Posts

Showing posts from March, 2010

AT THE FEET OF JESUS

The Christian Faith is not only a faith that works but also a faith that must work – a real faith, if you will. If it is not, it becomes only a novelty. What’s more is that the Christian faith is not an inanimate faith of mere action points that some divine entity has passed down that we simply follow and that’s all. We indeed have a fully animate faith because of its cause who is a Living God who incidentally is the definition of life in its totality. When we look at the reality and the working aspect of our faith, the Bible speaks of it being validated by its fruit (Matthew 7:20) and a bad tree cannot give good fruit and vice versa (Matthew 7:17-18). So to bear the fruit of our faith, we must abide in Him and He in us (John 15:4). Therefore, abiding and bearing fruit are not separate modes of functioning. It is only by abiding in Him that we can bear fruit. In no other way can we bear the fruit of our faith. So therefore, our efforts towards our faith should be directed towards abidi...

CHRISTIAN CELEBRITYISM

Within Christian circles a lot of times, we “wow” other people who seem to be more and “better” gifted than us and insist that if at all the Lord be praised then it must through them. Moreover, we give them that special place and hold them in high regard for the fact that we are not “as good as” them. A look at this matter in strict Biblical perspective is… "Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith; or ministry, let us wait on our ministering: or he that teacheth, on teaching; or he that exhorteth, on exhortation: he that giveth, let him do it with simplicity; he that ruleth, with diligence; he that sheweth mercy, with cheerfulness." Romans 12:6-8 So, if I may rephrase – we must do what you are given to do in the proportion and manner that we are given to do it with. Now, the celebritist culture can lead us and has lead us to think that we are not as useful as someone else an...

Keep Christ The Institution

Christ did not come to start a religion. He came, walked and talked the Christian lifestyle. And that’s all He left us with – a lifestyle and the reason for it (to properly state - NOT another option for a choice of religion) that was but only natural to live with the design that He created you and me in should we choose to see the Light. He did not come to establish the Christian Church, determine its hierarchy, set in place traditions and so on and so forth. He did not even coin the word Christian. All of these were symbols, signs and traditions that were adopted that represent the very beliefs that the Christian lifestyle is based upon that were chosen by the people as they chose to follow Him. He asked people to drop everything and simply follow Him – something that one could do very easily in that day and age but not in this day and age with its career minding and its existential preoccupancy. In keeping with His motto of functioning, when we look at the set institutions that our ...

LEVEL-3 Christians (By The Razor's Edge)

What really comes into your mind when you think of THANKING GOD? At one level (let's call it LEVEL 1), we thank God for material blessings. Home and hearth, family and kin. Health and wealth, roof over our heads, clothes on our bodies, food to eat, needs being met, healing from sickness, prayers answered, etc, etc. "The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance," we say with the Psalmist. Basically, this is saying thanks for a good digestion, for a long life, for our fluffy pillows, for not being born or living in modern-day Afghanistan (or even Orissa these days!!!), etc. If in fact we had continued hardships, our spirit of thanks would vapourise like the morning mist. At another level (LEVEL 2), we thank God for deeper things. We talk of thanks for being "saved" (whatever that means), of being "God's children" (we never ask HOW, but we take it for granted anyway). We thank God for "who He is...

YOUR REASON TO BELIEVE

I have been hard pressed to address this after a recent exchange of discussion with a few of Christian brothers and sisters: Every Christian (active and believing Christians for there can be no other) must have a reason to believe what he/she believes. And must be able to express it and more importantly say it when asked. More than often, reason for believing is taken to be theology - which is understood as complicated funda among other things. While theology itself is quite a "deep" topic, reason to believe is not deep at all. It is only as deep as our understanding, knowledge and experience of God Himself. This is something I have always argued for. If we know a BIG God, then how can we restrict talking about our BIG God to few and small words? That depends on the size of the God that we know. And since we know the SAME God, our basic reason to believe and hence the manner of expression of that must hardly differ. For some, even a note such as this will be considered theolo...

HE IS THE IMAGE OF THE INVISIBLE GOD (Collosians 1:15) (By Biju Mathew)

John 1:18 says “No-one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known.” Let us take a minute and meditate on this bold declaration of Jesus. He specifically says here that no one has seen God at any time. Jesus is referring God the Father which is clear from the verse itself and passage, which starts by saying “In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God and the Word was God.” This is to say that no one from Adam has ever seen God the Father. The question that challenges our mind immediately is who did Moses speak to? Whom did Abraham see in Gen 18:1? Or whom did Isaiah see in Is 6:1? What about Jacob, David and the few men of God who had experiences with the LORD? It is worth studying the Scripture to get a deeper understanding of this mystery. As we read through various passages, remember the basic rule of interpretation: scripture must interpret scripture. Let us start with Paul’s writing to the Colossians 1:15 “He is the im...

Christian Entertainment - a N0-No

The Christian life is abundant and abundant indeed. The Bible says it in – “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” John 10:10. (KJV) This abundant life that we receive from the Giver of it cannot be described as completely as it must be, even when said fully right, in words that comprise anyone’s vocabulary. So great indeed is this life – anyone who has it can only agree with me more. If you don’t have it, you will not fully know what I am talking about. Now the change, that takes one from a life of worldly non abundance to divine abundance meted out by the God of the Bible, is liberating to the extent you just want to revel in it, again you will only know it if you have been in it. And it is very likely that due to the sheer magnitude of it, you will not want to escape out of it. All this is understandable. While the Bible encourages corporate worship which is an entire topic by itself, there are stipulations according to which we must do muc...

NOTHING IS DISCOUNTABLE

What unites all Christians the world over is the God that we choose to worship. Going by practical example, God has given us abundance galore. Going by His Word and its promises… "A faithful man shall abound with blessings…" (Proverbs 28:20) …of course given that we are faithful. Now after having been given this privilege, we must understand that each one is given in his own measure. "…according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith…" Romans 12:3 "…having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us…" Romans 12:6 Now if we are given in our own measure of grace, then all forms of comparison in any context (excellence, form of expression, inclination or any other that there may be) are ruled out. No one is greater than he is and “ought not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think”. Furthermore, it also rules out any judgement and applied opinion/bias (thinking more than we ought) regarding such things. By this e...

The Youth And Their Inactiveness In Church

Jesus never did see what he was going to get out of dying for mankind.He has priced himself high with concessions depending how on familiarone is with the process. He did so and expects the same to be done bythe beneficiaries of his love and grace. But even his good work of inexplicable love came from a heart in a soul that had its every wish fulfilled. Ones best can be given its prime and there isn't anytimemore prime than his days of youth. From birth till then is either too small a time to know it all or one is too young in during that period of time to know it all. There arestill dreams to make true which the world only makes harder, so muchmore to know because nobody else knows either or nobody knows anybetter to tell somebody else who is heading to where they have been. They pretty make their own rules. As long as things work, what theylive by is fine. One can go ahead anyway and do it because that's the way its supposedto work but there'll be a lot to know and regret...

YOUR INNER PERSON

Everybody's got to have at least some kind of sense made out of theworld otherwise they would end up in an identity crisis which they all recognize and try to avoid lest they end up being in one. Being forced in upon such decisions that make your perception of the world, what it has to offer and what you think it needs can bring about certain choices of what you choose to believe and what you don't, what you're life will made of an d what it wont. It's an observation that when people don't understand, they assume.They assume what they already know or what is already known. It is instinct to dwell on known ground, especially when that is an option. Like how a child however small doesn't get frightened as long as he isholding the hand of someone he is familiar with or someone he knows.Upto a particular point in life, we don't feel the need to understandwhat kind the world is that lies around us after which we need tounderstand it so badly that we allow only a ...

THE SYSTEM

Being good enough to make it- you might even say it is unnecessary.It's not about who's deserving and who's not. There is a system of accreditation, through which you pass through, to successfully to makeit. It can cause you to compromise on the way you wanted to make it but you're going to have to pass through the system if you want tomake it anyway. Going through the system is the only way you can make it. The system doesn't give you credit on merit. It has a predecided list of things that you can do to be credited. This list is too general to cater to the development of the individual with the diversity of each of our specific abilities. If we are clever enough to realize that the credit would do us good, we'd get the credit giving it first priority.That credit gives us the respect we need from people who can "get us there". Beyond a point, qualification, achievement, capacity andability lose value and that respect takes us there. How you get it doe...

THE OTHER SIDE

The way we are taught life, there is the other side the journey across to where is not a guaranteed safe one. Glamorous though, it has got its own price to pay. When we see people who have reached there strut their stuff, we feel like doing the same. They become muses for shortlived fantasies that die quickly and come to life the few times thatthey can and then again die quickly, the whole process repeating itself over and over again thus making it a waste of a process to go through. Yet we go through it intentionally realizing that it is the closest that we can get to the other side from such a distance. We repeatedly remind ourselves of the real world and how unrealistic it would be to head there. When we see potential, even more so when we can take it to where it can get the worth it deserves, we remind them and ourselves of the reality of life that it can only happen if itwill and that it can never happen if it wont. The other side is a place one is lucky'n privileged to be in....

THE INTERNET

We can speak of the world as a global village-the entire world at the click of a button. Be it a hyperlink, URL or send button or even a keyon the keyboard, information interchange and interaction happen in real time. One can literally mean it when he says that once he is toldwhat to do, its done provided his medium of operation is the Internetand he has a connection that is fast. The Internet makes interactionfast and easy and also more less personal. Saying what we have to andwhat we need to, passing it through wires digitally decoded and thenencoded again so that it can be understood, relieves us of thepressure and tension that we sometimes go through in a face to face interaction. It makes sure the point gets across without us having todo the dirty work. In making things easier and faster, things get less personal. One has to no more go through, look and search books, files and catalogues that would have replaced otherwise the list of sites thatcontain the information you want that...

THE BIGGEST REASON WHY I SAY YOU SHOULD BELIEVE IN JESUS

Put yourself in this situation. You are sitting in a room with me(for the sake of the argument) and in front of you and me is a newspaper which is folded and the side which is readable has this small column/write up/ oneliner. Now take Probability 1: You and me could have no taste for literature at all and would pass our judgements on it and say its boring...Considering that we have no idea what we are handling our opinoins would hold almost or no value at all. Now, Probability 2: One of us has a intrest of an appreciable level in literature and the other has nothing of that sort...Considering that the person knowing something about at an appreciable level, his views could do the expounding of that passage some good. Probability 3: Say now for the arguments case assume that we both have an equal appreciable intrests in literature...in this case both our opinions would hold a little more value than the total value of the opinions expressed in the case of Probability 2. Probability 4: No...

SARCASM OF PREVENTION'N BACK STABBING

This is a well revered society were living in. It is looked up to more for its quality than for the impression that we give it. The world sees a lot more in it than we show. We have better chances of making it shine if we keep our differences to ourselves. We would then be living a lie but if we open up to each other, we could be deprivingthe world of lots of hope because it would bring about thedisintegration of our solidarity. Not only so, even if such disintegration of our solidarity doesn't go outside the walls that we live in we could discourage a weak faith or turn someone away who is looking in our direction not knowing what he will see. On the other hand, such a strengthened status of faith, strengthened through pretension will lose all that it is strong of once the truth is known that it was strengthened by a pretentious act of support. Victims will look for true strength else where, a search that will upset their entire basic belief system but lead them to either find a d...

PART OF THE PROCESS

The church is a gathering of the faithful. Its purpose is to encourage, uphold and support its members among other things. It's members in turn uphold it in prayer and participation. It is groundfor every member to exalt the Lord with what He has given them ability to do. In it, mediocrity is not one of the criteria taken into consideration. Wholeheartedness is only what is considered and that is all what the Lord looks for. As much as it is important for regular and off'n on programmes to happen, getting the job done shouldn't be where the emphasis is laid. The Lord appreciates service but requires participation from the church-which calls for commitment. A Church should have its greatest impact within its four walls. When that is achieved the impact will be felt, multiplied by its strength, outside. It nurtures and should be nurtured back in turn. People who stand by it in event of good, bad, exciting and boring times. There is no provision that one should but they inheri...

ONLY PASSING THROUGH

Can I interest you in my queries? I've figured out what satisfies them. I feel that they are stupid. They don't make much sense to me. These things, they make life, at least as it should be. I'll suppose you're only passing through if you show no interest. I feel terribly wrong, just playing along Now and here is what and when counts You can go a long way by what goes anyway Things can really get out of hand if we make our own rules over and over again because the rules that we made and were following earlier didn't do us any good You're going to have to understand sometime down the line that if you're going to get anywhere during the course of your life You're going to have to give into the calling for which this life is purposed That calling we have no say in That calling's been determined well in advance That calling's your place in the cycle that's created so that the world doesn't stop turning That calling's no enslavery It doesn...

MY HEART FELT STRANGELY WARMED

I had the best mother anyone's ever had. Along with my father, she never made times seem bad. She was the greatest woman alive. A disciplinarian, she made me what I am. So if people have been telling you, you ought to be like me This poems for you, listen to me good. I studied and was ordained a priest in the church But that didn't teach me things that it should've Things I wanted to know. Brother Peter, I used to talk to him a lot He told me to preach faith till I have it, till it's all I got But that didn't make my heart feel strangely warmed. I went to a meeting I didn't really want to go to. Someone was reading Luther's Epistle to the Romans Then at about quarter to nine, at that point in time The part being dealt with how God changes the heart of a man through faith in Christ Then I felt my heart strangely warmed. From then on, I just couldn't hold it in any longer My urge to tell the world kept on growing stronger So I did what no ones done as yet ...

JUST DO IT

There is this buger who comes back from a hard day at work. He comes back from work and chilils out on the sofa with his legs streched on the table puts on the TV looking to just chill out and enjoy the evening. Now the door bell rings and grumbling he opens the door. He opens the door only to see God standing there. God calls him by the name and says "Son, I have something that needs doing. I want you to do it for me" holding out in his hand a old parchment. With a tired day behind him he is in no mood for "God" so he slams the door back on him. In another part of the world, is the same situation with a different person. This person thankfully is one whom you can call a semi-religous man. So God is no "stranger" to him. He opens the door he sees God standing at the door. God calls him by the name and says "Son, I have something that needs doing. I want you to do it for me" holding out in his hand a old parchment. He politely says to God, " ...

Just a poem

Good times will never be lost As times change for better or worse Development comes with a cost It binds upon time a curse A spell that it casts upon the world Not of its own blame But of the constant endless song That's sung by every man and dame Of the undying thirst that they have For anything that they do not know Of which they become savvy In the knowledge of which they grow This is the present state Of this day and age When our fate we look to create And feel like were bound in a cage Bound on all four sides By the knowledge gathered from around Like when men used to wear animal hides But their cage was their only known ground They found a way through Which leads to you and me But the same path backtracked is blinding Because of what we cannot control Meant to make life easy But which brings complications upon us Gone are the days when every man could say "I've looked around and I have found my way." Now a mans only reward for someth...

The evolution of love

Songs have been saying it for generations together. Ask anyone what the world needs and the one answer you would get is-"love". We need love at all times. It is the basis of all our relationships in one form or the other. Despite knowing and understanding the need for it, we haven't been able to understand it well enough. It has evolved and here is its story. Everybody's saying that love can change the world but no one really knows what it is. Some have had enough, some have had so much and they won't let anyone else go without it But behind it all, someone's got to take all the pain involved. Some of them give it away with a price but they don't attach the price tag. Some of them give it away because they've never seen a loveless world and they don't want to see one because they know the pain that it would cause. Nobody states their case before they give it away. If they did it wouldn't be called love. But everyone follows up ...