GodFather

Exodus 20:3-4

"You shall have no other gods before me.

You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me,  but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments."

I have been reading the book of Jeremiah, infact just finished it yesterday.
Some things that are prominent in this book, and I mean so stand out-ish that you will be like, how difficult is it for anyone to not understand all this?

• God's command to his people to not have any other gods, or worship any idols.
• The people disregarding God's command over & over again
• God's incessant & persistent warnings to them through Jeremiah to STOP and turn back to HIM.

And yet, the entire book of Jeremiah only goes around the above cycle, looping around the same events.

If one has to read this book in a stretch, you will only begin to think how foolish those people were to not get  it. 
It really gets to you, almost like when you watch a horror movie & you're telling out loud 'stupid woman, don't go there' or ' no, no, no stay away from that room'.
 Something like that.
It feels that way because you can almost see where the Israelites were headed by not heeding to God's warnings.Things look sorted and clear when you see the entire picture or when you see it happening in someone else's life.

But here's an interesting twist . If we were to be questioned about what would we do in the above situation, I'm quite sure the answer would be, ' we don't even keep a crucifix or God's picture at home'. 
Well, great answer. 
But how about doing a little search here to really find out what our real idols are? 

Our idols may take a different form than those that the people of Israel had, but are just as sinful.
They may not be handmade statues of clay or precious metals; but they may come in the form of money, prestige or pleasure. Or anything that takes up the first place in our lives besides God.
God puts it forthright to us saying that He's a jealous God. He even compares our worship to other gods to prostitution. When we worship money ,success, power or prestige, we are like a well-loved wife who searches for others for satisfaction instead of remaining loyal to her husband. (Read:Jeremiah 3:8)
We often do not think it important to heed to God's warnings because we do not see any immediate correction for our sins. This will lull us into thinking that we can get away with it. But unless we turn to God & repent, the consequences for sinful behaviour will inevitably come sooner or later.

But then we might also question, that if God sees us sinning, why wont he just change us? 
But the fact remains that God wont change us until we are willing to confess our sins & truly turn to Him.

Idolatry  of any kind ruins our relationship with God & ultimately our lives. God longs to be a loving Father &  waits to patiently for the day when we turn to Him.

Its not easy to give up of our so-called idols, because they might be deeply ingrained in our brains.

Yet, nothing is Impossible for Him. If we only let God take control & submit to Him, He will reshape the way we think & His thoughts will become our own.
Amidst all the warnings of destruction, the  The book of Jeremiah also has the most beautiful promise of God:  For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.  In those days when you pray, I will listen. If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me. I will be found by you,” says the Lord. “I will end your captivity and restore your fortunes. I will gather you out of the nations where I sent you and will bring you home again to your own land.”

Confrontation vs Captious

Jude 20-23

“But you, dear friends, by building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in God's love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life.

 Be merciful to those who doubt; save others by snatching them from the fire; to others show mercy, mixed with fear—hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh.”

For new believers, it’s always a very icy ground when it comes to their newfound faith.

Some find it easy to give up their past life & some find it extremely difficult to change their behavior to being Christ-like. 

All our actions have consequences & returning to the old sinful ways would cost a terrible price. There is pressure, a lot of it, in today’s world to succumb to a lot of sinful stuff that seems to be the way of life now. 

Some suggest we bend (or blend in) or give in just a little. Some might discourage us too, mocking us for our beliefs.

Recognizing and standing up for God’s truth will definitely pay off. There’s a great reward in Heaven whenever you say a NO to the ways of the world.

 Before you do get to a point to say a NO, it’s essential and absolutely indispensable that you build your inner self first to be strong on God’s word. 

Know & study the truth & then stand up for it & live it out in your life.

OK. So lets say  there’s a friend or a person close to your heart or anyone that you know very well, who you think is slightly going off the path.

What would you do? What would Jesus want you to do?

We are told to be merciful and help each other by gently confronting one another & keeping others from falling prey to the evil one. However, confronting anyone can be a very difficult task to do, as we don’t want to end up looking judgemental or turning captious. 

There is a very thin line between confrontation & being captious. And it takes a lot to ensure you’re not jumping the line. 

We should not delight in finding faults or nitpicking. And also not make ourselves judges concerning every matter; such that it turns out the focus from our lives so much so that we avoid facing our own problems.

A very important aspect here is whenever we do confront; we should make certain that we deal honestly & mercifully with them. Let us by no means put them down & put ourselves in charge of them, becoming kings & queens of the situation.

Jesus puts it this way in Matt 18:15-16 :: “"If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that 'every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.'”

This is how Responsible relationships are built & I believe these are crucial for Spiritual growth. 

Run Lola Run!

Nehemiah 10:39

“ We will not neglect the House of the Lord”

It’s shocking what bad times do to us. Not only do they snatch away our happy times, they also do a lot of damage to our relationships. 

They say Desperate times call for Desperate Measures. What Desperate Measures do we take to get out of the bad times? Do they bring us closer to God or move us further away?

Are you running away from God or to Him?

During my daily devotion time today, I was flipping through the Bible. I have a habit of writing down my feelings/ God revelations next to verses with dates. And sometimes, out-of-nowhere for me( but definitely a planned moment for Jesus); I come across something that I had scribbled a long long time ago that just moved me so strongly when I re-read it again.

 Today it was this verse “ We will not neglect the House of the Lord”.

And what I had written there next to it was: It’s been almost four months that I haven’t been to church! Dated: August 31,2008 

I read that almost five times to let it actually sink into me. Four months?! That’s like close to 16 weeks. What was I even thinking? That God will appear magically in front of me and tell me to go to church and then I would make up my mind to go?

I precisely remember that time (and phase). And I’m pretty sure I will do so for the rest of my life. They say we have to let go of our past that has made us sad. I’d say let go of the bad memories. The people associated with it will be forgiven but never forgotten.

Of course, none of us suffer from partial dementia, do we? And if it were so easy to have forgiven and forgotten, the world would have been full of happy-unrequited love people.

But the truth is, bad times leave us broken. In my case, that was a bad relationship.

We let the person & the situation consume us so wholly that we are left we nothing when we are left alone. And then Satan leaves no stone unturned in keeping us that way for a long time. We get so accustomed to the hurt and the pain, that we almost become unwilling to have any change. We try to run away from any goodness that might come our way, cause we feel undeserving. Which is why we think we can run away from God too.

 And then mind games. We would like  God to show us signs that He really is there for us & that just like others, He won’t leave us stranded. It becomes our very nature to not trust anyone and no, we don’t let God out of that too!

So since God wont show us signs as and when we want, we become comfortable with being left to ourselves.

The church is God’s dwelling place among us & we have a temple to care for too- our bodies. “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own” (1Corinthians6: 19).

We need to take care of our bodies and what we feed our soul with because the Holy Spirit lives in us. 

To mistreat our bodies is to mistreat God’s dwelling place.

There is no point in running away from God. You can try to physically run away from Him, but the fact remains, that He dwells in us. 

No matter what we’re going through, God is always there, carrying us through it. And “in His beautiful time, He makes all things beautiful.”(Ecclesiastes 3:11). 

I always tell myself that the Best is yet to come. And whatever the situation is, This too shall pass.

Seriously, no point in running away from the Creator. Sooner or later, we all will fall in front of Him. We have been created for Him & to Glorify Him. 

Whatever maybe the bad times, it will all pass away. God will bring you out of it, if we quit running & get to surrendering.

Standing in the Gap

Philippians 1:3 & 9-11

“I thank my God every time I remember you.”

“And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you maybe able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ- to the glory and praise of God.”

We all know that there is a special blessing that comes from giving. 

Giving is not always tangible giving. 

There is a special kind of giving, one that not everyone can. 

That is praying for others. 

God renews our spirits as we pray for others. Our love and compassion also grows as we come before God on behalf of others. While we are praying for others, God also plants ideas in our minds as to how we can support and help them as well.

Prayer isn't for specific needs alone. 

I thank God whenever a so-and-so flashes my mind. That’s all. 

I have a few people in my life that I know not of their whereabouts now. They've chosen to simply drift away. Regardless of that, they still hold a special place in my heart. So all I do when I remember them is say, Thank you Lord, I am what I am today & where I am today because of people as such. And I bless them.

Paul also prayed for additional requests that would aid the spiritual growth of his friends. For Faith, Hope & Love. For growing in the understanding & knowledge of Christ.

It is so easy to pray and uphold those that we love. But what about those that we have estranged relations with? If we pray only for those that pray for us, or for those that we have good times with, what extraordinary life are we living?

“.. Bless those who curse you & pray for those who mistreat you”[Luke6: 28].

With God’s Love in our hearts, we will automatically be tuned to Standing in the Gap for those that need His love & mercy and are unaware of it.

iForgive

Matthew 18:21-22:: “Then Peter came to Jesus and asked,  ‘Lord, how may times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven time?’

Jesus answered, ‘ I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times’.”

Imagine if Jesus had used that measure for us! We would have been left pleading to Him to increase the limit from 77 in our daily prayers, wouldn't we?

We like to keep an account of all the wrongdoings that others have done against us.

We may not remember some of the important stuff in our lives, but somehow our brains are excellent account keepers of all the hurt & wrong people do to us. 

Most times, are expectations not only include an apology, but we would like to personally teach that person a lesson or two. Just so that the person understands what it was to be ‘in my shoes’. 

When it comes to oneself, we want everyone to understand what its like to be in my shoes, but no! We wont try checking others shoes, will we?

We’re too comfortable with this phrase as well as what that means -only to us.

Our scheming minds will never stop at an apology, and just as with other things, we want something more than an apology. Something to satisfy our inner greedy unforgiving self.

Is this because we are too self-loving? Or are we taking the ‘seventy-seven times’ too literally?

Jesus did not literally mean that we ought to count the 77 times in our heads & keep an account. No! If that were true, then I'm sure I would've crossed that number right before my 10^th birthday! 

Jesus does not keep an account of our wrongs & He forgives us as soon as we ask for forgiveness. The number 77 is only to prove that a person should extend forgiveness to others an indefinite amount of times. Relinquishing these accounts to God and forgiving the debts we feel others owe us is essential to our spiritual growth.

When we look at the enormous debt that God forgave us in Christ, there should be nothing that stops us from doing the same with others. This will also free us from the torture of festering resentment. 

We cant go back and change what others have done to us, we cant change people and how they behave; but just as Christ forgave us for our countless wrongdoings; we can write off their debts by handing our accounting process to God.

JOY- the Whole Picture

1 John 1: 4 :“We write this to make our joy complete.”

I love how John says this line.

So, okay he was happy and joyful because of Jesus. He was happy because he was following Christ .He was happy that he was doing what God expected out of him. But that wasn't all. 

He says his joy was now complete because now he was going to share about Jesus Christ.

You and I are awesomely blessed because we have the Bible. But what about people back then? How were they supposed to know & follow what Jesus wanted? False religious teachers were a major problem in the early church. And because the complete New Testament was not available for believers to refer to, most of them fell prey to these false teachers who had & taught their own ideas about the gospel & advanced themselves as spiritual leaders. John wrote to help believers understand the true identity of Christ.

He wrote to tell them to imitate Jesus Christ both with their actions (behaviour) as well as inwardly. 

You just can’t have the talk & not the walk.

 John pointed out that there should be boundaries to our behaviour  Anything that leads us away from Christ is like living outside the boundaries of proper behaviour (Christ-like).

John wrote to motivate and build character in believers. He also wrote much about love.

It’s very important to seek forgiveness, and also important to realize that once we are forgiven, He is done with our past. A lot of times we have this lingering sense of guilt that keeps bringing us back to our past. 

All those flashbacks! 

Whenever feelings arise that contradict forgiveness, we must affirm it again & again by saying “ In Jesus Christ, I’m forgiven”. One of the most obvious evidences of salvation in a person’s life is their love for others which is shown in their actions (behaviour) & not just words (1 John 3: 18::  Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.)

We did not have to clean ourselves up for Him to have loved us; similarly, we should show the same love towards others.

Joy is having Jesus in your life & Joy-complete is when you get to share this Joy!

I really wish we could all share John’s complete joy in our lives too by sharing his passion & zeal to spread the truth about the real Jesus & what His love.

The Good Life

“For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But whoever does not have them is nearsighted and blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their past sins.

Therefore, my brothers and sisters make every effort to confirm your calling and election. For if you do these things, you will never stumble, and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” Peter 1:5-11 (The Bible)

This portion begins with “For this reason”.

Now what could this reason be?

In the previous few verses, it talks about how and why should we try to escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. And then it begins to tell us how to do it.

The apostle tells us that when we give our lives to God & turn to him & entrust him with our everything, He expects us to follow Him, His will & live a life that He has designed for us. Pleasing Him & Following Him in every little thing we do.

When we turn to Him, we should have Faith to carry on with a new life. Now, we should be aware that this New life will not be so easy, it won’t be as cozy and simple as we used to live. It’s a whole new ball game now. We will be challenged everyday

& sometimes every very often. Why will we be challenged you ask?

Because we have challenged the ways of the world by following Jesus Christ. We have decided to move away from every deceit, lie, and hurtful behaviour that seems to be the normal way of life these days. We will have a hard time for sure, but with Jesus as the Shepherd of our soul, and the Faith that comes from trusting in Him, we will emerge as Winners.

But as any new course needs a thorough studying or lets look at this way, when a soldier gets ready for a battle, what does he do? Puts on an Armour to protect himself & also needs to prepare himself for battle inwardly, in his heart & mind. If he hasn't made his heart & mind strong, half the battle is lost, isn't it? It’s important to have the internal Armour ON as the external Armour is. We can’t just be physically ready & be scared to death on the inside. Right? Which is why we need to develop a few characteristics to help us in our day-to-day battle. As we seek change in our lives, we will share in God’s nature & receive the ability to think new thoughts & formulate new behaviour patterns.

~So lets develop some kindness, be generous in our overall state, be good to all without any favoritism.

~And then add some knowledge to this. True wisdom & Knowledge comes only from God & only when we ask him for it! (James 1:5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.)
 With knowledge we get the ability to discern & understand things from God’s point-of-view. (Proverbs 2:10-11:: for wisdom will come into your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul; discretion will watch over you, understanding will guard you)

~Developing Self-control will help us tremendously as we seek to preserve our spiritual gains. Self control is also a fruit of the Holy Spirit (Gal 5: 22-23 :: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.)

~Self-control grows in our lives when we cling closely to God, allowing His Spirit to flow through us. As we persevere day by day, God will develop his own character in us, including the character trait of self-control.

~What is Godliness? Its nothing but having a god-ward attitude & doing things that are pleasing to God. It’s a character that comes with the love & fear of God in our hearts.

~And when you have the love of God in the heart, brotherly kindness & love for all automatically follows suit.

I believe this sums it up the best: 1 John 4:19-21 :: We love because he first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.