Throw away your garbage

“Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with malice.”

Ephesians 4: 31 (The Bible)

The tiny illustration though funny is a reflection of most our lives. We choose to carry bitterness in our lives , we choose to carry unforgiveness , we choose to carry hurts and anger. And like piled up garbage it becomes smelly and heavier over time. Nothing good can come from accumulating garbage. It is meant to be thrown out. The same is with bitterness and anger and clamor and malice and slander. It needs to be put away from our lives totally,

If we don’t put it away, we are going to be just so loaded with all that garbage that we would have lost sight of God and things of Him, because all that we see is bitterness , all that we hold on to is unforgiveness. Its time to throw the garbage out !

The only thing we are called to hold on to is Him and His Holy word !

Some of us (including me )say “Oh you don’t know… I was so good to them , I never did anything wrong , and at the end they did this , and they said that “ or for those of us who get stuck in traffic “I was on the right lane and that other person just cut me off “ , or when in a supermarket we say “That lady just cut right in front of me .. how could she do that and I was waiting in line for 10 minutes… I spoke my mind and put her in her place “ !!! At the spur of the moment we think that just because we were not in the wrong , that gives us a right to demonstrate clamor and anger and then we carry on that bitterness.

The Bible says in 1 Peter 2 : 22-23, “He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in His mouth. When He was reviled, He did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to Him who judges justly.”

Jesus Christ in whom there is no sin , when He reacted in that manner , how do you think we ought to be reacting then ?

Some of us think “oh that was Jesus ! God is Holy and He can react like that . Why should I ?”

1 Peter 1 : 16 , “since it is written, “You shall be holy for I am holy”

What are we holding on to ? Its time to let go of the garbage . Its time to understand who we are in Christ .

God Bless

It is that simple !

“At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?"

Matthew 18: 1

There was a show that I watched really long ago called Candid Camera. Its where they plant a hidden camera and then check people’s reactions to bizarre situations that they set up The other day they had a rerun of the show on TV and what they did was they had a big bowl full of 1 dollar bills in a shop. And next to the bowl they had a sign ‘Free Money ! Each one can take one bill’. Its free money right, you would think that everyone would grab a dollar and the bowl would be empty in lightening speed. But guess what ? When people passed by and read the sign they did funny things . Some smelt the money , some lifted up the money against the light to check if it was real, some laughed and went away and not a single person took the money. In their minds it was just too good to be true. Time passed by and no one took even a single bill. Finally a child came by , read the sign , knew it was ok to take the money , put her hand into the bowl and took a dollar and went off happily on her way ! :-)

Matthew 18 : 1-4 , “At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, "Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven."

Oh if everyone would have had the simplicity of thinking like a child :-) As we grow up we tend to over complicate things and over analyze things . We forget basic simple truths. We start letting things of the world dictate our principles and our lifestyles instead of being founded on one thing and one thing alone – The Word of God.

“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6: 23)! It’s a gift… Its free. Jesus Christ already paid the price . And all we have to do is stretch our hands out and take it.

The Bible is the word of God. And the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of the soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Its right there for us… something so wonderful , something so powerful… Do we pass it by ?

God Bless

Ready to make a proclamation ?

“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want”

Psalm 23: 1


This is probably one of the first verses we must have memorized as a kid. This verse is more than just a statement. It’s a proclamation ! The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want

When He is my shepherd why would I ever need to worry
When He is my shepherd why would I ever be anxious
When He is my shepherd all I need to do is be tuned to His voice
When He is my shepherd He goes before me and leads the way
When He is my shepherd , though sometimes the grass may look greener on the other side I will still follow Him because He knows what’s best and He sees and knows more than I do
When He is my shepherd , I shall not want because He knows everything that I need , more than I know myself

I pray this will be a proclamation in our lives. May people all around us see us as living testimonies of this proclamation – The Lord is our shepherd !

God Bless

Everlasting

“Your steadfast love, O LORD, extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds”

Psalm 36: 5

His faithfulness is not dependent on our faithfulness. His righteousness is not dependent on our righteousness (which are filthy rags).

In this world, one of the greatest covenants a man/woman can make is that of a marriage. Marriage is life long commitment. And when a man/woman take their marriage vows they say ‘till death do us apart’.

Romans 8:38-39 , “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Wow ! Isn’t it awesome that we have the love and faithfulness of Christ which even death cannot do us apart !

“Your steadfast love, O LORD, extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds”

God Bless

"Prayer is to a Christian what love is to marriage"

“Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.”

John 15 : 4

My second nephew Aryan is 4 years old. I think the most difficult thing I could ever ask him to do is ‘sit quietly in one place’ . I can ask him to do this or do that and he would do it with utmost obedience. But sit still ? Pretty difficult. My oldest nephew Rohan is 8 years old and now as he is growing up its easy for him to sit quietly in one place. He understands why we ask him to do so , he understands him sitting down would make the younger one quiet down too.

I found myself over the last two weeks behaving like my second nephew Aryan. It was a struggle for me to sit down in quiet times with the Lord. It comes so easily for me to do things for Him but it became very difficult for me to sit down quietly in His presence and just listen .

There is a reason why we need to sit quietly in His presence. In His presence there is renewal , revival , restoration and revelation.

In today’s verse we read that a branch cannot bear fruit by itself. If we really want to be walking every step in accordance to His will then we need to be abiding in Him every step of the way J

And this constant communion with Him comes from a life of prayer

A wonderful man of God wrote “Prayer is to a Christian what love is to marriage: It is a decision. You choose to pray as you choose to love. And its not something you do for the first three months of your marriage. You must choose to love every good morning, every bad morning, every wonderful weekend, every tiring weekend; and endlessly. And so it is with prayer!”

“Abide in me, and I in you” – For some of us God is calling us to be still and learn to enjoy just drinking from His heavenly throne. For some of us God is calling us saying ‘Don’t selectively leave me out on certain aspects of your life”. We cannot choose to have God in some areas of our life and then decide to push him out of our lives in certain other areas. If we believe that Jesus Christ is our Lord then this life that we live is ALL HIS!

The vine and the branch… Christ and us …. Is this truly how we are today ?

God Bless

"your faith has made you well"

““What do you want me to do for you?” He said, “Lord, let me recover my sight.” And Jesus said to him, “Recover your sight; your faith has made you well.”

Luke 18 : 41-42

When we read the entire passage from verses 35-43 we read of a blind man sitting by the roadside begging. And hearing a crowd going by, he asks what’s happening and they say Jesus of Nazareth is passing by. And he cries out “Jesus , Son of David, have mercy on me!” . People around him start rebuking him and ask him to be silent but he cried out all the more “Son of David have mercy on me.”
This blind man had heard about Jesus and when he hears of the fact that he is passing by he seizes the opportunity and cries out. People around were obviously upset. In their view “Jesus is passing by and this blind chap is creating chaos” But that didn’t stop him. He pressed on .And the reason why he never gave up was because he was sure of one thing – if there was anyone who could heal him , it was JESUS !And yes his cries didn’t go in vain. Jesus stopped and commanded him to be brought to him . And He asks him “”What do you want me to do for you?” He said, “Lord, let me recover my sight.” And Jesus said to him, “Recover your sight; your faith has made you well.“”Wow ! Isn’t that amazing ? We read in verse 43 “And immediately he recovered his sight and followed him glorifying God. And all the people when they saw it, gave praise to God.”

· When we pray and cry out to Him , its going to sound foolish to others

Are you interceding in prayer for a friend ,for a family , for a community , for a state , for a nation ? Press on . People are going to say “You have been praying for 5 years for that family’s salvation… they are not going to change , why do you bother ?” . Press on … don’t give up. He is able there is no doubt about that ! Keep praying ! People are going to say “Oh if you pray for the state of Orissa do you think there will be a change just because you prayed ?” … PRESS ON !! Its not we but He who makes the difference. We cry what He places on our hearts .. we cry in obedience to His word … we cry because our hearts break for what breaks His heart.

· When the rebukes get loud make sure you cry louder !!

Be prepared for satan to be up to his slimy tricks of saying “He is God ! who are you that he will listen to you ?? Don’t you remember all your sins ? You YOU YOU of all people are praying for breakthough ? Ha ha ha …”

Make sure you shout back even louder “I have been ransomed by the blood of the Lamb, sealed by the Holy Spirit , I am a son/daughter of the Most High , I am an ambassador of Jesus Christ . My God has washed away all my sins and as far as the east is from the west so far have my transgressions been removed . And He will answer my prayers not because I am righteous but because He is righteous . I am who I am because of the great I AM in me !!”

· Have faith not because of what you see but because of who you know – Jesus !

This man was a blind roadside beggar. All he knew was probably what people spoke about as they walked. But that was enough for this man to have undoubting faith . He didn’t have to see a sign or a miracle to know that Jesus could heal. He knew all he had to do was cry out beyond the rebukes and he would have his healing that day , because hey Jesus was there !!

· Glorify & Follow Him

He not only had faith but he was also faithful . He followed him and glorified him. And when all the people saw it they gave praise to God

God Bless