Light

Ephesians 5:8

For you were once darkness but are now light in the Lord; walk as children of light

(For the fruit of the light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth),

Two weeks ago in my morning revival time, I enjoyed these Bible verses. The footnotes in the Recovery Version of the Bible helped me in my understanding of the deeper meaning of "darkness" and "goodness". Never had I gotten such divine revelation before. The Lord used the ministry of the word to enlightened me to see the divine things mysteriously hidden in the Bible.

Darkness: We were once not only dark but darkness itself. Now we are not only the children of light but light itself (Matt. 5:14). As light is God, so darkness is Satan. We were darkness because we were one with Satan. Now we are light because we are one with God in the Lord.

Goodness: Goodness is the nature of the fruit of the light; righteousness is the way or the procedure by which the fruit of the light is produced; and truth is the reality, the real expression (God Himself), of the fruit of the light. The fruit of the light must be good in nature, righteous in procedure, and real in expression, that God may be expressed as the reality of our daily walk.

The fruit of the light in goodness, righteousness, and truth is related to the Triune God. Goodness denotes God the Father, for the only one who is good is God (Matt. 19:17). Righteousness denotes God the Son, for Christ came to accomplish God's purpose according to God's righteous procedure (Rom. 5:17-18, 21). Truth denotes God the Spirit, for He is the Spirit of reality (John 14:17). Truth also denotes the expression of the fruit in the light.

After enjoying the Lord's speaking through the word I share it with all my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. What a grace! What a blessing! Though once darkness itself, now I am light in the Lord. As such, I must walk as children of light , shining in this dark world, expressing God Himself! This is my Christian life, and living and testimony and should be with all Christians too. 

The fruit of being such a light is goodness, righteousness and truth. Only  God is good, only God is righteous and only God is truth. By being one with God, a genuine believer expresses God as light, righteousness and truth.

On the flip side, the reason we do not have goodness in this world, unrighteousness thriving and falsehood everywhere is, there is a lack of god-man living even among Christians. The spiritual fact of a believer being one with God may be lived out as the living testimony of God and shine out the divine light as the Lord's testimony.      

Lord, shine through us as Your light!

Words

Colossians 4:6   Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one.Ephesians 4:29   Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but only that which is good for building up, according to the need, that it may give grace to those who hear.

One day I spoke words, which to my own judgment, were 100% right yet the way I spoke and my attitude were 100% wrong that made the hearer very upset and angry. Yes, what I said was right, no doubt about it! But did that minister anything life to the listener? Though I went into examination mode of what I said, and they were all right, but the result was not right at all. This troubled my heart and I went before the Lord in prayer. The Lord convicted me that I was not right at all in my attitude and I ministered death with all my rightness, I spoke dead words with right words. And later, I went and apologised for what I said. 

That was a big lesson on speaking to me. The Bible verses I knew started popping up one by one. My speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt,  good for building up, according to the need, that it may give grace to those who hear.

How words can curse or bless, how it can hurt or heal, how it can harm or help, all depends on with what attitude and spirit it was spoken. In fact, there may be a need for more carefulness in saying anything to anyone, but the crucial lesson is not how it was spoken or what words were used, instead, it must be by the Spirit of the living God speaking in my speaking.

In the Bible verses  quoted above, "Let" was used in the beginning of what is said after, meaning an imperative is implied in the sentence formation. To my understanding, implying the importance of our speech or words to be always full of grace and seasoned with salt, killing every germ in our words, and speaking only what is good for the building  up of our fellow listener(s). 

Thank the Lord for this lesson of life again. 

Lord, grace me Your words of grace to minister life for building up.

An Atheist and a Satanist?

Last Friday night I met two young men who interestingly introduced themselves to me as an atheist and a Satanist, for they somehow knew that I loved to share the goods of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I was neither disturbed nor distracted by their introduction. On the contrary I felt all the more burning in my spirit to preach the gospel to both of them. So nonchalantly I replied back, "Welcome atheist, welcome Satanist! I love to talk to you!" Then began our conversation....

Initially they began to question me about the mystery of God, and the confusion of religions, and all kinds of modernist philosophy which were mostly anti-God, if not, anti-Christ. But I was least perturbed. Deep within me I prayed for the Lord's wisdom and the proper words of life.

The "Satanist" asked, "If you say God exist can you prove from your life, some experiences?" I replied, "On which area, for there were too many experiences of God!" He quickly retorted, "Something on finance? How God led you or provided your needs?"  

Thank God for their questions, for they gave me a solid base to testify of my personal and subjective experiences of God; no doctrine, no teaching but real experience. And I testified with all my heart what the Lord has been doing and how He provided my need especially my financial need in a miraculous way.  Immediately, the "Satanist" commented that if what I said were true, he would believe into God right away. And I said, "Why not? You can..."

At times, it hard to understand spiritual things with carnal mind. I encouraged them to first have the basic of experiencing God by first believing into Jesus Christ and then step by step, experiences would follow; they would not need any proof besides their own life experiences. 

At the end, I testified that they could also experience the true and living God, Jesus Christ, by calling upon the name of Jesus and praying in the Name of Jesus; believing into Him and receiving Him as their God and Savior. And finally, I requested if they could pray with me, if they were willing they could follow me in prayer. They both willingly followed me in prayer, calling upon the Lord Jesus' Name and praying the sinner's prayer.

Thus our meeting ended with "an athiest and a Satanist," in prayer to the Lord Jesus Christ! And we proposed to meet again.

Faithful in Little Things

He who is faithful in the least is faithful also in much; 

and he who is unrighteous in the least is unrighteous also in much. 

Luke 16:10

Character building is one of the most important and tough lessons to learn in becoming useful vessel in serving the Lord; I believe the same applies to every walk of life. In the Bible, one of the important character traits is faithfulness, which is mentioned again and again. Yes, faithful not merely in big and important things only but also in daily minute matters. This is what the Lord has been teaching me these days.

Once you put a hand on anything, do your best with all faithfulness. The true test of this lesson is in minute and meager things on a day to day basis which is mostly likely negligible. But if one can be found faithful even in these things, he or she will be very useful in the Lord's hand.                              

This is one of the lessons I have been learning. Whenever I put my hand on anything I was reminded to do my best and never leave the work half-done. Any work, whatever nature, I must handle with utmost care and finish it at the earliest. At times there were temptation to give it up or take a short-cut way. But I have been reminded again and again by a brother's statement, "The shortest way is the longest way". I believe he spoke this from life experience. My experiences proves it all.

There were many menial house works that cropped up in my house the last few weeks, like water tap leakage, sink leakage, toilet flash leakage, door handle malfunctioning etc. It was very easy just to call a plumber and pay him for the work. Even table, laptop and computer malfunctioning. But I determined to put my hands on it and solve all the problems. In the midst of my busy schedule, I took time out to do all these menial jobs, and I was very happy to do it myself. As long as the job could be done, I prefer to do it myself, not just to safe money, but as a matter of character training and fulfilling responsibility. In these small small things, I learn many lessons of life, even spiritual lessons.

If I cannot be faithful and responsible for small and minute things of my own, how can I be faithful and responsible for the things of others, much less, even God's? True lessons and character building starts from home itself.

Thank the Lord for the opportunity to learn to be faithful in little things at home as a preparation for the greater things the Lord has reserved in time.

Brothers' Prayer

We were so much helped by a brother's fellowship on the importance of prayer both individually and corporately and the urgency of such prayer for the Lord to move. As the Lord has been gracing us to shepherd the flock of God in our locality, the only way to do so is by the Lord's shepherding life flowing into us and through us in prayer. With this burden we selected a day and a time for prayer; pray-reading the word of God and praying the word itself.

Since we began this practice few months ago I personally feel very blessed to be a apart of such a brothers' meet, solely for prayer. We came together and pray-read a verse. It was amazing how rich the word of God is. We could pray-read just a phrase, not even a verse, for more than an hour. Every word of the phrase of the Bible verse is so rich. The more we dwell on it , the deeper it becomes, and sweeter by and by. 

And every time we come together, the Lord would give us a verse or two to pray-read through any one of us. The Lord knew exactly which verse we should pray-read, and gave us the best verse for that time of the day. 

On top of this pray-reading, the Lord's burden was also made known to us concerning His church in Gurgaon. Each prayer time will ensue in specific, strategic and intercessory prayer for some new ones whom the Lord has blessed us with. 

Everytime we enjoyed the brothers' prayer, I had a deep realization within my being that all that we prayed for were already answered. Though outwardly they may seem yet to be fulfilled, yet in the eyes of faith I can already comprehend its complete accomplishment. 

Praise the Lord for this wonderful way of brothers' prayer. The more, the better.

Lord, grace us ever to be praying brothers, even in oneness and one accord in a blended way in the brothers' prayer.

Divine Discernment

Ephesians 4:

12 For the perfecting of the saints unto the work of the ministry, unto the building up of the Body of Christ,

13 Until we all arrive at the oneness of the faith and of the full knowledge of the Son of God, at a full-grown man, at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,

14 That we may be no longer little children tossed by waves and carried about by every wind of teaching in the sleight of men, in craftiness with a view to a system of error,

Today's Christianity with all its attempt to evangelize by all means seems to have a side effect. With the rampant multiplication of Christian ministries, only God knows who are genuinely of Him, many winds of teachings have polluted the Christian atmosphere. Even a new believer is surprised to see the unorthodox division in the Body of Christ, yet all divisions are serpentine in nature and subtly uses Bible verses quoted out of context or misaimed to meet one's personal and hidden ambition of being someone in the so called ministry of God.

A brother messaged me a clarification on the authenticity of the so called "prosperity gospel" so prevailing among Christianity today, especially on TV programs. That was a question to  be handled with care, lest I myself fall into the subtle trap of the enemy and turn out to be an accuser of the brothers, which was reserved for the devil. My simple and humble reply was such:

Though we are nobody to judge anybody, we must exercise our spirit to discern in the light of the word of God, of what is according to the Bible concerning God's word among men on earth today.

Any teaching that is not "For the perfecting of the saints unto the work of the ministry, unto the building up of the Body of Christ," as in Ephesians 4:12, is not healthy; it may not be wrong, perhaps, may be biblical and even spiritual, yet if they do not build up the Body of Christ, we ought to be careful.

Today there are thousands of preachers, teachers, minister and ministries, sorry to say, many of them missed the mark of God's economy. We do not condemn them nor do we condone them. We only look to the Lord for more grace that we be preserved pure and wholly for His divine purpose of building up of the church, the Body of Christ, the one New Man, that satisfies the Lord and bring the Him back to consummate this age.

That's why brother, we must be men of prayer, equipped with the healthy teaching of the Word of God and practice the fellowship in the church-life to build up one another for the Lord's testimony and build up the Body of Christ.

The Lord be your discernment. Amen

Considering before the Lord in prayer, I felt the need for more believers to be equipped in the word of God by loving the Lord and pursuing the word "That we may be no longer little children tossed by waves and carried about by every wind of teaching in the sleight of men, in craftiness with a view to a system of error," and "we all arrive at the oneness of the faith and of the full knowledge of the Son of God, at a full-grown man, at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ."

Lord, reconstitute us with the purity of Your Word, and grant us Your divine discernment that we be one with You for Your divine purpose on this earth.

Faithful Steward

Matthew 24:45

Who then is the faithful and prudent slave,whom the master has set over his household to give them food at the proper time?

This verse is one of my favorites, and I even made a framed poster fixed on the wall of my house entrance door. Though to be a faithful and prudent slave has been my burden and prayer, only time and trial will test if I have become such a one. In a very practical sense, the greatest test is in handling "mammon," yes even money.

The Lord is the faithful One to train me to be faithful and gave me opportunities to learn and learn. Praise the Lord!

There is a brother who used to transfer money to my account, not just few but quite an amount, not just once but a couple of times now. Every time the transaction was brought to my notice I would bring the matter before the Lord that I may be found faithful in dispensing this offering to the ones in the Lord's heart. The transfers has been frequent thus far. And it was a good spiritual exercise for me to go to the Lord in prayer and discern to whom and how much the offerings have to be further transferred. I can testify as before God, that He led me in a very fine and detail way, to whom and how much and when to transfer. It was a wonderful experience of learning to be faithful and prudent slave.

I remember a word from a brother that enlightened me to say, "one who is faithful in money matter is faithful in many matters." This has been proven to be true, at least in my little knowledge and experience of life with different people. For all material things can be quantified into a liquid cash. And money does rules those who are not ruled by the Lord, as the Lord Jesus rightly said that a man cannot serve two masters, God or mammon.

The last transfer was particularly worth a remembrance as the Lord directed me in a very exact and timely manner within a couple of days' time, to whom and how much to transfer. Case by case I was notified of the real situation of certain families who were genuinely and urgently in need. The need were: for a sister who was down with a deathly dengue disease, a family who could not manage to care for their child's vaccination, a family who went through job loss and sever sickness and was hospitalised, a family who laboured and struggled to make a living yet serve the Lord, a family who wanted to serve the Lord full time and yet went through a financial disaster, a gospel preaching work in Nepal and the need of the literature service for the propagation of the ministry of the word. 

Discerning each case was a real experience of the Lord's definite leading step by step. By the Lord's mercy, may I be found a faithful steward. All is from the Lord and the channel must also be one with the Lord. 

Lord, make me Your faithful and prudent steward, to give food, both spiritual and physical, at the proper time; nourishing and cherishing Your children.