Widen your circle please..

When it comes to caring, we all have an error in our understanding that it is only between us, our family and God. We don't need to bother much about the people out in the world because at the end we are to ensure we are blameless so that we enjoy eternity with God. We also comfort ourselves saying that we are blessed because of our spiritual devotion to God and our just living. It is a flawed theory we want to hold on to and promote it. God did not intend it that way at all.

Your commitment to God is important but your commitment to others welfare including people who are not related to you are equally important. Now you may wonder why we need to bother much, it is the responsibility of God to bless them without using people. Friends kindly note, if it had to be that way, then the whole idea of putting us in this world and bringing inter-dependence wouldn't exist. It would be sufficient for each one of us to be with our families with separate space, with allotted resources and allowed to manage within that. Burk Parsons quotes “Those who think life is all about being happy in themselves by finding happiness within themselves will always be disappointed. That’s precisely how God designed us." 

God has interwoven our blessings and prosperity in the way that we are useful to others. In the book of Titus it says  "Let our people learn to devote themselves to good works for pressing needs, so that they will not be unfruitful." Titus 3:14 CSB. In fact, the Bible pronounces its verdict by saying they do not have the love of God at all against people who close themselves to the people who are in need 1 John 3:17. 

An example from a larger perspective is to know that the world produces enough food to feed everyone, yet 870 million people (1 in 8 of the world’s population) are suffering from chronic undernourishment. At the same time, around a third of the food produced in the world for human consumption every year – approximately 1.3 billion tones – gets lost or wasted. Somewhere someone is failing in their responsibility or being selfish. The action from Individuals or corporate both has a serious effect to the group at large - to an extent has an impact on the world itself. 

As much as someone’s negligence or ignorance can have such a drastic effect, so much so will the goodness and love when coupled with caring and sharing will definitely have greater effect to eradicate poverty and suffering of the people. Are we as individuals, families and Church able to exemplify our love and support to one another? 

 I want to remind that our responsibility also lies in praying for all. Are you even burdened to pray for one another? God allowed family, community and Church here in order to be a blessing to others and pray for one another. Samuel sets an example as we read in 1 Samuel 12:23 “As for me, I vow that I will not sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you...". Samuel commits himself to pray for Saul to deliberate his responsibility effectively. Even Paul urges us that we pray for all including the leaders, "First of all, then, I urge that petitions, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone, for kings and all those who are in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity. "1 Timothy 2:1-2 CSB. You desire to lead a tranquil life then ensure you do not pray only for yourself but for others, especially for the authorities.

God has also made you and me responsible for the salvation of the people who live among us and will hold us accountable for their soul. In Hebrews it is said like this, "Obey your leaders and submit to them, since they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account, so that they can do this with joy and not with grief, for that would be unprofitable for you."(Hebrews 13:17)CSB . And in the book of Ezekiel 18 God says we are the watchman and responsible for the protection of lives and their souls. "If I say to the wicked, ‘Wicked one, you will surely die,’ but you do not speak out to warn him about his way, that wicked person will die for his iniquity, yet I will hold you responsible for his blood". Ezekiel 33:8 CSB.

God holds you responsible not only for living your life well but will hold responsible for the souls whom you had a power to influence and turn them to God.

Blessings,

David Raj

Christian witness through Technology?

Jesus modelled the conventional methodology of evangelism where He went about doing good and healing all who were sick, liberating people who were under the tyranny of evil and sharing the message of the kingdom of God (Acts 10:38). The journey of Jesus was arduous and challenging, quite often pushed, humiliated, turned down to enter the city and in some cases was begged to leave the place, yet Jesus was relentless in what He was assigned to do by His Father by personally reaching out to people.

Present day evangelism has almost replaced this personal touch by usage of technology. Ministries use various portals - Websites, social media, Facebook, Google Plus, YouTube for example, to communicate the Gospel.  I don't intend to rake up a debate as to which of these portals are effective and draws people to Christ. I want to definitely echo with Apostle Paul who says in 1 Corinthians 9:22 “…So that I may by all means [in any and every way] save some [by leading them to faith in Jesus Christ]” AMP.    What stands as a concern is that in most cases the content in the literature and in all portals addresses Christian groups exclusively and appeals to Christians only. Unless one is equipped to reach people through a different stand point, we will remain strangers to them. Note this is not about compromising. 

Most of the Christian leaders and lay people are in at least one WhatsApp Christian group. You will concur with me that you are flooded with devotional messages, Bible verses, quotes, videos, etc which accumulates to mass junk and needs a delete quite frequently, How great would it be if each person decides to share a quote or a thought with a Non-Christian friend and lead him/her to Christ? Think about it. We all need encouragement from each other but more than us are the people out there who need a Savior. The other thing is that people find you and include you in their group (without asking your permission) and start bombarding you with messages and forwards. Sometimes it’s amusing when a person is surprised to find himself/herself in a group and leave the group with frustration wondering who added them. It verges in nuisance sometimes. Christians, lay people, pastors’, leaders are busy forwarding umpteen messages most of it counts to nothing more than junk.   

R. Stanley from Blessing Youth Mission often challenges us with these words, “We are busy Evangelizing the evangelized, Christianizing the Christians, Baptizing the baptized, converting the converted and neglecting the neglected.”. Sad yet so true. Most of the time people derive happiness thinking they are fully involved in sharing and encouraging Christian people. The truth is very different. 

In the flipside we hear of pastors and evangelists facing severe persecution in parts of Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and many parts of Northern India and also in different parts of the world. People are trying to connect with people in person and are braving persecution. According to World Watch list 2018 India ranks 11^th in terms of the intensity of persecution. You can download from the given link to know which rank your country falls in terms of persecution. https://www.opendoorsusa.org/christian-persecution/world-watch-list/ what is our contribution to these poor missionaries?

Can we give a serious thought to stop evangelizing Christians and educate one another to be a witness for God in the true sense? If it is technology then is good to ensure that one does not intend to promote himself or his organization but to lift Christ alone. My plea is that if we could encourage people with sound knowledge to write articles, pen down their thoughts that can be sent to the general crowd, in workplaces and any other platforms where non-Christians make up the majority.

Blessings,

David Raj

Sustaining the progress

How do we keep progressing while we are battling with challenges, which seems to be life debilitating and the struggle seems to be endless? In such situations we seem to be hopeful one day and filled with utter despair the next day. This rakes up an array of emotions. We don't see things getting any better or the trouble seems to be moving at a slower pace than expected.  Our spiritual life also takes a toll like waves bellowing up and down and you feel miserable about it.

Sometimes we have something to hold on too while we go through hard times, but most of the time we may find ourself left alone with no one around us to offer a helping hand. Each one of us cling on to the Bible promises and plead to God to help us get out of the stalemate only to realize that the long duration of trouble is slowly obliterating any hope one has on God.

Before I unfold on how to keep moving steadily let this undefendable fact sink deep in us.  "God absolutely is! Let us believe and cherish this. God is. It is a wildly untamable, explosively uncontainable, electrically future-creating reality—that God is.". John Piper In 'Astonished by God'.

God takes each one of us through different challenging experiences. There is no singled out mantra or principle to follow in order to witness the deliverance. Apostle Paul in the book of Romans 12:9-21 puts down an amazing set of Christian ethics to keep moving while we are in this journey. Especially one verse that stands out is the key to unlocking the providence of God. "Rejoice in hope; be patient in affliction; be persistent in prayer." Romans 12:12 CSB. It is so simple yet profound. Let us try to understand this verse.

The first thing we are expected to do is "Rejoice in hope" this is the only thing  left while we are in crisis. We will be hoping for a way out. Either be doomed in our situation or rejoice in the hope to receive good from the Lord. In Corinthians it says "So we do not focus on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.". 2 Corinthians 4:18 CSB. Its wise to shift our focus on the unseen, rejoice in hope, which will help spear us forward.

"Be patient in affliction". When we are hurt or if we are suffering, we are supposed to endure the affliction and learn to cope up in order to be helped better and not broken too early. We are therefore advised to be patient while we suffer yet rejoicing in the hope because the goodness of the Lord is plenty when we look unto Him for rescue. The Bible says "My grace will be sufficient for you" (2 Cor 12:9) It will  definitely sustain us so that we are not crushed to despair and death. 

Finally, "be persistent in prayer”. Paul to Philippians says "Don’t worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God." Philippians 4:6 CSB. God already knows what we are going through but however we need to keep informing Him of the same. Don't lose hope my brothers and sisters. Persistence is the key. God is too generous to allow us to go through misery and breakdown. He is preparing us to operate dynamically from a new dimension. We can't afford to quit. Romans 15:13 CSB "Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you believe so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.".

Stay Blessed,

David Raj

Profound question that needs Profound answer.

While I was walking back home after running some errands along with my daughter who is twelve years old, casually yet curiously she posed me this question, ‘Will you go to heaven?' As any normal confident Christian, unhesitatingly my answer was 'yes off course'. Her follow up question was, 'how do you know that you will be going to heaven?'. I have done enough of public speaking, conducted seminars, writing blogs for Christian world and a blog for secular public and was part of several international training programs; yet it was not easy to give a convincing answer simple and spontaneously. How convincing will the answer be if this question was posed to you?

The first response the mind scans and intends to blurt out is your spiritual discipline you follow without fail, like how much you pray, read Bible, go to church regularly, give all your offerings to your church. But if you analyze and find, in one particular area if you have not done very well off late, then probably your confidence level is not very encouraging. If you notice our assurance to spend our eternity with God usually depends upon how well we are able to follow the daily spiritual routine. Not bad at all.

What if you do not have the required burning desire to fulfill your daily spiritual schedules? You are trying to follow because you do not want to upset your parents, your spouse or your mentors. Warren Wiersbe in his book "Too Soon to Quit" puts it this way on what spiritual discipline means: 'Any activity that can help me gain power to live life as Jesus taught and modeled it.' Not the other way around quantifying how much we follow the spiritual disciplines. Join with me as I continue to unravel this in the following paragraph.

Christianity is so simple that we stumble over the simplicity. In real life where every act is likely to be a business transaction, example we give to get back, we do good in order to be returned with good, so we think the same when it comes to God. It is important to note that one is convinced that the Bible is the word of God. Faith plays a vital role in Christian life unlike any other religion trying to find God by doing good works. When Jesus said 'I stand at the door and knock if any one calls me in I will come into him'.(Revelation 3:20), It is important that one believes He definitely did when you opened your life gate to Him, and in John 1:12 it says 'But to all who did receive him, he gave them the right to be children of God, to those who believe in his name.'. The fact when we invite Him by making a prayer of commitment He comes in and transforms us completely and thereafter our desire to speak to Him daily in prayer, read Bible more and feel guilty when one messes comes in naturally and that’s the power of God’s transforming work one could only understand if he or she has genuinely accepted Jesus as his/her personal Savior. 

The next important thing which everyone should delve deep is when Jesus comes in our life He changes the hunger preferences too. Our desire to love Him more and love others genuinely increases. We stop pleasing ourselves and pleasing Him more, our mind is filled with His thoughts and this urges us to pray more, read His word more and share the joy and confidence to anybody and everybody. Thereafter, it's all about relationship, which is the major difference between Christian faith and other faiths. The peace of God rules the heart in full control and you believe completely that you will spend your eternity with God. I would like to conclude telling - The true indicator of spiritual well-being is growth in the ability to love God and people. If we can do this without the practice of any particular spiritual disciplines, then we should by all means skip them. Your transformation exceeds over your spiritual discipline.

  Check this video and be blessed.

Blessings,
David Raj