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Purity and Simplicity

I went to a  local supermarket here just bout two hours ago and as my mom was paying the bill at the counter, I was going thru the magazines that they had kept there, some of them were in Tamil, and others bout films and stuff like that, finally something caught my eye, it was a magazine bout careers for youth, thats what the cover read anyways, I can't remember the name of the magazine now, but as I opened the cover and flipped thru, and just randomly stopped at an article, it started with a quote, which stuck with me, and I couldnt read any further coz it kept repeating in my mind, and I wanted to share it with you all :

 Purity and simplicity are the two wings with which man soars above the earth and all temporary nature. - Thomas Kempis
 And when I read it it was literally like those two words 'purity' and 'simplicity' just jumped at me, It makes me think bout how without those two things we can destroy ourselves and sometimes even the people we love the most .... If we just have purity and simplicity in all our relationships whether its with God or with other people we can always love people unconditionally ... Coz thats the way God love's us, the Bible says that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us (Romans 5:8), His love for you and me is unconditional, which means that He never said do this or do that, and then I'll love you, He says come JUST AS YOU ARE .... And then He begins to transform us from the inside out ....






 

Amazing testimony of a man who was a terrorist ...


This testimony is so powerful ... Our God is a Great God !!!! He is Alive and He cares for U and me ... JESUS IS REAL AND HE LOVES U !!!

God Is Real ! ! !

I was going through some old files which were transferred from my old desktop computer ... And I happened to come across this particular file stored under the name of this post, I have no either who the author of this is, but the moment I read it I wanted to share it with you all ... So here it is ...

                                    *All credit to the person who originally wrote this*
 
"Did God create everything that exists?

A student bravely replied, "yes! He did!"

"God created everything?” the professor asked.

"Yes sir", the student replied.

The professor answered, "If God created everything, then God created evil, since evil exists and according to the principal that our works define who we are, then God is evil".

The student became quiet before such an answer.

The professor was quite pleased with himself and boasted to the students that he had proven once more that the Christian faith was a myth.

Another student raised his hand and said, "Can I ask you a question, professor?"

"Of course", replied the professor.

The student stood up and asked, "Professor, does cold exist?"

"What kind of question is this? Of course it exists. Have you never been cold?"

The students snickered at the young man's question.

The young man replied, "In fact, sir, cold does not exist.
According to the laws of physics, what we consider cold is in reality the absence of heat. Everybody or object is susceptible to study, when it has or transmits energy, and heat is what makes a body or matter have or transmit energy. Absolute zero (- 460 degrees F) is the total absence of heat; all matter becomes inert and incapable of reaction at that temperature. Cold does not exist. We have created this word to describe how we feel if we have no heat.”

The student continued. "Professor, does darkness exist?"

The professor responded, "Of course it does".

The student replied, "Once again you are wrong sir, darkness does not exist either.

Darkness is in reality the absence of light. Light we can study, but not darkness. In fact we can use Newton's prism to break white light into many colors and study the various wavelengths of each color. You cannot measure darkness. A simple ray of light can break into a world of darkness and illuminate it. How can you know how dark a certain space is? You measure the amount of light present. Isn't this correct? Darkness is a term used by man to describe what happens when there is no light present."

Finally the young man asked the professor. "Sir, does evil exist?"

Now uncertain, the professor responded, "Of course, as I have already said. We see it every day. It is in the daily example of man's inhumanity to man. It is in the multitude of crime and violence everywhere in the world. These manifestations are nothing else but evil."

To this the student replied, "Evil does not exist sir, or at least it does not exist unto itself.

Evil is simply the absence of God. It is just like darkness and cold, a word that man has created to describe the absence of God. God did not create evil. Evil is not like faith, or love that exist just as does light and heat. Evil is the result of what happens when man does not have God's love present in his heart. It's like the cold that comes when there is no heat or the darkness that comes when there is no light."

The professor sat down.
 
 
GOD IS REAL AND EVER PRESENT, IT'S UP TO US TO DECIDE WHETHER WE WANT TO OPEN UP OUR EYES AND SEE HIM

I thought this song goes with the post, well anyways I happened to be listening to this song as I was typing this post out ... Hope you enjoy the song and I hope this post has given you some food for thought ...

 

Healed from Spondylolisthesis .....

My written testimony can be found below under the title of " A Miracle in my life ...".

Steady My Heart



Kari Jobe is one of my favorite worship leaders, and this one song is my favorite right now, it just reaches down to the very depths of my heart everytime I listen to it ...

In the difficult times, I know that Jesus You are not just the healer of my wounds but You remove even the scars, You've got me in the palm of Your hands, even when it hurts, even when its hard, even when it all just falls apart, I will run to You for refuge in Your arms ....Oh Lord You steady my heart .....

 

It's all about Love ...

I've been doing some serious thinking over the past few days, the product of all that thinking along with my conversations with several people has resulted in this post ....

The main reason I started this blog was to reach ppl with the Good News, that Jesus Christ is real and He is a God of today.... The reason I say this is coz I see a world out there, full of people, some hurting, some hopeful, some angry, eccentric, sad, happy, religious, loving, searching for hope, fanatical, the list just goes on and on .... No matter who we are, where we come from, or what we all believe in, we are all in search of just one thing and that is the TRUTH ... truth to satisfy this deep thirst within ourselves .... Truth basically about two things, life and love .... And we have all come to some conclusions from various life experiences, whether it s a particular religious belief or a scientific fact, or belief in our own selves ... all that we do is to satisfy that thirst for the truth ....

And from watching people silently from the backseat of life, this is something I've noticed ... Oh and please bear with me if I sound lyk I'm going off topic .... When you experience something so real, wonderful, enriching, amazing, touching and powerful, what is your natural response ??? You feel like sharing it with the person you love the most, right ??? U share it with family, friends, neighbours ... sometimes in our excitement we even share it with absolute strangers .... That abundance of joy, and happiness just bursts out of you like an overflowing dam .... So after all this you are probably wondering wat my point is ... Well my point is this:

Why has the church today lost that simple passion of just sharing with people the same love that we have experienced in our relationship with Jesus ????? Hey, dont get me wrong here I am not accusing anyone .... See I'm also guilty of getting so caught up in trying to evangelize someone that sometimes I forget that I first need to love them ... When Jesus was asked which commandment was the greatest, He replied saying "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment, and a second is like it, you shall love yor neighbour as you do yourself" He further goes on to say that these two commandments sum up the entire law and it all depends upon these ....

And the only way we can love God and love others, is when we realise the extent of God's love for us... I remember this as I speak of His love:
" I asked Jesus, "How much do you love me?", He said, "This much" and stretched out His arms and died for me, a sinner."
 And this is the ultimate truth that I've learnt about love and life, Jesus is the way the truth and the life, along the way in my search for life, He found me, and because He is Love, I am no longer searching but experiencing Him and His Love for me, and this is my aim in life now, to share with everyone I meet this love and life that I am experiencing ....


 

What happens when we die ???


This is a question we all face everyday, no matter where we are or what religion we believe in ... And like it says in the video how we answer that question determines our lifestyle .... So we should choose carefully what we believe in .... If that is what is going to define who we are and how we live then our beliefs should be based on firm and sound statements, not just something someone said, but based on a real experience, and I believe that Jesus is the answer to that question because I have experienced Him, and the life that He has given me .....

Friends Forever ....

I've been thinking about what Friendship means over the past few days .... bout the past (a bad habit of mine), the present and I've given up trying to picture the future, when it comes to making friends.... And as today is Friendship Day .... I thought that this might be relevant ....

So when I think bout friendship I wonder, do we really know the meaning of that word ??? I mean the words 'friend' and 'friendship' are really powerful words but in this day and age its significance has been diluted by ppl in the virtual world who take pride in having hundreds of "friends" on facebook, and other social networking sites, who they barely even know, and ppl who in the real world are surrounded, by 'friends', but the truth is all those so called friends only see the benefits that they can suck out of that 'friendship', and once those benefits have been exhausted, the "FRIENDSHIP" also comes to an end ....

This reminds me of the verse from the Bible which says "One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother." (Proverbs 18:24) I mean isn't that what friendship is really supposed to be about ... Isn't it supposed to be a relationship where two persons, according to wikipedia, have "mutual affection for each other", or as I would like to put it, where two persons help each other along in their respective journey of life, who thru the ups and downs, let every experience strengthen the bond between them .... But today this has become just wishful thinking ....

I have seen so many ppl who look like they are the best of friends, the way they walk, the way they talk and their actions all point towards an image of an 'unbreakable bond' of "friendship", but only when you look closely at them do u realise that their relationship has no foundation whatsoever ..... Its just a beautiful building, just waiting to crumble .... After seeing this it made me think that we should use the word 'friend' really carefully, because the truth is that most of the ppl we do know are actually 'acquaintances', and not 'friends' .....

I have personally had a lot of bad experiences in the area of friends, almost to the point where I was paranoid when it came to making friends ..... After tym and again being let down at every attempt at friendship, I came to this conclusion ..... 'I will never have a FRIEND in the true sense of the word' .... I lived like that until my eyes were opened to the truth, and I realised that I was ABSOLUTELY wrong.... I had a friend all along, one who never left my side, who stood beside me every time I cried and felt the same pain I did, who never betrayed me even though I was ungrateful and hurtful, even when I betrayed our trust, one who just loved me for who I was .... And only after I reached the end of my rope did I actually realise that .... It took me several betrayals, uncountable occassions of being hurt and finally reaching the end of my rope, to realise that JESUS was right beside me in every single one of those moments, carrying me thru ....

This reminds me of another verse from the Bible which says "Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends." (John 15:13) I dont know a single person who would be willing to lay down their life for a person who has hurt, insulted, and stabbed them in the back, except Jesus, who did just that for you and me ....

 "Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:7,8)

So on this day dedicated to friends, this is the message I want to pass onto those who think that I don't have anybody to call as friend .....You are never alone, though ppl whom u trusted may let u down, though there is pain and hurt in ur heart and though u may think that u have been scarred beyond the point of fixing, and the reason I can say this with confidence is coz Jesus, died in replacement of you and me, and He didnt remain that way He conquered death and now is, and always will be beside u thru the good and bad times, all u have to do is accept His free gift of love ..... And to those who have so many "friends".... I say this "Many will say they are loyal friends, but who can find one who is truly reliable?"(Proverbs 20:6) So beware of those you call as 'friends' ...

So this post is dedicated to my Best Friend Forever, JESUS and also to my true friends out there ....

Here's wishing you all a HAPPY AND BLESSED FRIENDSHIP DAY !!!!!

You can walk above your problems when you keep your eyes on Jesus and trust Him
                                      - 100 Days of Favor (Joseph Prince)

How He LOVES Us ....

As a christian u dont automatically become perfect, it doesnt mean that u'll never ever do anything wrong ever again ... it means that even if u do ... there's an amazing God, who loves you soo much, He's willing and able to forgive u ... to pick u up, dust u off and send u on ur way to fulfilling the plans and purposes He has set out for u .... His love for u and me is so strong and powerful .... And nothing we've ever done or will do can change that .....


This is an amazing song called How He Loves by David Crowder Band .... I just happened to hear some of my favorite worship songs remixed for the first tym and so as I was searching for more of such songs, I found this and it is so awesome ... This song coupled with the message speaks volumes ... I hope God touches u as u listen ...

I don't want to gain the whole world ....

I really love this song, 'Lose my Soul' by TobyMac ..... It is so true ..... 'I dont want to gain the whole world and lose my soul' .... But I also know, that doesn't mean that God wants me to be poor and pitiable, Jesus took all sin, sickness and poverty on the cross 2000 yrs ago .... So we can all become righteous thru believing in the death and resurrection of Jesus and confessing the fact that we are all sinners in need of forgiveness, we can be free from sickness because 'By His stripes we are healed' (Isaiah 53:5) and we no longer have to live in poverty because it is conquered, it only has as much power as we allow it to yield over us ..... And poverty is not always poverty in terms of money...... it is also poverty of spirit .....
So what more do we need, We've got more than the world can ever offer ....

Reminiscing .....

As my cousins' birthday approaches with the coming of August, I've been reminiscing a lot about all the times we had together.... She was involved in a tragic accident, just 20 days after she got married, which took her away from us ..... It was really hard to deal with the pain in the beginning .... For a long time, everything I did was a painful reminder that she was gone .... But now I know that one day we will meet each other ..... So I dont feel the pain of her not being here, I know that she is in heaven and when my God appointed time comes that's where we will meet .....

I've posted this pic because this is her dog .... His name is Spooky .... She loved this picture and I think it was the last thing I mailed to her ..... This picture brings to memory her smiling face whenever she played with him and also the day when she passed away (10th of Dec. 2009), how much Spooky howled and howled, he knew that she was no longer here ..... He knew that she was gone .... I snapped this pic the day before her wedding .... I mean look at him he is soo cute .... So well .... I guess this pic means a lot to me .....

So this is in memory of her ....



Third Day - Cry Out to Jesus

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"Our God is a faithful God, sometimes we may not be faithful to Him, but He is always faithful to His words, He is ALWAYS faithful to us, so don't be afraid about your present situation, He will lead you in the right path."

I am the Beloved of Christ ....

This song (Beloved by Tenth Avenue North) is one of my favorites, the lyrics are so meaningful ....
I AM THE BELOVED OF CHRIST ...... DEATH SHALL NOT PART US ...... HE DIED FOR ME .... I AM HIS IMMACULATE BRIDE ...... NOW THAT I'VE TASTED NEW LIFE I WILL NEVER RUN AWAY FROM HIM ......


Nothing can change the fact of His love for us, in times of difficulty our faith in Him may waver, our love for Him may waver...... BUT if we put our trust in HIS LOVE THAT NEVER FAILS, then we can have a hope that nothing can ever take away, we can be firmly planted on the solid rock foundation that is JESUS CHRIST, and though the rains come down and the floods come up we will NOT fall ....

JESUS, You're the GREATEST !!!!

I serve a GREAT GOD, and I want to share something that happened today that proves His greatness…. AGAIN :)
My dad had his vacation for the past 2 weeks and today he is to leave for the airport back to his job and I wanted to see him off along with my family, but I had a class scheduled for the same time in the evening ..... So I've been praying about it for the past few days, I prayed that somehow that particular class would get cancelled.... So as usual I attended the morning session of my class, still praying that somehow the one in the evening would be cancelled, but then when the first session was over the schedule was put up and it said that the class was scheduled to be at the same time.... I was a bit disappointed, but I didn’t have time to brood over it, coz my next class was going to start soon, so without giving much of thought to it I just went on with the other class and completely forgot all about it.....
As today is the weekend we were all looking forward to going home, and maybe catching up with some lost sleep….  But then our teacher gave us some work to do and we were all totally engrossed in it, and we completely lost track of time….. And just as the class was coming to an end I was discussing something that I couldn’t understand with a friend and I thought I heard him say the word ‘cancelled’, and I was like, maybe I didn’t hear what he said clearly and so I asked someone what he said, and she told me “He said that the class in the evening is cancelled.” Everyone was happy that the class was cancelled but I think I went into shock, it felt as if for that moment time itself stood still, and once that faded I couldn’t stop smiling ….. I tried to contain myself coz otherwise ppl would think that I was a little or maybe a lot more than that, unstable upstairs…..As I was waiting for my mom to come and pick me up, I just kept on smiling, and till now I can’t seem to stop, I think that I’ve told God how much I love Him at least a million times by now ….. And this day just seems to be getting better I mean so many things that I had to do, and had no idea how I would squeeze into my schedule for today, are suddenly all just falling in line….. And some of things are stuff that I didn’t even pray about ….. I mean my God is soo great HE knows the desires of my heart, He is working far above I can ask or even imagine, just like the Bible says ….. JESUS I LOVE YOU !!!!


I know I've been posting a lot of songs, but thats just me, I love to sing ..... It's the way I express my emotions .... Well anyway, Hope you like this song ..... One of my favorites :)

I am in the Best of Hands ....

I just happened to be listening to this song when I was returning home from my classes this morning and, I thought I'd share it ..... Like I said in my previous post, God is really Great, I mean only He can use the most unexpected people and incidents to cheer us up and teach us practical life lessons .... I am in the Best of Hands and those are in the hands of my Lord and Savior Jesus


Isaiah 49:15,16
15. “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast
and have no compassion on the child she has borne?
Though she may forget,
I will not forget you!
16. See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;
your walls are ever before me.

A peace that passes ALL understanding

As a little kid I always remember, being afraid of death ….. You’re probably thinking wat does a kid even know about that….. But I always had this fear, fear of the unknown ….. For lack of a better word I can call it a feeling of being doomed …..And it was frightening. But since Saturday nite, I’ve been meditating on all the wonderful things that God has done in my lyf and I don’t mean only the great healing, I mean every single thing from the small to the big, and I’ve got this joy which I know comes from MY JESUS.

I no longer fear death, I see it as being reunited with Jesus, after I have fulfilled all that He has planned for me in my lyf. I’ve spent too much time in the past trying to intellectualize why things happen the way they do. So I’ve drawn this conclusion from the Bible ‘All things work together for good to those who love God’, so I no longer worry, my future is secure, my past is erased and my present is being unraveled every moment lyk a portion of a painting, the end which can only be seen in the eyes of the Master Painter, God’s Word, the lamp to my feet guides me, it doesn’t show me the whole path, it just shows me the next step that I should take, for the rest I have faith, faith that He loves me and that He will never and I mean NEVER let me go.


Incidentally, I happened to be listening to this song at the time and it seemed really appropriate .... It's called 'Times' and the group is Tenth Avenue North. Hope you like it .....

God is Great

Recently I’ve been listening to a lot of Joseph Prince messages, and since I began to apply them, so many little miracles have been happening ….. Well technically no miracle is small, but the thing is so many ‘little’….for lack of a better word I call them as miracles, have happened that even if I did explain they would make no sense to anyone except me …. Its just like in the book of Ephesians, chapter 3 verse 20, God is 'able to do superabundantly, far over and above all that we [dare] ask or think'. Now is one of those incidents, we just returned from church, I feel refreshed knowing that ‘MY GOD IS GREAT’, I just lead the praise and worship in church today, and everyone said that it was good, what ppl don’t know is that for the past few days I’ve been battling a sore throat, while I practiced at home today I could barely sing coz of the soreness and also the cough which was really irritating….. And I know if I told anyone at church that I had a sore throat while singing they would think that I was lying … But it’s just like the song we sang today “Our God is healer, awesome in power”, and also what I am listening to rite now …. There’s no one like Him ….. AMEN !!!

God's Love Letter to Us ...

THE BIBLE

GOD, Who are You really ????

I've been thinking bout a lot of stuff recently.... I mean so many incidents both and good recently are making me think about my Best Friend FOREVER, JESUS.... And one of the things I want to write about spring from a conversation I had with a friend recently which made me think about, God more….

So this post is all about God …. I hope to answer a few questions that I think hv been around for centuries …. Stuff like who is God? Does He really exist? Does He care for ME? If HE’s so good why would He let bad things happen to good ppl? First off I can’t promise to be able to answer all of these questions completely coz I am no Bible scholar ….. But with a sincere heart and words inspired by God, I hope maybe you will find at least a little peace of mind, and trust God for the rest of your confusions to come to a rest ….

So when I began to think about this, the first thing which sprung to my mind was a Bible verse, before I actually say it … I would like to say I don’t mean to insult anyone out there by quoting this …. Well here it is, in the Book of Psalms, chapter 14 verse 1 it says “The fool has said in his heart, there is no God”.  With that out of the way, let me continue. Sometime back I watched this programme called ‘Way of the Master’  where this person Ray Comfort was interviewing just some random person walking on the streets who just so happened not to believe in God….. And as they talked this person talked away creation with the Big Bang Theory and basically said that there is a logical explanation for everything and so finally Ray asked him a question along these lines, “If God doesn’t exist and science answers everything out there, then just answer this simple question, if you could create something say ….. a cow, where would you start?” So like that person being interviewed I tried to answer the question and it led me to thinking you know ….. it’s not at all possible, when you actually start to think about it, if our human mind doesn’t know where to begin, then how can we so foolishly attribute creation to ‘CHANCE’ and that’s just talking about a cow I don’t think ‘CHANCE’ could have ever known how to chance the human race into existence !!!!! But even this is only a small part of the really big questions …..

Here’s one of the other big question making rounds, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” So if I were explaining this to another Christian, and when I say Christian I mean one who is born again, i.e. one who has died a spiritual death to their old self and sins and has been raised to new life again along with Jesus, I would say that this is a fallen world, when Adam and Eve sinned they handed over their position of authority to the devil and so they brought sickness and death to all their generations, which is us …. But to a non-believer i.e. a person, who does not believe in Christ, firstly I would ask that person, who set up the standards as to what is good and what is bad???? You might say bad is when someone steals, murders or maybe something worse …. I don’t think I want to elaborate there ….. So good obviously is the opposite of that, rite? So it means being kind, compassionate or at least refraining from doing the above ‘BAD’ things.

BUT these are standards which we have set for ourselves, so before I make my point let me ask you another question, “What do you mean by the word HOLY? And what are the standards that u hv set up to fulfill the conditions of that word?” When I checked the dictionary it said that it was related to God, but I think that it is more than that, that word is much more wider and deeper than the word good, it’s pure, it’s something that I think no one has or can have …. If holy describes God and those are His standards then what happens to our goodness, of what use is it??? The Bible defined good and bad in the 10 commandments saying stuff like thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not lie, thou shall not murder, thou shall not commit adultery, and so on ….. So when generally when you ask yourself whether we are good or not, we come up with this answer “Hey, I’ve never murdered anyone ….. and hey I do a lot of good” But the Bible says that if you hate someone it is equivalent to murder and if you lust after a person in your heart it is the same as committing adultery, and so that makes us all guilty and I don’t think a pure and holy God should spare His wrath on us, but the truth is all the bad in the world today is there because the devil v r bad, God doesn’t do all these things to us, I can already picture the next question “ Yeah well what about all the stuff like natural disasters, famines and things like that?” I don’t know how to put it, but it’s a spiritual thing, the prince of this world is the devil and the more bad things we do, it like we are just giving him permission to blind our eyes from the truth, the only hope we have, and destroy us at the same time …… That’s why the Bible clearly warns us that the devil has come to steal, kill and destroy.

In your mind you’re probably saying “But look at all the good I’ve done doesn’t that count for something”, well let’s put it this way if someone you deeply loved and cared for was murdered, and the murderer was brought to the court and when he is presented before the judge, he says ‘judge all my life I have fed the poor and taken care of the homeless and I’ve done countless no. of good deeds, so spare me’, Do u think the judge will let Him go? No he will most probably be sentenced to death ….. And that’s where we are all rite now, we can do whatever we want to hide it but deep down we are all sitting on death row, we can laugh and joke and enjoy as much as possible but it doesn’t change the fact that we are doomed.
So by now u r probably wondering ‘so what hope do we have’ and that’s where Jesus comes into the picture, He was the perfect replacement… So instead of us dying He died the most gruesome and undignified death in history, He was nailed to a roman cross. But if it ended there, then we still wouldn’t have any hope. If the sacrifice is less than the law it will be consumed, but Jesus was greater than the law, He fulfilled it ... though HE was crucified, he over powered death and rose up, and so defeated all evil. The reason for all the ‘Thou shalt do this and thou shalt not do that’ is not to control our freedom but it is to prove to us that we can never actually fulfill it and we need to be rescued. It says in Romans chapter 3 verse 10 that ‘rather than being declared as righteous by following the law, the law would make us conscious of our sin’ and this consciousness would lead us to Jesus, our Savior, the only person who would love us after all we’ve done, who loves us too much to see us die. And when I say die I mean the eternal death, because once we accept Jesus as our Savior ‘For us to live is Christ and to die is to gain’


So I hope I was able to answer at least a small portion of ur doubts …. And the remaining I know that God will answer ….

The Thread

I said in my previous post that I had seen a few interesting vids on youtube and wanted to share them .....  well this is one of them ..... I hope you like it ..... :)


It makes perfect sense rite "The thread that ties it all in is Love .... God's unfailing love for all human kind ......a love big enough for the whole world"

JOHN 3:16
For GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

What Is The Church ???

I found a few interesting and meaningful videos on youtube which I would like to share with you ...... The first one is called as " What is the Church? "

I think in the world today, we mistake the church to be something that it is not, we expect it to give us something, but this video makes it clear that 'WE ARE THE CHURCH' so we should be contributing and not always taking ........

Jesus Loves You .....

This season is called as the lent season, or simply put it is the days which lead upto the death and resurrection of Jesus, and it is this one singular event that gives us the right the boldly say that I am a Son/Daughter of God.

So as God is leading me, I want to challenge everyone who reads this article.

I was reading the last chapter of the book of John, this morning and in it Jesus asks Simon Peter, His disciple three times, "Do you truly love me more than these?", and when I read that it was as if those words just jumped at me. SO, here's my challenge to you, both christians and those who are not.

  • If you are a Christian the same question Jesus asked Simon Peter I ask you, "DO YOU TRULY LOVE JESUS MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE?"

  • And for those of you have not had the oppotunity to meet Jesus the Savior or have passed up such an opportunity, my question to you is simply this,       "DO YOU KNOW THAT JESUS TRULY LOVES YOU MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE?"
So I hope that this Food for Thought will leave you stirrd and thinking as we remember what Jesus did for us.
     

A Miracle in my life .....

Hi !!! Everyone .........

The title of my blog may sound weird, but believe it or not all I am about to say is true.

My name is Susan, I am 18 yrs old from Madurai.God healed me of grade 4 spondylolisthesis 5yrs ago and He can do the same for you to.

 Here's my testimony:
We lived in Dubai for a long time and there I was an athlete. At the age of 8 yrs I participated in a 3 km marathon. And every athletic event I participated in I won. During my summer vacation in the 4th grade ( 2003 ) I went for ice skating classes, obviously as it was my first time I fell numerous number of times. Later on as school re-opened my teachers began to ask me why I wasn’t walking properly, and at home my parents thought that I had developed a bad style of walking, and often told me to walk properly. But I felt that my walking was perfectly normal. But as time progressed during my P.E. classes I began to struggle to run up to my usual speed.

Soon after that my parents began to take me to various doctors, to find out why my style of walking was deteriorating, the first doctor gave me a bandage tightly wrapped around my legs, saying that some times around that age children develop bad habits. But it didn't work and again we began to shuttle from one doctor to another. A friend of my parents who was a doctor, suggested the best doctor in Dubai Dr. Kerim Antoine Attari who after taking several X-rays finally diagnosed me with Grade 4 spondylolisthesis in the Lumbar Sacral region (L5 and S1). The doctor told my parents that even if I was his own daughter he wouldn't do the surgery and advised them to take me to either Germany or Switzerland for the surgery. But even then he didn't guarantee 100% success. And even if it was successful it would have to be done again when I turned 18 as by then my bones would have grown. By then my condition had seriously deteriorated. I began to walk exactly in the shape of the letter 'S', I looked like a walking zombie. I would bend my knees outward, bend backwards, walk on my toes and to balance myself I would stretch out my hands. My mum would always give me a book or bag to hold so that I wouldn't stretch my hands out. When we went out shopping or my parents would walk on either side of me and my older sis would walk behind me to hide me from the staring eyes of people.

 I couldn't walk for more than 5 - 10 mins without severe pain shooting down my legs. Every morning when I woke up, my back would feel stiff as though someone had poured cement down my back. I couldn't reach down to put my own socks. My parents purchased a triangular shaped pillow to place under my legs when I slept as I couldn't stretch out my legs.I would wake up several times every time due to discomfort. I had no idea of the seriousness of my condition coz at the time when the doctor diagnosed I was asked to sit outside. The only time I knew the way I walked was different was when I saw a side view of myself in the mirror. The doctor had given me a spinal support belt, but I hated to wear it, the climate in Dubai is really hot and so it would sweat so much that I went and cried and cried to my mum that I didn't want to wear it, that finally she gave in. This was one of the reasons that my condition deteriorated.

The doctor had also prescribes steroids as pain killer for the pain. And this is where the first little miracle during my journey began, I recall exactly one incident when I took that tablet but from then on my mum would, pray for me and say "In the name of Jesus I command this pain to leave" and after a few minutes it would be gone. My parents decided that if medical science could not completely cure my problem they would take up my case with my creator, Jesus. And so from then on whenever I had pain mum would pray with me and the pain would leave immediately.

Later on we moved to Bahrain, where I used to sing in the church choir. I would always be provided with a chair to sit because of the pain I would experience after standing for more than 5 mins. One day I decided that I would stand without the aid of the chair. We started to sing and after a few minutes, my legs began to grow numb, I held on to the microphone stand with all my strength, I knew that if I took one step forward to even reach a chair I would fall, I called my sis who was standing next to me and told her my plight. She said she would help me to a chair, but just as predicted I took one step forward and fell like a ton of bricks. I couldn't get up, the ladies in the church lifted me onto a chair and gave me some water to drink, I never dared to sing in the choir again. I was so embarrassed that I hid at the back of the church for a long time. There were two or three instances where I had lost sensation in my legs and fallen. Only later did I find out that this was a symptom of my deteriorating condition.

All this time I suffered not only physically but my mind was in chaos. I hated myself for so many reasons, I knew that my condition pained my parents, I was rejected by all my friends who were so close while I was a popular athlete, I was in continuous discomfort. During the first few months since my diagnosis, I was full of faith that God would heal me. But the as time progressed I saw people all around me, who were diagnosed with various conditions get healed and instead of my faith being enriched I got angry at God. I became this rebellious bundle of anger. One day when I was praying I got this number 3 in my head and I assumed that God would heal me in three days and so I waited, and at the end of the third day I was just the same, there was no change. We then moved to India, and I was still in the same condition, my dad took my previous reports to some doctors in Chennai, where one of the doctors asked my dad if he was an educated man, to keep me without taking me for surgery immediately.

 My parents applied to a place called as the 'Healing School' in Johannesburg, South Africa where they teach about healing from the Bible. We didn't get any reply from them for a long time. Then one night my dad called from Chennai ( my mum, sis and myself were in Madurai ) and told us what the doctor had told him and he reasoned with my mother whether they should take me in for surgery, we were also getting pressure from our family members, who were concerned about my welfare. That night my mum opened her mail and saw an invite to ' come to the Healing School ' and they resolved to take me there for prayer. So in September of 2005 we landed in Johannesburg, South Africa, from then on it was an intensive 3 week teaching from the Bible about healing, during this 3 week period I saw with my own eyes ppl with AIDS get healed, paralyzed ppl walk, and so many countless miracles. I guess after so much of unbelief on my part for a long time, seeing these miracles was like a drink of fresh water to my dry soul. At the end of the 3 weeks of teaching, a person called Pastor Chris Oyakhilome prayed and that was the first time in 3 yrs that I could put my foot flat on the ground, and from then on I progressed a little bit and then a little more and now I am completely healed.

Pastor Chris is not God. He is just a vessel who is being used by God, so don't get the wrong impression about him.

Now I play badminton and volley ball in my P.E. class at school, badminton at home with my sis and I am an absolutely normal person. There is a God who always has you on His mind. And healing is His gift to you. But the greatest gift of them all is His Salvation offered to us through His Son Jesus.  God holds in His hand the gift of healing and everything else His Word has promised all we have to do is receive it in faith. Those 3 yrs may have been painful. but they brought me closer to God and now I enjoy a close relationship with God as my Father and Friend.

ALL PRAISE BE TO JESUS !!!!! hostgator coupon code

THE BIRTH OF JESUS 

I never actually thought that I could draw something of this magnitude, but it was God's hand that guided mine as I drew of His birth. This is the first picture of this kind that I have ever drawn and is dedicated to God, I hope that I will be able to draw more of this kind in the future and I will upload them as soon as I am done.



Hide Me ...

When we step out into the world, many of us put on a different face to hide the feelings which we bury deep inside our heart. But why do we do it ???

For this very reason I would like to tell you my experience with hiding. I discovered that we hide ourselves behind walls of anger, extreme sensitivity, gossiping, shyness etc. so that no one really sees who we are on the inside.

For a long time I did the very same thing. I would hide away all my feelings deep inside me and when things got bad, I would have all these pent up feelings just erupt, I'd end up saying the wrong things to the wrong person and usually end up hurting the persons I love the most. I tried for so long to put up a picture on the outside of a perfect peron and hold up an image that was acceptable to people who I so badly wanted to be friends with. See the thing is I never had a person who I could call my best friend, Of course now my eyes have  been opened and I see that all along I had a best friend forever, Jesus, who lovingly guided me through thick and thin, but back then I really wanted to be accepted by so called friends, and so I struggled quite a bit with the issue of 'acceptance', but God helped me overcome it. The point I'm trying to make is, I hid the real me under fakeness, and covered it up with the picture perfect person that I was not. All I ended up doing was supressing the unique person that God created me to be.

And this is what I want to share with everyone. STOP HIDING FROM YOUR SELF, the real you and all that God made you, you don't need to fit into soneone elses mold of perfection but all you need to do is be who God made you to be. You are a unique person created by God in His image, and if people can't accept that then, why should we bother with the trivial matter of trying to enter into their good books, but a word of caution, if we are wrong then we must accept that we are wrong. There's only a limit to what you can do on you own, and just as PROVERBS 3:5 says Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. The reality is we are all not perfect, but Jesus through His death and ressurection makes up the difference, so that when God looks at us He sees us as pure and acceptable.

2 Corinthians 5:21
God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

When I feel the pressure is too much and I can't stand it any more I go to the Word of God. So I guess I found out that the best way to stop hiding is talk to someone who can guide you to and through the Word of God, or if you feel you have no one you can trust, TELL GOD Himself, He's your Friend, your Father and everything you need Him to be.

Proverbs 3:6 :
In all your ways acknowledge Him, and he will make your paths straight.

NEVER FORGET THAT JESUS DIED FOR YOU, HE LOVES YOU SOO MUCH, JUST TRUST HIM IN EVERY STEP YOU TAKE AND HE WILL BE YOUR GUIDE

Submission Is Worship

I was reading this book called 'Purpose Driven Life' by Rick Warren with my friends and about three chapters were all about worship. And the author connected Worship and Submission. And as I read it I began to understand that worship is an act of love, submission is a way of showing God we love Him, and submission is giving God our all, we can't say " God I love you and I submit my
life to you but there's this one part of my life I'm really happy with so just don't interfere with that " No, that is not submitting to God's will. I've come to understand life as a huge painting with God as the painter and all of us as the painting, when things happen we don't always understand it becoz we can't see the other side of the picture, only the painter can ..... so we must trust Him and when we do so we are saying " God I love You "

Hebrews 5:7
 During the days of Jesus' life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him
from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission.

If Jesus submitted his will into the Fathers hand must we not do the same ???

It's probably not the easiest thing to do coz it means giving Him everything we cherish and carrying the cross of Christ instead, but the Bible says that His burden is lighter, and God will never give you more than you can handle. Christianity is not a road of peace and tranquility, belief in Jesus will give you the peace that passes all understanding but we are in a war against the devil, which I might add is already over but still we must fight the good fight, keep the faith and finish the race, and it means we must live a life of sacrifice for Jesus which all starts with submission.

Another thing I would like to say is that worship is not only singing songs in the church, everything we do from waking up in the
morning ( yes, even Monday morning ) till we fall asleep at night, we can do it for the glory of God, our Daddy, our Friend, and that is TRUE WORSHIP.

Never Let Go .....

Recently a friend came over for dinner and we started talking about life in general, about how our spiritual life influences our regular lives. She said that she heard a pastor say "Hold on or you'll be swept away". And I realised, I can relate to that. You see unless we hold onto Christ with everything we've got we get swept away by the strong current of Satan's lies. We no longer become stagnating Christians but backsliding ones.

A few months ago our church had a youth program where the theme was 'Be Fruitful', and one of the competitions held was a preaching competiton, one of the participants quoted the Bible verse which says :

"I am the vine and you are the branches. Whoever lives in Me and I in Him bears much abundant fruit. However, apart from me, you

can do nothing" ( John 15:5 )

In this passage our life as a christian is described as a branch of a vine, who is Jesus Christ. Now if you take the branch away from
its source and plant it else where it will not grow on its own, it cannot even stay in its present condition it will eventually wither and die. Thats what Jesus means when He says "apart from Me you can do nothing" and also what my friend meant when she said that you will be swept away. There is no middle ground, you're either supported by God's grace or you're dying.

I can give you an example from my own personal life. When I was in the 11th grade I had this girl who I called as my 'Best Friend', but
at the back of my mind I knew that she was not the true friend that I needed. But my desire to have a friend was so strong that I ignored all of God's warnings and went on with the relationship, and all the while this girl was betraying me on the side. I went out of the way to stay in this relationship and in the process was pushing God away, but then God opened my eyes to see my folly through the wisdom of my mother, so the next year as we happened to be in the same class again I cut her relationship off from my life and it was as if my relationship with God was suddenly renewed with a new bond and strength, and although I did not get a 'best friend', I know that God is in control, and more than that He is my Best Friend.

Our part of this relationship with God is so simple, all He asks is that we accept the eternal life, that He freely gives us,and continue to obey Him, but if we reject that life we will wither and die as it is written in the 6th verse of John 15. So accept the love that Jesus gives to us through His death and resurrection.




Loneliness ..... A Good Thing ????


I wrote this one day when one of my teachers was absent, my bench mate was also absent that day and so I was alone and from the back of my class I could see all of my class mates and I realized that everyone was engaged in meaningless chatter. And so I just began to ponder away on what might actually be going on in the mind of the ppl around me ( not to say that my guesses were right ). The things that ppl do and say is all a grand scheme to hide who they really are on the inside. I saw ppl laughing loudly to hide the insecurity on the inside, some ppl were so quiet maybe becoz they think that they are superior to everyone else or maybe becoz they are really really scared or hurt, then there were those who just kept on and on talking, maybe to cover up all the turmoil and confusion in their lives and hearts.

And during all this time I was reminded of the book of eclesiastes in the Bible where the author repeatedly says " Meaningless everything is meaningless ... ".

And still more thinking on this leads me to wonder where we as christians fit into all of this. In my previous post I 'The BIG Difference' I wrote about how there is a huge distinction between pleasing and obeying God, well I think at times like this, even though it is difficult to be alone, it is the only way that we can obey God. The Bible says that ' we are in the world but we are not of the world and if I pretend that I'm not a christian and laugh out loud without real joy and speak without meaning then I guess that makes me a fool. Yes, I said a fool and rather than trying to look cool among friends I rather be a fool for standing up for what I believe. But the thing is I've been foolish for a long time, following my own desires, when I should have been listening to God's voice.

I've always wanted to belong to a group, to be like others but I'm realizing, day by day, to be like Jesus I have to walk the path he did, and it started out with 40 days ALONE in the wilderness.

For me and you that means, even if the whole world is doing something, which you know, according to the Bible is wrong and even your own brothers and sisters in Christ are doing the same thing which you know to be wrong then you have to be alone, at that moment I had to be alone. But I knew that I would grow stronger and so will you if you just take this walk of faith with Jesus.

The thing is in actual fact we are not lonely, we have our Friend, Father and Guide Jesus holding our hand and leading us towards the goal, a closer relationship with God. And if we make it through this phase of life then it is not the end of the journey but the beginning of a new journey or continued strong walk with God.

The BIG Difference !!!

I feel different this year. I think it's my approach towards life that has changed. I realized that there's a world of difference between pleasing God and obeying Him. And sadly for a long time I've been trying to please Him. I mean as a christian I've realized that my righteousness is like filthy rags in God's sight, but still I've tried to pleases Him with good deeds. But it's never worked and I ended up stressing out and piling my life up with so many burdens, instead of just following the simple principle of 'TRUST AND OBEY'