Renewed to Honor

Hosea 2:14-16 Therefore I am now going to allure her;     I will lead her into the wilderness     and speak tenderly to her. There I will give her back her vineyards,     and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. There she will respond as in the days of her youth,     as in the day she came up out of Egypt. “In that day,” declares the Lord,     “you will call me ‘my husband’;     you will no longer call me ‘my master.’ New Audio Sermon How do we react when things do not go our way? How do we find peace when we face difficulties? Does God open a door when he shuts another? This week we shall see how God shuts a door and wants us to be there in the room with Him. This is a time of pruning and anointing. Fight the myth that when God closes a dooor he opens another. See the lives of Lo-Ammi (Not my people) and Lo-Rummani (Not loved) being changed. We are adopted in God's family. Pursue His love. ...

Come and See! I never thought I would hear these words again. But my 2-year-old son just said that. I felt a rush of memories in my head. I followed my son to his playroom / our living room. In it he had arranged his toy cars in a perfect line and wanted me to see them. He obviously did not know the deep meaning that his three words brought to my memories. Three words that transformed me. Come and See. That was all that took for God to shake my life and as I study the Bible, I realize that I am not the first one whose life had been changed. ( John 1: 35-40 ) . It was in 2008 when someone told me the same. A brother in Christ had said that same sentence. I was on the phone with him, and asked him the following question in some manner "how do I know Jesus" and he just said those 3 words and my world was shaken. I followed what he said and took my motorbike and went to the place that he instructed me. There were about 15 people in all, 5 of them well known to m...

I moved to Germany in the last week and having lived in many cities in my life and having to have moved a lot between countries both me and my wife, the move was easy. We are simply used to having our luggages packed almost all the time. I guess this is life. From London days and Basildon nights to a new life in the suburbs of Neidersachen ( Lower Saxony, Germany), a suburb in the middle of nowhere. Praise God for Internet, Telephone, Water, Rewe (akin to ASDA UK) ,  the brand "Ja" (the equivalent of ASDA Smart Price) and my wonderful landlords. Th house is a lovely thing and once we get it arranged, then we are going to be very happy. Last week we even had our first guest. Praise God! I always wanted to welcome people to my house and till date this is the first property that has been in my name (and I am just renting this one). So, what is the point of all this? Well, it is to tell the manner that I am overwhelmed at the amount of change in my life. I carry Euro in my ...

Asaph cries out to God telling Him that God has been absolutely silent to him. Telling God that He has kept him awake and that Asaph's heart refuses to be comforted. He keeps asking in this song "Will the Lord spurn forever?" "Will God just forget us?" ( Psalm 77 ) This theme is common through the Bible, a God who seems hidden. But is it so ? I wondered and found that I too at many times have asked that question. Will God not show Himself ? I kept praying and I found out that it was for His glory that God did all that. Seriously!  Let me tell you an incident. I have recently applied for a visa to a country and strangely I went to the embassy of that country without the right document. It was not that I did not want to, but I did not have any. I had decided to go to the embassy and ask if the documents I had was enough and seek advice to find alternatives to the documents I lacked. Strange as it could be, the embassy who on the phone seemed strict with a...

It's really been tough to get through this week! I felt lonely, lost and weak. Yes,  I have a bunch of close friends and family and yes my fiance is lovely and caring yet I needed more than what they could offer. I feel stretched beyond all measures. I have prayed more, cried more, worked more,  even socialised more this week than any other recent weeks. Sometimes you wish that the someone would just see you and tell you that you are doing a good job. Yet, it is not quite enough just because you are exhausted. I really want a long long hug where I could break into tears and yet, yet there is a discomfort.  I need more than a person. I really need God. I want to feel that He values my work. I am that stretched. Financially I got peanuts in my bank, I have a lot of responsibilities to fulfill as I am winding down my life in London. Emotionally I am quite torn from arguments with people and the loss of friends and lifestyle I had. And to add to it,  I been learnin...

Christians are often baffled by the statements in Bible like "be not of the world" or more accurately "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind (Romans 12:2 ESV) ". Now, I think there are many ways we can look at any sentence, but the Bible is not meant to read in the form of individual sentences or verses. The Bible is made up of letters and reading one line from any letter will give anyone the intend of the whole letter. So, to make sense of this sentence, I would have to read the whole letter, or at the least the entire passage. The passage is a build up from Romans 1 till 11, where Paul talks to the new believers that they have to live good lives that are counter to their previous life they lived before they knew the gospel. This is the pattern of life a Christian should live, and God expects Christians to do so and will support then in doing so.

I was reading an interesting article on Desiring God blog  by Maxwell , when it occurred to me about the point that was being made in it. We often see devotion as something we have to give God. Thus we often look at devotion as what an inferior being gives to a superior one. We who are Christians from childhood are told often that we must be devoted to God and those of us from a Pentecostal or Arminian heritage are told that God values us on our devotion to Him. While it may be slightly true, the truth is this. God doesn't depend on us. Let me illustrate with a personal example. My fiance is not much of a talker. So, to understand her means I would have to listen to her unspoken words, the hmm's, the nods and the facial expressions. I am sure that I am going to miss a lot of things she has not spoken to me about and more over she may fail to express in words her love and devotion to me. I now having discovered that, though it being really hard, I  am getting better to a...

Ever since the death of Robin Williams, I have been wrestling with myself, on the mystery of thoughts that cause self harm.  It was a few days later after his death I had come across this information which Robin calls " little quiet voice ". In the video below, is an interview in which Robin Williams talks about relapsing from addiction.   Video: Robin Williams on Relapsing: 'There's a Little Quiet Voice That Goes "Jump"' In the above video, Robin Williams says about the voice that tells alcoholics to take a tiny sip or a person suffering suicidal thoughts to end life.  The truth is that, I am no stranger to these thoughts.  When I knew about Robin Williams, I had posted this on Facebook and looking back at it, I wonder about the seriousness of the matter.  There are few challenges that comes to the mind of some of us when we learn about Robin Williams suicide, Robin was able to do what we didn't have the co...

I am sure that I am not the only one who here knows what Tetris is. For those of you born in the age of candy crush saga and PS4 , you may not be reading this, and those who are between these ages , be honest, Tetris probably had been your first game, or a game in your first digital toy. This article is a tribute to the game Tetris because it can solve a lot of issues. Here is the first kind. Space management: Tetris is a tile matching game but more importantly it is also a shape matching game. For the sake of those who do not just remember it, here is how it is. You have to place blocks of same colour and suiting shapes to finish the never ending puzzle. For example the is a "T" shaped block and it will not match with an "L" shaped block. But together they could accommodate a "Square" block.  I never found this task useful till recent when we brought a freezer at home. Our fridge had run over with items we had brought on bulk from Costco. The f...

When I was growing up, I was introduced to a wide range of culture and believes, it may have been because like London, Dubai too was and is a pluralistic society although the core religion of Dubai was Islam. Although having been raised in a Christian family, I was given some freedom to choose and find my own believes. Like most people raised in a pluralistic society, I believed in communal harmony and unity of religions. Now, being an Indian also exposed me to the vibrant culture I have at home and this was fueled by my interest in Ahimsa and Gandhian views in life. I too at that age wanted to write “my experiments with truth”. One of the many stories and moral lessons I had learned then, is as follows. <em>Once upon a time, there were five blind men, and they during their usual walk, came across a large elephant in their path. The first person touched the trunk of the elephant and said that it was a huge pipe, the second the stomach and said it was a huge wall, the third the t...

One of the most heard of arguments against the resurrection of Jesus is that the people of ancient times were simple and they did not have the time on advantage of the modern day technology to determine if the risen Jesus was an illusion or real stuff. Recently reading through think theology's blog on the "<a href="http://thinktheology.co.uk/blog/article/extraordinary_claims_require_extraordinary_evidence">extraordinary evidence</a>" , I decided to write this blog. Sometime ago Micheal Ramsden an apologetic for Christian faith had used this example, and here it is. <blockquote>My friend had a dog and it was very mischievous. One morning it brought in the neighbours pet rabbit in his mouth. My friend was frightened and was helpless to this cruel act his dog had done. The dog had killed the neighbours' pet. So, my friend being a coward as he was took the rabbit out of the dog's mouth and washed the body and dried it, fluffed the hair wit...

http://missiodei.info/2013/07/people-of-an-other-city/I have lived in at least 3 cities and whether it is Dubai,  Chennai or London one think I have noticed is that there’s always a large group of people who are constantly saying more. They are not satisfied with their jobs, their social lives, their financial stability, wife or husband, etc. This is something I also have felt. Some of you who are reading this may even feel so. But I have met another group of people who also have with themselves an unrest but of a different kind. They are not deeply concerned about the stability factor, not to be mistaken for laziness or sluggishness because they are quite the opposite. They work with aim and ace that they would exposure even mediocre workers as lazy. They are tormented within day and night with the constant thoughts of a certain day. No, I am now speaking of people looking for the end of the world gathering food and drink supplies so that they may last. Let me tell you about one...

I am going through some tough time and it's not economical or productivity based but rather spiritual.  I am constantly realising that I am a sinner and have lost my way.  It also reminds me that I am not going to be any better in the future and wha a doomed life I live.  Oh I wish I could share with you my pain.  I long for redemption and sometimes I feel that I am nothing more than a hypocrite. I fear that I would be exposed for my sins both the present and the past. But it was only recently I was reminded that there is hope.  This period was called anfechtugen,  a period of valleys.  The valleys  are so deep that I often forget about there ever being a high ground.  C S Lewis tells in his book the screw tape letters about this period.  In this period I am more vulnerable to fall. Let me be kept reminded Lord that this period is temporary and keep fighting sin harder in this period as I need more strength.

We often see dogs looking puzzled sometimes golums but we love to see another person being amazed. It is a wonderful expression.  I had a surprise party recently and I was in the mood we classify as wonder.  Now the idea of surprise however silly or shocking,  it is the presence of wonder that makes us like something.  If there was no wonder in an event we rarely go back to it. But more over the fact of us brooding over an event or a time of our lives we find a pleasure or a cool feeling that brings goosebumps when we think of a time we were caught in the pleasing wonder.  C S Lewis tells in the final battle about such a wonder.  He says it like this, "there is a happiness that makes you serious". Seriously? What could this happiness be about? Is it just a simple joke or does this have something to do with the core of our being ? Is it pride - like in winning a battle? I long to be that joyful then. And this reason does keep me wondering how costly life i...

This is an extract from a mail I had written to my friends and I wish that most of you my readers would get this message too. I want to tell you about a few testimonies that changed my perception of testimonies. Most of you may have heard me say this many times, but then since its that good, I wish your Christmas memories could include this one too.  The first story occurs in a little village of pullad. Now that is in Kerala, and for those who do not know where it is, the place is near kumbanad, and around 15 Kms from Chengannur/ Thiruvalla and some where in the mid point between ernakulam and trivandrum .  SEE IT ON MAP I HAD WRITTEN THE STORY IN A BETTER FORMAT OVER AN YEAR AGO. SEE TOTALLY SIMPLE FAITH.  It is a village more than a town , with rubber trees, bugs and the sweet sound of rain in the woody and leafy region, so it cooler and humid than most other parts of kerala. So, i was here, in a prayer meeting run by a pentecostal group called the hallelujah pra...

http://www.fotopedia.com/items/flickr-5079756828 Bible Passage 1: Hosea 2 : 14 a Today I would like to talk about the way God works from my life experience and also from the Bible. The context is rather spread out in the Bible and therefore we would look into multiple passages. It starts in one desert and ends in another garden. In the story of Hosea, we have Lo-Ammi (Not my people) and Lo-Rummani (Not loved) the children of the prostitute wife of Hosea being asked to talk to their mother. The situation in his house has come so worse that the children have to intervene in their mother’s life. But does this story have more to do with faith than just a broken marriage? I would share my thoughts about some key elements that stand out in this chapter and relate to my life and the Christian walk. The first thing that is done here is that there is a thirst given in the life of Israel to seek the Lord and this is where we understand that just because we are interested in Christi...