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The Spirit of Excellence

The Spirit of Excellence I have heard that the spirit of the gods is in you and that you have insight, intelligence and outstanding wisdom. Daniel 5 v 14 Daniel’s contemporaries credited him to have a keen mind, knowledge and understanding. They told the Babylonian king Belshazzar that Daniel also had the ability to interpret dreams, explain riddles and solve difficult problems. He had these attributes as the spirit of God dwelled in him for the spirit of God is the spirit of excellence. Daniel excelled on account of the anointing on him. He had a prophetic calling and the Holy Spirit imparted these gifts to him that he used wisely, boldly and with a lot of humility. To prove that the gifts of Daniel were not natural but supernatural in origin and administration, God invested such wisdom in three of his fellow Jewish captives: Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. Their being subjected to prolonged period of training and education in contemporary Babylonian science and religion did not make them prey to learned incapacity. They were evidence that even in the most unfavourable circumstances, with God’s grace, one can excel even in captivity. Each of us is in captivity in this world where sin, misery, violence and curse abounds but the grace of God will enable us to excel. Belshazzar wanted Daniel to interpret the mystery of the writing on the wall. He promised to give Daniel rewards for doing so- clothes of purple, a gold chain and the position of the third highest ruler in the kingdom. But Daniel was not enticed by these gifts. He asked the king to keep his gifts for himself or give it to someone else. Then he spoke the prophetic word from God that rebuked the king for setting himself up against the Lord of heaven, worshipping idols of silver, gold, stone, metal and wood, for not honouring God who held his life and all his ways in His hand. Then Daniel interpreted the meaning of the words written by the hand on the wall of the the banquet hall of the palace, “ Mene,Mene, Tekel, Parsin.” Daniel interpreted that the king’s days were numbered and his reign would be brought to an end, that he was weighed and found short and that the kingdom is going to be divided. Yesterday, I read somewhere that a life without God is like an unsharpened pencil and there is no point. When we walk humbly and close to God, His wisdom rubs off on us. He sharpens our intellect to make it keen. He moulds our attitudes to make it wholesome, balanced and healthy. He gives us the gift to understand and interpret mysteries. He turns our life from being a mystery into a mastery. We develop insight and understanding into a variety of critical issues of life. We will be wise in our choices and decision making. The wisdom that we are anointed with is no ordinary wisdom but it is outstanding. It will tend to make us gentle, pure, peaceable, hopeful, helpful, humble and excellent. We should be people who can explain the enigma of life, the meaning of unusual events. We are called to be problem-solvers and solution-finders. It is no wonder that some of the greatest leaders of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were people anointed by God- Abraham Lincoln who is rated as the greatest ever of American Presidents, Martin Luther King Jr. who continues to inspire generations of leaders like even the present President of the USA. Even in the twenty first century, there are leaders like Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany who professes her faith openly and submits her leadership to God. The God of Daniel is present to this day and is always willing to anoint leaders and people who wait or depend on Him. Led by the Holy Spirit, we too should number our days to render ourselves wise unto God. We should confess our faults and failings that make us fall short of God’s esteem. Not only does the Lord sharpen our minds but He gives us an eraser to rub away our shortcomings. Our minds should not be divided between the world and the Word but we should always learn to look at the world through the templates of the Word and interpret temporary reality in the light of eternal revealed truths of scripture. The life of Daniel has always been, or at least from the days of my youth, a shining and alluring example for me. When people ask me “ How is it possible to be a faithful witness of Christ in a corrupt, brutal , hardened world of law enforcement ?” I say, “ The dimmest light shines brightest in the darkest night.” Prateep V Philip

Transforming an Ass into an Asset

UV 1005/10,000 Transforming an Ass into an Asset Then the Lord opened the donkey’s mouth and she said to Balaam,” What have I done to you to make you beat me these three times?” Numbers 22 v 28 Very often in our lives we become as blind as Balaam the prophet that we do not see what the Lord has placed in our paths to prevent us from going that way. We become as stubborn as an ass, if not more, stuck and set in our ways that the Lord needs to cause unusual, signs, circumstances and people and sometimes even the equivalent of a donkey to communicate to us and so open our eyes. Balak, the king of Moab wanted the prophet Balaam to come and put a curse on the Israelites. Balaam knew of the Abrahamic covenant promise of God, “ He who blesses you will be blessed and he who curses you will be cursed.” Sensitivity, discernment, faith and obedience is what distinguishes a man from a beast like an ass. Scripture says that folly and madness is bound up in the heart of every man. Even receiving a whipping will not drive it from us but if we prick up our ears to constantly listen to what the Lord is speaking to us through the Word, through other people, through circumstances and through even nature and beasts, we will be transformed from being an ass into an asset for God and people. We will be transformed being a beast into the best for it is only the letter “a” that separates beast from best and that a stands for attitudes of sensitivity, discernment, faith and submission to God’s will. Balaam knew that he could not do what was clearly not the will of God but he prevaricated and told the official messengers of Balak to tarry a while as he sought and discerned the will of God. The next morning he discerned the permissive will of God to go with them. Since Balaam was more stubborn and insensitive than his own donkey, the Lord had to teach him His pleasing will through the turn of circumstances. The donkey saw the angel with a drawn sword blocking its path and hesitated to go forward only to be beaten by its master. Thrice it happened: the first time the donkey went off the path onto a field. The second time, the angel stood in a narrow passage between two walls and consequently Balaam’s foot got crushed against the stone wall. The third time, the angel stood in an even narrower place with no room to turn. This time the donkey gave up and just lay down. Often the Lord gives us such warning that we must heed at the earliest or suffer some form of injury, loss or harm. After many such painful learning experiences, I made a covenant with the Lord, “ Whatever You want me to do, just tell me and I will do it.” Today, even if my foot or my toe dashes against a stone, I take it as a warning to re-examine whatever I am doing and make course corrections to follow the pleasing and not just the permissive will of God. Unseen and unknown to our senses, the Lord’s presence is always moving ahead of us, removing wilful barriers, neutralising wanton blunders and pointing us the direction in which we should move. Our spirit needs to be tuned to the Holy Spirit to discern clearly the will and purpose of God in every single move, decision and plan of ours. In today’s context, it might not be a donkey that speaks to us but it might a flat tyre, a bounced cheque, a word of warning or counsel from those who know better or so on. Prateep V Philip

Establishing the Kingdom of God

UV 1005/ 10,000 Establishing the Kingdom of God “Praise the Lord, O my soul, all my inmost being, praise His holy Name.” Psalm 103 v 1 Praise is the deepest appreciation we can offer to God, first, for being our wonderful Creator and second, for being an even more awesome Redeemer. Praise is the rejoicing of our inward parts to resonate with the heart of our God and our Redeemer. When this kind of spiritual resonance occurs, chains and bondage break. What we see of ourselves is only the hardware part. The soul is the invisible part or the better half of our being. Initially, we need to consciously direct our souls or our deepest being to praise God but over time it will become a natural flow. As one writer put it, “ Regardless of what lies outside us, what lies inside is far greater.” Our inmost being consists of thoughts, emotions, hopes, dreams, desires, plans, goals, ambitions, memories, expressions, self talk, insight, knowledge, wisdom, decisions, visions, prayer, will power, conscience, energy, strength, stamina, qualities of our character and psyche … We need to praise God with our thoughts, emotions and self talk. We need to praise God for our hopes, dreams, ambitions. We need to praise God for our memories. We need to praise God for His knowledge, wisdom and insight. We need to praise God for decisions, plans, goals and the power He has given us to execute and realize these. We need to praise God for the inner compass of the conscience that guides us. We need to praise God for all our inner organs and the health and healing of these organs. All these together constitute the inner temple of God where He expects continual worship and thanksgiving. It is the sanctum sanctorum of our being. The plans and outlines given in the scripture for the construction of the Tabernacle is actually a metaphor and templates for living temples. The outer courtyard where we wash our feet before entering the precincts of the temple are a reference to our inner repentance and confession. The inner tabernacle is the soul of a man surrendered to God. The altar is the place where we place our thanksgiving and offering of sacrifice of our attention, time, talent and resources. We think, speak, do and move in His awesome Name, for the greatness of His Name and with the greatness of His attributes. The greatness of His Name is the sole focus of all of our inner being. The more we attribute greatness to His Name, the more it will manifest in our outer lives and the more our inner being has both occasion and cause to offer praise. Jesus said, “ The kingdom of God lies within you and amongst you.” We need to discern the inner kingdom that lies within us. We need to discern and understand the kingdom that lies within others around us. Is it a kingdom that acknowledges God as Creator and Redeemer? Then we will be well governed. In the absence of God ruling over our inner being, we will be ruled by our blinded egos and it will be anarchic. In the presence of God, where He is given His due place, the hierarchy that is established is orderly, peaceful and progressive with the Spirit of God over our souls and our spirits, our minds and our bodies. Prateep V Philip

The Love Relationship

UV 1004/10,000 The Love Relationship And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments Exodus 20 v 6 God gave us only ten commandments but ten thousand promises as a sign of His everlasting love and mercy towards all who believe, trust, obey and love Him and His Word. The commandments give us direction in life while the promises give us the power to follow God. If we love Him, we will also love, cherish and obey His Word. He calls thousands of people out of the millions in every generation in every nation to enter into this love relationship with Him. He brings us out of the house of bondage into the house of freedom and blessedness. He gives us grace not because we are better than the others but owing to His mercy. His mercy has two qualities: one, it is everlasting. Two, it is abundant. Jesus summed up the essence of the ten commandments in just two : to love God with all one’s heart, mind, strength and to love man as one loves himself or herself. The first commandment of Jesus implies that we should love God more than we love ourselves or others. There are parts of us that we ourselves do not like or even hate. Hence, to God with all one’s heart, mind and strength implies to love Him more than we love ourselves. God loves us in this manner as demonstrated in the agape or selfless love of Christ on the cross. He did not withhold Himself from being given entirely for our sakes that we may be entirely forgiven, cleansed and blessed. We are asked to love others only just as much as we love ourselves. There is a basic assumption of self-love implicit in this second command of Jesus. Under the new covenant relationship, the Word or the commandments of God are written on the hearts of believers with the indelible ink of the Spirit. We need to need to have a constant remembrance of the Word. As teachers in primary schools used to say, “ We need to learn it by heart.” Learning by heart is not just memorisation but a constant meditation, a constant burning up and refilling of the Word as the fuel that lights up our hearts with love, joy, peace, praise and thanksgiving. Of the ten commandments, only are three are related to God, one is related to honouring parents, one is related to work and rest and five are related to our relationships with other people. When we love others as much as we love ourselves, we will do unto them only that which we would want them to do to us. We will not steal, kill, bear false witness or covet. One command among the five related to people is about being faithful to one’s spouse and about not committing adultery. As a senior police officer, I can discern that all the laws of the nations of the world in its essence are derived from the Ten Commandments. The Ten commandments is about the minimum that man can do for both God ( serving God) and fellow beings ( not harming others) while the two commandments of Jesus is about the maximum that man can do for God and fellow beings (loving God and fellow beings). The Ten commandments are about what we should not do while the two commands are about what we should do. As a manager, trainer, writer and human being, I can discern that the essence of all leadership, management and wisdom is contained in the two commands of Jesus. When we love God more than we love ourselves or others, we are prepared to pay any price for our faith and our relationship with Him. This is the reason why people through the ages have preferred to die rather than deny their faith. Prateep V Philip

Verse by Verse, Degree by Degree

UV 1003/10,000 Verse by Verse, Degree by degree But the word of the LORD was unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little; that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken. Isaiah 28 v 13 For the past thousand days plus or more than three years, the Lord has been revealing His truths verse by verse, precept by precept, line by line and word by word through this uni-verse series of meditations. I have endeavoured to extract nuggets of truths meant to make us effective leaders, managers and people. By reflecting on all the related verses in a concordance I attempt to bring into the uni-verse all the various dimensions of the truth. Each uni-verse contains a management precept or concept that can be easily understood, remembered and applied in our daily lives. Even a single line, a phrase or a word from scripture can open to us the windows of the Lord’s blessings and grace. It can give us insight that whole volumes of other books cannot possibly give. We appropriate His blessings promise by promise. Each promise verse is a commitment from God to be our help. Each command verse reflects a commitment expected from us to do our part. The promises that are wide-ranging and cover the entire spectrum of any man’s needs and challenges in any age are the rights on earth of the citizens of the Kingdom of God. The commands are the duties and obligations of the citizens of the Kingdom of God. The purpose of the uni-verse is so that the children of the Lord go forward and grow in faith and strength, that we do not backslide or loose our first love, that we do not get discouraged or broken, that we are not snared by our own thoughts or desires or trapped by the wiles of the enemy of our souls. The purpose of the uni-verse is to communicate God’s love to us in practical ways. As we intake each verse and line, understand and apply each precept, we will be transformed into the very image of Christ. We are enabled, anointed, equipped, empowered and edified verse by verse, degree by degree, little by little. The Lord does not expect us to take great leaps but to advance little by little. When we keep doing what we can, we will end up doing what we cannot. Prateep V Philip

Pre-condtions for Divine Responsiveness

UV1002/10,000 Pre-conditions for Divine Responsiveness Then you will call, and the Lord will answer; you will cry for help, and He will say, “ Here am I. If you do away with the yoke of oppression , with the pointing finger and malicious talk..” Isaiah 58 v 9 When the child Samuel heard his name being called, he responded by saying, “ Here am I.” It is a response of complete submission, humility, respect and obedience as to a master or a beloved one. It is like saying, “ I am here to respond and do whatever you have called me for.” Likewise, the sovereign almighty God who owns and established the heavens and the earth set aside His majesty and greatness humbles Himself as a little child to respond when those who are righteous by faith call Him by name. God is not nameless, anonymous, amorphous or insensitive. He hears our sighs and cries. For weeks after I survived the bomb blast that killed former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi I cried and winced with the bone -crushing pain caused by steel pellets that had embedded in my feet. The pain killers gave me only temporary relief but I decided that I will keep calling out “ Jesus, Jesus,” till He heals me and the pain is completely gone. In a few days the pain ceased, never to trouble me again. His help may not be instant but it is certain to come and it will be effective like the Balm of Gilead. It will bring healing and deliverance to us and glory or the attribution of greatness to God. Our prayer life needs to be backed by empathy and compassion for the oppressed. Just as Jesus lifted our yoke of oppression, spiritual and eternal, we need to through both our prayers and our practical efforts lighten the loads on the backs of people around us. Like spiritual watchmen, we should identify the different types of oppression and suffering that is currently happening in the world around us. We need to carry these burdens to the Lord and carry the burdens of the Lord to the world. We need to manifest in real terms a God-like heart of compassion for people, looking far beyond our own immediate concerns and needs. This is the meaning of the parable of Jesus where He talks about different categories of people who claim to have served Him. Jesus tells them, “ I do not know you. Go away! Whatsoever you do to the least of my brethren that you do unto me.” Heaven will appear bronzen and our prayers will bounce back without an answer if we lead double lives. The Lord will not be fooled by our double lives, our double mindedness or our forked tongues. Nor will He be impressed by our attempts to look better ourselves by attributing blame to others, or by our judging or criticising others. We need to train and discipline our speech so that we do not speak maliciously, loosely or thoughtlessly. We need to think and talk. The word “ THINK” gives us some guidelines and yardstick to measure the quality of our spoken words, “ Is it True? Is it Helpful, healthy or harmful? Is it Necessary and nicely put? Is it Kind?” This uni-verse reveals the truth that while we cannot win salvation or eternal life by our good deeds and good words, for the Lord to be pleased with us, in order for Him to reward us and to hear our prayers, our lifestyle and speechstyle of righteousness does count. Prateep v Philip