Being the Salt and Light

UV 723/10,000 Being the Salt and Light “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.” Matthew 5 v 13 Jesus used the metaphor of salt and light to compare His followers to. We hold the light of His positivity in us. We hold out hope for people to overcome death and the fear of death that rules all mankind since Adam. We are not to restrain that light within us but give it out all the time in all possible ways. We are a city built on a hill. The rock mountain is Jesus and we are the city being built on that foundation. Like light we bring hidden truths of God and life so that they become visible and known to all. What we see is our vision. Being the light implies we hold on to our vision. The vision is to be the light. At the time Jesus used the metaphor of salt, people did not know the chemical structure of salt. Today, we know that two negatives or two poisons combine at the molecular level to form edible salt. Similarly, we must negate the negatives that are in us and in our environment, whether it is a product of pride or lust. We need to position ourselves as problem-solvers in this darkened world. By the force of our faith, prayer and the Spirit of God, we focus and destroy evil within and without. The solutions we find for the world’s problems are like the salt- they will add taste to life. Whatever salt is added to, becomes tasteful. Similarly, whatever we add our abilities and our efforts will become tasteful. They will preserve the character of generations of mankind. Like salt is added in appropriate quantities, we too need to add faith to our contexts in appropriate times and contexts lest it becomes too salty to be even tasted. Once the Lord revealed that “the structure of salt is crystalline and will not mix with the dust and dirt of the earth. “ Similarly, we too should not get our lives soiled by the dust and dirt of the earth and maintain our clean, crystalline character. What we do is our mission. The mission is to be the salt. Like light and salt, we will have a pervasive but invisible influence that permeates all spheres and domains of life. When the people of the city of Jericho told Elisha that the water of the spring that gave water to the city was bad and that made the land unproductive, the prophet asked for a bowl of salt. He went out to the spring and threw the salt into it, and confirmed that the Lord had healed the water and that it would not again cause death or make the land unproductive. The water has remained wholesome to this day. Similarly, today education, politics, society, economy, media and all sectors of life have become afflicted by bad water that makes it unproductive. The salt of faith in the Word of God needs to be added to cause healing forever and to make it productive and wholesome. This is our “ negative-negative” mission we are called to. Our daily walk should reflect these twin missions: to be the light and to be the salt to this world. Prateep V Philip

The Riddle of Life and Death, the Secret of Strength and Victory

UV 722/10,000 The riddle of Life and Death, the Secret of Strength and Victory So he said to them, “ Out of the eater came something to eat, and out of the strong came something sweet.” But they could not tell the riddle in three days. Judges 14 v 14 Samson’s riddle, though he intended it only to play a game with his in-laws, is the very riddle of life. Samson had framed the riddle on his seeing a beehive dripping with wild honey inside the carcass of a dead lion. Satan is described as the “roaring lion” even as Jesus is symbolised as the majestic lion. In order to overcome the wiles and accusations of the former, the wise lion had to embrace death. Out of the death of this lion-King, mankind was blessed with spiritual nourishment and hope. His death and resurrection is the single biggest riddle or enigma of history- how can God die for the sins of mankind who were after all His creatures? Even His disciples who had lived with Him for more than three years, puzzled over the manner and purpose of His death. For three days, people puzzled over the meaning of this riddle and then it was solved for all time. His death and resurrection brought sweetness or the honey of God’s promises into our lives. Through death, He destroyed him that had the power of death and delivered us from the fear of death. Another meaning of this uni-verse is that it explains the purpose of our troubles and travails in life. All of us right through life puzzle over why a certain event happened or why we went through a particular rough time. Satan is a killer, robber and thief. He intends to kill our souls, rob our peace and steal our blessings. He is the evil or wicked lion. Jesus by His death and resurrection is one step closer to defeating and destroying the power of satan to kill and hurt us. Meanwhile, whatever satan does to hurt us, the Lord turns it into a source of strength,victory, hope and fulfilment. The dead lion is a symbol of our common defeated foe. The honey dripping from the beehive is a symbol of the flow of the Lord’s blessings in our lives. The bees remind us that though the sting or threat of eternal death that satan dangles over us is gone with the redeeming sacrifice of Christ but we can still be stung by the bees of misfortune, ill health, tensions and so on. Recently, the Lord revealed, “ I am amazed at this interpretation. Yes, I am truly the honeycomb. If you hug me, and shake me, you will receive the honey.” Every uni-verse is a cell in that hive which is full of the rarest, sweetest honey. Of course, we need to take the normal precautions that one should take to collect honey from a hive. We need to cover ourselves with a spiritual body armour so that the bees do not sting. The stinging bees or troubles of our present lives are to humble us, prove us and to do us good at our latter end. The more terrible or severe the sting, the sweeter is the honey, the greater is the patience it builds, the strength to endure, the faith to bear. My encounters with death in the sea and in an assassination of a national leader were intended to strengthen me and to bring the honeyed promises of God into the lives of many in many nations. As I was recovering, the senior officers were wondering whether given my injuries and trauma, I would be strong enough mentally, emotionally and physically to take charge of a district. I told them my faith had been only reinforced a million times. Referring to the hundred steel pellets embedded in my body, I joked that I was actually “steel-reinforced” though the metal detectors could not detect it. I used to pray that the Lord through that experience gives me the spiritual equivalent of the strength and power of Samson without, of course adding his weaknesses. At the end of breakfast every day, I take a spoon of honey symbolically to reflect that I am eating or drinking the sweet nourishing, health-producing promises of God. It will give me strength for the day. Indeed, “out of the eater comes forth something to eat. Out of the killer comes forth something sweet. “ Prateep V Philip

The Jumping Pots

UV 721/10,000 The Jumping Pots “ O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter? “ said the Lord. “ Look, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel!” Jeremiah 18 v 6 Often we live as if God is the clay and that we are the potter. We want to shape God after our desires, imagination and intentions. But, the Lord says very clearly that He is the potter not just of individuals like us but of whole nations. He shapes the purpose and destiny of whole nations. He shapes our character. Sometimes, we submit to the fact that He is the potter and that we are the clay but while we are on the wheel being shaped, we will suddenly decide that it is enough and we try to get off the wheel. Imagine a giant wheel and billions of us on the wheel and the Lord patiently shaping us with the palm of His hands, all of us struggling to jump off the wheel every now and then. The problem is that these pots talk back, jump, squeal and complain all the time. When we believe and trust that the Potter has a better idea of what we should look like and do, we will sit on the wheel, quiet, yielded and contented in feeling the loving master strokes of the Creator. The whole universe is a gigantic potter's wheel spinning all the time and each of us and all of us are like pots that are being shaped by the Creator-Redeemer to His taste and to fulfill His purpose for our lives. Further, there are wheels within the wheel- with each turn of the potter's wheel some aspect of our lives gets moulded and shaped by the touch of the palm of the Potter. We should gently yield to the Potter instead of trying to jump off the wheel as we so often do. This uni-verse teaches us that we need to stick on the wheel or be faithful. We need to be flexible like molten clay. We need to be teachable and keep learning to walk in the ways of God according to the Word of God. We should not harden our hearts and minds like ancient Israel. Israel wanted a Messiah after their own imagination not the One whom God sent who would not break a reed but took the blows, insults, torture and death upon Himself. We should belong not to a rebellious house that follows the rules and traditions of sinful man but ignores the spiritual laws and sovereign will of the holy, just and loving God. We should not expect God to fall in line with our plans but instead align our plans and purpose with the revealed will of the Lord. At what stage, can we get off the potter’s wheel? As long as we are alive on Earth, we need to remain on the wheel and allow the Lord to mould, break, re-make and shape according to His plan and purpose. Every day He indicates through different ways the areas we need to change. We need to be sensitive to the move of His guiding hand that fashions us in His image or according to His imagination. Once we reach the desired shape and size, He blows on us the breath of His spirit, the Holy Spirit who keeps us in shape thereafter. As the pot is getting dried or as we mature, the Lord tests us for leakages by pouring His message into us. For the ultimate purpose of every pot, regardless of size, shape or beauty is to carry the Word. Prateep V Philip

Who runs your Universe?

UV 720/10,000 Who runs the Middle? “I AM the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last.” Revelation 22 v 13 Most believers do acknowledge God as the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End but they remain masters of what happens in the middle-with their own lives, time, talents and resources they do what they please. We acknowledge Him at the beginning and end of the week, the beginning and end of the day and at the beginning and end of our projects. The rest of the time we mind our own business. We sometimes resort to Him again when we are at our wit’s end and need Him as a crisis manager. God revealed Himself to Moses with the first two words of this uni-verse: “ I AM”. Anyone’s identity originates from Him. Anyone who uses the pronoun “I” is acknowledging that he or she begins and ends in Him. The word “ am” means that “I” exist on account of God, exist for Him, exist with Him. He is all who we need in this life for success, victory, joy, power, meaning, purpose and fulfilment. He is involved in our existential struggles. He advices us in our existential dilemmas. He is faithful to us from before we were knit together in our mothers’ wombs. But, soon after we are born, we somehow become wiser and we even question and doubt His very existence. He got His hands dirty putting man together for the first time. He would not mind doing it again and again. The very word “ WORD” has a story to tell. His Word of love created the WORLD. He is not a hands off Creator but a very “hands on” One. As the “ First”, He takes the front and gives us leadership. As the “Last”, He ensures no one is left behind, even the weakest or slowest. He provides the back up and the cover from behind. He is the center and focus of our own little uni-verse- the totality of our lives, our goals, our relationships, our work, our challenges, our successes and failures, our joys and sorrows.. God’s business of saving people is our business and our business is His business. This implies that we confess to Him our weaknesses. We cannot afford to hide anything from Him. We confide in Him our secrets. We consult Him from time to time. We borrow spiritual capital from Him that He invests in our lives. That spiritual capital may be a word of knowledge or wisdom, a word of encouragement or affirmation, a word of warning or rebuke. We rejoice with Him in every little triumph. We worship Him not just at the end of the week with praise and songs but with sighs, little gestures, little thoughts, emotions and actions right through our days and nights. Our only constraint is that we cannot see Him as we communicate. We cannot hear His reply most of the time we are talking with Him. But, we can see and read His visible Word and hear His voice through it. We do experience Him right through the day, right through the week and right through our lives. Prateep V Philip

Godly Correction

UV 719/10,000 Godly Correction “Behold, happy is the man whom God corrects; therefore do not despise the chastening of the Almighty.” Job 5 v 17 When God smiles at us, it is day. When He frowns, it is night. God led the ancient Israelites through the terrible desert as a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. For us it means that the radiance of God’s face shining upon us is so blinding that He needs to protect us with a covering or a cloud. Each of us has a cloud of blessings over us all the time to shield us from the radiance of His face. It protects us from the intensity of the heat of His glorious presence. This explains why St Paul was blinded in the physical by the spiritual vision he saw. We can reach out into the cloud of God’s presence and draw our day’ s need of His blessings- a different kind of cloud computing. He is a pillar of fire by night- this implies that when He withdraws His favour for a time, when we are in a time of adversity He does not desert us. He gives us warmth and divine guidance on the path we should follow. He illuminates our lives with a living testimony during these dark times. In our desert times, when the Lord chastises us or corrects us, we should not regard ourselves as cursed or as forsaken by God. If we do so, we are despising the chastening of the Almighty. It is His sovereign will and decision to surgically correct certain aspects of our character by allowing some events that are not so pleasant from a purely human perspective. Just as we respect the right of our parents to correct us, we need to respect and accept His will and rejoice that it is a sure sign that He loves us as a Father and therefore, He corrects us as our earthly fathers did when we erred wantonly. The children that are often corrected by their parents turn out to be better off when they are older. Even the parents who correct their children are better loved at the end of the day. Our faithful response in such times is to rejoice that we have been chosen to be loved and corrected by God and not hated and ignored. As the Psalmist wrote in Psalm 119, “ It is good that I was chastised that I might learn His holy will.” Sometimes, the Lord chastises us so that we experience a course correction. Sometimes, He corrects us so that we can get rid of a hidden sin and sometimes to cauterize a wilful sin from our souls. It is to remove the dross or impurities that have crept in and make us like gold that is drawn out of the furnace of afflictions. No correction through affliction or suffering is pleasant at the time it happens but in due course, we will eat the peaceful fruit of righteousness or blessedness on account of it. It disciplines us and the discipline produces victory at the end of the day. When He frowns, it is an indication that He does not want us to loose the crown of life. From my childhood, I have often felt the chastisement of the Lord and these periods of chastisement were the defining moments of my life, that defined my destiny and refined my character and soul. God knows and I know that He still got a lot of work to do in me but we have come a long way. Prateep V Philip *The colour code- every day from the past week, I have given a different colour shade to the UV quote, matching the seven colours of the rainbow to indicate different types of teachings and blessings that the Lord reserves for each day of our lives.

Empathy is Rewarded

UV 718/10,000 Empathy is Rewarded. “And the King will answer and say to them, “ Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.” Matthew 25 v 40 Empathy or feeling the pain of another as if it is your own is today recognized as an important facet of emotional intelligence. It is a character trait that we inherit from our heavenly Father. Jesus encourages His followers to look with empathy on the suffering around us. We might not be able to feed all the hungry, clothe all the naked or visit all the prisoners or help all the poor but what is within our capacity, we need to do. When we do it even for one of these, it is in the eyes of God as if we have fed all the hungry, clothed all the naked, visited all the prisoners and helped all the poor. Sympathy means that you look at them and say, “ Poor guy(s).” Empathy means we stop in our tracks, interrupt whatever we are doing and try to help. Jesus identifies with the poorest of the poor, the ones with the least social standing. Similarly, Scripture says, “do not be high-minded. Do not hesitate to associate with those of lesser social standing.” He told me once, “ I have visited you many times, once in the form of the woman who asked for some money to do a surgery, in the form of many people who asked for help. I was pleased you did not turn me down.” It is written that when we give to the poor, we are lending to the Lord. Empathy is rewarded and selfishness is punished. We are to demonstrate the love of God to others not just with words but with deeds inspired by the love of Christ who gave up all for us. We are to imitate Christ in His concern for the poor, the afflicted and the suffering. It is the sure sign that the compassion of God has filled our hearts and transformed our lives. Once as a young Assistant Superintendent of Police, a constable came to me as is the practice in the orderly room after a parade to voice his request. He said, “ I need a lakh of Rupees for my wife’s heart surgery.” I thought to myself that it is a big amount at the time and I would do what I can to mobilise it. Finally, after some efforts the hospital bill was paid. A few months later when I was lying injured at the scene of the bomb blast in Sriperumbudur, I thought that constable would rush to my help. Instead, the Lord sent an unknown poor boy to accompany me, bleeding profusely, burnt and wounded all over, in the back of the jeep up to the nearby hospital. The pain and shock was benumbing. The thirst was extreme. He gave me drops of water squeezed from a cotton wad. I had no idea where he got it from. When I asked him with genuine cathartic love, “ brother, what is your name?” He replied, “ Purush-uthomon.” That Sanskrit name means “ Best man”. It later struck me that I was first drawn to the gospel when a friend described Jesus as the “ best man”. Indeed, when we give to the poor, it is like lending to the Lord and He will pay us back. Prateep V Philip

Impermanence versus Eternity

UV 717/10,000 Impermanence versus Eternity “ Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,” says the Lord, who has compassion on you.” Isaiah 54 v 10 Even nature that seems permanent in our eyes is of a transient nature. Only God’s love is unchanging and unfailing. Everything else including the mountains and hills can be shaken and even removed, but the love of God cannot be shaken. It does not change and turn with circumstances. The mountains and hills are symbols and metaphors for seemingly powerful persons and authorities on the Earth. They are also the challenges and difficulties we face in our daily life. The Lord is the one unchanging Person in the whole universe. Everything else is subject to the throes of change. He is consistent and faithful to His promises to us and all succeeding generations of those who believe and trust in Him. As we cling on to the hope that His promises inspire in us, He will remove the mountains and hills. If He does not do that, He will climb it with us, step by step. He will give us the strength and stamina we need. To anchor means to go deep down into one's self and hold on to that which we value most. Everything else that men anchor themselves in whether it be wealth or power or glamour or pleasure, even though they seem to be rock-like at the moment, will be removed. The unchanging faithfulness of God is the attribute that enables us to anchor ourselves in Him, depend on Him and His covenant promises. His covenant or personal relationship with us cannot be amended or rescinded or influenced. When we are reconciled with God, we have everlasting peace in our hearts. That peace will permeate our minds and all that we do and all with whom we interact or relate. He made us out of mud but breathed His spirit of compassion and love into us that distinguishes us from all other creatures. Our earthiness is pitted against His eternal nature. Our selfishness against His love. Our pettiness against His compassion. Our strife against His peace. The covenant contained in His Word keeps telling us, “ Stop struggling on your own strength. Stop striving with Your Creator God as Israel wrestled with Him. Instead, surrender to His love and compassion.” New age philosophers and teachers talk about mindfulness. It is a purposeless mindfulness where they are always conscious of their own inner life. Instead, we must be always mindful of the love, peace and compassion of God. These are the dominant themes of the Word and of our relationship with the Creator-Saviour. Love and peace of God are like the equipment that a mountaineer uses to hold in his two hands that enable him to grip the treacherous mountain trail as he climbs upwards. Prateep V Philip