Shepherding : Our Family

These days the Lord in His mercy has been recovering the fellowship within my own family. All these while it has been that my shepherding is mostly for others who are not physically related to me. The Lord has been gracing me to visit families on a regular basis, shepherding them. Not that I neglected mine own, but paying heed to the need of time. Somehow, the Lord also has been gracing me to pray with my family and my wife has been so cooperative and good in handling the family affair which I entirely left to her, and I have been fully concentrating on the need of the saints and the new ones. 

As my sister and some other sisters came to stay with us these days, the need for setting up our own home meeting arose; as some of them are very new in the Lord and in the church life. I took this as an opportunity for shepherding. So we set up our family meeting every evening after dinner for prayer and fellowship, and every morning for morning revival and prayer. 

Giving hospitality to the needy is a real blessing to us. Because of them, as a family we could spend more solid time to pray and pursue the Lord together. In shepherding others we are being shepherded. Not only so, even our neighbour's children joined us for the morning revival every morning. They are also blessed. Every one is blessed by this simple act of hospitality at our home.

The Lord truly blessed all the meetings together, as I myself could testify in my own life. All my personal morning revival or sometimes just with my wife is now very much strengthened with the whole family and neighbour joining us. We are so shepherded.

Besides, every time we meet, the Lord has something to speak to us, some specific burdens were released for the young saints regarding their living, education, character, church life etc. And our prayer life is strengthened very much. Our burden increased, our prayer life increase, our enjoyment of the Lord also increase. What a blessing!

For such family shepherding, the Lord sent some to our family and they all are a blessing in disguise. 

The Lord has His own marvelous way of taking care of all our needs, both physical and spiritual too. The best way I find is a time spent together in the word, in prayer and in fellowship, as a family. It's a real blessing to have our own family meetings everyday. A lot of perfecting work happens here within the family; besides the blending, bonding and building. How I wish all Christian families to have their own family home meetings! Herein is the way for love to flow through among us, and herein is the way to know each others' situation and perfect one another, and herein is the way to live out a God-man family life. 

Lord, our family is for You. Bless our family meetings and perfect us all to be Your testimony as a family. 

Let's Go Papa!

Saturday is usually the day we go out to preach the gospel in the evening as a church here in Gurgaon. Last Saturday, somehow I was waiting in prayer for the gospel preaching and also for some to join me in going out, as I would prefer to go out with some saints. For some reason, no body turned up, except my five year old son. He knew that it was gospel preaching time as he used to go out with us on Saturdays.

Since I was alone with my son, I considered to stay back and pray instead. But my son kept asking me if we should be going for gospel preaching. My only faint consolation us, "Let's us wait for sometime." But deep within my decision was not to go out and stay back to pray instead. As we sat and waited, we prayed together for the Lord's move in Gurgaon, and called upon the Lord's name together. But after the prayer, my son emphatically said, "Let's go Papa!" I kind-of tried to divert his attention in stating that we would stay back to pray. But he kept on insisting, "Let's go Papa! Let's go...." until my heart melted to give in to my son's pleading.

I took that as an encouragement and the Lord's speaking to go out and preach the gospel, no matter who joined me or not. Then, I finally decided to go and told my son, "OK, Let's go..." Before going he reminded me to take more Hindi and English tracts that we would give out freely to many people in the park. He was so excited and excited me too.

We drove and he himself directed me which way we should take to go, to the gospel preaching spot, as he was familiar with the day, the time, the way and the place. 

There on the park, we had a wonderful time of meeting people, preaching the gospel and leading people to pray- leading them to the Lord. My son was my coordinator when nobody turned up to be so. He encouraged me to preach the gospel when I decided to stay back and pray instead. He became my coworker in the Lord's vineyard. What a blessing!

After preaching the gospel for about two hours I was so full of joy. How many people really received the Lord, only the Lord knows. I have no idea how much joy there would have been in the heavens when sinners received the gospel and prayed in Jesus' Name. But this I know for sure, I was filled with the joy of the Holy Spirit as a result of preaching the gospel. And that too with my son in his initiation. And he was very happy too. On our way back, after a humid and hot weather, I decide to give a small reward to my son and bought him an ice cream. Oh my, he was so happy, and I too. 

Yes, "Let's go Papa" has been ringing in my year since then, to remind me to preach the gospel in season and out of season. "OK Let's go...to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ!"  

Greek : My "Father Tongue"

A year and a half has elapsed since I began my study of Greek, my "Father tongue." The Lord has been gracing me thus far to labor on this "divine language"; at times hard and at times so-so. Nevertheless, the fact that I am learning my "Father tongue" has always been a source of encouragement to me, to go on in my Greek studies. Especially when the actual translation of the Greek text to English was carried out as an exercise, I was full of joy that I can actually work on the text of the apostles. What a blessings! 

Besides, the good teachers and the state-of-the-art facility to learn this language online is definitely an added blessing. I have been a student for 20 years for my academic profession, but never once had I any joy of achieving something spectacular even in my academics successes. They were just deemed, by default, as demanded of a student. But Greek is different. Its not just for knowledge nor for education nor for personal achievement, but for God's economy. This divine goal has made studying Greek even more interesting. As a child of God isn't righteous that I know my "Father tongue" well? Of course, Hebrew is there too, but now, with Greek first.

The recent exam was a real experience indeed. I did my best to study thoroughly over and over again, both the online and text book material. Studying, memorizing, reviewing and self testing again and again. If I could study so well for my academic scholarship decade ago, why not for my "Father tongue"? I like studying it so much so that I ended up memorizing almost every table that were available for studies; of course, devising my own technique of memorization. The more I studied, the more it became easier, and I kept studying till I was 100% confident to take the exam aiming for a 100% score. 

Though I tried to fully concentrate on Greek, still my conscience would not allow me to neglect my official duty, nor family responsibilities nor the church responsibilities that the Lord graces me to bear. Amidst the closing deadline for exam, still the Lord enabled me not to neglect any of my responsibilities. To meet the need of the time, I deferred taking my Greek exam a couple of times until a day before the dateline.

When all my responsibilities at hand were accomplished, the Lord gave me time to finally review whatever I have studied, in fact, I studied all that need to be studied. And then took the exam, trusting the Lord's grace. In answering of every question I was 100% sure of the answers; questions by questions I answered them all without an iota of doubt. And finally when it was all done, praise the Lord, the ensuing result was 100%!

Though this may be trivial to some, to me it is serious and divine. I would do my best for the Lord and the Lord would grace me His best. A righteous Father will always reward His children who mean business with Him. 

Life at hand is of the Lord and for the Lord, and must be lived as such. As such pleases the Father and desires His children to be such. So is my heart in carrying whatever the Lord leads me to. 

Father, grace me to be found faithful and prudent for Your divine economy even in my learning of Greek, my "Father tongue".    

Seven Thousand Remnants

Yesterday a brother and I were fellowshipping about the situation we have been facing in North India, especially NCR, in the matter of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ; how the people are blinded by religion, superstition, philosophy, tradition, culture and many other things. The god of this age has blinded and darkened the hearts of man, and that the need for a strategic and strong prayer for the Lord to have a breakthrough this dry, dark and hard land. Personally too, I have been experiencing in a subtle way how the enemy binds people with bondage of all sorts. In fact, we have been praying and still burdened to pray more for a definite breakthrough that the Lord may gain the local ones to bear His testimony.

This morning in my time with the Lord, the Lord spoke through my reading of the Bible concerning what He has reserved for Himself. Yes, the situation we are facing is quite alarming, for though we have been preaching the gospel and have led many people to salvation, but the stability of many of these new ones beckons our bended knees on their behalf to God. Solid pillars for the bearing of the Lord's testimony by the genuine local ones are yet to be ascertained. Even in my desperateness I often consider myself like the prophet Elijah in 1 Kings 19:10, 14  

"And he said, I have been very jealous for Jehovah the God of hosts; for the children of Israel have forsaken Your covenant, thrown down Your altars, and slain Your prophets with the sword; and I alone am left, and they seek to take my life."

But praise the Lord for His wonderful reply in 19:18  

"Yet I have left Myself seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed unto Baal and every mouth that has not kissed him."

No matter what the situation at the moment is, trusting in the Lord, we labor on and on, not expecting to be reward so soon, but with much faith, love and hope we continue to preach the gospel, carry on the shepherding, and in due time, at the Lord's time, He will recover all these seven thousand remnants He has reserved. Yes, there are seven thousand reserved! For the Lord testimony in North India, He has his remnants elsewhere. Time will reveal the glorious move of God in His divine dispensing through our cooperation with Him in our prayer, preaching and shepherding. 

Praise the Lord for the "Seven Thousand"! 

Lord, hasten the day when we would witness Your word in North India....

Normal Christian Diet

These days the Lord has been burdening me about the urgency and importance of being thorough, equipped, fed and constituted with the Word of God, and a normal prayer life. Wherever I went and whomever I met, especially, believers, the Lord burdened me to minister this matter of a normal Christian diet for a healthy and normal Christian life. Last Lord's day night I couldn't sleep as I was so burdened with this matter as many Christians have neglected and are starved and stagnant in their Christian lives. The whole night till way past midnight, as the Lord burdened, I noted down some important points which are articulated as below:

NORMAL CHRISTIAN DIET : A Healthy Diet for a Normal Christian Life

Minimum Daily Dosage :

Bible Reading : 1 chapter of the Old Testament, 1 chapter of the New Testament. Read sequentially from Genesis and Matthew until the whole of the Bible is completed. Once done, start it all over again. Repeat the reading until you rest with the Lord for eternity.

Note : It is good to complete reading through the Holy Bible once a year.Normally, the number of times of reading through the Holy Bible should be proportional to your spiritual age. 

Times of reading through the Bible => Spiritual Age

For example, if you are 10 years in the Lord now, since the time of your salvation or regeneration or born again, you should have read through the Bible at least 10 times.

Prayer : A simple way to regularly set time and spend time with the Lord: 15 minutes each in the morning, noon, evening and night time, that is just 1 hour. These are specific set times for prayer. Without set times, the enemy will make sure that there is no time for prayer at all. If you can give at least 10% of your time for prayer daily, it should be about 2 hours and 24 minutes. Besides, exercise your spirit all the time and pray unceasingly; be in the spirit of prayer (1 Thessolonians 5:17.) Fasting prayer is a  healthy practice, possibly, once a week.

Note : As much as we eat three meals a day, so much more our time spent with the Lord in Bible reading and prayer should be at least as much, if not more.

The normal excuse for not reading the Bible is the lack of understanding of what was read. Well, no one hardly understands what he eats. If one has to eat only what he knows or understands, the whole world would have starved to death by now. I hardly understand how much calorie, vitamins or proteins or carbohydrate are in my daily meals. If the lack of knowledge of my food keeps me from eating, I should have died decades ago, and I would have been the greatest fool on the earth. Not to mean that understanding of the Word read is not needed, but that understanding will come as we keep reading the Word. The Holy Spirit will, for sure, enlighten and give us light when we faithfully read the Word. For "All Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for conviction, for correction, for instruction in righteousness," 2 Timothy 3:16.

Calling upon the Lord's Name : Audibly or silently, as per the situation,  call upon the Name of Jesus at all times, in all places and at every circumstances. The more, the better. Before the word "Christian" was coined, the believers in Jesus Christ were known as "those who call upon the Lord's Name, Lord Jesus Christ." Acts 9:14, 21.

Fellowship : Be in fellowship with the saints, and never be individualistic. All the above exercises will have its maximum benefit when we are in fellowship in the Body, with the Body for the Body. God is not after individual spiritual giant, He is after a built up corporate Body of Christ. In fact, all the exercises are for the Body. The more fellowship we have, the better it will be, as much as practicality allows, by all means; face to face, by mail, by phone call, via Skype or WhatsApp or any possible medium. Just make sure, the fellowship is in the Spirit, with the ministering of Christ as life through the Word of God, for the building up of one another that builds up the Body of Christ.

Note : Participating in the weekly Lord's Table Meeting, prayer meeting and at least a home/small group meeting will supply and strengthen you spiritually.

Spiritual Pursuit : Besides the above, spiritual pursuit by reading, praying over, digesting and speaking of a healthy ministry of the word about 3 to 5 messages a week is good and healthy. For example, reading the Life-study of the Bible or any good and healthy spiritual writing based on the Holy Bible is a good way of spiritual pursuit.

These are simple spiritual exercises and diet for a normal and healthy Christian life. Dietician says, "We are what we eat." Eat healthy and be healthy.

The normal excuse is, there is no time to do these spiritual exercises. But the fact is, God has given us 24 hrs a day. Time is a matter of priority and depends on our hearts towards the Lord. For what one deems precious or important, there is always time. Where there is a will, there is a way. To a normal Christian, the Lord Jesus Christ is supreme; He is the preeminent One and has the first place above all else. So time can never be an excuse, for whatsoever reason.

Try it out, and enjoy the Lord's blessings. You will experience the growth and maturity in life. These should be our daily breads and living breaths. 

This article is from my own little personal experience as the Lord graces. I am 18 years in the Lord as of now, 2015, and the Lord has been gracing me to read through the Holy Bible 22 times, and I am still reading daily. This is not a boast, but the fact, as a testimony to encourage my fellow Christians, members in the Body of Christ, to be equipped and live a normal Christian life because of a normal Christian diet.

Lord, grace me to feed on the normal Christian diet and be a healthy and normal Christian for the building up of Your Body. 

Helping Hands

Contribute to the needs of the saints; pursue hospitality. Romans 12:13  

Few days ago my Bible reading portion was on this verse, the practice of the Body life by living a life of the highest virtue. This was also one of the verses we pray-read for our official fellowship yesterday. Little did I realize that this word of God would really mean business with me. The Lord's word is no doctrine at all, every time the Lord led me to certain verses, what followed suit was its application. The word of God was sweet and nourishing, and it was practically applied to my living. In fact, it was sweeter in a deeper sense that it touched my inward being, to the extend of paying some price and to experience its worth.

In application to this verse, "Contribute to the needs of the saints; pursue hospitality," the Lord created a situation in which I had to contribute to the needs of the saints practically. The Lord sovereignly allows some saints to seek help from me, all of them in the matter of helping in booking flights tickets to different destinations and involves a transaction to the tune of a hundred and fifty thousand rupees. 

Well I did not have that amount in ready cash. My initial thought was to be just frank and tell the saints, "Sorry, I can't help you this time." But as I prayed over the matter, the Lord impressed me in this specific matter that I should not turn down the saints' requests for help. I really wanted to help by all means, as long as I have the capacity to do so. So I fellowshipped with my wife and she was one with me. What followed next was, we broke one of our FDs and got enough ready cash to help the saints. Of course, they will pay back, but at their own pace and convenience. 

This matter of booking flight tickets happened at the same time for eight different needy ones. If we had not decided to help these saints I don't know how much it would have affected them. Praise the Lord for the grace the Lord has bestowed on us, that we can be of some help to the saints in need. There was a little price paid from our side, but it was nothing in comparison to the joy of being able to help the saints in need. Perhaps, this is how we contribute to the need of the saints?

Similar case is with hospitality. "Pursue hospitality." The last few days, the Lord suddenly brought eight persons to our home. There was every reason to deny hospitality with the simple excuse that we don't have enough space or room for accommodation. But when my wife and I considered the matter over, we decided to make some urgent arrangement so as to accommodate every one. Amazingly, every one was accommodated with mutual understanding of adjustment wherever needed. This is another precious lesson the Lord is teaching us to learn in all humility.

By and large, it is all the grace of God bestowed upon our simple family that we can participate in the needs of the saints, and by so doing we are blessed by being a blessing to others. Not that we have learned this lesson well, but that we are learning and looking forward to the grace of God to learn much more.

Contribute to the needs of the saints; pursue hospitality.

Lord, enlarge our capacity that Your Word may be real to us and that we may live it out.

Blessing in Disguise 2

Accepting the Lord's arrangement has been my family living since the time I got married. Hardly did my wife and me made any preference in, to whom we have to give hospitality, not just for a day or a week but years, some even almost a decade now. Whomever the Lord sends to stay with us we just amen the Lord's arrangement. In fact, till date we have not lived alone as a family, as we always have someone staying with us. Even as the Lord blesses and our family grows, now with three children, still the Lord keeps sending someone or the other to stay with us. Now we are very much used to it and also enjoyed the Lord's blessing that comes in disguise. The reality was, when the proposal for such hospitality came up, we considered from many angles, sometimes, heartbreaking with no amicable solution, but we just accepted the Lord's arrangement without any arrangement from our side, as we did not know how to either. And finally, all of them turn out to be blessings in disguise; not just spiritually, but physically and psychologically too. 

The recent one was my niece  coming to stay with us for her further education besides two other saints already staying with us. Now this has brought in a family revival. My relationship with my own siblings, especially my elder sister, became sweeter as we prayed together, lived and ate together. Real blending and building is taking place among us. I had many good and valid reasons to not accept this hospitality request initially, but the Lord impressed me deep within not to express any opinion but let things happen as He leads. So my wife and I just left the matter to the Lord. Now, the sky is clear, the Lord has made all necessary arrangement and now we enjoy the corporate living together.

Moreover, there are two other sisters who are temporarily sharing hospitality with us. Despite our limited facility and capacity, still we could arrange and get along. This is a training and perfecting lesson for me and my wife, even as we are serving the Lord. The real service is in practicality besides spiritual shepherding.

In fact, this is one of the answers to the prayer I made two years ago when fasting and prayer on 31 December night. Because I felt we were very weak in hospitality and wanted to improve in this matter, but did not know how. Gradually, we found ourselves giving hospitality to many, by living a corporate family life together.

Lord, enlarge our capacity! Make us as hospitable as You would desire so.