Growing in Christ

There are people who are born and brought up in a Christ centered family. Even for those people, there will be a point in life when they need to analyse themselves, repent and accept Christ as their personal saviour.

When you are saved, you will have peace and joy in your heart and your spiritual life will be very joyful. You’ll read the word of God, study it, meditate upon it, pray and have a great communion with God.

As the days goes, God wants to provide you with new knowledge and wisdom about him. So you have to go through tests and He will help you to go through it. With each and every test you pass, you gain new spiritual meanings about the word of God and will get closer with Him.

A student who is in 10^th grade will not study 2^nd grade subjects because he/she had already gone through that grade. Same way when you are developed in Christ, you will no longer be that same born again believer, but will get more meaningful life with respect to the scriptures.

Apostle Paul talks about it as for a baby you cannot give solid food, but only milk. When the baby grows you can give solid food. When you are new to Christ, the evil behaviour inside you may not change. Only your spiritual thought will change, but your character changes as you develop in Christ. For a person to develop in Christ, he/she needs help from other mature believers, same way a plant grows. One person sow the seeds, another water it. In spiritual world, one evangelise about Christ, another teaches you and another may show you to live a life worth as a believer. Even if all these things happen, it’s God’s responsibility to make you grow with respect to the choices he gives you (1 Corinthians 3).

Once you start growing in Christ, accepting tests and overcome it by the help of Jesus, more spiritual maturity and wisdom comes in life. Jesus taught how the commandments given to Israel can be taken serious in a believer’s life.

When you are angry with someone, according to the Bible, you are violating the commandment “You must not murder”. (Mathew 5). In the same way you are violating this commandment when you call someone idiot or curse anyone. Christ teaches us not to burden our heart with anger or jealousy, but to have peace within and out.

When Jesus taught the commandment about adultery, when a man/woman looks at other with lust in their eyes/heart, they have already committed adultery. He even strongly warned them to take off that part, whether your eyes and throw it instead of poisoning the whole body to hell.

People say lies. But some take vows. But when you are a believer of Jesus, you will say “yes I will” or “no I won’t” instead of taking any vow. Christ teaches that any beyond this is evil (Mathew 5: 21-37)

Once you come to Christ, it’s only about salvation. As you grow in Christ, it will be about life and death, blessings and curses and so on.

In short, when you live according to the word of God and in Integrity, without your knowledge God will lift you high and provide you peace, joy and happiness in all situations of life to be an example. May the Lord provide you wisdom to understand this process of growing in Christ and help you to be a part of it and live a testimonial life.

Compassionate as Jesus

The breaking news in the southernmost part of India - a complaint came against 5 priests on physically abusing a woman who came for confession. Of course, there are certain denominations in Christianity where priests won’t marry, and sadly complaints like this come against them around the world. I was hearing the head of that church questioning the victim’s character and giving a list of people who had physical relationship with her. Soon a visual scene came into my mind on John 8:1-11, where the teachers of law and some Pharisees bringing a woman caught in adultery in front of Jesus.

A servant of God should be compassionate to these victims and motivate them to go ahead in life. But here is a man of God openly complaining against a victim who got abused by his colleagues. The primary character you should have when you are planning to serve God, is to have compassion. Since the Holy God had compassion on the sinful people, he sent his only son to die for the sins of the world (John 3:16).

With the money power the church is going to win the case by influencing even the victim.  In Mark 5: 21-43, we see Jesus showing his compassion on a synagogue leader’s daughter and a poor lady who had a sickness of bleeding. There is no difference between a rich and poor in the ministry or Church. A true man of God will have the same love and compassion to the needy rich and poor. 

In 2 Corinthians 8, we see how the Macedonian churches showed generosity. They compared themselves with Jesus, who even being rich became poor for our sake (2 Corinthians 8: 9).

For a man or woman who is in deep trouble, Lord shows compassion and his love (Lamentation 3:32). Same attitude should be there for a servant of God towards the people in need. It is the duty of the men of God to comfort and encourage the needy or a victim.

Let the men analyse themselves whether they came to do ministry or whether they were called by God to do the ministry. When we are called by God to do ministry, we will have the character of Jesus and fruits of the Spirit and will be careful in all our deeds. As King David sinned and confessed (Psalm 51), we will be bold enough to confess the mistake, because we know we are answerable to the God who created the Heavens and Earth and we are not sent to destroy the world, but to get the world for Jesus.

Praying God will cast out all the men who take the word for their selfish needs. Let the Spirit guide and lead the servants of God to be compassionate as Jesus and win the world for Christ.