Being Discerning

“Indeed, My Servant will act wisely and will prosper; / He will be exalted and lifted up and very high.” (Isaiah 52:13, RecVer) 

The spirit of wisdom and discernment is from God. The only way to be truly wise is to be one with God. What He is, is what I should be. His thoughts my thoughts, His mind my mind, His will my will, His words my words, His ways my ways, His work my work, and His walk my walk. In such oneness, I can exercise His wisdom.

Through many experiences in my Christian life, I have faced failures, rejections, oppositions, and even false accusations. I have been learning to take everything as from the Lord. Such experiences in life make me grow in life too. Along with this growth, comes wisdom and discernment. I in no way claim to have become wise, but I do experience exercising wisdom. Experiences with people have taught me a lot of life lessons. Especially, the bitter and difficult experiences truly trained me to be more wise and discerning. Now, to some extent, I can testify that the Lord has granted me some wisdom and discernment concerning persons, matters, and things.

A brother called me recently and offered himself to serve full-time in the literature service. Right away I knew his intention was not pure. In fact, he was simply looking out for a means of survival. I immediately confronted him about his offer and that he did it only for money. Though he tried to deny it, but that was the fact. I spoke boldly and straightforwardly and even used a strong word. My intention was to help him realize his heart was not pure and his intention was not right. I could see things clearly even through him. I only hope that he humbles himself and simply follows the Lord's leading for all his financial needs. In fact, I never was like that. I generally would talk politely and use my natural human politeness. But the time has come now to stand up and call black as black and white as white.  I believe this is what I really should be by this time. I can remain the same year by year. I must also grow in wisdom and discernment.

Likewise, I have been experiencing complex situations now and then. But I took them as lessons from the Lord for me to learn. Yes, learn to be wise and discerning by turning to the Lord deep within concerning those situations, considering carefully how and why it happened. I have been graced to be touched by the many brothers and sisters around me, in the church life, and within my family circle. Because, when I prayed for wisdom, God gave me problems to solve.

Now, when seekers call me for any help, especially financial help, I direct them to trust in the Lord and not in me. May the Lord grace me to learn from Him and take His wisdom and discernment as mine.

Being Burnt

May He remember all your meal offerings and accept your burnt offering. Selah Psa. 20:3 

Then he shall take off his garments and put on other garments and carry the ashes outside the camp to a clean place. Lev. 6:11 

The Lord Jesus is the reality of the burnt offering in Leviticus. He was accepted by God as the most absolute One. Today, we are His duplication and His many brothers. As such, we must offer ourselves up to God by taking Christ as our burnt offering. Only then, our offering will be accepted by God in Christ. 

The Hebrew word translated “accept” in Psalm 20:3 actually means “turn to ashes.”  The Hebrew word rendered “accept” can be translated not only as “turn to ashes” but also as “accept as fat,” “make fat,” and “be as fat.” For God to accept our burnt offering means not only that He turns it to ashes but also that He accepts it as fat, something that is sweet and pleasing to Him. For the burnt offering to be turned to ashes means that God is satisfied and that we therefore may be at peace. If we understand this, we shall realize that in our Christian life there should be a lot of ashes. In Leviticus 6:11 once again we see that the ashes were not thrown away. This indicates that we should treasure the result of our offering of the burnt offering to God. We should never throw it away. In God’s eyes, the result of our burnt offering is highly regarded.  The result of our being a burnt offering will be something that carries out God’s New Testament economy. (Life-study of Leviticus, pp. 57-58)

The Lord has been gracing me to enjoy "being burnt to ashes" these days. A few days ago a brother replied to an email report I sent to the brothers. Since he named me as one of the recipients, I reckoned it proper to take the matter before the Lord in prayer and in the spirit of meekness, reply to the email, accepting the very points he pointed out. 

As far as I am concerned, I am carrying out my responsibility to report to the brothers what the Lord has been doing in North India these days concerning the literature service the Lord has apportioned to me. I had no intention of show-off or exposing myself as I had already settled this matter of myself being nothing. Now, the matter is of faithfulness and responsibility. So all the reports I have been preparing are not for myself, but for the brothers and for the office I am serving in, perhaps, "an official duty," may be the appropriate description.

But when there seemed to be a misunderstanding, it was an experience of being burnt. As I considered the matter prayerfully before the Lord, I realized that the Lord was leading me to the experience of being burnt to ashes. So, after prayer, I replied to the email and acknowledged my oversight. I also apologized for the misunderstanding I might have caused and echoed his comment on my need to be more blended for His building. Then, I had much peace in my being and realized that this was the experience of being burnt to ashes.

Then, another experience followed. After working on an article requested by the brothers for a newsletter concerning the Spirit's move in North India through the ministry of the word literature journey, I sent it to the brothers in my country for their fellowship and feedback. Though I could have bypassed it and sent it to the one who asked me for the article, I have learned the lesson that I must fellowship with the brothers in my country while reporting anything pertaining to the country. In this way, I could be in a proper fellowship and under the covering of the brothers. 

The brothers messaged me that I should "hide myself" which I felt I already did as the report had no mention of who the person concerned was. Moreover, they also mentioned that I needed to get the help of my coordinating brother, which I already did. In fact, the article was first sent to him, and I also incorporated his suggestion to add an introductory paragraph and change the whole narrative to the third person. According to his fellowship, I made the changes and sent the article. The two points comment of the brothers were actually taken care. Nonetheless, I took this experience as a lesson of being burnt again. In my prayer that followed this incident, not really because of this incident but my usual and regular prayer time, I looked to the Lord and experienced the matter of being burnt again. 

The Lord's hand always follows His speaking. And I have been graced to enjoy the Lord as my burnt offering. Though the enemy injected negative thoughts into my mind, I turned to the Lord, took Him as my grace, and experienced the cross to be burnt to ashes. 

Lord, grant me the grace to experience You as my burnt offering, even being burnt to ashes, to become useful for Your building.

Being Hospitable

 Be hospitable to one another without murmuring. 1 Peter 4:9

Two weeks ago we had a North India Seekers Conference and Blending in Delhi and Gurugram. A group of seekers from different parts of North India came to attend the meeting. The arrangement was that the seekers stay in the homes of the saints. But there was a group of brothers who wished to stay together in one place. Since it was their first time to join this kind of conference, the only suitable place for a group of seven brothers and two sisters for hospitality was the meeting hall of the church. Therefore, the arrangement was made for them to be given hospitality in the meeting hall and I needed to take care of them. The venue for the meeting was in Delhi but the place of stay was in Gurgram, a distance of about one and half hour journey. It was not convenient at all for me in a very practical sense. But since that was the arrangement, I took that as the Lord's arrangement and looked to the Lord for grace to fulfill my responsibility well. 

Since I knew that this was not an easy task to handle by myself, I fellowshipped with my coordinating brother that dinner could be corporately made for all the new ones who were given hospitality in Gurugram. In this way, the burden was distributed to other saints too. It was such a release to share the burden with the members of the Body. In this way, I am learning to be hospitable. Otherwise, though I have the heart, I could not really be hospitable by myself. Even giving hospitality needs coordination in the Body. 

This time, the new ones also brought their pet rabbits along with them. This made the room smelly and dirty. Yet, in giving hospitality I need to accommodate them all, no matter what they brought along with them, or whatever or how many languages they had. Even for their travel expenses, I was quite concerned but the Lord made ways to meet the need for all the expenses, both for the traveling and food. 

What I ultimately learned was, that I should not reject hospitality simply because I think I cannot give it. But I must exercise to be enlarged in my heart to receive whatever the Body in fellowship has arranged. The Lord knows my capacity and He will allow what He feels best. So I simply must accept the arrangement of the Lord and learn to be hospitable. In myself, I am not a hospitable person. But in the Lord, I am, as the Lord's life is a life of shepherding that shepherds people, especially the saints. Therefore, I can be hospitable. And the Lord gave me the opportunity to learn this lesson on hospitality.

Lord, make me hospitable to all Your children and to others according to Your arrangement.

Being On Time

Being on time is a matter of character. Of late, I have been exposed of my need to be punctual in doing things that need urgent attention. Sometimes, due to busy schedules and giving more priority to other things, I neglected some basic things that turned out to be something of urgent matter. I have learned important lessons in the matter of being on time. 

In our house, we have a water pump whose water level indicators did not indicate the water level correctly and the water tank alarm got malfunctioned. Therefore, water was pumped according to assumption, and every time it was pumped, the water overflowed. One day I finally decided to fix this myself and spent a couple of hours to figure out what actually went wrong with the water tank alarm. Then I discovered that water sipped into the wire connecting the water level detector. Then, I repaired it and solved the water overflow and over-pump problem. 

The ceiling fan in our bedroom had made a lot of noise. For months, we had been tolerating the awkward noises assuming that it could be a loose connection of some nuts and bolts. Finally, I decided to look at what the problem was and realized that it was not a mere nuts and bolts problem. Then I took it to a mechanic who fixed it within a few minutes. Problem solved!

In our office, we had an issue with Wi-Fi connectivity in the other office room. I tried to fix it a couple of times but the only solution seemed to be to have an extension for the other room. It was not fixed earlier as the serving ones were mostly working from home. Since they all have come back, I decided to solve it once and for all by creating an extension. It took me about an hour with the help of an electrician and an IT person to finally fix it.

Similarly, as the video training being conducted in India has switched to online webcast training mode, and that the churches in India decided to follow the schedule set by the one who conducts the training. We had to make arrangements to inform the churches in India early on time. For this, immediate action need to be taken and a fellowship was called to settle this issue. Through the help of the brothers, the fellowship was done.

In all these experiences, the Lord taught me an important lesson of being on time. Yes, the context may be to do things on time. In real life, I must be prepared to meet Him on time if He should return soon. I must be on time to deal with whatever needs to be dealt with in my life so that I may not regret it later, especially, when standing before the judgment seat.

Lord, prepare me and make me ready to be on time.

Ministry of the Word to Daman and Dadra Nagar Haveli

Daman and Dadra Nagar Haveli are two union territories once inhabited by the Portuguese and filled with Catholics. In all our past distribution trips, we hardly visited any Catholic institution. But this time, the Lord gave us a brother who was with us all the while on this distribution trip. In fact, he was once a Catholic priest and has now come into the church life. He did get his independence from the group on this year's independent day. I did meet him once a couple of years ago, as he reminded me. He, out of much conviction from the Lord based on the truth he understood, paid a huge price to leave the group where he spent almost half of his life if he had to live up to eighty-plus years. He became a channel for the Lord's move among the brothers in that fold.

Though these two UTs were not in our original plan when the trip was proposed I looked at the Indian map and discovered that these two UTs were on the way from Gujarat back to Mumbai as we planned to leave from Mumbai after our Gujarat trip. Though we had no contact in these cities, just a few days before we actually went, our brother through his friends' connection contacted the key priest in the two cities.

In Daman, we had a night stay arranged by our brother. The next day morning, we presented the truth to the priest who oversees the entire Daman for his religious group. I presented the accuracy of translation and the usefulness of the footnotes in the Holy Bible Recovery Version and two books, The Basic the Holy Scriptures, and  The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. After the explanation, I also presented the printed title books to the priest. I do hope that it will be a great revelation to him when he reads them. He received the free ministry literature for distribution among his congregation and also to be placed at the Cathedral where many tourists visit. This was what the Lord did for Daman this time.

In Dadra, we visited another priest at Silvassa. Though he initially did not welcome anything or anyone from “protestants,” after listening to the introduction of the ministry books, especially the Holy Bible Recovery Version, he ended up buying the Recovery Version for his personal study even though his congregation would not accept a non-Catholic Bible. To him also, free ministry books were given for distribution.

We just followed the Spirit's leading again, step by step. Our responsibility was to sow the seed of the ministry wherever He led us. Be it Protestants, Catholics, or Pentecostals, the ministry of the word is for all. The Lord as the Seed will sow Himself into those who receive the ministry literature, One day, lo and behold, we will praise the Lord for what He has done!

Lord, raise up Your testimony in Daman and Dadra!

Ministry of the Word to Nadiad, Vadodara, Anand, and Surat

Nadiad
This city was not in our original plan. But, a brother who is a possible translator for Gujarati was introduced to me. Thereafter, this city was inserted into the distribution plan. Later, I realized that there was a sister from this city who was gained while she was studying for her nursing course in Hyderabad. This sister and her family became the key contact for Nadiad. In fact, as we arrived in the city, she and her family had prepared a meeting with their neighbors. Though our plan was to stay in a hotel, we eventually had to cancel the hotel and stayed in the seeker's home as they requested. In fact, we were seven brothers, but still, out of their love toward the Lord and us, they made arrangements with all the facilities they had in their home.

As we began the meeting, we sang a Gujarati hymn, Blessed Assurance, Jesus is Mine! Based on this hymn, I picked up the phrase "Born of His Spirit" and fellowshipped on the line of the need to be born again using the life of Nicodemus in John 3. Other brothers followed suit in sharing the truth on the same line with some testimony. We had a wonderful group meeting with the new ones in Nadiad. I do believe, the Lord will gain these families for the church life in Nadiad!

After the night halt, the next day, the family again prepared a sumptuous breakfast though we told them not to. Still, because of their love, they gave their best again. Then, a brother and I went to meet the Reverend Pastor of the Methodist church who also purchased the ministry books after introducing it to them. Then, a contact who was supposed to be a Gujarati translator but did not work out was met. After meeting him I realize that the Lord uses some people to give us direction, and some to open the door, and some to actually be the pillars for His testimony. He sovereignly moves in His wise ways.

Vadodara
The key contact in Nadiad, our sister, volunteered to join us in Vadodara as well and she wanted us to meet with her relatives. In fact, there too, they prepared lunch, dinner, night stay, and breakfast. They all loved the Lord and did their best for us. May the Lord richly reward them, especially the sister who took the initiative in making all the necessary arrangements.

In the night meeting with our host, we sang a hymn in Gujarati, What a Friend we Have in Jesus!. Based on this hymn, I ministered the word on the need to treasure the Lord's presence all the time in prayer and the word of God. I also released the burden of reading and eating the word of God using the Lord's words in John 6 along with my own testimony. My burden was to help the families who have young brothers and also the new brothers who coordinated with us in the ministry journey for the first time.

In Vadodara, the Lord also led me to meet the President of the Gujarat Tracts and Books Society. Although their bookstore and office were in Ahmedabad, we did not have time to visit them there. But here, the President who could make the decision placed the order for the ministry books and Bible for display in their bookroom. Therefore, the Lord led us to meet the right people at the right place and at the right time again! Besides, a Hebrew professor at a theological seminary who also knows Greek was met and he appreciated the Holy Bible Recovery Version and purchased a copy for himself.

Of course, a few other Pastors were met too along with the sister who actually helped in finalizing the Gujarati free booklets which were distributed in Gujarat on this trip. By the way, a group of brothers went to another city Anand.

Anand

In the city of Anand where AMUL, Anand Milk Union Limited, the famous Indian milk company is situated, the Lord has His remnant, a family open to the ministry. The sister there had been in Mumbai enjoying the church life and actively serving there.

Surat
The brothers were concerned that there was no accommodation arranged in this city. However, we met a Pastor in Vadodara, and he helped us in booking the CNI church guest house. This turned out to be a key venue in Surat for us to meet seekers and introduce the ministry literature. Initially, the meetings with seekers were not very encouraging, but as we left the city, we stopped by on the way to meet a Pastor. Our meeting with him turned out to be a big breakthrough for the distribution. As the brother was the son of the Pastor who ran the biggest independent Christian ministry in Surat and was also a part of the mainline churches. The door has been opened and the seed has been sown in Surat!

Lord, raise up Your testimony in Nadiad, Vadodara, Anand, and Surat!

Ministry of the Word to Ahmedabad

 And Jehovah went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them on the way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, that they might go by day and by night. Exodus 13:21

The first time we visited Gujarat was in 2014 from 11 to 12 Nov in Ahmedabad where we met a brother who loved Br. Watchman Nee’s writings and later through him and other translators, BXL 1,2,3 Rhema booklets were translated into Gujarati. In fact, two brothers who translated the ministry books into Gujarati died in the past few years. Later, a seeking sister came into contact with us and she helped in checking and finalizing the three Rhema booklets. After nine years, the ministry books in Gujarati were finally printed. These Gujarati booklets along with English and Hindi ministry books were used for introducing the ministry to the Christian leaders and seekers in some select cities of Gujarat. It was done so in coordination with the brothers in churches in Maharashtra from 18 to 23 September.

The churches in Maharashtra have picked up the burden to propagate in Gujarat. In fact, they have been regularly visiting a couple of cities. This time, in coordination with the literature service, we visited those cities again with a few other new cities, to introduce and distribute the ministry literature in Gujarati, Hindi, and English. We indeed enjoyed the Lord's timely speaking Jehovah went before us by day in a pillar of cloud to lead us on the way! (Exodus 13:21a)

Through the brothers serving in the free distribution, a contact in Ahmedabad became the beachhead for the introduction and distribution of the ministry literature in the city. The District Superintendent of the Methodist church organized a session for the ministry books introduction which was attended by the Christian leaders of the mainline churches in Ahmedabad; Methodist, Church of North India, Salvation Army, and Christian and Missionary Alliance of Br. A.B. Simpson. A brother and I coordinated to introduce the ministry books. In introducing the Holy Bible Recovery Version, I specifically used Ephesians 1:5 on sonship versus adoption to highlight the accuracy of the translation, and Genesis 2:7 on "breath of life, Heb. neshamah"  to highlight the need for footnotes to help under the meaning of the phrase or word. In introducing the ministry books, I used "Seeking God's Will" from Message for Building Up New Believers to help readers understand the need for reading good ministry books. 

Translator and Distributor

Two other prayer burdens for our ministry journey to Gujarat were to find a proper Gujarati translator and a local distributor in Gujarat. The Lord answered our prayers and granted us both! As we were fellowshipping with a Pastor, he mentioned a couple of names who might be interested in meeting us. In fact, one brother who was the manager of an ISPCK in Ahmedabad came. As I personally fellowshipped with him about the ministry books, he, after consulting with his superior placed an order for the ministry books in Hindi and English.  This was a surprise to me because my concept was that the Christians in Gujarat mostly prefer Gujarati books which we do not have yet due to lack of translators. However, it turned out that there were a good number of Hindi and English speakers too. Therefore, the door was opened for the ministry to be made available in Ahmedabad!

Through this brother, as I enquired about a Gujarati translation work, another brother was introduced. Upon fellowshipping with him for a while, I had the peace within that he was the person to engage in Gujarati translation service,. Therefore, I called up my coordinating brother in Gurugram office and let him do the talk for translation service. After this, it was confirmed that he and his team would work on the ministry books translation. This was how the Lord answered our prayers.

In this city too, we met three families, a Malayali and two Gujarati. Both of them have opened their homes for our visit. One gave us dinner and the other lunch while we were there. We also spent time fellowshipping with them on the truth and a brother shared his testimony of how the Lord saved him and led him from Catholic to the church life.

I personally was so thankful to the Lord for His specific leading in this city. I even told the brothers that my burden was accomplished in the first city itself! Anyhow, we still had other cities to visit.

Lord, bless the translation service into Gujarati, the distribution of the ministry books in Gujarat, and the shepherding of the seeking family for Your testimony in Ahmedabad!