Faking it out! God noticed it.

I always wonder why  many people are not up to themselves? Why do we sugar coat things and comfort someone when actually we don’t mean it? Why on earth we always want to hide behind the position, designation, influence, our artificial smile and our common unrealistic slogan most of the time that we use, “I am praying for you”? The list is endless. Is it just because our survival means a lot and we want to maintain it? Can we seriously think from God's point of view and confess the ignominy of our masks? We all may have a valid reason to do so but miserably fall short from Christ estimation. Ever wondered how He takes it?

Psalms 51:6 “Behold you desire truth in the innermost being and in the hidden part of my heart. .”.

The psalmist King David is conscious while he articulates the above claim, ‘God desires truth in the innermost being’. As Christians, Leaders, Pastors it is so important that we display the transformed personality of who we are and not give a mirage image of ourselves. I can narrate so many experiences that I encountered with Christian leaders with whom I happened to discuss and get to know about their work and ministry. Some of them were so promising in their commitment to God and to the ministry, later at some point when I have tried texting them or contacting them (mind, not for any help) they would not even read the message and can just ignore it as a trash. 

 At one time I had a long discussion with a Christian leader about trying to add value to enhance the ministry. He was very assuring too, but then after a week or so I tried calling to know how things are going he ignored my calls thereafter. What we do to one we will do to others. This is who we are sadly but never have the slightest guilt for our misdemeanor. We contradict ourselves in so many areas and yet seen in the forefront to minister to people in various ways and expound God’s word.

Proverbs 23:7 “.. ‘He says to you Eat and drink!” but his heart is not with you.’.

Just prior to the above verse it warns us not to eat or drink with ‘a selfish man’ basically not to have any fellowship with such kind of a person irrespective of who he is, because of his selfish nature. We may judge a person by the content of the message and act, but God judges us by our intent, therefore we are inescapable. It is so easy to preach, write articles, send daily devotions to groups, send amazing quotes yet fake our identity in Christ. Proverbs 24:12 says “Does He not consider it who weighs and examines the hearts and their motives? . . . Will he not repay [you and] every man according to his works?

Blessings,

Have you ever wondered how you would look if the presence of God leaves you?

In the book “Run with horses” by Eugene Peterson who is the author of the brilliant message version, narrates a personal story which has a stronger impact on me and I do not want to forget it all my life. The real time incident goes like this, a man by the name Willi Ossa was an artist, who worked as a janitor at night in a Church on New York’s west side and during the day he painted. Eugene got to know him when he was a theological student working at the same Church as an assistant pastor. Willi decided to paint a portrait of Eugene for which he had to visit couple of time to his house and sit for thirty minutes. The only condition by the painter is not to see the picture before it is completed.

The painting work was nearing completion when one day Eugene wife came to the room and looked at the portrait and exclaimed in outrage because the picture looked like a corpse. Willi had to pacify her and gave the reason for what he was doing and said, “He’s not sick; that’s the way he will look when the compassion is gone, when the mercy gets squeezed out of him.”. Does it make sense? So much for me. When the presence of God had to move out from our lives we would just be like a dead corpse attempting all that we did while God was with us and yet bringing blasphemy to His name. Romans 2:24.

Let’s not forget Samson once used by God powerfully when lost His presence had to play a part of a clown, entertaining the crowd gathered in the temple (Numbers 16:25)

Lucifer the most beautiful angel whose description magnificently narrated was thrown from the position Ezekiel 28: 12-19 (Sad latter stage)

The Ephesus Church was warned because of the fallen stage and it says, “..I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place ...’ NASB Revelation 2:5

Paul warning the common people too in Galatians 5:7 “you were running well; who hindered you from obeying the truth”

Let us be careful not to lose His presence and fight a losing battle with the enemy. May our prayers be like David in Psalms 51:11 CSB, “Restore the joy of your salvation to me, and sustain me by giving me a wiling spirit.

Blessings.

Have you attained the celebrity status?

Human beings tend to flocking themselves to one who is famous, who has attained celebrity status, who is often televised and in the news all the time. The factors of preferences change depending on people tastes and choices. Christendom isn't spared from this. There are two things to it, one a particular minister of God with a special gift or may be with the opportunity for him to appear in public gained fame and starts establishing a strong fan club. The next is the common people whose needs are being met by this one man/woman of God, or he/she felt God speaking to them through this man/woman of God, totally clings to this person and starts depending on him/her all the time.

 The next thing the people want to do is identify themselves with this Christian celebrity sharing his/her fame and feel good about it. Sadly, they even go to the extent to mobilize money, resources and promote all his commodity and be satisfied emotionally or sometimes be profited. How do we address this? Does it even hit us? God keeps reiterating again and again by saying I am the savior and there is none beside me (Isaiah 43:11, 44:6) Paul addressed this in 1 Corinthians 3:2-3 ‘because you are still worldly. For since there is envy and strive among you, are you not worldly and behaving like mere humans? For whenever someone says “I belong to Paul”, and another “I belong to Apollos”, are you not acting like mere humans?

There is an incident narrated in Acts 14 where a man without strength in his feet, lame from his birth was healed by Paul.  The crowd immediately jubilant and remarked that Gods have come down in human form and intended to sacrifice bulls for them. In (Acts 14:14) We see Paul and Barnabas tore their robes and immediately clarified that it is Jesus and they have no power. They did not  come up with a plan to build a club rather directing their attention to Jesus always. At any point of time in their ministry they never encouraged the celebrity status.  Do we see this happening today? This same Paul now when he writes to Corinthians condemns people who are flocking to a group.

There is a warning for both, one who have attained a big status and not conscious enough to keep correcting the attention of people and the followers who are just so happy to be identifying with their fame. God Says in Isaiah 42:8 “.. I will not give my glory to another..”. Also in 1 Corinthians 3:21 MSG Paul warns, "I don’t want to hear any of you bragging about yourself or anyone else...". We read so many stories of miserable fall of so called great people and the news are there everywhere. 

Unfortunately, Christianity is judged by the abuse of such people who were used by God or whom the ordinary lay people made them gods.  “Being Christians does not mean we’re any better than unbelievers. We are still as sick as anyone - we just have found the doctor.”.  “We are all broken”, it is assured. “we are all miserable failures is the refrain. ". Stop promoting yourself openly or subtly and stop creating a fan club and be deceived miserably.  Christ is the only Savior and God, don’t try to replace God.
Check this Video.

Are you prepared to be persecuted and killed”- Jesus said it.

As strange as it seems there are undeniable truths which are rarely articulated and sometimes deliberately pushed under the carpet. I am sure you would agree with me that we have already stepped into a dreadful era where Christians are the target of violence all over. Things are culminating towards the prophetic end. I am personally inspired to pick on this very important topic to sensitize everyone including me. This is about God's truthfulness while He declared on some of the things which unsettles our comfort zone.  Apart from the promised pronouncement of blessings like abundance, refilling, refueling, extension of the territory there are also other things that will happen to “Christians” who in all sense determine to live as true disciples. 

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“Then they will hand you over to be persecuted, and they will kill you. You will be hated by all nations because of my name.”.Matthews 24:9 (CSB)

In Spite of Christian agencies advocating the security of Christians, persecution is definite and would only stand to increase rapidly. Few may be rescued but a large number will be persecuted and die with increased intensity as promised by our Lord Jesus Christ. Mind, not even one disciple of Jesus was spared from the martyr's death, in fact their death was cruel and gruesome incomprehensible to our human existence. This takes us back to the core principle of evangelism found in John 12:24, where Jesus says, “Truly I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains by itself. But if it dies, it produces much fruit.”, there ends the matter. He further takes people to the past, giving an example in Matthews 5:12 “…For that is how they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”. Church history is the witness where it gives us proof that many are giving their lives to Jesus from the place where people where martyred for the sake of the gospel. Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians induces the spirit of Martyrdom, “You fool what you sow does not come to life unless it dies”. (1 Corinthians 15:36)

“In fact, all who want to live a godly life will be persecuted.”. 2 Timothy 3:12. (CSB)

Apostle Paul is leading us one step forward by declaring the challenges and the cost one has to pay to live and lead a godly life. This means those of us who claim to be His disciples will be tested. We will have to pay a cost to be a Christian. It is high time to shed all hypocrisy and complacency and build our determination in Christ. The Bible says, “But the one who endures to the end will be saved.”. Matthews 24:13. Our Lord God will definitely be with us while we have to undergo excruciating challenges.

What you become in the end matters. Dallas Willard puts it beautifully “What matters is not the accomplishments you achieve, what matters is the person you become.”   India ranks 11^th in terms of persecution (according to world watch data) towards Christians, it is spreading like a wild fire. I kindly request you to share testimonies and prayer requests from any portal or source that can keep Christians informed, motivated and pray unceasingly for our brothers and sisters in Christ, who are being persecuted. Prepare the churches on this important matter so that people can come out from their comfort zone and be strongly built in Christ for higher immunity. Jesus promised, “..You will have suffering in this world. Be courageous! I have conquered the world.”. John 16:33 (CSB)

I am attaching a video which speaks about persecution and its implication to a Christian in the most clear and simple way:

Blessings.

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