Being Rich Towards God

UV 2915/10000 Being Rich Towards God
So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God
Luke 12 v 21

This uni-verse expounds on Jesus’s view of what is true and lasting riches. It is said that what can be counted does not often count and what cannot be counted counts a lot. But the world with its emphasis on metrics and the measurable, the physical and the tangible, the experiential and the visible, tends to make us count what does not count- the treasure that decays, can be stolen, forged, robbed, destroyed, buried, lost. People get stressed out and burnt out working for worldly wealth, once they have it, they get stressed out, insecure and worried if someone will take it away from them. Such wealth is deceitful as it gives us a false sense of well being and it can easily evaporate over time, sometimes even overnight if the rich man’s life is called back by the Lord. Instead, the uni-verse urges us to to be rich in faith toward God. There is nothing wrong and everything is right with accumulating such spiritual wealth. Such wealth of faith will widen the eye of the needle so that we have easy and continual access to the Lord God. A person who focuses on amassing such spiritual wealth is truly wise. He is laying a sure foundation for his eternity where nothing can be taken away or robbed or destroyed or degraded.

This is the kind of wealth that if we have it, we will be given even more and if we do not have it, the little we have will be taken away. The more we give away of this wealth, the more we have. Our blessings are multiplied even as we give away the true spiritual riches the Lord has invested in and with us. This is treasure that will enable us to live and die victoriously. The more we use this treasure instead of hoarding it up, the more it grows. The more we learn and obey the commands and precepts of the Lord, the richer we are, the more we learn, trust and claim the promises of the Lord, the more rich we become, the more we follow the models and good examples of faith in the Bible, the richer we are. When we accumulate worldly riches, people say we have riches but when when we accumulate spiritual riches, we are rich. We are to increase in our fear or reverence for the Lord and His commands. We should focus on developing an equal passion for God and the things of God even as He has given all things into our hands in the person of Jesus. When the Lord sees us, we will no longer be like the prodigal son who wore tattered clothes, had no footwear, nothing to sustain him for the day, who lived in the misery of sin and self destructive tendencies. We will continually seek His forgiveness and He like the father of the prodigal son will give us the best from his wardrobe, the best shoes, the signet ring of authority of his household, the sceptre of a ruler, the glittering everlasting crown of salvation that will not weigh heavily on our heads.
Being rich towards God is being faithful and always living and moving in an attitude of worship and gratitude. When we are rich towards the Lord, we know that nothing is impossible. There is nothing that the Lord cannot do to fulfil His purpose in our lives. When we are rich towards the Lord, we will have the attitude of Abel and not that of Cain. Our hearts will be the altar on which we are constantly sacrificing our own egos, our own selfish pleasure to obtain a greater good in the kingdom of the eternal. The more we store of the riches of God of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility and self control, the more we store of His precious wisdom and of His word, the more our hearts expand like a treasury that keeps extending its walls to hold more and more treasure. This incidentally is the only kind of treasure that we can carry with us beyond the grave and also leave behind as a blessing for the succeeding generations. The question we need to ask ourselves and answer is : are we laying up enough treasure for ourselves for eternity every day or are we postponing or ignoring it?

Prateep V Philip

A Stabilised Heart

UV 2914/10000 A Stabilised Heart
He shall not be afraid of evil tidings: his heart is fixed, trusting in the LORD.
Psalm 112 v 7

A believer and follower of Christ will not be apprehensive but be hopeful. His source of security is not anything earthly or external but it is the Lord. His focus is on the locus of his life. He is the central point of his universe and everything rotates around Him. He knows he can trust the Lord with every aspect of His life. He is not shaken by happenings around him but understands that there is a purpose behind everything that has happened to him whether good or bad or even terrible. He is both able and stable as he does not rely on his own finite abilities and judgement but seeks the wisdom and the will of the Father in heaven. The Lord grows a hedge around us to protect us from strong gusts of trial and temptation. We water and trim and maintain this hedge with our prayers, our observance and obedience of His holy word, our constant and diligent application of the principles of wisdom He has taught us this far. When we fix our hearts on the Lord, a spiritual process is set in motion that nothing in nature can reverse or oppose: our hearts are established or stabilised by the Lord. A stabilised heart is a sign of spiritual maturity and growth. With a stabilised heart, we are not easily swayed by passion or emotion or desire. We will cease to be like the flotsam and jetsam that is blown hither and thither by every wind and wave of happening or stimulus.
An important aspect of this uni-verse is that “his heart is fixed” on the Lord. The image is of a vessel that is anchored in a stormy sea. As long as the anchor holds, the vessel is safe from the stormy winds and waves. Our own strength, resources, wisdom and intelligence are illusory or vulnerable. The Lord is the beginning and the end of life, the Alpha to Omega. We derive all of our strength, energy, inspiration, wisdom, guidance, counsel, hope from Him. We are not deterred by temporary obstacles, hurdles, opposition, persecution, threats, hostility, powerful adversaries as we are confident the Lord is with us and He will defend and deliver us. When we store the word of God in our hearts, we are fortifying ourselves much like soldiers gather a lot of ammunition before the outbreak of war. We will be able to defeat the evil that is crouching at the door of our own hearts and also send evil or trouble of different kinds fleeing from us.
Instead of allowing fears, real and imaginary to take hold of our minds, we need to hold onto the promises of the Lord. I have learnt to pray prophylactically before a thing happens so that the Lord preserves me or mine from that specific trial or trouble. If we pray, we will not be a prey to these fears. We believe and expect good things to happen to us and to ours. All the heroes of faith mentioned in the Bible went through a variety of terrible situations but their story ends with deliverance and victory. Even the tragic and often foolish hero Samson, despite his eyes being gouged out by the Philistines after they capture him through the deceit of Delilah, was victorious in the end as he killed more people in his final act of bringing down the building where he was chained. The true story of Daniel and above all the true story of Jesus inspires us everyday to shield our minds and hearts from every form and type of apprehension. If we comprehend His love and power, we will not apprehend evil.

Prateep V Philip

Hear, Think, DIg Deep, Treasure, Keep and Do

UV 2913/10000 Ear+Think, Hear plus Think, Hear and Keep, Hear and Do
But he said, Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.
Luke 11 v 28

Blessing is not an event or a single act but a life-giving, life long process. We do not inherit blessing but blessing can inhere in us. When someone in the crowd watching and listening to Jesus hailed Him saying, “Blessed is the womb that bore you, the breasts that fed you,” as if the source of His supernatural wisdom, grace and power was the woman who gave birth to Him. Jesus became the source of blessing as He overcame sin( symptoms of which are lusts, conflict, pride, hatred, conflict, misery, diseases, curses, failure, depression and so on) by not yielding to it and overcame the other universal problem afflicting every human being born –death by yielding to it. Jesus responded by saying, “ Yes, You are more blessed if you hear the words that I speak and keep it. “ The word “keep” means to remember, to meditate, to apply, to treasure, to obey, to carry out, to do, to practice habitually as a way of life.

Indeed, believers who are faithful in hearing and keeping the Word in their hearts, meaning respecting the presence of Jesus in our hearts, honouring His Word transmitted to us through the generations in spoken or printed form or in song, are more blessed than even the very mother of Jesus- Mary. Mary herself, Luke wrote, treasured the words and actions and reactions of Jesus in her heart and she was so blessed in keeping the Word. The hurt caused to the mother by the immense suffering of the Son of God that she bore was healed by so keeping the Word in her heart. In so keeping and doing, we too, will overcome both sin and its impact on our lives as well as overcome death and its sorrows. We will eat the fruit of the tree of eternal life and enter through the pearly gates the Eternal City. We will be like the tree that never dries up, always flourishes in all seasons and fruitful in all stages and aspects of our lives. We will be like the house with deep foundations on the rock of Jesus that the storms of life manifested in the daily reality of sin and the ultimate reality of death cannot shake or disturb. Peace will flow from our hearts like a river and surround us like the waves of righteousness of the sea in the form of the fruit of the Spirit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility and self control.

When we look at the words – earth and heart- we find both words are comprised of the same letters. Both words when broken into its constituent syllables are ear- th or hear-t. When ear- th aand hear –t are expanded it means the same- hear and think. When we hear or read the word, we must not take it casually or lightly but meditate deeply on it. We need to dig deep to lay solid foundations to our lives in its various aspects and dimensions: our attitudes together constitute our hearts. Are our attitudes pleasing to the Lord ? If so, we have like David, the heart that God endorses as shaped after His own, full of love, grace, power, mercy, faithfulness, blessings. My personal experience is that as I delighted in the word from the age of seventeen, the Lord moved me from hamartia or shortcoming in many areas of my life to ‘hyperbole’ or overfulfilling or over achieving.
Prateep V Philip

Nearness and Greatness Manifested

UV 2912/10000 Nearness and Greatness Manifested
For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as the LORD our God is in all things that we call upon him for
Deuteronomy 4 v 7

God is not obligated to make us comfortable or happy but He does His duty as our Creator and Father of listening to us when we call Him. He is near to those who call Him in truth. When we call Him in Jesus, He is nearer to us than our own skin and certainly our sin. He distances our sin away from us as far as the east is from the west, beyond visibility, beyond memory and recall. The wall that partitioned us from the Lord God is broken down by Jesus and He is now one with us as Emmanuel, One in Us as our Lord and God and One for us as Ebenezer. If we truly believe this, what more can we want in heaven or earth.
The uni-verse also promises that the Lord our God is in ALL things that we call upon Him for. If we call upon Him in our private lives, He is in it. If we call upon Him in our relationships, He is in it. If we call upon Him in our finances, He is in it. If we call upon Him in our health, He is in it. If we call upon Him in our challenges, problems, situations, He is in it. He is the source of our greatness, our strength, our joy, our redemption, our power, authority and influence. We cannot predict how He will manifest in the areas and issues, we called upon Him but we can be assured that He will manifest and it will be great and glorious.
He is near us in all the ups and downs of life. Just as the Father and the Son are one, we are one with the Father. He allowed His only beloved Son to experience death, injustice, violence, loneliness, misery, pain, extreme suffering. There is no reason that if He wills it, He might not allow us to experience some of that pain, agony, suffering. But the assurance and guarantee is that He is near us even in death, disaster, failure, tragedy. Why does He require us to call Him? He wants us to draw near Him in our own volition, not out of circumstance, reluctance, conditioning, tradition, pressure or force. That He comes when we call upon Him is evidence of His great love for us and His humility for who are any of us to call the Almighty, that He should come to us when we beckon Him. Do we sense or feel His nearness to us when we call upon Him? Do we sense His presence in us, near us, with us, before us and around us?

Prateep V Philip

Fighting the Giants

UV 2911/10000 Fighting the Giants
The LORD your God which goeth before you, he shall fight for you, according to all that he did for you in Egypt before your eyes;
Deuteronomy 1 v 30

When the odds are against us, when the chips are down- these are the times the Lord is closest to His people. He fights on our behalf though we may be weak and puny as ants and those who oppose us, attack us, surround us seem like giants. He makes us gi-ants 0r God-inspired ants. He multiplies His signs and wonders in our midst as He did in Egypt on behalf of the hapless, unarmed Israelites led only by a man who carried a mere staff against the chariots and horses of Egypt. Pharaoh was a giant in comparison to the frail and old Moses and Aaron. By his mere word, he could have had Moses and Aaron killed. But Moses strengthened by the words of the Great I Am, Jehovah was himself a gi-ant or God-inspired ant. He had no great power or charisma of his own but relied entirely on the power of the Lord. He drove terror into the hearts of Pharaoh, the people of Egypt, the soldiers and commanders, the charioteers and horses. The Egyptians realized that the Israelites empowered by the Lord were invincible. In vain had Pharaoh hardened his heart in obstinacy for finally, He had to let the people of God go. The gi-ants had succeeded. They never had to see the Egyptian masters again. Israel had complete and total deliverance from the “super power” Egypt, proving that the word super power applied to nations is a misnomer. Only the Lord is the super power, the highest power, the paramount. In our lives, the Egyptian ruler, army, slave drivers are metaphors of different kinds of people who ride rough shod over us, who oppress us. These are also physical symbols of spiritual strongholds that attempt to rule over us, oppress us , attack us or oppose us. None of these giants, whether human, spiritual or physical can prevail against the will and word of the Lord.

For the gi-ants to succeed, the Lord our God has to go before us. Whatever we undertake, whatever struggle or opposition we face, whatever hostility we confront, even if the odds are formidable and against us, the Lord will turn the table. He inspires us with faith, courage, confidence, hope, fearlessness to take on the giants of our lives. The Lord does not wield a sword or shield or ride a chariot but He uses the strength of the enemy against themselves, He uses the elements of nature like cloud, fire, weather, rivers, seas to deliver the gi-ants. After the time of Moses, the mantle of leadership passed on to his mentee, Joshua and Joshua as a gi-ant was inspired and enabled to lead the motley army of Israel to victory against 31 kings. This becomes a metaphor for believers today. We daily combat 31 kings and the presence of the Lord with us enables us to overcome these giants. Indeed, if God be for us, who or what can be against us.
Apart from external foes who are formidable, we can also have internal foes. The first and foremost giants Jesus enables us to overcome is the fear of death. This giant’s head is crushed under the heel of the Saviour though He himself was hurt for a time. Another giant we need to face and overcome is the fear of failure. Like the young David, we need to store in our hearts uni-verses like this one to inspire us to persist and overcome the fear of failure. When we fear failure, we refuse to even try as ten of the twelve spies sent by Joshua advised him not even to try to take the promised land from the giant Anakim who inhabited the land adjoining Canaan. We do not go against the giants with stones and slings, or swords and shields but with prayers and promises. Other giants of our lives that Jesus helps us overcome daily are guilt, fear of judgement, lack of purpose, worries, temptations, trials, persecution, hatred, fear of diseases, fear of our own weaknesses and vulnerabilities, bitterness, envy, pride, indiscipline, lack of self control, insecurity, hopelessness, depression, lust, greed and so on. The Lord gives us victory over these giants so that we are strong, joyful and free, so that we have an inspiring glimpse of His glory and a powerful testimony or evidence of the reality of the Lord revealing Himself in our everyday situations and existential struggles.

Prateep V Philip

Hear -t

UV 2910/10000 Hear-t
And there came a voice out of the cloud, saying, This is my beloved Son: hear him.
Luke 9 v 35

Jesus is given to humanity as a witness of the Father, a leader and commander to all people. He is given as the Way to personal salvation and eternal, the Word of eternal life vested in Him and the truth personified in Him. But above all He is the beloved Son of the Everlasting Father of all mankind, the Creator of earth, moon, sun and stars and all of the universe and you and me. The only thing the Father expects us to do is to hear Him. When we quieten ourselves to listen to Him, His voice, His words, His counsel, His admonition and His endorsement of us, we are obeying the Father. The heart of God is satisfied when mankind listens to His beloved Son. The voice that came out of the cloud was the same voice that created the world, the same voice that commissioned Jesus to be sent into this dark world. The same voice that spoke to and through Moses and Elijah. The significance of the appearance of Moses and Elijah is to endorse Jesus as the fulfilment of all that they spoke of in their sojourn on earth. They were the two human witnesses needed to give witness and evidence to the apostles and through them to all Israel and all humanity that Jesus of Nazareth is the promised Messiah.

What was admonition to Peter who was babbling out of amazement on seeing the transfigured Jesus with Moses and Elijah is instruction to us. We should not interrupt the communication and the vision we receive from the Lord. We must quieten our inner being and hear Him. When we hear Him, we will naturally do what He tells us. There is nothing about us that He does not know. There is nothing about us that He does not care about. There is nothing that He cannot do. Hearing Him is our act of faith, our act of worship, our act of obedience, our logical response of love.

The heart of man is made by God to hear truth, treasure truth, honour truth, respect truth, obey truth revealed by Him, not made up by human minds or imagination. The heart of man is wicked from birth as the Bible tells us and as we experience in ourselves and others. Our hearts are transformed as we hear Truth which is personified in Jesus. When we hear Him and think on the words of eternal life He has spoken to us or is speaking to us, our hearts are transformed, our minds are transformed, our bodies will also one day be transfigured like that of Jesus, Moses and Elijah. Every day as we hear Him, we experience our Mount of Transfiguration experience. We need to quieten the babble, the chatter within us and listen with faith to the words of Jesus. It pleases the Father when we set all things aside and take time and pay attention to the words of Jesus, His beloved Son for into His hands has all things been given in heaven and on earth. Now we hear Him not just as the promised Messiah but as the risen King of Kings to whom all bow from the humblest to the monarchs and sovereigns of our time.

Prateep V Philip

The Litmus Test of the Abundant Life

UV 2909/10000 The Litmus Test of the Abundant Life
The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.

John 10 v 10
The Lord revealed recently a hidden truth in this familiar Uni-verse. All negativity comes from the enemy of our souls. He is the author of our personal destruction even as Jesus is the author of our personal salvation. He is the father of negativity while Jesus is the source of positive abundance and abundant positivity. His purpose is to get as many people born into this world to live a living death- a life of abundant misery, scarcity of everything good in life. His purpose is to make as many humans miss the mark and remain unfuflilled, frustrated, unbelieving in the goodness of God. Hence, every time we think negative thoughts or speak negative words or react negatively, we are succumbing or yielding to the enemy while every time, we choose to speak or think or do what is good and positive, we are affirming that we belong to Jesus. The negativity creeps in on us subtly, without us knowing, without our knowledge or permission. Hence, we may not even notice it but if apply the litmus test of positivity versus negativity, we will be able to discern if we are yielding to the enemy of our souls who wants to rob us of our happiness and joy, who wants to steal from us the peace Jesus won for us with ourselves, with others and with the Father in heaven.
The point of entry and manner of entering our lives is also a pointer whether the thought, habit or attitude or action is from the enemy or from Jesus: If the belief, thought, action, attitude or habit entered our lives without our conscious acceptance or choice, then it is not from the source of all abundance- Jesus. Another test or touchstone is whether we are experiencing the abundance of joy, peace and love that exudes from the presence of Jesus in our lives or whether we are constantly experiencing a sense of fear, scarcity and insecurity in our hearts and minds. Virtually, every thought, word and action of ours should be subjected to this test.
The uni-verse clearly states that the purpose of Jesus in coming to the earth is to enable all who believe and accept Him to experience eternal, abundant life marked by peace not strife, joy not sadness and sorrow, love not hatred, fellowship not loneliness, hope not frustration. But in our daily lives are we experiencing the abundant life? Do we have the abundantly positive mentality? Even as we enjoy such abundance in the spiritual dimension, we should always be wary of the negativity, the destructive subtle ways of the enemy. This is the reason Jesus said, “Be shrewd as the serpent and gentle as the dove.” We need to find a balance between completely avoiding the negative ways of the enemy and clinging to the positive ways of Jesus. Jesus did not merely talk about positivity or taught principles of positive thinking but He showed us how to counter negativity of all sorts. The cross that he embraced willingly is a symbol of negating the negative. He is also the only Yes and Amen to all God’s promises to mankind. Hence, we hold onto the precious promises in the Bible and overcome the world, its temptations, pressures and challenges. We can either be positive, or be involved in reducing the negativity in any situation or in turning it into something good and positive. In so doing, we live the abundant life – the purpose of the coming of Jesus to the earth.

Prateep V Philip