New Beginning

In fellowship, as the church, we hosted a Blending Lovefeast on the first day of this new year. Our burden was to invite all our contacts, gather them together, and introduce them to the church. The Lord blessed the time together. Though all the invited ones did not turn up, the Lord released those whom we need to shepherd.

The most important blessing we received was the coordination of the saints. The sisters came early in the morning to take care of the food preparation for lovefeast, and the brothers for the arrangement of the meeting hall and preparation of the meeting. Later, our guests came, family by family, one by one. 

The meeting was full of mutuality. Perhaps, this must have been the first of its kind seen and witnessed by the new ones. No special conductor, nor speaker, but everything was carried out in mutuality. A hymn was sung with a resounding "amen" and declaration of the lines, touched and enjoyed by the saints. Prayers were simultaneously offered by the saints. And few brothers shared the word of God with testimonies. And thus, concluding the meeting with prayer.

The lovefeast time was the time we met the new ones, talked to them, and fellowshipped with them. Everyone that I met with, were very happy that they could begin their new year with a wonderful fellowship on the word of God and prayer. A family immediately invited us to their home to begin a home fellowship on Thursday evening. The following Thursday we went and enjoyed a time of fellowship and prayer, and the next Thursday too. May the Lord preserve this family for His testimony in Gurgaon.

The whole day, all the saints were together and the Lord has been blending and building us up together. We have been hearing of "blending and building" many times; in truth, we are well acquainted with. But now, the Lord has been bringing us into the reality. Even the saints who are not very active in the church-life have a renewed understanding of what the church-life is and are becoming much more active in function. Some new ones came in the afternoon, and with them too we had a wonderful fellowship.

As the saints gathered for fellowshipped the Lord led us to fellowship on the practical church practices. All the saints consecrated for some basic items: to have a schedule for reading through the Bible in a  year with a  brother and sister volunteering to update the daily reading potion, to participate in the practice of the God-ordained way of being revived every morning, e-fellowshipping actively on social media via church's WhatsApp group, participating in the prayer meeting, gospel preaching, and shepherding of the church. 

Since then, the Lord has a new beginning in the church in Gurugram! Praise the Lord for the new beginning. What the Lord has begun, He will faithfully accomplish it in time.

Philippians 3:13-14 Brothers, I do not account of myself to have laid hold; but one thing I do: Forgetting the things which are behind and stretching forward to the things which are before, I pursue toward the goal for the prize to which God in Christ Jesus has called me upward. 

Faithful and Fruitful

Philippians 3:13-14 Brothers, I do not account of myself to have laid hold; but one thing I do: Forgetting the things which are behind and stretching forward to the things which are before, I pursue toward the goal for the prize to which God in Christ Jesus has called me upward. 

2017 has just passed, 2018 has just begun. No new year resolutions, for they are all useless, leading to self deception and and hypocrisy. No promises, for none can really fulfill any promise made. Not even religious consecration, for it is too superficial and event bound. 

The only difference of old and new year is, it is another day in another year. Instead of all physical and mental resolution, thank the Lord for His great mercy and faithfulness all these years, and look to Him for more grace to enjoy and gain Him this coming year. Do not make any special event for the turn of year, but simply look to the Lord for His grace to enjoy Him every day; ordinary days of originally enjoying Christ, experiencing Christ, gaining Christ, growing in Christ, and maturing in Christ. 

Forget the things behind-good or bad, success or failure. Stretch forward to gain Christ. In gaining Christ, I am burdened for faithfulness and fruitfulness. 

This is exactly what I am doing this new year. And my specific prayer is, Lord make me faithful by You being my faithfulness, I and make be fruitful by abiding in You to be my fruitfulness. 

John 15:8

In this is My Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and so you will become My disciples. 

Quantitatively, I have not been fruitful in terms of gaining people into the church life nor bringing sinners into salvation with water baptism. Though I have many contacts and contacted many sinners and preached the gospel of Jesus Christ, still the quantified remaining fruit has been so substantial and totally unsatisfactory. The burden the Lord imparted in this year is, faithfulness and fruitfulness. 

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 burden has been much strengthened in my time with the Lord. In fact, I have fellowshipped this burden to the saints and prayed over and over again; personally, corporately in our family prayer, and the church prayer. No longer to be passive observer, but to be properly aggressive in gaining building materials for God's building. 

This is no resolution nor promise nor consecration, but a burden from the Lord in the Body for the Body. 

The verse in John 5:8 touched me deeply. Fruit bearing is for the Father's glorification, for there is the multiplication of life. And fruit bearing also makes one a disciple of the Lord Jesus. Without fruit bearing, where then can be the glorification? For glory is God expressed, and and God wants to express Himself through His children begotten of Him by fruit bearing. Without fruit bearing, how can one be the Lord's disciple? For discipleship bears fruits. 

My prayer is, Lord, grace me to abide in You and bear much fruits, and that my fruits remain for Your multiplication and Your glorification. This burden is in unison with faithfulness in all what the Lord has bestowed upon me with Him as my faithfulness. 

My Twentieth Year

This day, twenty years ago, the Lord graced me to experience His saving grace. I never thought I was a sinner until the Holy Spirit convicted me deeply of how sinful I was, which brought me to repentance. Then I believed into the Lord Jesus Christ and experienced the forgiveness of sins. Which further led me experience the filling of the Holy Spirit, leading me to experience the joy of salvation that I never experienced before. Oh, the grace of God! Oh, the love of God! 

December 31,1997 was my spiritual birthday! Twenty years have elapsed since then, and I praise the Lord for all His blessings! Hallelujah! 

Since then the Lord has been working on me; sometimes painful, sometimes joyful. But the Lord is very good at what He is; He knows exactly what to do with me and how to deal with me. To my understanding, He has done some solid and specific works every five years of my spiritual life. Beginning with the fundamental truths and experiences of Christ personally in the first five years. Then to a further revelation on the corporate experience of Christ, as and, in the church the following five years. Then further on to a life service: Learning deeper lessons of life in serving the Lord, and experiencing a higher level of human life in marriage and parenthood. And further, deeper and higher in learning to see the Body, know the Body, the church and serve in the Body for the Body. Having testified this, never do I mean to say that I have learned enough. On the contrary, I feel I still need to learn a lot more. In fact, all my Christian life would be a life of learning until perfection at the end. 

Having been graced thus far, I testified to the saints in the church today in brief the following:

Personally, this year the Lord graced me to enjoy Him in the word that He enabled me to finished the thirtieth time of my Bible reading. And further graced me to enjoy Him in my personal prayer life. As a family, He graced us to spend at least an hour a day together in prayer during our morning hours and night prayer. Officially, the Lord has also graced me to enjoyed His instant and continuous leading in spreading the ministry of the word in different parts of North India; a confirmation and experience of the book of Acts. 

Besides all these, three very important lessons I learned are: 

The Sovereignty of the Lord in every matter of my life, my family, the church, and in my official service. Every thing that happened in my life were all allowed by the Lord. Though at times, I opined that things should have been a little different, but the Lord is the Lord, and He is exceptionally good at being the Lord. Now looking back, I simple amened whole heartedly with thanks and praises. 

I am in the Body. This precious lesson, though it should have been so plain and simple, but I learned it in a very specific way. Many times, I tried to bear the burden on my own, even the church or the official responsibilities. I had no problem bearing burdens all alone and took it as an opportunity to experience Christ in a deeper way. But the Lord has been teaching me that I need not be needlessly overburdened, because I am in the Body. The burden is of the Body and must be borne in the Body. What a comfort! My burdens are not mine alone, but the Body's too. I must bear the burden together with the Body. What a release! What peace and what joy! 

I am for the Body. Whatever the Lord burdened me to pray or accomplish are not for my self. They are all for the Body. Burdens may come to me personally, but when carried out, it must be in the Body and for the Body. This too is a great release from being selfish and individualistic. For, I am for the Body. All that I am, all that I do, are all for the building up of the Body of Christ. 

Praise the Lord for these twenty years! May the Lord grace me on for the years He has reserve for me. All for Christ and the Church! Amen and amen. 

The Thirtieth Time

God has been so gracious to me especially as He let me grow up under the guardianship of my late maternal grandfather who taught me to read the Bible from my young age. As far as my memory goes, I started reading the Bible regularly since I was twelve years old. Since then, the Lord has been gracing me to read the word almost every day. Though I read it habitually in the beginning, gradually it became a part of my life, to the extent that I could not live a day without at least reading the word of God for the day. 

I recall in 1997 when I had the first subjective experience of the Lord when I had the assurance of salvation that I was born again indeed in my spirit, born of the Spirit of God, I had finished reading the Bible five times already. And since then, every year, as far as I remember, I finished reading the Bible alteast once a year. Though I did not maintain a regular record, sometimes, I read the Bible in two languages, Paite and English. Sometimes, after I finished reading the whole Bible I purchased a new Bible and start it afresh. The cycle has been repeated over and over again, even until today. The one that I am reading now is a brand new Bible, gifted to me by LSM for the little assistance I rendered in the proof-reading of the same Bible last summer.

I do not boast nor brag about Bible reading, but I highly recommend others to read the Bibe as well, as many times as possible, the more, the better. Not to boast, but declaring the fact, one must read the word of God every day. As much as we eat food every day, so must our eating of spiritual food be.

I can testify even more than a thousand times, how the Lord gave me His instant speaking through my regular Bible reading. Be it personal, family, church, or official matter, many of the decisions I took were based on the instant living speaking of the Lord through the reading of the word. As I had been praying and considering how to handle a matter, the Lord's answer would come in the way of confirmation through the written word. And this happened during those times when I was reading the word; irrespective of which portion of the Bible I was in, at the moment of time. The Lord's word is living, and it speaks...

2 Timothy 3:16 All Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for conviction, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,

Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and operative and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit and of joints and marrow, and able to discern the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

Now, as 2017 is winding up, I am glad to declare that the Lord has graced me this time again to finish this years' portion, not counting the reading of the word on a personal study time with the footnotes of the Recovery Version. With this, the Lord grace me to complete my thirtieth time of reading the Bible. And I am thirty-nine years young now; I hope the number of times I read the Bible be equivalent to the number of years the Lord would give me.  This is up to the Lord.

Lord, thank you for Your bountiful grace. And continue to grace me; as my days are, so shall my reading, praying, and reading of the word be.

Deuteronomy 33:25  Your doorbolts shall be iron and copper; And as your days are, so shall your strength be.

Redeeming the Time

Matthew 25:3-4

For the foolish, when they took their lamps, did not take oil with them; But the prudent took oil in their vessels with their lamps. 

In the parable of the ten virgins, the understanding concerning "lamp" and "vessel" has been a great eye opening to me. The "lamp" according to Proverbs 20:27, 

The spirit of man is the lamp of Jehovah, Searching all the innermost parts of the inner being, is our human spirit. Whereas, the vessel according to Romans 9:21,

Or does not the potter have authority over the clay to make out of the same lump one vessel unto honor and another unto dishonor?, is our human soul. Since all the ten are virgins, they all are believers. As "virgin" believers, we all have oil in our lamps, and we all have the Spirit of God in our human spirit. That's what makes us virgins, believers. But our soul still needs to be transformed and be saturated and permeated with the Spirit from our spirit. This transformed soul filled with the Spirit is the oil in our vessel. 

To have the oil on our lamp is by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, but to be filled with the Spirit in our spirit needs an exercise and paying of a price to buy the oil. The more price we pay, the more oil we can gain. This paying of the price entails dealing with the world, the flesh, the natural man, and anything other than Christ. Therefore, to have the extra oil in the vessel is a matter of wisdom; we need to be the wise virgin. 

Ephesians 5:15-18

Look therefore carefully how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, Redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissoluteness, but be filled in spirit, 

To be wise is to be filled with the oil in the vessel. This also means to redeem the time, every opportunity, to gain Christ. The gaining of Christ is the will of the Lord which is also synonymous to being filled with the Spirit. 

The life lesson I learned from the Lord's speaking in the Body and through the pursuit of the ministry is: Be the wise virgin knowing the will of the Lord, filled with the Spirit, being transformed in the soul, redeeming the time to gain Christ in every opportunity. 

Adieu Nani

But we do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, concerning those who are sleeping, that you would not grieve even as also the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose, so also those who have fallen asleep through Jesus, God will bring with Him. Therefore comfort one another with these words.  For God did not appoint us to wrath but to the obtaining of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, Who died for us in order that whether we watch or sleep, we may live together with Him. Therefore comfort one another, and build up each one the other, even as you also do. 1 Thessalonians 4:13, 14, 18;5:9-11.

Seven years have elapsed since I knew Nani, an elderly sister, who at the age of 86 had gone to be with the Lord. I have been visiting the family as a family-friend whenever I am in town on the Lord's day evening for fellowship on the word and prayer. My first meeting was with her son-in-law who is an architect when I was on the hunt for one such for a project in Gurgaon. On my very first meeting to the family I proposed for a weekly meeting which they readily agreed as they love the Lord too. Since then our relationship get sweeter and sweeter. 

Few months ago she got hospitalised and was placed in the ICU. When I visited her, on her sick bed, she recognised me despite her critical situation. She motioned her hand to get close by to her. As I did so, she held my right hand, requested me to place it over her forehead and emphatically said, "Brother, please pray..." I did so, and prayed for her that if it be of the Lord she be healed; let the will of the Lord be done. Then I left her.

Few weeks later, she was recovered; once I saw her again in the home meeting at her house. That was my last meeting with her. 

Last month when I was on the ministry of the ministry of the word literature journey to Himachal Pradesh, I received an urgent call for prayer at midnight from her daughter conveying her critical condition. I was in Shimla and could not visit her then; I could only pray specifically for her over the phone. Few days later I was informed of her recovery. But I could not meet her again as I was on a busy schedule of traveling, that time was down to the South after the North India trip. The last time I heard about her was when I was in Chennai that she had gone to be with the Lord. 

The day I came back to Gurgaon from my South India trip, was the day a "Memorial Thanksgiving Service" was conducted on her behalf. Her daughter requested me to share something which I readily agreed. In the meeting, I testified of the time we used to spend together weekly, fellowshipping on the word of God and prayer; of how she would quietly sit at the corner of the room, sang along in our hymn singing, and listen to the word of God.

Since the crowd at the memorial meeting was a mixed crowd, I shared the word in 1 Thessalonians 4:13, 14, 18;5:9-11. The word of God itself is life and therefore, a couple who is a family friend opened up for more talk on Jesus Christ. Besides, two other Christian couples also opened up for a future visit. These were the further contacts after her memorial service.

Nani is no more. But the fruits of her womb; her daughter, grandchildren and family friends will be followed up for fellowship and shepherding. Her love for Christ and the word is the sweetest remembrance I have of her. And as the Lord graces, the people I came to contact with on her memorial service day will definitely be followed up for the gospel and also for shepherding.

Adieu Nani for now...We will still continue the fellowship and prayer with your loved ones who had left behind. 

Literature Journey to the South

A brother's fellowship on his burden to open a ministry bookstore as an outlet for the ministry of the word, and that he has willingly offered a shop space with all the needed furniture with a brother to look after, had initiated the need for my visit. On further prayer and fellowship, we felt good to visit the site, besides visiting our home offices and serving ones in Kerala. 

In Trivandrum office, I spent time with the brother coordinating for the distribution, and with the Recovery Version Bible translation team. I had a first hand experience of how the literature service was going on and what the spiritual atmosphere of the church was. I am glad that the Lord has been gaining ground in the church in Trivandrum, He is blessing the saints as they are being blended into one accord commanding the Lord's blessing, even if resulting in the increase of numbers in the church. 

In Vellarada, we had an on-site view of the store provided for the ministry bookstore, a first hand fellowship with the brothers who would be directly responsible for the store, and other practical and legal matters. 

Near Marthandam, in a remote village, we visited a full time serving brother's family and enjoyed a fellowship over lovefeast dinner. 

In Cochi, we had a time of fellowship on Malayalam translation and distribution at our office there. A serving brother and his wife has been faithfully serving for over thirty years. I deeply honor and respect such a faithful servant of the Lord, who despite traversing various trails has been going on day by day. I pray that the Lord would extend his days on the earth that he could be a blessing to the literature service, to the churches, and the saints, and even perfect the young ones for him to pass the mantle on. 

In a short while fellowship with all the serving ones there, I fellowshipped on the matter of our being useful to God, wherever and whatever we serve. How useful we are depends on how much anointing we have. How much anointing we have depends on how much we gain Christ, redeeming the time and knowing the will of the Lord. How much we gain Christ also depends on how much Christ has been wrought into us through various trials and tribulations through the cross. The cross is every where; the Lord placed them in our lives and circumstances for us to gain Christ. We better be wise, redeem the time to gain Christ and be useful vessel to the Lord. 

In the evening we had dinner and prayer and departed for home back to Gurgaon. 

Though this was never planned by me nor anyone beforehand, the Lord planned it in time for the good of the literature service in India. I am just an open vessel for the Lord to move freely and do whatever He pleases for the carrying out of His economy through the literature service in India. 

May God bless India by blessing the saints and the churches and all the services in the Body of Christ. Amen.