starts way back in the days of Abraham.

There are different expressions to giving-

1.     .     Genesis 14 cites the example of Abraham giving a tenth of the loot after the war to Melchizedek. This can be categorized as an act of worship.
2.     .     Genesis 28 is the part where Jacob makes a promise to the LORD that if the LORD takes care of him he would give a tenth back. This expression can be categorised as an expression of thanks. Since Jacob would be expressing his thanks to the Lord in the form of tithe if the Lord would take care of him.
3.     .    The third type of tithe is mentioned in Malachi 3 which states to rebuke the devourer
4.     .     This type of tithing is mentioned in 1 Corinthians and is an expression of regular discipleship

Giving brings immense joy to the giver. It makes us realise that we are the epicentre of God’s plan. That also gives us an assurance that everything would be perfectly alright because God is in control and they have no dearth for anything at all because the LORD is the greatest giver.

Another thing that is important to know is that giving is not an option, it is a requirement. We cannot take pride in it (like we usually do) nor do we have the luxury to encourage a feeling of self righteousness. We give not with the expectation of a return, but because of a feeling of gratitude.

Besides, Malachi 1:6 says that choosing the right gift it is an attitude of worship to our LORD. It is giving the LORD the ‘honour due to him’, and the LORD loves a cheerful giver. As a giver you must pray and ask the LORD where all should you be giving. You also should know that whatever you are giving, .monetary funds or giving in kind should be used well. This also means that we shouldn’t publicise the giving. It is not how much we give, but what we give and the emotion involved while we are giving that makes all the difference.

Having said all of that, you must ask this to yourself, “When I give to the LORD, do I give the best to Him or the rest to Him?”

Temptations and Desires

The fine line between temptation and desire

You know, last Sunday we were having a small discussion on James 1:12-18 which talks about trials, temptations and blessings. Verses 13-15 specifically talks about temptation. I learnt something new that day. I probably think I would need to study more on this. Anyway ……..

Trials can be defined as a formal test of performance. Trials are allowed by the LORD. Trials test our faith and trust in the Lord. Temptation on the other hand is a tendency that the Bible usually relates to something that is negative. Temptation leads us to the wrong path. The Bible clearly says that the LORD does not tempt us, then, what would one say of desire? Doesn’t desire also lead us to do wrong things? Desire need not always be bad. For example, the desire to proclaim the word of the Lord isn’t bad. Hence desire (although used in parallel with temptation in our daily language) is not temptation at all. Although I cannot deny that certain evil desires transform into temptation and are of no good at all, like James says in verse 14.

Having said all that, I had a major doubt. Why don’t you too give it a thought? Doesn’t the magnitude of desire and temptation vary from person to person? The answer to this would be, that the believer who has the Word of the Lord engraved in his heart would scare the devil off (Psalm 119:11) and for such people the magnitude of temptation is less. It is a relative degree.

If we were to mathematically say, we can put it this way, the magnitude of resistance to temptation is directly proportional to the hold we have on the Word of the LORD and how much we are close to Him. It isn’t easy. It takes a lot of time, practise and a lot of faith to reach a level where Satan flees your presence. Being a hard core believer means that Satan finds it really tough to break your shell. That naturally includes a lot of trials because that is when your command over the Scriptures and your trust is put to the test. Like the gold being melted to purity in intense heat.

Thus, it is really important that though our daily lives are a very tight package of submissions, assignments, even talking to people can be a task (especially when it comes to people whom you know you might end up having an argument or your own authorities for that matter), we must spare time for the LORD.  This time can be used to talk our weaknesses out to Him and can also include overcoming temptations. We spend so much of our time having conversations with so many people. The question we have to ask ourselves is that can’t we spare a few minutes to have a conversation with God?

Today what would be more important you…….. Keeping the word of the LORD and the commands mentioned there in, in your heart? Or…… being an easy prey for Satan? Eh?

I’m sure, definitely not the second one.

The way I see it, I have a lot of work to do in this area. Do you?

How Great is Our GOD!

A Still taken from the video by Joshua Aaron

How Great is Our GOD

“ How great is our God,

Sing with me how great is our God.

And all will see how great, how great is Our God

……….

My heart will sing how great, is our God………..

………..”

I am certain that most of you have heard this song, in case you haven’t please go ahead and listen to it!!

I was listening to the Hebrew version of this song the other day. I must say, no language can hide the beauty and meaning of this wonderfully composed song. I am not too great with history, although I must attest that curiosity has been my weakness always.

Some might find it stupid because I am guessing that they already knew, but I decided to dig more about the song. It was originally composed by Chris Tomlin during his stay in Austin. Texas and the Psalm that inspired him to write this song was Psalm 104 of the Holy Bible. Ed Cash and Jesse Reeves helped him to finish the song as we know it today.

This song tells us about the greatness and splendour of the LORD. His name is above all names, He is the king of all Kings and he rules with majesty and power. He has shown His love for us by sending his Son Jesus Christ, to die for our sins on the cross of Calvary. Since death couldn’t contain him, He rose again on the third day. This sacrifice for us, made the unworthy us, worthy to be called His children. We feel so proud when we are called our parents children because it is a different feeling when we are recognised that way. Imagine the privilege all those people hold who have believed this fact and are now known as the children of God!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This song literally proclaims the wonders and beauty and most importantly greatness of Our GOD so much so, that anyone would sing this over and over again. Because the penalty has been paid for all the wrongs done and the hearts cannot hold it anymore creation joins with all of us in singing this amazing song.

Truly how great is our God!