The Pentecost

Abundance in Suffering

After almost 2 to 3 months of lock down around the world, everyone is just getting adjusted with the pandemic Covid19. At this time the saddest news to hear is about the leaders and priests of religious organizations asking governments to allow them to open their worship places. In fact some governments, have given orders to open the worship places in the midst of this horrible situation, just to get popularity and support from the people which then can be transferred as votes in the future elections.

Book of Acts is considered as one of the most important book in New Testament churches, because you can see the history of first church and more about Christian worship. In the same book (Acts 17: 22-31), Spirit of God tells never to use an image and worship. Especially the book tells that God who made the world and everything does not live in temples. The Lord who created everything does not need anything from human hands. Rather, He Himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.

God sees everyone and know about the intentions of everybody’s heart (Psalm 66). There are people who act like believers, go to worship places, but live a worldly life. For those people, now its difficult time, because they can’t act and show their spirituality. But a true believer worships God every moment in his life. It doesn’t matter whether there is a worship place, or whether he is in his house, bus stop or anywhere. For true believers, this lock down does not affect their spiritual life. In Acts 16 we read about Paul and Silas worshiping God in prison

When people who live a faithful Christ centred life are being questioned for not raising voice against governments about the shutdown of worship place, they need to act according to your clear conscience and word of God. You can worship God wherever you want, so think about whether you want to risk people’s life and spread the virus, if there is. 1 Peter 3, tells it is better to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.

Money is a problem for the head of worship places. But people who are faithful give their tithes and offering through electronic means.

The real concern of the heads is not about money. It’s about the head count. Charismatic churches are competing each other about the count of memberships and people attending the services. It is a sad truth. Now at this time, they are worried that their count might go down.

According to the book of Acts 17, everyone should accept wisdom from God and use common sense in life in worshiping and praising God. If a calamity is waiting to happen when people gather together, use common sense and wisdom from God and avoid it.

May The Lord enable you to be close with him and help you not to create any panic or danger that may affect the society and people around you

Stay in Prayer

The word of God says to stay calm and pray before getting an answer from The Lord.

Before ascension, Jesus appeared to his disciples over a period of 40 days. He was strengthening them in their faith (Acts 1)

Apostle Peter says in 1 Peter 4; when tests come in life, don’t be surprised. Don’t ever think that since you follow Christ you will be free from test. Instead rejoice and participate along with the suffering of Christ.

The enemy is a hard worker. It will do everything to take away your attention from God. It might tempt you with lust of the world so you will hide from God. In Bible and in the history you can find men of God failing this test. 1 Peter 5, says, resist him by standing firm in faith. All believers of Jesus go through same problem. So when you follow Christ and are faced with a problem, rejoice that you are being accepted as a follower of Christ.

The word says to cast all your insults and problems at the feet of God. Always beware about how the enemy tries to tempt you. Only way to be strong and have a good mind to understand temptation is by spending time with God.

After Jesus resurrected, he did not ask the disciples to go and proclaim the gospel to everyone (Acts 1) but instead He told them to wait and pray for the Holy Spirit to witness. When the Spirit of God is in you, the enemy finds tough to overpower you. Of course you will be attacked, but it cannot defeat you.

Once the disciples received the Spirit of God on the day of Pentecost, they became bold and stronger in faith and went to witness Jesus. When you are filled with the Spirit of God, enemies will be scattered, and the wicked will perish in front of you (Psalm 68).

At this time, if the enemy try to trouble your life, pray and be filled with the Spirit of God, and proclaim the power of God to see the same enemies fleeing before you. May God bless and protect you.

Ascension Day

Called out of Darkness

God wants everyone to know him and have a communion with him. Since sin came to world, the communication between man and God became impossible. So God’s only son Jesus came to the world as Human, lived a sinless life and took all the sins of man and died as a sacrifice to redeem man kind.

Through this sacrifice God showed a way for everyone to know him. Anyone who see Jesus and accept him has seen Father God (John 14). Bible tells us that no one can go to father except through Jesus. When you accept Jesus as your savior, you will be saved from your sins. Once you are in Jesus, you will do the same works he did. You will live a sin-free life and God will be pleased with you when you ask anything in Jesus name

This world is termed as sinful according to the Bible. So the people who are living in this sinful world inherit that sins and continue to sin more. So according to 1 Peter 2, this sinful world is a world of darkness.

Some of the characteristics that the people in darkness are hypocrisy, jealousy, unkind speech and deceit. But the creator wants all the people to get out from this sin and be saved because according to the heavenly law the sinners are going to be put to eternal death. 

Once when you are in Jesus, the Bible says in 1 Peter 2, you are like a new born baby. You need spiritual milk to grow. You need help from other believers to grow in Christ. But once you are matured in Christ, there in no need of a spiritual milk, instead you will have to face tests to grow.

You can see in the book of Job how he face test in his life in his walk with God. Same way, even Jesus had to go through rejection and trials from his own people. When you are matured in Christ, you will face opposition from your own people. In that situation you need to remember that you are God’s possession and you are called out of darkness into God’s wonderful light.

In Acts 7, we see how Stephen was stoned to death by Jewish leaders. When they were at him, he was full of the Spirit of God. When you are matured in Christ, when persecution arouses, you need to be in the Spirit of God. Even though he was in Spirit, he died as a martyr. He never cursed the ones who were against him, but he prayed for their salvation, and he was sure where he is going to go, saw the glory of God and told he is laying His spirit unto Gods hand. The life of a matured believer.

Stephen’s life doesn’t mean that we should not ask God to rescue us, but it shows us that in troubled times, you need to be in control of who you are.

At the same time, you need to ask God for protection. According to Psalms 31, ask God to turn his ear and listen to you, ask him to pull you out of the trap of enemies, rescue you, save your spirit and ask his favor to shine on you.

May you be filled with the fruits and gifts of Spirit and let the Spirit of God guide you to live a matured life and shine for the glory of God.

Endure .. Do good .. Follow the Shepherd .. Be Safe

In the book of 1 Peter 2, the Apostle talks about doing good, even it means suffering, just as Christ suffered. Yes, when you follow Christ don’t think everything is going to be fine and good. Christ suffered in this world and we who are followers are sheep and He is the shepherd. Sheep will follow its shepherd.

Some characteristics Jesus showed in the midst of suffering.

·        He never sinned

·        Never deceiver anyone

·        Did not retaliate when he was insulted

·        Did not threaten revenge when he suffered

Only thing he did in the midst of suffering was he left everything to God. The God who sees everything lifted him above all and the same place where he was insulted and suffered, he is going to come back to rule as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

We are called to follow our shepherd (John 10). When hard times hit your life, don’t get emotional and react instantly, but pull yourself together, show patience, always think about Christ who suffered the same. Follow him and do the same, God will restore your lost and help you to overcome all situations.

In early church, Apostles and believers had to suffer because of following Jesus. But they met together and praised God with great joy and generosity (Acts 2). What happened as a result was, each day Lord added to their fellowship. People were getting saved each day. Same is being going through many parts of the world. Followers of Jesus are persecuted and humiliated. But in the midst of all, they are praising God and worshiping him and people are being saved and are added.

At this time, when the world is going through tough time, economy going down, people losing jobs, relationships breaking down, it’s time to remember that you are sheep and you need to follow your shepherd to be safe.

Now days, all prayer requests that come are from believers who lost their jobs. According to 1 Peter 2, endure and do good, follow your shepherd in faith. You are going to see light at the end of the tunnel.

Now, if you don’t know this shepherd and sheep reference, just understand sheep follow their shepherd to be safe. Jesus Christ is the shepherd and everyone sheep. All sheep that follow Christ is going to be safe. If you don’t know this Jesus, and want to know him, just repent all your sins to him while reading this, ask him to forgive you, and accept him as your saviour who took the punishment for all your sins. Download a Bible, start reading from New Testament and know about Jesus. Pray all your needs and ask everything in Jesus name. Follow him, hang in there, Do good and Be safe.