Grace of God

One of the definitions of Grace goes like this "the freely given, unmerited favor and love of God." How true it is..isnt it?.
The mere existence of us in this world is because of the grace of God. He has been graceful to extend our stay on this earth. When we think of the happenings of this world..all the evil, pain, disasters, etc..and for us to live in this world, it is a daunting task. Though our mind and intelligence are very capable and powerful in solving intellectual problems, though our mind can be compared to a super computer, though our brilliance is huge enough to invent some of the fascinating inventions of the scientific world...it becomes nothing when it comes with the problems of life.

Even the most intelligent person in the eyes of the world cannot escape the problems of life. If we think that we can live happily in this world if we have intelligence, skill, etc..then it is time that we change our thinking.

It is because of the grace of God that we are able to acheive many things in this world. God gives abundant grace to the extent that we take it for granted and forget Him. Even then God is so patient and compassionate with us.

One character that we should possess to inherit grace is humility. The Bible says in James 4:6 "God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble."Humility means accepting that we are nothing. Only when we are empty, we can be filled by the grace of God, and once we receive God's grace, then we will be so full and lack nothing. God's grace is available free. The only thing we need to do is to ask him for it and humble ourselves. The rest of the things God will take care. God bless you!.

True love for God

I pray daily, read Bible, worship God, and try to do lot of things for God. But I asked my self a question and found it really difficult to answer.
Well the question was.."Am I doing it out of true love for God...or to make sure that every thing goes fine for me..".In other words..Am I selfish with all these or I really want to earnestly seek God". I dont know how each one of you reading this would answer this..but let's think about this for sometime...and change our ways if we find ourselves giving a negative answer to this question.

Let us take the life of King David. He was a man after God's own heart. Why was he so special?
David had a true love and great Zeal for God. He was so humble and and sincere before God.
whenever he sinned, he was so quick to repent and set things right. Read through Psalms 51 to understand about true repentance.

He never sought fame for himself. Though he was a mighty king, pride never got the better of him. He never wanted people to praise him. He wanted all the honour and glory to be given to God. He sought God diligently with passion and love.He was a handsome man, a great musician, very intelligient and a powerful King...yet he counted all these things unworthy before God. He chose God to be his shelter and fort.

That is why God rose him to a very high position. His inheritance was blessed. Jesus came in the seed of David.
Now let us compare ourselves to King David. I feel that I am not upto the mark. I need to set many thing right in my life. But all I can say is that God is moulding and shaping me day by day. I can see the difference in my life as I try to seek God more and more. I can keep sharing many things so marvellous that God has done... and is doing in my life. so countless is His blessings.

Let us be people who create history for God...not just namesake christians...God's word says in revelations that if we are lukewarm..God will vomit us...
Again...we can accomplish so many things for God...only if we seek him with true love and passion as David did...

Planning smart

Planning is an art. It has to be mastered. Not many of us plan our life in an ordered manner. We just live in an ad-hoc fashion without any discipline. The result...pain and agony, heartaches and frustrations, dissapointments and misery...Could we avoid these by giving a little time to plan our life.
We can talk a lot about planning. But let me tell you a quick tip that comes to my mind.
We all want to acheive a lot of things and we want to acheive them very fast. That is a perfect thought. But we cannot acheive all our heart's desires overnight. There is no magic. We have to plan all that we need to in the best available time. Dont plan of trying to do too many things at once. This is highly impossible and when the plan fails, our heart breaks and we lose interest in that particular thing.
The best way to avoid this would be set realistic and simple plans after taking time into consideration and executing it.In doing so we may acheive only a small thing, but we will have a big satisfaction that we were able to fulfill the plan.
Let us try to do that and enjoy our lives.

One day at a time

Are we enjoying life by living one day at a time?. How many of us can answer positively for this question?. Well, I will answer no...because so far I could not live like that.
But let me tell you that life will be so sweet if we live for the day, and not think much for the future ahead.Please dont get me wrong...we need to plan for the future, but not keep worrying too much about the future and miss the present day.

Let me take you through an illustration. There was a boy who was very sad.One day an old man asked him "Boy why are you so sad?". The boy replied, Sir, I have too many worries. The old man looked surprised to hear that and asked the boy to list his worries...The boy went on to tell like this....I have to complete my studies well...Then I have to get admitted into a good university...Then I need to get a good job...Then I need to get a good wife...Then I need to have good children...and if when one of my children would be playing on the road with a ball...and if the ball goes on the road, and my child chases the ball..the car coming on the way should not hit him....
The old man was so puzzled by the answer of the boy and he gave some good advices to him..Well this story may seem so stupid..but I would like to open your eyes to a bigger truth inside it. Many of us are like this little boy one way or the other.
I want you to answer this question " What could the boy do to secure his future?".
He could do nothing...simply nothing...because whether he would live tommorow is not guaranteed and so is the case with all of us. We all build castles in the air..about future and forget the present. We all life for "tomorrow" and miss the beautiful "today".
"Yesterday" is gone. I am not sure whether"Tommorow"will be mine. All that I have is today to live by and I need to live today to the full extent.
The Bible says in Matthew 6: 34 "34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."
Let us try to live one day at a time. Let us not be worried much about tomorrow.Let us Trust God for tommorow..that is enough..we can be well assured that our life is secure because God is the one who created us and he has great plans ahead of us. Let us not destroy His plans by worrying about future.
Trust Jesus and experience a mighty change in Life.

Anxiety

Anxiety is a state of mind which always wants to fast forward the events and think about the outcome. It is the "What if it happens like this or that?" thoughts and our reaction to them, the contributory factors to anxiety. Anxiety is so dangerous that it can destroy our personalities completely and finally make our minds tossed up and down like the waves of the sea.
There are lot of topics about anxiety that we can discuss and lot of resources available to deal them.The medical world has a plenty to offer to people who suffer from anxiety.
But my question today is "Can we live in this world without being anxious"?. Today's world is so challenging and during these periods of economic depression and recession, it becomes seemingly impossible to be without anxiety. But let me assure you that it is still possible to live in this world free of anxiety.
Psalms 94: 19 says "When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought joy to my soul".
1 Peter 5: 7 says "Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you."
Philippians 4: 6 says "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. "
Above all Jesus says in Matthew 6: 25-34 "25"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life[b]?
28"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

If we think deeply we cannot bring any change in us through our worries and anxieties. On the other hand, it increases our anxiety. Anxiety grows bigger when we continually feed it with our imaginations and it just becomes unstoppable like a torrential river. We lose the interest in life and every day becomes a burden for us to live by. We find our lives miserable.

Let me tell you something. Anxiety grows when we try to take decisions and actions for all the things by ourselves. When we do this, a dilemma is put in our minds. This dilemma makes us to think about the positives and negatives of our decisions and actions and unfortunately our human mind is inclined more towards negativity and hence our relentless negative thoughts becomes depression and anxiety. We put all the pressure on us to take the right choice/decision.If we fail, we cannot tolerate, and this goes on and on....

What is the way out?. We need something more than a human being to help us in this. Even the best of the physciatrists cannot give a permanant solution to anxiety. They can only give treatment to control it. But at some point of time it will tear us apart.It is like a ferocious tiger waiting to prey on its food, but being controlled in a cage.
Only God can help give a complete freedom from anxiety. It is He who knows our hearts more than anybody. He knows all our thoughts and motives. He knows our weakness. He knows our sufferings and turmoil. He simply knows everything and nothing can be hidden from his presence. God wants to help us. He asks to transfer all our worries to Him and He will deal with them. He wants us to enjoy our life without worries. How great a feeling it is to know that someone is willing to carry our burdens and wants us to live trouble free. It is the great and everlasting mercy of God that we can always count on.
If He gives us a day to live by, He will definitely make sure that we have enough provisions to live by that day. In the garden of Eden, when God created man, He made sure that he put all the provisions in six days before He created man on the seventh day. God has not changed a bit since then. Dont you think that the same God will take care of you?.

I assure you that He can take care of you provided you depend on Him.I am reminded of a story that goes by like this "An old man was carrying a heavy burden on his back and walking in the hot sun. He was panting for breath and was so weary. A man riding on a bullock cart offered the old man to get on to the cart. The old man hopped up the cart and the cart started moving. After a while, the person riding the bullock cart heard the old man panting and turned back to see what was happening. To his surprise, the old man was still carrying his heavy burden on his back." We are all like this. Though God offers the help, we try to carry our burdens on our own.

Let us try now to invite God to carry our burden. Let us do a small prayer from the bottom of our hearts. I assure that victory can be found by trusting the saviour's everloving arms.

Time

I was thinking about the importance of time. When I look back into my life, I feel guilty of wasting a lot of time doing nothing. This is the case with many of us. Let us take a moment and analyze how we spend our time. Are we utilizing our time in the right manner?.
Time is the greatest gift that God has given us. It can never be gifted by anybody. No one can ever say that "My times are in my hands". Can any of us rewind our time?. Absolutely not. Time once lost is lost forever.
No one can complete all the work that we want to do in the limited time that we have. We all have 24 hours a day and we need to sleep for atleast 7-8 hrs a day. This gives us around 16 hours to do all the other things. If we think more practically, out of this 16 hours we have only 12 -14 hours of productive time. But then, how do we make sure that we make the most of the time that we have each day? This is where priority comes in. We need to prioritize our time. We cannot do this ourselves because we will fail if we start prioritizing by ourselves.
We need to depend on God for every day, every minute and every second. Absolute dependence on Him. It is HE who decides our time and we are accountable to Him for the time. Hence it is only by depending on God that we can utilize the time to the best possible way. The Bible says in Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 " There is a time for everything,and a season for every activity under heaven:a time to be born and a time to die,a time to plant and a time to uproot,a time to kill and a time to heal,a time to tear down and a time to build,a time to weep and a time to laugh,a time to mourn and a time to dance,a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,a time to embrace and a time to refrain,a time to search and a time to give up,a time to keep and a time to throw away,a time to tear and a time to mend,a time to be silent and a time to speak,a time to love and a time to hate,a time for war and a time for peace." This sums it all. The wisest person to have ever lived on this earth King Solomon beautifully describes time in the verses above. It is difficult to understand that we simply do not have the time to accomplish all our hearts' desires during the period that we live on the earth, because God has put eternity in our hearts. In our promised eternity with God, we will be having infinte time to enjoy in heaven. Though in our present state, time is fleeting like a bird, in our eternal state we will have never ending time for enjoyment. Let us kneel in the presence of God, ask Him to grant us the Wisdom to spend our time according to the Master's Will.