If we do our part, which is praising, then God will do His part, which is blessing. Let us not forget to thank God today. Let us not forget His many acts of love and kindness in our lives. Let us acknowledge the goodness of God today.
A man should improve himself, but not without the help of God.
You may try to work on yourself. You may try to complete what God started. But you will fail again and again. And you will not be able to rest.
Remember this always. God will never leave or forsake you.
You don't believe in God and then wonder whether he'll help. Such an attitude is not belief.
You are a work of God. So don't even try to meddle with God's work.
Don't be hard on yourself. God accepts you just as you are.
If we believe in God, then let's do it well. Let's believe without uncertainty.
Don't hurry. God is at work in you.
We will be friends. Language is no barrier to friendship and kindness. Let us learn together.
To believe in a god who does not care for human beings is an ultimately worthless belief. Such belief may provide intellectual satisfaction but it will fetch no other reward to the one who professes it.
If you believe in a god who does not care about you and will not interfere in the affairs of your life, then such a god is both irrelevant and unworthy of your worship.
A god who does not care about human beings, or does not intervene in human affairs does not require human worship.
An uncertain faith is no faith at all. Those who are uncertain about God have nothing to gain from him.
It is liberating not to be tied to human approval. One should work as though nobody is watching. One should work happily even if nobody is watching. This alone is supreme performance.
This life on earth is a life with pain. Yet let this pain not depress us. Let this pain not rob us of hope. We have hope. We who believe in God have hope. Despite pain and suffering in this life, we have the hope that we will inherit a painless life with God. Let us cling to this hope. Meanwhile, let us live this painful life without complaints. God is with us, and he has promised to help us. Let us go through this pain. God allows pain because we rebelled against him and brought this pain upon ourselves. God has not abandoned us. Far from that, he is with us. And he has promised to be with us all the time. We will one day live with God. Until then, let us go through this pain with a smile.
When we are obsessed with the things of this world we are trapped in various bondages. God calls us to taste a certain freedom.We are called by Jesus Christ to live a life in which we are free to enjoy the beautiful things of the world without being addicted to them. Shall we respond to this call today and enjoy this freedom?
Let my heart always desire you above everything else. Let me seek you always. Let me delight in everything you are, and let me walk away from everything you are not. Let me rest in your shadow forever.
My way is the way of Christ. His way is the way of love. I was called by love to love. In love all my sins were washed away. By love I am being transformed from glory to glory. Through love I walk daily. Love is my way.
I belong to God right now, flaws and warts and all. God lives in me right now though there is much in me that is still wrong. I will not be dismayed by what I am not. I will rejoice in what I am.
My gorgeous laptop is sitting on my lap right now. My room is cooled well by my new and able air conditioner. Last year I was without a computer for three months. This year I was without an air conditioner for three months. There was a moment when I thought that neither will be available to me. But now I have them both and my fingers are caressing the keyboard as my mind dictates its thoughts to it. I feel blessed right now. But my blessings are many more.
I am troubled by me. That is why I go to God.
With God I will go forward no matter how often I look backward. This is my great hope.
Am I a pastor? I am led by God. This is what I think. If I ever lead anyone to God, it will not be my doing. I am an instrument in God's hands. And I am a rather troublesome instrument. I don't think my life is a shining example of God's craftsmanship. I am terribly flawed. But God may see me differently. This is what I hope.
I believe many people ask this question. Why does God seem silent sometimes? Why does it look as though he does not care? The Bible says, “Cast all your cares on God, for he cares for you.” The truth is this. God cares. And he cares for all of us. And this is the truth that we must hold on to in difficult times. And if you are wondering whether God cares, the answer to that question is very simple. It is very definite. God cares. He cares for you. He cares for all of us. Then why is he silent? Why does he not help? Why does he not reach out and help me? Trust in God. Believe that he has a reason for being silent. Believe that he is working. Believe that he is working behind the scenes for you. Believe that he is about to do something good in your life. And go on in that belief.
May God be with you. May God be with all of us. He is with all of us. May we receive help from him very soon. Yes, let us keep on waiting. God will not fail us. God bless you.
Does God not care? That’s the question that is on the mind of some people. I myself have reflected on this question. There are times in my life when God seems absent. There are times when God doesn’t seem to care. There are times when I feel like screaming out. And maybe I have screamed out to God. Maybe I have shouted out those questions. “Do you not care? Do you not care about us? Do you not care about me? Will you not help? Why are you silent?” I have asked these questions. For many years I have found myself in a hole. I asked God, “Do you not want to rescue me? Why are you still waiting? Why have you not responded to my cry for help? Why have you not swiftly rescued me from this terrible place?”
Don't be afraid to love today. Don't be reluctant to be kind today. Don't be sparing with your smile today. Give generously from the joy that God has placed in your heart.
To resist sin and crime one must see God in everyone, especially in the person one intends to offend.
The potential murderer or thief or rapist or child-molester will not carry out his intention if he sees Jesus Christ in the person he wishes to offend.
See God in the other person, and you will not hurt him or her.
Honour you father and mother is purportedly a God-spoken truth. I see the need for it in my own life. But will a person who is sexually molested by his parent see the need to honour his or her parent? Will a person who is physically abused by a parent to the point of being murdered see the need to honour that parent? Should a parent who actually murders his children receive honour? Isn't honour a thing to be deserved? Should dishonourable people be honoured? Should a parent who is determined to wreck the life of her child be honoured? I see no need for it. Yet it is wise to trust in God and not depend on one's own understanding as far as honouring one's parents are concerned.
The love for God is a thing of the heart. You belong to God in your heart, and no human symbol can alter that. I met a man who turned to Christianity. He removed the symbols that marked his allegiance to a former faith. Subsequently he was ostracised from his family and had to live without adequate means. I told him to return to his family and be whatever he was required to be to survive in this world. I said to him, "Your love for God is a thing of the heart. You belong to him in the innermost place. He knows that you belong to him, and nothing shall separate you from him. No symbol of your previous faith, even if you should wear it again to appease your family members, will separate you from God. Love God and do whatever you have to do to survive."
What is the use of reading the Bible from cover to cover without knowing how to treat a fellow human being with compassion and love? What is the use of the knowledge of God's word if there is no love in the human heart? Everything is meaningless if a human fails to love. The Bible makes this very clear. The goal then is not to know the Bible thoroughly, but to know the love that God wants us to have. If we fail to know this we fail to know everything.
If a husband were to remove the ring from his finger will he stop being a husband? Will the removal of symbolic things mean that the inner truth has been erased? A husband and his wife are bound by love and the promise they made before God. No symbolic thing can alter the oneness of a man and a woman held together by God in marriage. Let the world not pay attention to symbols but let it pay attention to the mutual love and the reverence for God that keep two people together.
What is a sacred thing? It is not a bundle of paper bound in leather and coated with gilt. It is not a translation of an ancient text authorised by a human king. It is not words written down be men in divine inspiration. The sacred thing is man himself. A sacred thing is a beggar in rags. A scantily clad mendicant with leprous sores is a sacred thing. The little drooling child extending her hand to me for help is a sacred thing. The image of God is stamped deeply in each and every one of us. The sooner we recognize God in each other, the sooner we will know the truth, which will set us free from the bonds of selfish hatred and pointless desire. Let all our worship be centred in love that we show to one another. Let us not revere a thing. Let us revere the image of God in each and every one of us.
They say that the devil will be scared if you do what the Bible tells you to do. This is what I say. The Bible tells you to do many things, and some of these things we will not do today, because if we do so we will be considered barbaric and insane. It is important to grasp the main message of the Bible. And it is this. God loves us. And he wants us to love him and love other human beings. And if we can love God and people we will meet the supreme requirement on which all other requirements depend. So it is important for us to learn to love. And we need to be trained to love. Only God can teach us to love, and if we ever learn from him, our love will be a repulsive thing to the devil. The moment we learn to love, the devil will find us most incompatible.
There was a time in my life when I carried my Bible everywhere I went. I thought that God was with me as long as my Bible was near me. Now I see God in places outside the Bible. Now I see God in everything and everyone. I see God in all people, especially in very flawed ones. I see God everywhere, especially in unexpected places. And I am not surprised anymore. The whole earth belongs to God, and everyone and everything is a work of his hands.
Some say, "Do what the Bible says". I say, "Do what God says to you in the deepest part of your heart. To hear God you should study the mind and observe the heart of God. The Bible is a starting point for this. But you should go beyond the Bible and observe the world. You should observe with compassion always willing to bear with the inadequacies of others, just as you want others to bear with your own. You should be willing to tolerate differences and accept people just as they are. And you should learn to love like God without the intent to receive something in return. And if you ever achieve this you will not only hear God but you will also see God in yourself.
Working full-time for God was not something that I wanted to do. If I had remained true to my shallow self I would not have even spoken for God. But deep within me I saw a madness that I first knew as a child, after I saw God in a dream. From this madness came a daring to walk into many snake-infested, man-forsaken thickets, with a camera in my hand, determined to speak as spontaneously as possible about a faith that has proven to be rather costly. Yet it is a faith that I have held on to despite affliction and deprivation. It is a faith that keeps me going in a manner that defies understanding.
Learn from your past. But don't be condemned by it.
Everyone has a past that he or she regrets. Because none of us is perfect none of us has a mistake-free past. So the challenge for each one of us is to learn from the past without being adversely affected by it. The past can potentially construct or destroy us. What we let it do is entirely up to us.
Know this and say this: "the world and its desires will pass away. My worldly desires will pass away. And no matter how strong their grip on me is right now, one day I will walk away from them unharmed. I will walk into the arms of God without turning back to look at what I left behind. No desire of this world will hold me back when God holds me in his arms. And what seemed untameable will finally be tamed by God's overpowering love."
You may wonder about this contradictory experience. You fail every day in dealing with your temptation, yet you have already conquered it in Jesus Christ. This is the nature of the fight. The outcome is already known. Christ is the victor, and you have triumphed in him. Yet you must fail every day to know your own inability to overcome what only Christ can overcome. And he has already overcome that two thousand years ago. Now you must believe in this, and let this struggle go. You cannot struggle beyond the point of realising that it is hopeless to struggle. But you must fight the impulse to disbelieve. Don't ever give up believing in God even if the struggle is so fierce that you think you will never come out of it.
Are you struggling with sin? Are you overpowered by desire? Are you unable to resist the craving? Then know this. There is a God beside you. There is a God who overcame these desires for you. Find your strength in him and never rely on your own strength. You will never defeat these desires until you let him defeat them in you. And he will not be able to do that until you surrender to his mastery and acknowledge your dire need of him. And even if you should fall many times into the same temptation, remember that you have already overcome them in Jesus Christ, your Lord and Saviour.
So to turn to God we must turn away from the world. To love him we must hate the world. And we cannot run to God without running away from the world. Our destiny with God may be certain, but our path to him is a long and torturous one.
So our prayer every day should be, "God, please let me love what you love and hate what you hate." And we must keep saying this prayer even when we love what God hates and hate what God loves. And we must believe that no matter how hopeless it looks, God will answer our prayer someday.
Many of us turn our faces to God with our hearts still turned to the world. We soon discover we cannot make any significant headway to God when our hearts are still desiring the world. Our hearts must stop desiring the world and they will not do that until those desires turn repulsive.
To turn to God you must turn away from the world. And you cannot turn away from the world till its enticements wear off. You should taste the joys of the earth until they cloy in your heart. When those joys turn into lasting pains, that is when your heart will turn to God.
The world and its desires will pass away. But till then you will nearly have to drown in them. You must drink deep from the cup of the earth until you can drink no more. Only when you taste the repulsiveness of your earthly joys can you truly turn away from them.
The path to joy is not without pain. The path to knowledge is not without folly. You must suffer temporarily to enjoy permanently. You must make mistakes before you learn to do something correctly. You must fall down many times before you learn to walk properly.
Know that the temporary joy leads to lasting pain. Know that the temporary pain leads to lasting joy. Know this first. Study the futility of all that glitters momentarily. In grasping these, their joy slips through your hands and falls into the ground and becomes slime. You should not grab at these things forever. Yet you must grab at them for a while till you realize that they will never bring joy.
Today search for what will endure and bring you joy to the very end. Don't waste your day in gathering what will slip through your hands and fall into the ground and become slime.
Why God allows evil is something that God alone knows. But that does not prevent humans from guessing why such a thing happens. Perhaps God allows evil to get humans to desire good. The presence of evil makes humans seek God desperately..
I have looked at the external beauty of a human again and again. Admirable as it is how can it ever satisfy the longing for true beauty, the one that lies within a person?
What is man's testimony to me, even if he were to call me great? I am little. I know it and I am content with it.
If I were silenced today it will be a happy silence. For I have made the best possible use of speech.
God will not abandon. I should know that by now.
I say to myself today, "If God is for me, who can be against me? Why should I fear when God is with me? He will be with me in trouble and will ultimately deliver me from it. God uses trouble only to strengthen my faith and deepen my trust in Him. When His purposes are fulfilled, He will order the trouble to leave me. I will never be alone. Thank you God for promising to stay with me always, especially in trouble. Even when I walk towards death I will not fear, for I know that You are with me. I will not be intimidated by the difficulties in life, for I know that You have overcome the world, and as I am in You, I too have overcome the world. In fact I am more than a conqueror and I can do all things through Christ. Nothing is impossible for me when God is with me."
God is a giver. And if I want to be like God I should give. I cannot love God without loving the people He created. And I love another by giving something of value that is needed.
Miracles are bound to happen to those who are looking for them in the right place and from the right source. The right place is Jesus. The right source is God.
I'm glad that God gave me eight years to speak about what He has done with me, and what He can do with you. Even if I don't have another moment to do that again I can rest peacefully.
Let God supply the needs of His people today. He has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted ones. Be comforted, for your Lord WILL provide.
Sometimes when God blessed me I didn't even wait in expectation. My greatest blessing came when God led me to my father just before his death. God inspired me to apologize to my dad for many years of disrespect and coldness. This came at a time when I didn't even pray about our troubled relationship. Isn't it awe-inspiring to realize that God cares more than we do about the most important things in our lives?
God exposes your weaknesses not to shame you but to show you how much you need him.
May I persevere today. May I walk by faith and not by sight because what I see frightens me. What I see discourages me. Therefore I must walk by faith in the One who promised never to forsake me and leave me alone. “God, You called me to do this work. Be with me, stand by me and help me do this work. And help me take the next step. Help me move on to the next thing in my life. Help me face the next challenge in my life. Let me believe in You today. Let me trust in You today. Amen."
Faith is confidence in God. It is calm and restful. Where there is no calm and rest there cannot be faith.
I am privileged to be in a place where I am driven to say to God, "Please have mercy on me."
May the people who serve God do so sincerely. May they serve Him wholeheartedly. May God remember His servants today. May God remember their prayers. And may God provide for all His people. May God provide for His servants, who look to Him, who are dependent on Him. May God not forget His servants today. This is my prayer. Amen
A life without suffering on earth may lead us to the wrong conclusion. There is something fundamentally wrong with us and suffering points us to a great deficiency. We are deficient. We are without God. And we cannot be sufficient without God. So suffering directs us to God, and the more we suffer the more we run to God.
Whatever God allows he allows for a reason that he alone knows best. When God allows suffering he does that for an eventual good. And though we may see no immediate benefit in suffering, some of us actually see good emerging from suffering at a later time. God alone knows why suffering is ultimately beneficial not only to us in particular but also to his kingdom in general.
In the absence of constancy we seek the only one who is constant. Because of the inconstancy of humans we seek the constant non-human. And thus we seek God. And we cannot be happy till we find him.
There is not a single constant one in human form in this world. The only constant one is non-human. He is God.
Don't be surprised by the inaccurate science in the Bible. But be surprised by its accurate reading of human nature. Despite many advances in science and technology, human nature remains essentially the same. And it is best understood by reading the Bible.
Don't be disturbed by what is in the Bible. But be disturbed by what is in your heart.
Unless you are taught, rebuked, corrected and trained in righteousness by interacting with the word of God you will not be equipped to do the tasks that God wants you to do. To get into the place where you can work for God you must undergo a training, and this is possible only when you study the Bible and let its truth transform you.
Those who seek public approval for their charitable acts will receive no reward from God. Human applause is the only reward they will receive.
I am not performing for God. I am being swept away by him to places where I need to go.
The one says, "Show me God, and then I will believe in him" has no desire to see God or believe in him.
Why are we looking for God? Let us ask ourselves this question today. Do we seek him for his blessings? Do we seek him for success and prosperity? Or do we seek him because we are utterly empty without him? Do we seek him because we cannot live in any purposeful way without him? Do we seek him because we will ultimately perish without him? Why do we seek God?
Don't seek God's blessings before you seek God. When you find God you will also find his blessings.
Search for God for without him you are nothing.
To have faith in God one must have faith in nothing else. One must reach a place where there is no one but God. It is in that place God will meet Man.
Those who believe in God are those who need him. Because they need God they look for him. Because they look for him they find him. To find God you must need God.
The unbeliever is one who does not need God.
To believe in God you must be in need of God.
You will not be what you declare. You will be what you believe.
Faith comes first. Declaration comes later. Faith comes from God. And declaration must come from faith.
No declaration of faith will work in your favour if you have no faith.
Unless you are taught, rebuked, corrected and trained
in righteousness by interacting with the word of God you will not be
equipped to do the tasks that God wants you to do. To get into the place
where you can work for God you must undergo a training, and this is
possible only when you study the Bible and let its truth transform you.
Those who seek public approval for their charitable acts will receive no reward from God. Human applause is the only reward they will receive.
