whenever you sin

Life is an amazing gift of God. It is a privilege to spend each day on this beautiful world created by an awesome God. When He created the world, He saw everything was good. Adam and Eve were given all the authority to rule over the whole world. They had the uninterrupted fellowship of God all the time. It is so glorious to think of such an experience. My imagination makes me to leap in joy whenever I dream of such a fascinating state of life. We all desire to have such a world. But, alas! Adam and Eve lost it to satan.

I believe the greatest mistake that Adam and Eve committed was hiding their sin and running away from the presence of God. We can be sure that if they had confessed their sin, our great God would have forgiven them. But, they did not do it. This made God angry and He cut His fellowship with them and with all of us. It was like surrendering to satan by forgetting God. What a shame?

This is true even today when we turn away from God whenever we sin. Every one of us are sinners. We all sin day in and day out. But, as children of the most high God, we have the wonderful privilege of going back to God in repentence. This was made possible by the great sacrifice that our loving Lord Jesus gifted us by dying on the cross. 1 John 1:9 says "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness".. What a comfort we can draw out of this beautiful verse.

Sin is terrible, and continuing to live in sin without repentence is even disastorous. God knows all our weaknesses. He can understand all our temptations because He was tempted in the same way like us and yet was without sin. May be we have sinned too much, but when we truly repent and confess our sins, God cleanses us and forgives us in a whisker. The Bible says in Psalms 103:12 "as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us".

It is a wonderful feeling to leave all the burden of guilt at the throne of grace and receive forgiveness. If some of you happened to read this, I believe God is speaking to you personally to get into the presence of God and confess your sins. It may be anything, may be the most ugly sin. We may think that if others come to know of this they may spit on us. But, dont worry, the one who is inside us is greater than anyone in the world. He says that he will forgive all our sins. We can walk with our heads held high if we dont run away from God.

Never make the mistake that Adam and Eve did. Let us be people who fear God out of love. We are all vessels molded by the great potter. He knows those little rough particles in us. All that He expects is that we call on Him for help!. Remeber that "whenever sin abounds, grace abounds much more". Don't get me wrong here as this is not a licence to sin. I want to reach out to all of us who are broken because of sin in our life and apply the balm of the love of Jesus on our wounded hearts so that we are healed.

If you would open your heart to Jesus, I want to praise God for that. Please do send me a note at the contact email given at the top right corner of this blog. God bless you!

Spiritual paralysis

Mark 2:3-5

3Some men came, bringing to him a paralytic, carried by four of them. 4Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus and, after digging through it, lowered the mat the paralyzed man was lying on. 5When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, "Son, your sins are forgiven."

The passage before us today is an interesting one. Jesus was in Capernaum and was preaching. A large crowd had already gathered there. It is at this time, some thing remarkable happened there. Four men carried a paralytic to be healed by Jesus. As they could not make their way to Him, they opened up the roof and lowered the paralytic to Jesus, and He healed him and forgave his sins.

There is a great encouragement for us while we study this passage. Many of us are spiritually paralysed at times. There is always a valley in our spiritual life, when we feel lonely, desperate, worthless and exhausted. The very existence becomes a question for us. God seems far distant and unreachable. It is at this point of our lives that God expects us to be lifted up by our fellow believers. Christian life is a life lived along with the community. It is not an isolated life.

God expects every one to help others spiritually. There will be times in each one's life where they need the help of others. We need to reach out for help from other believers. God honors when others plead for us. That is why we are all one body in Christ. We need to balance each other. We are all one family with Jesus Christ as the head. This gives a great comfort to all who feel lonely. Every one around the world go through such feelings.

Let us be people who care for the well being of others. Let us all be united in the spirit of Christ and be sensitive to the need of the fellow believers. It would be a great blessing if we live together and support each other in Christ. Remember that "Christian life is not a life lived in isolation".

The Outlier effect

The Outlier is a book written by Malcolm Gladwell and it is one of the best selling books on the New York times. I did not get a chance to read through the entire book, but one thing in the book got my attention. In this book, the writer shares something about the 10,000 hours rule. He tells great things can be accompolished in this world if we put our efforts for 10,00 hours. It can be in any field. It translates to 2 hours daily for 10 yrs and the duration of years gets reduced if more hours are put in every day.

He goes on to quote about Bill Gates, The Beatles, and about his personal experience as well. Everything sounds great!. On reading this, I got a revelation. People were able to accompolish so many worldly things by putting these mammoth efforts. But, the Lord opened my eyes to this wonderful thought. If we could spend 2 hours a day with our Lord, How great that would be?. The greatest privelage one can get is to communicate with the maker of this universe. The greatest acheivement is to proclaim the gospel to a soul that is heading towards the hell. We can be sure that the reward in heaven for such an act would easily surpass all the earthly honors.

If we spend time with the Lord daily, We would know Him better. Knowing God is the greatest thing that we can ever imagine. The apostle Paul puts it this way in Phillipians 3:4-9

"If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; 6as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless.

7But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith"

It is a different thing to know about God, but Knowing God is something special. It is like this, we all read about famous personalities and their life. But it is different to know them personally and have friendship with them. We must know God and for that we need to spend time with Him. Let us give our time to God, whatever possible,may be 15 mins a day atleast. This would change us completely. We will never remain the same. God would make us more than conquerers in everything.

Swine flu

Psalms 91:7

Surely he will save you from the fowler's snare
and from the deadly pestilence.

The world is reeling under the snare of Swine flu. Governments across the globe are trying their best to control it. People are scared to death because of this epidemic disease. We try to prevent it by wearing masks and taking other precautions, but nothing seems to work. Have we ever thought about God amidst this epidemic?. The verse before us today clearly says that He is able to save us from the deadly pestilence.

The definition of pestilence goes like this "A pestilence is any virulent and highly infectious disease that can cause an epidemic or even a pandemic. The word can also be used about parasites causing large scale sickness and death"(source:Wikipedia). How true is the word of God. Dear friends, nothing could ever happen in this world without the knowledge of the one who owns this world, our loving Lord Jesus Christ. He is everything. All the situations and circumstances are under His mighty control. We as His children have the amazing privilage of taking all our sickness to Him in prayer.We need to also remember the people affected by this and pray for their healing.Always remember that only God can take away this disaster from the world.

But the sad thing is we forget all these. We worry along with the world,that these things might also happen to us. Let us step on to the pedal of faith and approach the throne of grace with boldness as children of God. These are situations given to us to get back to God. Through these things we understand that we cannot do anything without God. Let all of us reading this, if we are away from God, take this time to look to God and receive His mercy and forgiveness. His loving arms are always stretched towards us. This is the period of grace!Now is the time of salvation!.

Sin as cancer

Cancer is a dreaded disease. The very thought about it makes us feel sad and doomed.It is a condition which is not known in the beginning, and then it spreads rapidly affecting all the cells and finally brings the entire body to a halt. But, if it is diagonosed early and treated, there is cure.

But I want to share with you something which is most serious than cancer. May be the consequences of cancer stops in this world, but the one which I will speak about today has its consequences to eternity. I am not sure how many of us take "Sin" so serious.We might live a life giving no importance to sin at all,and enjoy its pleasures to the maximum. We cannot even deny the fact that sin gives pleasure for a while. But, alas after that the guilt of sin makes us as fugitives and captives throughout our life.

The Bible says that the "Wages of sin is death". There is absolutely no denying of this fact. If we sin, we will die. There is no alternative. One sin will lead to another and as cancer, in the course of time there will be nothing left in us, except sin. We will be rotten with sin and die.

It is serious business to deal with this sin, and overcoming sin is very easy. We need not do anything to overcome it. Yes, I repeat we need not do anything, because we don't have the strength to overcome sin. We have to believe the fact that Jesus Christ carried all our sins and died on the cross of Calvary for us and sin was defeated on that day. If we beleive this and accept Jesus as the Lord of our lives, we get freedom and deliverance from sin.All the sins including those secret and personal sins that we do every day, the inward sins and everything bad in us will be transformed into the goodness of Christ. This is the greatest miracle. The conversion of a sinner instantly into a saint, because of the finished work of Jesus.

I want to drive this point deeply to all who read this. There may be someone reading this with heaviness of guilt, and the defeated life of sin and the inability to gain victory over it inspite of repeated attempts. Dont be discouraged, there is hope in Jesus. We need to stop trying and leave it to Jesus. This is the secret to victory. You know something, the victory that Christ gives over sin is like this "We will hate sin in the same way that we hate cancer". This is the complete victory. May God bless us and help us to live a victorious life.

Tears in Heaven

"When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her, also weeping, He was deeply moved in spirit, and was troubled, and said, 'Where have you laid him?' They said, 'Lord, Come and see.' Jesus wept. And so the Jews were saying, 'Behold, how He loved Him!" (John 11:33-36).


Jesus went to the house of Mary and Martha after the death of Lazarus. As He entered that place, He saw the sisters weeping along with the other jews. Jesus was deeply moved with compassion and grief. He wept there. This shows the heart of our loving Lord. He is so tender and merciful. He loves each and every one of you reading this in the same way that He loved Lazarus. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. Whenever we are filled with sorrow and grief and weep inside us, let us not forget that Jesus Christ sheds tears for us. He is such a loving Lord.

Let us not be disheartened if we dont have anyone to share our feelings and longings. No one can care for us as Christ. Even we may be forsaken by our parents or spouses. But, I believe that the more we are forsaken in this world, all the more Jesus loves us. What an amazing difference between Godly love and human love!. If anyone of you is reading this with a heavy and lonely heart, I encourage you to go right away and pour out your heart to the Lord.

As we read on the story of Lazarus, Mary and Martha were filled with the joy of their lives when they saw jesus rising their dead brother. The same joy can be ours today. We may dead to the world and to our family and forgotten by everyone. But, Jesus Christ will rise us up today and make us soar to heights that we have never imagined. We will be transformed and renewed to the amazement of others who might have insulted us. This is the power of our matchless Lord. Remember this clearly, "Whatever seems to be the end with us, is the beginning with Christ". Dear friends, let us never forget that there is one who sheds tears for us in Heaven.

Jesus Cares

1 Peter 5:7

"Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you"

Anxiety is a terrible disease. It exists in all of us at some point of time. We become so anxious about our future, about the prospects of our jobs,marriage,and some of us are so concerned about the well being of our family and friends and we spend most of the times worrying about things that will never happen. Anxiety is directly related to insecurity. We become anxious if we don't have things put in the proper place. We never feel secure and try to find our own solutions to make us secure.

But we never get that security by any of our efforts and plans. We find ourselves on a slippery ground always. Dear friends, no creations can give us the security we long for. There is only one who can help us and He is our great creator. We as creations will feel secure only in the loving arms of our Lord Jesus Christ. He shelters us under His wings as how a bird protects its younger ones. He is the solid rock where we can set our foot upon without doubts and worries. Turn to Him today!.

Turn away

Hebrews 10: 26-31.

26If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge
of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left,
27but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will
consume the enemies of God.
28Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony
of two or three witnesses.
29How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has
trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the
blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit
of grace?
30For we know him who said, "It is mine to avenge; I will repay,"and
again, "The Lord will judge his people."
31It is a dreadful thing to
fall into the hands of the living God.

The passage before us today is a very alarming one to all who never took
the expericence of salvation seriously. Many of us may say that we are born
again christians and we may even think that we have many great spiritual
expericences to share. All of this is well and good. But, what about those
sins that are still in us?, those secret sins that no one else knows about.
Do we keep on committing those sins and enjoy the pleasures of it?. Some of
us could be in a state wherein our conscience has become so hard that we
dont feel that we are wrong.

Sinning deliberatly will make God's wrath to fall upon us on the day of
judgement. It would be the most terrible thing that we could never imagine.
God is a consuming fire. The wrath of God will destroy us if we keep on
sinning after accepting Christ. What is a deliberate sin?. After we are
born again, the Holy spirit of God comes into our life. He instructs and
teaches us. When the thought of sin enters us, He ignites our consicience
against sinning and this is what creates a dilemma in us. Most of the time
we face this dilemma. When we yeild to the spirit and turn away from sin
,we glorify God. When we yeild to the sin, we deliberately commit the sin
inspite of the warning that the Holy spirit triggered inside us.Another
type of deliberate sin is when we plan something and commit it for our own
pleasures.

The good news is that still we are in the period of grace and God looks
with mercy at each and everyone of us. He is ready to pardon us even if all
throughout our life so far we have kept on sinning. It takes a minute to
confess our sins to turn back to God and receive His forgiveness. He will
give us a clean heart and an everlasting life filled with joy and peace.Why
do you want to miss that?. Jesus is knocking at the doors, open it for Him
today!

Supreme love

“The entire law is summed up in a single command: 'Love your neighbor as
yourself.'” —Galatians 5:14

As the followers of Christ, We try to do too many things to make sure that
we have a right conscience before God and human beings. But, many a times
we miss a very simple yet important command that is over everything else.
It is "Love your neighbour". Neighbour can be any one, may be people near
our homes, co workers in office, people whom we meet every day in shops. In
short everyone whom we come across each day in our life are our neighbours.

Now let us take a moment and analyze whether we really love others. Even if
we love, what is the motive of that love? Is it for our favors and gains?.
If we fall short in this, let us ask God to make us love others with a
clean heart. God was so loving and self-less that He sent His own son Jesus
Christ to the cross to save us. This is supreme love and let us grow more
in Christ and be transformed into His likeness.

Now the next time, if you get to see some one you hate the most, pray that
God will make you to love that person. This is how we can love others
practically. It is difficult, but with Christ, all things are possible!

Complete surrender

Matthew 26:39

"Yet not as I will, but as you will"

This was a remarkable prayer that Jesus Christ prayed at the garden of
Gethsamane. As He was also like us in flesh, He too had the agony of
death,which is the disconnection of fellowship with His Father. It is here
that we learn a powerful lesson from our Lord Jesus Christ. He gave us this
incredible lesson that really sums up our life as Christians. He says “Not
my will, but thy will be done”. This shows the complete surrender of His
will to God the father.

This is how we too need to live in this world each day, every second and
moment. Nothing less than a total surrender is accepted by God. We can
never be in the fence having one foot for our will and another for God's
will. God requires complete surrender of our will to Him. This is the
secret for a victorious Christian life. Let us pray that God may grant this
gift to us today.

Following Jesus

John 3:16

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever
believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

As we meditate on the above verse, let us ask ourselves a question. Why do
I follow Jesus? or Why should I be following Jesus?. Let us answer this
question very earnestly. Most of us follow or try to follow Jesus for our
life's guidance, provisions, blessings and many other things that are
aimed at our well being. There is nothing wrong in depending on Jesus for
all these things. But, our primary and foremost aim should be to follow
Jesus out of our love for Him. We should remember that Jesus is our
"Savior". We are all corrupt people who should have been destroyed by the
wrath of God. Our hearts should rejoice in awe of the fact that it is
because of God's supreme sacrifice of His son Jesus Christ on the cross of
calvary, that we are saved.

Let this thought be always on our hearts and let Jesus Christ reign in our
hearts always. This should be out of an act of love, and not out of a
pre-requisite to receive His blessings. The Bible says "Seek ye first the
Kingdom of God and all these things will be given unto you".
If you are far away from Jesus Christ, get back to Him now. He is eagerly
waiting for you!.