Birth of a Burden

Despite a centenary celebration of Christianity in many parts of the North East India,  there still are multitude of hamlets unreached with the gospel of Jesus Christ, or perhaps, are reached but the inhabitants' heart's are hardened. These hosts of unbelievers are no stranger to me, on the contrary, they are my own clansmen, and many of them,  my own bloodline. In fact, we have initiated praying for the salvation of our kinsmen, especially that of my own village, Keikhu, in our family prayer. God have mercy on us, and hasten the day of salvation.

Though my close and intimate family have all been saved through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, still majority are wailing in the dark. Besides, I personally too have not been physically in town since my childhood; I used to visit my home only once a while, perhaps, once or twice a year, and that too just for few days mostly to be with my mom and dad. Interpersonal interaction on the gospel is altogether void, safe for their knowledge that we have been "converted," a term I loath the most as I deem my faith in Christ as a matter of life, organically regenerated in my spirit of God’s Spirit and subjectively experiencing the true and living God, and not at all a change of religion and far less "converted, " for that matter, in its literal meaning of the word.

Last week as I fellowshipped with a distant uncle who is also a Commissioner in a Government office, we touched the topic of gospelising our own heathen tribesmen. Unlike all the tribals of our home state Manipur, ours, the Rongmeis or Kabuis, whose domicile is on the geographical plain have not yet been evangelized. Unlike the rest of the tribals who have been blessed with the dawn of the gospel, ours have diametrically opposite reaction, in that the traditional beliefs have been formalized and propagated with much strength and vigor instead. Even one of our renowned professors have spearheaded it's development and pose a direct challenge to the snail pace growth of the now dwindling Christianity. In fact,  at the very outset, the two religions, Christianity and Tingkao Ragwang Cham are pseudo fancy, for both boast of the rich heritage outwardly and many intermingling in friendship, marriage, and celebration. Festive inter-celebration is most notable; Christmas versus Chakan Gain Ngai - both are pagan in nature, with the former inhibiting a religious tone and the latter exhibiting a traditional tone. Neither of them are biblical nor spiritual.

What can salvage the entanglement thereof? Only the life of Christ can. Not a doctrinal mundane superstition nor a ritualistic dead tradition, but the life-giving experience of the true and living God, Jesus Christ, the true Tingkao Ragwang (Heavenly God).

As we discussed on the state of our fellow clansmen and the need for gospelization, we were also aware of the hard truth that it is not going to be a cakewalk. This is a spiritual warfare and must be tackled spiritually. Henceforth, my burden to start praying for my brethren in the flesh rejuvenated. A new burden was born: to pray for the salvation of my clansmen.

Later,  I texted my brother(uncle) the following:

Praise the Lord brother for the wonderful time of fellowship!From today, the Lord burdened me to pray for Prof. G. K, and our fellow clansmen, the yet-to-be-believers of the valley Rongmeis,  particularly those of TRC.

My  interpretation of Tingkao Raguang is, our Heavenly God who became a man,  Jesus Christ, the perfect God-man; who lived, died and rose again to be the Life-giving Spirit; to redeem, justify, regenerate, renew, sanctify, transform, conform and glorify us to Himself for and unto eternity.

Let us stand together in prayer for this burden from now until God fully answers our prayers. Please do update me on this regard for prayer. Amen.

Dated: 18th August 2016

Grace be with us all.

Palmeichung

I brought the same burden to a brother who serves the Lord full-time in Manipur and also happens to belong to the same tribe, and we started praying for this burden. I further encouraged him to bring the same burden to few more brothers in the church life. We decided to pray, and we will pray, and the Lord will lead us through to witness the salvation of our fellow clansmen, hopefully, in our life time. Amen.

Dawn in Dimapur

Out of the Lord's leading and burden, with two brothers, we came to visit the brothers whom the Lord led us to, in the previous literature distribution trip in Dimapur, Nagaland. Firstly,  our fellowship was with the leading brother who has been burdened by the Lord since his youth to serve the Lord till date, and who has founded a "ministry" and a "church." Our burden was to fellowship with him on Christ and the church as we have learned that he has seen something of the Body of Christ. Every time we fellowshipped, he has no problem with the truths of the Bible,  but his concerns were mostly on outward practical things. We were very exercised to focus on the essential truths of the Bible and leave the non-essential items for the Lord to handled as the truths are being lived out.

On the Lord’s day, I was requested to minister in their congregation. The burden the Lord gave me was to minister on "Knowing God" from the experiential point of view with real life testimony. As I prepared myself in prayer for the ministry of the word, the Lord burdened me to share the same burden with many other saints in the North East, in the local church where I am from, and with the saints serving with me in the literature service. The prayer Burden sent out via WhatsApp was:

Prayer BurdenEph. 6:18 - By means of all prayer and petition, praying at every time in spirit and watching unto this in all perseverance and petition concerning all the saints,Eph. 6:19 - And for me, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known in boldness the mystery of the gospel,Eph. 6:20 - For which I am an ambassador in chain, that in it I would speak boldly, as I ought to speak.

Dear Saints,  Tomorrow,  28 Aug, Lord's day, we will be ministering the word of God to a congregation of seeking Christians in Dimapur, Nagaland. This will be followed by a time of fellowship with the leading brothers on the truth concerning the Body of Christ. (This is a follow up visit of the previous distribution tour few months ago).

Pray for the Lord's presence, speaking, anointing and blessing that His testimony in Dimapur may gradually be recovered.Col. 4:3 - Praying at the same time for us also, that God would open to us a door for the word, to speak the mystery of Christ (because of which also I am bound),Col. 4:4 - That I may make it manifest as I ought to speak.

May the Lord recover the church in Dimapur.

As an answer to the saints' prayer, the Lord blessed the ministry of the word, and after the meeting the leading brothers testified of the blessings they received through the ministering. Our fellowship continued with some leading brothers on the truth concerning the Body of Christ with clarification on some ambiguous understanding of the words "shepherd and overseer," and the "five fold ministry" in Ephesians 4:11-12. Answering their questions with the Bible itself was the best way I found; none could refute.

In the evening, three main leading brothers fellowshipped with us on some crucial truths and practices of the church-life. All the truths and testimonies we presented were all accepted by them satisfactorily, though they confessed that they would need some time to digest and practice them. But over all, they were very happy for the visit and they testified that it was truly of the Lord.

After all the fellowship, deep within I have the assurance that they will be fully recovered for the Lord's testimony in Dimapur. For they themselves testified of the vision God gave them concerning the Body of Christ and how they hunger and thirst for the truth. Much more, they even testified of how much they received help from the ministry books of brother Watchman Nee and Witness Lee on the revelation of the Body of Christ which many Christians neglect or fail to see it succinctly. They themselves even requested for more ministry materials on "The Tabernacle."

Deep calls within deep indeed. Out of the many Christian groups and leaders I met in Nagaland, this group of brothers were far advanced in the knowledge and experience of Christ and God's heart's desire. In all our fellowship we just sensed that we have the same spirit and burden for the testimony of Jesus and the building up of the Body of Christ. They even proposed future meeting for seminar or training, and they opened themselves up to us.

Praise the Lord! It is a dawn now in Dimapur for the Lord's further move and for the recovery of His testimony. May the Lord lead all of them for His testimony. Amen.

Brotherly Fellowship

Besides carrying out the burden the Lord has blessed me concerning His testimony in Guwahati, Shillong and Dimapur this time, the Lord also graced me to have some intimate and personal fellowship with some brothers, more specifically two of them, who are also serving full time in the North East.

The first one was related with his personal matter of being complete as a man in marriage. He loves the Lord and has been serving full time but he is still single. Though many brothers and sisters tried to help him, still nothing solid has transpired. Even I have attempted in the past but somehow it did not work out. But this time as I was with him together in many home meetings and shepherding, even travelling together in the three cities, we fellowshipped on the Lord's work as well as his personal affair. The specific burden the Lord gave me was to assist him in fellowship which he finally agreed. Though I have none in mind I have the burden to initiate the fellowship with some known brothers to help in this matter. This is also a part of mutual care and shepherding.

With another brother, the Lord's speaking was very strong on being faithful in serving the Lord. Though he has been serving for years, he has been distracted by many things. Some brothers even personally fellowshipped with me about helping him in a way of fellowship, and this is the time the Lord gave me as we are coordinating in Dimapur.

The Lord led us the past two days  to consider thoroughly our way of living and service. The key points we fellowshipped were, treasuring the presence of God in everything we do or say,  and to never do anything without being assured of the Lord's presence. For, only in the Lord's presence can we be joyful and fruitful in serving the Lord. In love and in brotherly fellowship, I encouraged him not to do anything without the Lord's leading and testified to him of how the Lord is more than faithful to care for all our needs if we faithfully trust Him.

Besides, we prayed together for the Lord's move in the entire North East region, for the saints and the serving ones, and especially for the non-believers of our fellow clansmen. Even until we depart from Dimapur we fellowshipped on the train station again on the matter of shepherding the saints, and read about the pattern of Paul in Acts 20:18-38 and prayed together.

I firmly believe that the Lord is preserving him from veering away from the calling of God. This time our fellowship was very intimate, transparent and straight forward. The Lord wants to gain us and His testimony in the North East, and the attack of the enemy is also very subtle. But praise the Lord, Christ is always the Victor!

These fellowships were very timely and the Lord arranged it in His sovereignity.

Leading a Doctor to Christ

God never makes a mistake. Today morning here in Dimapur, Nagaland, as we were considering the day's schedule, we had a feeling to visit one of our brother's sister's family. With few phone calls the matter was decided and we visited the family: both are doctors by profession.

One important underlying burden for this family was the household salvation; wife from a gentile background and husband from a ritualistic family but have turned to become atheistic in faith. This foreknowledge about the family was a good base for steering forward the conversation. Nevertheless, our sole dependence was on the Spirit's anointing, leading and speaking. Our target the whole time was on the husband, as the wife had to come and go busying herself for the impromptu brunch preparation.

He began the talk by narrating us his opinion about God, if He does exist,  and his severe search for the true God by reading many world renowned thinkers and philosophers' writings. His main concern as I could perceive was, if God indeed is real, how do you prove it? He was looking for hard evidences; a no theory talk was his longing, and a solid proof that would convince him to the core. We'll, only God is the proof of His existence, both objectively and subjectively too. The need of the hour was a real life testimony.

I began with the creation of God; how God had a purpose and to fulfill His purpose, He created the heavens for the earth and all the things therein, and all these are for man that man, in turn, is ultimately for God Himself. I explained further with all clarity, as much as I could, how God also created man with body, soul and spirit, and how God became man in Christ, died, resurrected and became a life-giving Spirit to enter into those who believed into Him. To make it even clearer, I also explained how God desires man to receive Him but would not force Himself into man, but by way of man longing for God. For which also God created man's soul with: a mind to know God, a faculty to understand and reason; an emotion to love God, a faculty for feeling, having known God with his mind he would love God; a will to choose God,  a faculty for decision making, after he knows God and loves God. By this way man could actually receive God by believing into Jesus Christ.

Now for the proof and hard evidences, I gave my own personal testimony of how I was born again on the night of December 31,1997, and the experiences and transformation that transpired since then till date. It entailed my searched for God, my questioning of who the true God was amongst the major religions,  my quest to know and experience God and a serious threat to be an atheist if God could not be known nor experienced. And that, at such crucial juncture, how I met God personally through the testimony and ministry of a retired professor on Matthew 13 on the second kind of soil, which the Spirit used to convict me to the core of my sinful being hidden deep within, and how that led me to my repentance, confession, forgiveness and ultimately my assurance of salvation with joy. After the truth ministering with real life testimony, he professed in wonder, that he was so touched and the speaking was so powerful that his shaky and mediocre attitude towards God was shifted drastically to the right path. A paradigm shift from being in dilemma concerning God, to turning and fine tuning his stance to the true and living God transpired. Praise the Lord!

Still unfinished work remained. Mental conviction sans spiritual regeneration is of no value either. To complete the task that has begun a while, I led him to pray a prayer to receive and believe into the Lord Jesus Christ. Immediately after the prayer, he himself testified innately, that he experienced a new beginning! That's how salvation in spirit began. 

We shook hands and I affirmed him that he indeed and henceforth, has become my brother in Christ! And supplemented the new beginning with the need for normal breathing of the Lord by calling upon Jesus' name, drinking of the Spirit by daily regular prayer, and eating of the Word of God, the Holy Bible, particularly for him, the gospel of John, to start with.

This is no man's boast, but a testimony of the fact that was experienced this morning. May the Lord gain His glory in his saving of this agnostic and intelligent doctor, and further shepherd him to grow in life unto maturity.

Leading Man to Christ

A brother who got saved and has been enjoying the church life in Guwahati is very burdened for His family salvation. Often in fellowship I did strengthen the burden for His family salvation according to the word of God. His particular concern is for His younger brother who is, in character and nature, opposite to him, to the extend that he is hardly to be found at home. Though he wanted me to meet his brother badly and attempted a couple of times in the past week, not once his brother was at home at a time convenient to meet. Over driven by the burden,  he often felt disappointed. But my only consolation to him was that he should pray for his brother regularly and the Lord will arrange an opportune time.

It was my last night of stay in Guwahati in my last trip when I was informed that at about 8 PM,Thursday, that I could visit his home and meet his brother. We did go to his house as an answer to all of our prayers.

Sitting in front of this new brother, our brother's brother, I was in face to face with him. Our conversation began with a friendly note on education, career and entrepreneurship, as I learned that he was quite smart, intelligent and he aimed to start his own business in the future. After all the corporate talks on professional career, I turned the subject to the most important issue of life, a human life with it's meaning, purpose and goal.

Using some crucial Bible verses and personal experiences of countering and encountering God when I was 19 years young, slowly I preached the gospel of Jesus Christ to him. A definite and detail, step by step, process of how God took to create man, how man fell into sin and how God in Christ as the Spirit could save man and give him new life, was explained. All this while, I was very exercised in my spirit to minister life. As the leading went on, finally, his visage told me that he needed to receive the Lord. Of course, I asked for His consent and on his approval, I led him to pray the sinner's prayer of confession and receiving the Lord Jesus Christ as his personal Savior.

God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to die for sinners and save man. God sends His sons, the believers, to lead man to Christ. 

It was the Lord's sure mercy that made him available that night in answer to the brothers' prayer. It was also the Lord’s sure mercy that made us available to be filled by His Spirit that we could preach the gospel and lead him to Jesus Christ. It surely was the Lord's mercy that a sinner was brought to salvation. And that was the purpose of the visit, leading man to Christ in Guwahati.

Praise the Lord! I enjoyed the Lord's leading us to lead man to Him in coordination in the Body of Christ. May the Lord preserve this new believer to grow in life unto full maturity. The more weightier burden now is, to shepherd him to grow in life day by day unto full maturity.

Crowd of Cares: Do or Die

Having been burdened by the Lord for the recovery of the Lord's testimony in Shillong on the one hand, and the negative speaking concerning the brothers by another brother, clubbed with the situation the saints were facing was sufficient enough to bring me to my knees in intercessory prayer. As I was deeply concerned for the Lord's testimony, and planned to visit the saints, my feeling deep within was "do or die." Either the fellowship of the church be properly recovered as the Lord leads or leave the matter for another time. Yet I could not imagine of yet another delay, as time and again, it has been proved that the time for the recovery of the fellowship, blending and oneness in the Body of Christ has come. With the saints in the nearby churches, we planned a visit one more time, and did visit the church. The hospitality arrangement itself was a breakthrough among the saints for it harmonizes us a little bit more.

In fellowship and prayer, we pursued the truth concerning "The Body of Christ, the Organism of the Triune God"  and "The Practical Expression of the Church-the Body of Christ Expressed Practically as Many Local Churches." The Lord's speaking and anointing was rich as we delved into the truths, point by point, pausing and fellowshipping over certain points as and when required. The saints were solidly fed with the proper understanding of the Body of Christ. As we fellowshipped through the two messages, some saints wanted a clarification on the uniformity of practices among all the local churches. We did our best to clarify, and left the matter to the Lord. Overall, the meeting was solidly concluded with the ministry of the word on the truths. Still my burden was not fully released as we could not fellowship with the leading brothers on some practical detail.

The next day morning, the Lord granted us a wonderful time of fellowship with the leading brothers, where a blending with the saints of the nearby visiting saints also took place. In sweet fellowship, we all agreed for more fellowship and blending among the nearby local churches and considered a future visit for training and blending. With this, a practical responsibility for communication and fellowship were also organically arranged. The whole session began and concluded with prayer for the Lord's testimony in Shillong in particular, and the nearby local churches in general. With this, my burden was released. It indeed was "do," and "die" in the self for life to be released for the sake of the Lord's interest. What will transpire in the future is all up to the Lord to decide.

Even after this, a small unfinished matter had to be settled. A brother who was not very happy with the latest development due to him not being consulted spoke out his mind. In love, we have fellowshipped with him to accept the Lord's sovereign arrangement. And we had brotherly fellowship concerning some fine points to be taken care. In addition to seeing the Body, there was a need to see the order in the Body, each member's functions in the Body, and the need to be faithful and restricted to function within the limit. Besides, we also encouraged him to trust the Lord and look for the Lord's grace to be blended in harmony in the Body of Christ. Then, finally, my burden for Shillong this time was fully released. 

This entire experience was spiritually breath-taking. This led me to pray a lot and fellowship with all the concerned brothers at different times. Sometimes, wandering if fellowship in oneness in the Body could be restored, and other times, pondering what if things turn out negatively. Anxiously caring for the saints and the Lord's testimony was indeed a real experience. Personally, I learn a lot of deep spiritual lessons. Thank the Lord for the blessing of burdens for sake of the Lord's interest. I could understand better now why Paul said what he said in 2 Corinthians 11:28  

Apart from the things which have not been mentioned, there is this: the crowd of cares pressing upon me daily, the anxious concern for all the churches.

May the Lord bless the church in Shillong!

Testimony to Uncle

As I was invited for a dinner fellowship by my distant maternal uncle's family last week. The Lord led us in sweet fellowship concerning the wonderful and miraculous things the Lord has been doing in my life. Though it was supposed to be a casual visit as the nomenclature of the society is, it turned out to be a solid time of fellowship on the goodness of God. As he wanted to learn more of what and how the Lord has been leading me, I testified to him of the works of the hand of God in major events of my life.

Beginning from the time Lord led me to study Master's degree in Computer Science in Chennai, then to my student life in a hostel, and how the Lord called me to serve full-time entangled with the struggle with my parents and grand parent in obeying the Lord's call rather than the natural family relationship, and the living by faith in serving the Lord, and how my marriage was ordained by the Lord and the minute practical details, the Lord's provision for all our needs,  etc and etc... I shared it all to him.

Even as I testified of the Lord's goodness and mercy following me all the days of my life, some miraculous events and some wonderful incidents, he sobbed in between a couple of times as he was so touched by the Lord’s hand behind the scenes. Even in such testifying I myself was moved to tears of the great mercies of God. In such recollection, I could see the faithfulness of God and was very much strengthened in my faith too. After the sharing, he requested me to lay hands on him and pray, of which I politely declined, as I personally do not feel fit for such and neither do I practice such. Rather I requested that we pray together instead. Thus the testimony sharing fellowship ended in a prayer for one another for the Lord's further blessing. That was a wonderful night with my uncle.

The Lord is truly good in every aspect. Often, reminiscence of the past good deeds of God is a good reminder of the faithfulness and goodness of our great and wonderful God. He is so ever living and real, we can experience Him and enjoy Him day by day.