Intimate Concern for a Brother

For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote to you through many tears, not that you would be made sorrowful but that you would know the love which I have more abundantly toward you.  2 Corinthians 2:4

But I, I will most gladly spend and be utterly spent on behalf of your souls. If I love you more abundantly, am I loved less? 2 Corinthians 12:15

Paul has been a pattern to me in his intimate concern for the saints and the churches under his shepherding care. He spent and was spent on the saints and wrote to them with many tears. That's a window of how he shepherded the saints. What a wonderful pattern! I only hope and pray that I can learn from brother Paul.

When a brother called me and requested to come and stay with me for fellowship and rest, I could only respond by saying, "Praise the Lord! Welcome!" In fact, I have not been good at giving hospitality at all. Firstly, I don't have that experience, and whenever guests came it was an experiment for me. Those experiments turned out to be my wonderful experiences. 

On the infrastructure side, we don't have enough room to accommodate guests, and we don't have an air conditioner to host the guest as we ourselves have been living all this while without it, despite the hot and humid weather. It was ok for my family as we are adapted to this kind of lifestyle, but I cannot impose this on my guest. Above all, our food too is very simple and we cook mostly a North Eastern style of food while most of our guests are either from the South or from the North; our food habits are opposite. Despite all these, we braved the challenges and cared for intimate concern rather than physical comfort.

Thank God, for this brother, there is a guest room available at the literature office which has not been used as we have not been meeting due to the present pandemic situation. We did our best to make him as comfortable as possible. We also did our best to give him the food that would be suitable for him. It turned out that he liked all the food we gave him, enjoyed it, and wanted more of it despite being a North Indian. This was just the physical care for cherishing him.

On the nourishing side, every day I spent some time with him to fellowship or pray together. Each day of his stay for six days, the Lord gave a fresh message and a burden to release to him. The Lord worked on him so well that he was open from within to receive all the fellowship despite he being a rebel just a week ago. The Lord has his sovereign way of gaining people and recovering them for the church life. From my side, I did all that I could do, to my very best. The outcome, I leave it to the Lord.

In the past, I dealt with rebels against the church life or opposers of the Lord's recovery by defending the truths using the Bible. I fought tooth and nail to prove to the opponents that what we follow is truth, orthodox, and biblically correct. But despite winning the verbal battle using the Bible, they all avoided me or stopped talking to me by not receiving my calls nor my messages. They were defeated in the truth battle but never subdued inwardly to acknowledge the fact. I felt very disappointed that despite showing all the correct Bible verses to vindicate our beliefs and practices, the person themselves was not gained at all. This time, in dealing with opposers, the Lord led me to pray for them and shepherd them. Though I knew how to fight and defend the truths which I dearly uphold, to win opposers is by prayer and shepherding them with an intimate concern. I experimented with this brother. And it worked! And later, after staying for a couple of days, he repented and asked forgiveness for all the misinformation and accusations against the ministry. He even called up and messaged all the brothers he hurt by his accusation and set things right. I myself had taken him to two brothers to fellowship face to face.

After all these, I thought to myself, had I reacted according to his accusations, he would not even dare to call me again, far less, come and stay with me for six days. Thank God for this precious lesson of intimate concern even for opposing brother. He was recovered back and now he started enjoying the Lord through the ministry books again.

Lord, grant me thr grace to have an intimate concern for all the saints.

Six Days War

The Six Days War in the history of the world was the war fought between Israel and it Arab neighbors from 5 to 10 June 1967 (6 days) and Israel triumph over its enemy miraculously. I had this experience in a minute scale last week, though just a storm in a tea cup. The brother who had opposed the ministry and the church life,  and whom the Lord burdened me to shepherd with a strong hope and faith of his recovery, suddenly changed his mind. His much expectation from a prosperity and charismatic Christian leader turned out to be a mere fairly tale. Despite the much glamorous and glitter on YouTube advertised by this prosperity gospel preacher, the reality was far from what was presented on social media. This brother who was temporarily deceived came to his sense when he was not even allowed to meet him, the so called Christian "papa". I am glad that he experimented on such leader and found out his true color, much to his disappointment. That was good. He learnt his lesson. Then, he remembered the church life and the brothers in Christ who have lovingly shepherded him and his family all this while. When faced with such a reality, he called me and requested to come and stay with me for fellowship and decided to stay until he would be fully satisfied. My joyful reply was, "Praise the Lord, brother! Welcome!"

He came and stayed with us for six days. In fact, he was accommodated in the literature guest room,  full of ministry books. Only a few weeks ago he burned the ministry books out of anger and misunderstanding. In his recovery process, the Lord put him in a room full of ministry books. I termed the duration of his stay with my family as a process of recovery and rest for him and equated this with the six days war Israel fought with Arab neighbors. In this case, the Israel of today, the church, has been fighting with religious Babylon with all her mixture in teachings and practices. And the minority genuine brotherly love has won over the millions of so called believers running after healing and miracles without really caring for the Lord's heart's desire of brotherly love among the believers as the church in Philadelphia.

Day by day, during the six days stay, I fellowshipped with him, ministered the pure word of God as the Lord led me, and prayed with him. Each day, the Lord gave me a word for my beloved brother. On the first day, the word was, rest. I encouraged my brother to simply refrain from all that he ran after and simply take rest. The second day, the word was on heading up in Christ. He should cease from all his rebellious attitude towards the ministry and the saints in the church life, and be simply headed up by enjoying the Lord together with the members of the Body of Christ. The third day, the word was on peace. I encouraged him to cut off all religious, secular, and social ties that only instigated his flesh and stole his peace. He even deleted his Facebook account and reduced his social media and phone usage, to be at peace, and not to be unnecessarily distracted. The fourth day, the word was on the church life. He joined the Lord's Table meeting in the church in Gurugram and we fellowshipped together, enjoying the church life. The fifth day, the word was on reconciliation and restoration of broken relationship. I took him to two brothers with whom he had a verbal spat and disagreement on spiritual matters. Over lunch and dinner fellowship at two different brothers' home, a process of reconciliation was carried out in fellowship and the relationship and fellowship was recovered. Finally, on the sixth day, a lesson on character to be useful vessel to God, and the learning of spiritual lesson on authority and submission was imparted. I gifted him three books, The Breaking of the Outerman and the Release of the Spirit, The Character of the Lord's Workers, and Authority and Submission.

After six days of shepherding care and brotherly fellowship, the spiritual battle was won! He felt fully satisfied. He felt at peace and rest now. And having accomplished the purpose of his visit, he flew back to his hometown, Raipur. As the Lord burdened me for him, his family, and his locality, city and state for the sake of God's economy and the Lord's testimony, we have agreed to fellowship and pray together online every Saturday. 

May the Lord fully gain him and his family for His testimony as He allowed me to win the six days spiritual war.

Busy Weekends

Weekends are supposed to be the time for relaxation and free time to do whatever one's soul desires. In developed countries, people take a holiday trip for recreational purposes on weekends. But to me, it has been just the opposite. Weekends are my busiest days in a week and there has never been any opportunity for holiday. Neither during the weekdays nor on the weekends, holiday is not in my schedule.

Even during the lockdown and global pandemic rampaging the whole world, my work hours have never reduced. On the contrary, it seems to have gone up. More responsibilities and more works to do, either for the family or for the office or for the church. I am glad the Lord has been gracing me to pass through this phase of the human history. The Lord has been faithfully caring for me and my family to the extent that not even an iota of anxiety or fear has ever gripped us when the world is all engulfed in anxiety and fear of the present and the future. The Lord has been covering us all these while, and He will continue to do so faithfully even to the end.

The weekends, these days, to me are 12 to 14 hours of busy schedules. Beginning with morning fellowship on Saturdays, church prayer meeting, ministry meeting, shepherding a family, family prayer time, personal prayer time, and others, the days has been fully packed. Similarly, on the Lord's day, beginning with Lord's Table Meeting, prophesying meeting, PSRP meeting, Young People Meeting, Gospel Meeting, family prayer time and personal prayer time, the day has been fully occupied. I am glad I have been graced to utilise all the time during the day for the church life and for the Lord's purpose. Life is indeed worth the living. To me this is a blessing. Without these schedules, my life may not be so productive. I count this a blessing, and I count it all joy. Praise the Lord!

Sometimes, I wonder when is the time to rest apart from my sleeping time. Everyday, there has always been responsibilities to carry out, whether as per schedule or an impromptu arrangement. Daily dose of works never die down. Only when my body could not take it any more and I physical break down, then I took a good rest during sick leave. This, to me, was also ordained by the Lord for my good. He simply gave me time to rest doing nothing when my body felt sick. But this rarely occurs, perhaps, once in a year. This too, is the Lord's mercy.

Overall, the Lord is faithfully taking care of me, shepherding me, all along my busy schedules. He graces me with what He deems best. All glory to Him! Amen and amen!

Two Resignations

The past few weeks I had to deal with resignation fellowship from two brothers. One, of course, is due to ill health and the other is due to the egoist self. In both cases, I shepherded the brothers in the way I knew of the Lord.

The first brother has been serving in the litertaure service for a couple of years. Since he began to serve he has been found to be very faithful in all the works assigned to him. He worked so hard to the extend that he sacrificed his health in a good number of cases. Even in matters new to him, he took the time to learn and get acquainted with, and even became professional. On the work front, he was quite exemplary. 

The sad part of his service was, he often fell I'll and has been facing a serious health issue. Every time he mentioned his health condition, I would encourage him to take good rest, and take care of his health. I had, time and again, mentioned to him that his health was needed for the Lord's service. And officially granted him as many health leaves as he would need. The serving ones are human being too and they all need to be taken care in a humane way.

When he wrote a mail of his resignation from his service stating health reason, I took no time to consider too much. When I took the matter to the Lord in prayer, I was confirmed within that I should not stop him from his resignation. Perhaps, the Lord knew better and I should not interfere. Therefore, I fellowshipped with my coordinator and informed this brother of our best wish for his career forward. In fact, I called and fellowshipped with him, and prayed with him. Immediately, I also increased the responsibility of another brother to pick up this brother's services so that the normal office works would not be affected. Therefore, all the official documents he asked for, for his future move, have been issued. Though he would no longer serve full-time officially with the literature, he will still continue to support within his capacity and availability as a volunteer. Therefore, the matter has been resolved.

The other brother came to fellowship about his resignation from the IT company he has been working with. In fellowship as fellow brother, I came to learn that the reason for his resignation has nothing to do with conflict of interest in the matter of faith and belief or the principles a Christian should strictly hold. But the simple reason was the lack of trust between him and his manager. The point of contention was simply a matter of the self. In this case, I encouraged him to submit to authority and simply overlook the lack of trust and maturity he expected from his manager.

As my beloved brother, I fellowshipped with my brother that he should probably take back his resignation and swallow up the differences he had with his earthly boss. The word of God simply tells us to submit to authority, who was also ordained by Him. The lesson of submission, my brother need to learn. To me, the experience he went through was very apt as he has come into the church life and has been growing in the Lord. This was just another lesson he has to pass through to be spiritually promoted to the next level. I felt very good about his experience and thought to myself that unless my brother learn the lesson of submission in the secular world, he would find it hard to submit in the church life as well, among the brothers. So the experience he went through was applaudable. In fact, very much needed. I hope and I trust the Lord will grace my brother to overcome this situation, learn the lesson of submission, experience the crucified Christ, go through the valley of Bacca, and come out victoriously. Then, he will become very useful in the Lord's hand.

The lessons from the two resignations are noteworthy. These experiences are very much needed in the church life for the corporate building up of the church, the Body of Christ. 

Much grace be upon my brothers. Amen.

A Tale of Two Brothers

Today, the Lord made way for us to visit Teekli village in the vicinity of Gurugram city, located below the beautiful Aravalli range. Form this one village two brothers have been discovered and are on the process of being recovered. The first brother was a friend and colleague of a brother in the church and the second brother is a gospel friend of a sister who has been in fellowship with me and is on the process of coming into the church life herself, and often passed on her male contact gospel friend to me. At one go, we visited these two families in the same village.

The first brother is a PhD holder and married to another PhD degree holder, a very educated brother. He has had many experiences in his career and is currently serving as an Assistant Professor in a private college. He is very smart, intelligent, and a deep thinker; yes, too deep a thinker to the extend that he even doubted God as he has been searching for the practicality of the existence God with solid proof as a research scholar even though he already believed into Christ and even was baptised. He wanted to research on the divine things and come out with a solid tangible proofs of divinity. We gave a patient hearing to what he had to say. 

We offered him the subjectivity of God Himself with our own life experiences. We also read the word of God together and showed him that the Lord is resurrection and life (John 11:25) and that He came to give life, the divine life, that we may have it abundantly (John 10:10). Then, we encouraged him to call upon the Lord's name, exercise his spirit to touch the Lord Spirit, and study the Bible with the Recovery Version Bible footnotes. Finally, we all prayed one by one, proposed for the next meeting, and took leave.

The second brother was a simple Indian Army sepoy. He had been serving another Army lady officer who later became a sister in the Lord and was introduced to me a couple of years ago. A few days ago another sister who has been a friend of this lady officer visited me and gave this brother's number and address with a request for Hindi Bible. That's how the visit was initiated and today we could visit him.

This brother, though not yet baptised, has a strong faith in the Lord since his childhood. He met with an accident in the begining of this year and was in comma for over two months. Though he is medically unfit to serve as an Army, he has been given a clerical responsibility and still continue to serve. We ministered the word of God in Christ as the Peace that he had been looking for, and gifted him a Hindi Holy Bible. He was so simple, and without any question received the word of God. We showed him how to read the Bible, and also prayed for his family. 

The above two brothers happened to know each other, both from the same village and of the same age group. One a scholar with PhD degree and the other not even a degree and a simple soldier. Both came to know the Lord Jesus Christ, yet have different and opposite reaction to the word of God. The educated one was full of doubts and questions, whereas the uneducated one simply recieved every word we ministered by faith. These two brothers are both married with one son each. 

This is the tale of two brothers. Both need constant shepherding and both are equally important for the Lord's testimony among the local Haryanvis. 

May the Lord bless the two brothers and grant both of them a household salvation as promised in Acts 16:31

And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you shall be saved, you and your household. 

May the Lord gain both of them and their families and raise up His testimony among the local people of their village. This is what we have been praying for, and the Lord is beginning to answer our prayer for the salvation of the Haryanvis.

Haryana for Christ and the church! 

Take Root Downward

And the remnant of those who have escaped of the house of Judah will again take root downward and bear fruit upward.  Isaiah 37:31

To take root downward is to have an established inner life in the Lord and have an intimate fellowship with the Lord day by day wherein we become one with the Lord and He gains our being to be fully one with Him. This is the basic and fundamental need of the Christian life. Without this, the Christian life is an empty religious life without much reality. As a result of being deeply rooted in Christ, there will be the bearing fruit upward which is the shepherding life of the Christian that cherishes and nourishes others. This is the solution to all the problems the Christian may face in his life. This must be the status quo of every normal Christian. 

Last week I was invited to visit a family along with another brother. This family has been going through marital storms in their lives. The wife, out of much desperation called us up for fellowship with them. As brothers shepherding the saints in the local church this is our responsibility to visit the needy saints and spiritually help them in whatever way we could. 

As we were in their home, the wife started the conversation with all the allegations she has towards her husband. She went on and on pouring out her heart's content, all the cares and concerns towards her husband and their relationship. She also indirectly poured out all her griefs and anger for the misconducts of her husband, and also offered her good suggestion of how her husband should behave according to her. The husband counter charged the points brought forth by his wife and also poured out all his allegations against his wife and their relationship. In fact, one key point of disaccord is in the matter of handling finance. The husband lost his job, the wife is working and earning, and the wife controls the finance of the family with the husband simply following the wife's leading in money matter. This is one of the problems, besides many others. The conversation went on and on for over four hours. The Lord gave us the patience to heart out all they both have to say.

After many hours of listening to both the wife and the husband, I felt deep within that I have to speak up. So I fellowshipped with them the importance of spending time with the Lord. The reason that they have so many problems is that they have been in themselves by themselves without the Lord's leading and supply. Many of the allegations and counter-allegations were due to the lack of growth in life and , much more, the lack of of enjoyment of the Lord on a daily basis.

I began with my enjoyment of Chirs in the matter of heading up in Christ by our daily growth in life and receive the light of life from the Lord. This was my fresh bread from the Life-study of  Ephesians that I have been pursuing these days.

Unto the economy of the fullness of the times, to head up all things in Christ, the things in the heavens and the things on the earth, in Him; Ephesians 1:10

The whole world is in a heap of collapses, including the family lives of many. Only Christ can head it up, and in so doing, the family becomes a part of the fulfillment of God's economy. But for the heading up, growth is of utmost importance. Without the growth in the divine life there will be no heading up. And without the heading up, there will be no solution to the marital problems of human life. Therefore I encouraged the husband and wife the following:

Spenditme with the Lord persoanlly, privately, and intimately with the Lord on a daily basis. Set a specific time with the Lord where they would personally contact the Lord and be touched, enlightened, nourished, and supplied by the Lord. This is the taking of our roots deep down into the depth of the life of life.

Spend time together as a couple; to pray together, read the Bible together, enjoy morning revival together, or pursue the truth together. And much more , fellowship together in one accord for all the practical matters concerning their realtionship and family matters. There must be the onesness between the husband and wife in every thing. Otherwise, there will be a loophole in the relationship and Satan will gain ground to sow his seed of sins which is the source of all probnlems.

After this fellowship, we all prayed together and we took leave, leaving the matter and the family to the Lord. The following Saturday and Lord's day I was glad to witness the couple being recovered and both present in the prayer meeting of the church and the Lord's table meeting. Besides, both of them exercised to pray in the prayer meeting, praise the Lrod in the Lord's table meeting, and prophesied during the prophesying meeting. 

May the Lord cover them and preserve them from the attacks of the enemy. Much more, may they take a deep spiritual root downward and bear forth fruits upward.

Dealing with Opposers

Off late, a brother has turned sour and negative towards the brothers in the church life who are enjoying the ministry of the age. This brother himself visited the church in Gurugram and also my family last year when he talked so highly about the ministry and his enjoyment of the truth and the church life. He even created a WhatsApp group for sharing his enjoyment of the church life. I hardly posted anything there and simply visited the group once in a while. In fact, I visited him and his family at the beginning of this year and stayed for a night in his home. We fellowshipping with him and his family when he testified of how much he enjoyed the Lord and how much the ministry literature has helped him. 

A month a ago, the same brother suddenly posted a very negative message accusing all the brothers in the church life of being "fake". He accused others of being fake when I really felt he himself was fake, as a genuine brother will never accuse his fellow brothers of being fake. Heeding to the advice of a brother, we all left the WhatsApp group. Later, he created another group with the name "I love you brothers". Though I did not see the messages initially I could at least discern, for in the first line of messages post which I could see even without opening the message directly. Later, I saw many brothers left the group one by one. But deep within me, I left this brother need shepherding. At the same time, I would not give myself into his negative smearing campaign. As I look to the Lord how to handle him I felt deep within that I should wait for some time to elapse. I waited until we finished our Summer Training 2020. Then, I got a light from the Lord that I need to be tenderhearted in dealing with negative brothers and act wisely, not to deal with him as a person but to shepherd him and recover him as a brother.

In fact, in the past, I had dealt with negative people by facing them head-on. When they accused I counter defended the ministry with appropriate Bible verses. In fact, in the process of defense, I won the fight but I lost these dear brothers. They could not fight back with baseless accusations for that will be replied back with scriptural verses. But I learned a very precious lesson that in dealing with negative brothers, I should not debate. They are negative because they are too much in the mind gripped by the enemy. I should not stoop down to their level and fight negativity with negativity. That's what Satan wanted to do among brothers. But I must not commit the same mistake of trying to win a doctrinal fight. I should rather pray and win over the negative brother sand recover him back to the normal church life. I hope I will learn this lesson this time. Therefore, I would not fight back despite his blatant false accusation until the Lord would lead me to respond in love.  

Last Lord day, the Lord gave me the peace to see the messages posted in the group and I went through all the messages. The messages were full of hatred though the group name is on love. I could discern that this brother has turned sour and became very negative. Without any substance nor proof, he simply accused the ministry of "cult" and "no fruit or practicality". I could easily discern the state of mind he was in, and his spiritual condition. The only way is to pray for him and as the Lord leads, fellowship with him. After a thorough prayer especially for him, I called him in the evening to fellowship with him. Our fellowship lasted for over an hour.

He asked me a couple of questions which I answered them all with relevant scriptural verses.  I answered because he asked. After all his queries were answered he called me, "you are  a genuine brother." And he accused the other brothers as fake as nobody dared to call him in his state of mind. And for me, I considered this brother as my own brother and wanted to genuinely help him. For some, the best way to deal with him is simply to avoid him and cut him off. But for me, the Lord did not lead me that way. I have a strong faith that he would be recovered. And in the process, I will learn a precious lesson of shepherding all kinds of sheep, including the black sheep.

Now that we have agreed to pray together once a week, I would treasure this time together, bringing ourselves to the Lord. Christ and Him crucified is the solution to all the problems in our Christian life and church life. I remember myself being negative at one point in time. But by the Lord's mercy I was preserved not to burst out my anger and go astray. The Lord gradually healed me through the word of God, prayer, and fellowship. In the same way, the Lord can heal anyone of negativity. The Lord as the Good Shepherd will heal all negative persons though proper shepherding care with much prayer and fellowship. 

Lord, shepherd me to be able to shepherd others, especially in dealing with opposers.