The Outside-Inside Upside

UV 4171/10000 The Outside-Inside Upside You ( spiritually) blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and plate ( examine and change your inner self to conform to God’s precepts), so that the outside ( your public life and deeds) may be clean also. Matthew 23 v 26 The upside of the outside-inside divide in the human being is that it is possible to turn around our topsy turvy values once we give priority to God in our lives. Then, the things that really matter, the internal and the eternal will begin to rule, dominate, lead, guide the external, the superficial, the behavioural, the material aspects of our lives. Jesus, the Author of Life, of Human Life, the Human mind in the uni-verse points out to the priestly class and to us, here and now, that the inside of the human being needs to be first cleaned. We need to conform to God’s precepts and image in our inner being. There are ways to do it in our everyday life. We need to lean on God, glean from His word daily in order to keep our inside clean. The outer world dirties us even as a child playing in mud cannot avoid being dirty and getting his clothes muddy, too. The Lord has given us pure white clothes or robes of salvation in Christ, the Word. We need to purify our insides, too to be pure, holy, wholesome, worthy of Christ. We can wash ourselves with His word which is the water of eternal life. We need to mind our minds more than even our business. The word renews our minds on a daily basis. It recharges our minds, revitalizes our thoughts, emotions, intentions. We need to take every thought captive to Christ by arresting any negative thoughts, attitudes, feelings then and there, at the starting point. We need to arrest bad actions, gestures, reactions, habits since we are to have the mind of Christ. Our minds need to conform not to the negative patterns of this world but the positive, wholesome patterns of His word. Saturating our minds with His word, filling it with His thoughts and thoughts of Him is a way to incarnate the Resurrected Redeemer in our lives. The ROI or return on intelligence is immense, infinite when we absorb the wisdom of the word in the things we need to do, the things we need to avoid, the choices we need to make, the choices we need to abhor or avoid. Instead of getting baked to the moulds of this world, the living, active, powerful, life-giving and enhancing patterns of the word will shape our character, our communication and even our career.

Holistic Health, Peace and Prosperity

UV 4170/10000 Holistic Health, Peace and Prosperity Behold, ( in the restored Jerusalem) I will bring to it health and healing, and I will heal them; and I will reveal to them an abundance of peace ( prosperity, security, stability) and truth. Jeremiah 33 v 6 The world has discovered through the current pandemic that health is the true or real wealth that we should all seek. Of what avail is all the wealth in the world, if our health fails! Ultimately, nothing in this fallen world can redeem a fallen man. We are misplacing our hope and trust if we trust anything or anyone in this world. When we are restored in Christ back to the Creator, God, Jehovah, He promises to give us health and healing. Jehovah declared to the Israelites, “I am Your Healer.” Jesus healed all the people who came to Him for healing different afflictions. We do not hear of Jesus, Himself suffering from any ailment. He is One Physician who does not need to heal Himself. He healed the spirit, mind and body of people with a variety of afflictions. Today, we need mental health, emotional health, physical health, spiritual health. If health is our first requirement, an abundance of peace and truth is our second and third requirements. Jesus, being the Prince of Peace restores peace with God to all believers. He also restores peace within ourselves. He restores peace among ourselves, peace in our families, with our spouse, with our children, with our neighbours, with our colleagues. Peace in this uni-verse has three significant dimensions- prosperity, security and stability. Happiness from the biblical perspective consists of health, peace, prosperity, security and stability. Having been restored to health, peace, prosperity, stability by the Lord we have a role to play to maintain or sustain it. We need to be focused on the Lord and His word. Our minds should not be wavering in its desires and goals. We need to be anchored, rooted, established in the word. To such the Lord promises perfect peace. We should not think, speak or do anything that adversely affects such peace. We need to lean on the Lord, glean from His word in order to be clean. Then the Lord will bestow on us His shalom- which is a word that stands for holistic health, holistic peace, holistic success, holistic strength, holistic wealth, holistic security.

Spiritual Resilience

UV 4169/10000. Spiritual Resilience So he said to them, “ Out of the eater came something to eat, and out of the strong came something sweet.” And they could not solve the riddle in three days. Judges 14 v 14 Whatever the enemy, the roaring lion, satan throws at us, humans, with the help of the Word, Jesus, the Messiah, the King of Kings, the Wonderful Counsellor, the Ebenezer, Emmanuel, the Prince of Peace we can emerge from it stronger, better, sweeter. Jesus solved the riddle of life and of sin in three days from His death to His resurrection. Hence, the killer is defeated, the tempter is routed, the strong one is bound. Death is defeated, death is overcome, conquered, made toothless and clawless so it cannot hold us to ransom. Jesus by surrendering to death on the cross achieved two things at one go- payment for man’s sin and the right to eternal life being given to mankind. He, then, is the source of our spiritual resilience, sustenance and of our thriving forever. We go through tough and rough situations in life not to cause us pain, not to sadden us but to make us stronger and better. The man or woman of faith is victorious and an overcomer in any life situation. Samson’s riddle holds in it the secret of the gospel. Death till the resurrection of Jesus caused fear and panic in any human, high or low, rich or poor, strong or weak but Jesus solved the puzzle, the riddle of how man can live forever in His sacrifice. Samson wanted thirty linen tunics from his in laws to be if they could not answer the riddle he asked. But Jesus by solving the age old problem of mankind clothed us with wholesome salvation. Today, we continue to be vulnerable to the first or physical death but this is compared by Jesus to our routine of sleeping for often He referred to the dead as merely sleeping. We are freed from the fear of guilt, of judgement in the hereafter, freed from the secondary death or eternal death, the experience of continual dying, continual suffering. The powerful enemy death had been rendered innocuous and harmless. Freed from the bonds of sin and death we now have the sweet experience of spiritual freedom. We can now go from strength to strength till the Lord calls us home. Our lives freed from the sting of fear and shame are to be lived in fellowship and joy with the Lord. For the justified in Christ live by faith and not by fear and the sanctified in the Spirit live in joy.

The Axe that Floated

UV 4168/10000 The Axe That Floated The man of God said, “ Where did it fall?” When he showed him the place, Elisha cut off a stick and threw it in there, and made the iron (axe head) float. 2 Kings 6 v 7 The axe was borrowed and Elisha’s disciple was desperate when he seemed to have lost the axe in the Jordan river. It is a metaphor today for the losses or threats of loss we face in our lives and work life. Elisha, the man of God accompanied his disciples when they went to the river side. A leader should be with his team when they are at work. In a crisis, they have someone to turn to. The leader should turn to God for a solution to any crisis, man-made or natural or spiritual. God can do the impossible when the human heart is in faith and alignment with His heart. He can make an iron axehead float. He can turn around impossible situations in our favour as we cry out to Him even as Elisha’s disciple cried out to him. In this covid pandemic, many people are burdened with financial debts, money owed to somebody or to the bank with nothing in sight to retrieve the losses. But when we turn to the Lord and cry out in desperation but in faith and hope, He will make the axe head float. There are some things that lie with us to do just as Elisha took a stick and asking the disciple where it fell, he threw it in the same area. We need to do all that lies with us. In the course of the last thirty four years of my professional and personal as well as familial life, there were many occasions when our borrowed axe head had fallen in the water. We cried out to the Lord and He saved us in all these situations when we faced some imminent loss or suffered the loss already. No situation is beyond redemption for us as long as we know the direction in which we are moving and we are holding onto our hope in Jesus. For an iron axe to float, it requires nothing short of a miracle. It also needed the faith of both the disciple to trigger it and Elisha’s faith in God and self to move to action. Faith obtains supernatural favour or grace for us and grace causes the miracle to happen. Tears and anxiety will turn into laughter, joy and sheer relief. The miracle happened not so that Elisha could boast of his ability or power or even faith but to boost the faith of the faithful, to vindicate the words and actions of the man of God.

Throw Away Worries, Embrace His Love

UV 4167/10000 Throw Away Worries, Embrace His Love Casting all your cares ( all your anxieties, all your worries, and all your concerns, once and for all) on Him, for He cares about you ( with deepest affection, and watches over you carefully). I Peter 5 v 7 It is an act of humility as well as trust to entrust all our concerns, worries, anxieties to God for it shows we are acknowledging that we cannot handle it on our own, that we believe God can and will take over our worries and handle it effectively. The basis for such trust is the love of God for each one of us. His love is absolute not relative and hence, He has come the extra billion miles for each of us in sending His Son to pay the price for our moral and spiritual failings. We just need to stand where we are in silent acknowledgement of such love, in wholehearted acceptance of His love. We are to cast both our frowns and our crowns at the feet of God. When we are in a personal relationship with God through His Son, Jesus, our Saviour and Sovereign, we only need to render our hearts to Him and not rend it. We only need to surrender the totality of our past, present, future, our whole being to Him, our eternity. When we do so, we have entered an O-zone – or a zone of His omnipresence, omniscience, omnipotence. We are in a safe zone, a fail safe zone, a zone of total trust and zero fear. No hair of ours can fall without His specific knowledge or permission. No one can touch us or harm us for we are the apple of His eye. He is ever watching over us even when we are not vigilant or back sliding or careless. We are therefore, to cast all our earthly burdens on Him. He promises to lighten our burdens- physical, financial, spiritual, emotional, relational. Not a moment are we to waste or fritter away in bitter thought but try to get better in all things by His grace, with His constant help. He also sends the Holy Spirit to help us, encourage, enable, empower us to help us endure. With His help, we should learn from the patience, gentleness and humility of Jesus. All the words we utter as well as our inner thought needs to be positive, confessing, affirming faith in the unquenchable love of God, the overwhelming, awesome power of the Lord.

Grace Delivers Us from All Graves

UV 4166/10000 Grace Delivers Us from All Graves Then you will know (with confidence) that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves and made you come up out of your graves, My people. Ezekiel 37 v 13 The Lord delivers us not only from our physical graves once we are dead but the emotional, intellectual, spiritual, financial, professional, relational, familial graves too. He is the Life and the Resurrection and His power of resurrection is working in us for His glory, by His grace, all the time and reviving, restoring us from the dead, the inactive, the ineffective, the powerless, the decadent, the lifeless in all the realms we are engaging in. He does it all the time as we are His people and He is committed to our total well being in the here and now as well as in the hereafter, the eternal, the internal and the external. He sends His angels to remove the large boulder at the cave grave of all our domains. By His reviving, restoring, resurrecting us, He gives us evidence and utmost confidence that not only He is the I Am, the self existent, uncreated Creator, the Source and Fountainhead of all life and wisdom and power but that He loves us and He desires to be good and do good to us in our limited, finite days even on Earth before He receives us to hold us close to His bosom. We realize that He alone is praiseworthy, belief-worthy, trustworthy, awesome I Am. He is the I Am who is all powerful, He is the Being who is all loving, He is the Being who is ever faithful, He is the Being who is ever wise and gentle. The grave has no claim on us. He has declared us as His children, His representatives on Earth, His viceroys to exercise power and authority over the works of death of the enemy. Death held a sting for all mankind hitherto as it was the beginning of the great unknown. No one knew what lay beyond and behind it. It was irrevocable. Death or hamartia or tragic failing or falling came due to human sin and bondage to sin. But Christ, the first ever Conqueror of the grave, of death has removed the sting of both the grave and death. By His physical resurrection, Jesus rendered even ultimate physical death powerless, revocable, reversible and the doorway, the gateway to eternal, abundant, joy filled life in His presence.

Judging Ourselves Forestalls God's Judgement

UV 4165/10000 Judging Ourselves Forestalls God’s Judgement But if we evaluated and judged ourselves honestly ( recognizing our shortcomings and correcting our behaviour), we would not be judged. I Corinthians 11 v 31 Instead of falling under judgement of God, it is wise for us to judge ourselves. At the same time, we ought not to judge others as it is the prerogative of God. We cannot arrogate to ourselves the power or right to judge others. We are to look at others with mercy and grace and consider ourselves severely. The yardstick we used hitherto to judge others we need to change its direction towards our own selves. Each of us have different kinds of shortcomings or weaknesses. Some of it are supportive weaknesses like the little finger enables the other bigger fingers to form a strong fist or to get a good grip. Some are manageable weaknesses which we can regulate. Some are absolute negative weaknesse that have the potential to destroy our souls, minds or bodies or any of these, for example, an addiction to liquor, pornography and so on. We need to recognize these early enough and pray for grace or power to overcome these deadly shortcomings. Some weaknesses are temperamental or emotional weaknesses like the tendency to fly into a violent temper with even a small provocation. These need to be combatted and overcome with the help of the Holy Spirit, with much prayer and even fasting. Some weaknesses might be a morbid level of fear or anxiety. Again, we need to get the help of Ebenezer, the God who not only accompanies us but helps us on a continual basis. There are apparently two stages in our fight against our own inner weaknesses- first, we need to be aware or recognize our weaknesses, our failings, our flaws. Second, we need to take corrective steps or measures to avoid, reduce, overcome the weaknesses. The uni-verse tells us that we need not be ashamed of our weaknesses or ignore it but be fully aware, own it, take responsibility for dealing with it, get help of the Lord and overcome it, reduce it, avoid it, turn it into a source of strength. Jesus asks us to be ruthless with the absolutely negative weaknesses like lust for He says, “If your left hand causes you to sin, cut it off.. If your right eye causes you to sin, it is better to gouge it out.” We are to chip away regularly at the beam in our own eye that keeps our vision blocked, keeps us from realizing our God-given potential, use our abilities or resources effectively. The beam of light the Lord flashes into our blinded eyes removes the beam that blocks our vision and enables us to see our own weaknesses as one of the above categories. He, then, gives us the grace to overcome each weakness or use it as a support for our strengths. Weakness is part of human nature and the power to overcome comes from God. Weakness is even needed to understand that we are frail, vulnerable humans in need of supernatural help. It is needed to keep us humble and dependent on the Lord. In fact, even our strengths can turn into a source of weakness when we over rely on it, over leverage or gloat on it.