Myth and Faith 10

Myth: God didn't do any favor to me...my parents gave birth to me and I am living my life with all my strength, facing all the struggles. 

Faith: Life is the invaluable gift of God. It's up to you how you take it, live it, face it, use it, enjoy it, and benefit out of it or lose it.

Let us try to understand the value of life by examining the famous game of cricket. The game of cricket draws the attention of most of common people around the world. ICC World Cup and IPL are the seasons that takes away the time of many people around the globe watching the live telecasts.

Cricket is a game between two teams each comprising of 11 members each, one bowls and the other bats...that means batsman hits the ball with bat and scores runs. There are certain rules that declare the batsman is out under some circumstances like if a fielder catches the ball hit by him...and such other rules. The bowler throws the ball to the batsman repeatedly and every time the batsman hits the ball. 

This happens for 50*6=250 times in a one day match. Inumerable number of matches took place ever since cricket game started and the players are doing the same thing, in the field of same size, over and over, again and again. Many players come and go, some will perform best, some average, some contribute to the wins, some contribute to lose etc and etc.

 For discussion's sake, the point of evaluation of the game is how well the batsman can hit the ball...and the fielders can stop the ball. That's it!! The entire game revolves around these two and continues until a bowler/fielder can out a batsman. The batsman can show up and perform in other words try to show his best until he is in the game without getting OUT.

Life is also similar. Every human being is given same resources of life and time like ball and bat. Every human being have to undergo same spheres of life, childhood, youth,  marriage,  kids, work to live, retire from work and one fine day retire from life. 

What matters in cricket is how well the batsman is capable of turning the ball he gets into a run and how well the bowler is capable of throwing the ball to keep the batsman from doing runs or outing him. What matters in life  is how well we are able to utilize the resources, our life and time we have in the limited time given to us. Once we are bowled we don't stand a chance.

 It's all how we play the each chance given to us. It's all how a batsman can utilize the each ball thrown to him. It's all how we respond to each opportunity given to us.  It's all how the bowler bowls each ball given to him. It's all how we work with each opportunity in our life.

 Every ball is a new opportunity to change the game. It can be made a six for batsman or can be a wicket for the bowler. Every day is a new beginning, a new opportunity to live life, shape life as we want it to be. 

Only Option is whether to play or let go!!

Myth and Faith - 9

Myth: The concept of God is personal. I can have my God based on my perception, my religion, my understanding, my faith, my family's belief system etc.

Truth: GOD is one. All human beings should have been created by one God. If that is so concept of GOD is no more personal, but one must find one true GOD and bow before him.

Let me start with explaining this with a small question "Who is GOD" to get a clearer understanding. This question is of great controversy to the human world. We will study this question dividing it into three simpler questions that are facts of general observation of the contemporary world.

What man expects from God?

Man, from times immemorial, has been expecting God to protect him, and to propagate him. Protecting in the sense protection against all sorts of dangers, hazards so that he and his kindred were not destroyed. Propagate in the sense he should have children of his womb to continue his kindred on this earth without perishing. Next comes God should provide everything required to live safe and sound.

Practically speaking, man should have started attributing Godly nature to someone/something that has overwhelming power, mysterious power, which is inexplicable by his understanding, so that they may not destroy him, believing that they may protect him and give him all that is required to live. Because he found only them different and powerful out of all that is surrounding him.

For example, humans of rock ages used to dwell in caves and suffered attacks from wild animals like lion, tiger, poisonous snakes etc., and started to fear them as gods, which eventually lead to their place in portrayal of deity.

When there was a forest fire, man used to offer sacrifices to the god of fire believing that it would subside his wrath, so that their homes are not burnt. When there is a drought he used to offer sacrifices to rain God so that he may send rain and they may survive. When he learned to go fishing, he started praying to god of sea so that waters may not drown them. When he started living with little sophisticated routine, he started praying daily to Sun god. When he began to socialize and live in colonies with fellow human beings, one of these gods, depending on their geographical location, protection against which regular natural calamity is required that became their prominent mode of deity, so that it evolved into a civilization eventually. we can understand this by observing the traditional festivals that are organized in a specific area of any country. The local festivals give a good indication of their historical background. Like dasara/Bonalu is celebrated more in Telangana, which is known for its spirit of war, where as sankranthi is celebrated more in Andhra Pradesh, where agriculture is the major occupation. So, people in ignorance of real god, started attributing Godliness to the elements of nature than to God himself. 

Once the civilisations developed man started to look at dominanace over other civilisations by practicing and excelling in his fleshly arts. So he expected God to help him in these arts and started praying a separate god for each one. He started worshipping some gods of qualities....god of love (Eros, Greek) god of lust (Manmadha, India), god of knowledge (Apollo, Greek) and so on unendingly just trying to achieve great success through fleshly elements.

So till now what all we have seen are the gods man created for his well being, prosperity and satisfaction. But he did not pay any heed to the fact who is God really.

Now in modern day situations, now that the mankind has developed very well, able to reach space, able to produce animals and plants with desired attributes, even trying to produce newer species of life through gene modelling etc., why do we need to think of God?

Why GOD?

Human life now a days became very much self sufficient that they do not need to depend on any one for anything. All kinds of services are being offered for money. And earning money too became a relatively easy matter. So there is not much need in the present day world to bother about god. Leave about god people do not bother about relationships even.

In such a situation if one talks about god it is difficult to digest. But still whatever is the state of human beings, either in rock age or medieval period, or scientific age, the way of human beings entering into this world and leaving this world remained (almost) the same. Why I used almost is because of the clones, test tube babies and other methods to give birth to children. But the principal mode is the same. Atleast death is same all the time, when the heart stops, a person is declared dead.

And the point that when death visits a person is utterly uncertain as it is always. Death may visit a person the very next moment, after five days, or after five years, may be even after fifty years. This gives a lot of room to the thought that life of a person is not in his own hands, irrespective of whether he does good or bad, whether he is a child or old aged, a man or woman, whether he is civilized enough to protect himself or not, whether he have sufficient money to protect him self or not, the rule is same for all, death is inevitable and no one knows how and when its going to happen. And once the Life is gone nothing else to be spoken of about that person, irrespective of whether he did mighty things, or lead a simple unknown life. All that is spoken about him is only 'He is NO MORE'!!

We cannot even say whether a person will die on a hospital bed after every type of measure has been tried to protect him, or instantaneously without even having a chance to fight for/save life. And we might have seen many people revived after getting hairline distance with death.

If that is the case, there must be definitely some source that gives life and that takes away life, that controls the happenings and mishappenings of this world. That source is none other than the GOD. And that's the reason one has to fear God.

Because of the fear of death, GOD has been understood as source of life and many ways to reach God have been tried by men all over the world. And the result is so many gods for many different races of human beings all over the world. But there must be surely one God who is in control of everything in this world whatever it might be. So the next thing we need to understand is why there should be only one God?

Why there should be only one GOD?

Hence now what we need to think if there is god and we need to fear him, how many gods do we need to fear? Really do we need to fear one god for one purpose and another god for another purpose?

Actually speaking, the elements of human life are the same all over the world. I mean to say, human race is one dominanat species of the world, and all the humans share basic common elements. For example smile is the universal language of acceptance, grin is the universal language of misapprehension. Thus man can communicate with another man irrespective of his geographical background and language, using these simple gestures.

Union of man and woman is a tradition, family institution is the same all over the world. Parenting is the same and the attitudes of children of same age are more or less the same irrespective of sect of humans they belong to. And the human values are same all over the world, like an extra marital affair is understood/taken as a violation of general morality. Sexual immorality is opposed by major population of the society whichever is the society, American, Indian, or European.

The treatments that were discovered for ailments of human body apply well to all the human beings all over the world. The technology that was discovered at a specific place is being spread and is being used for the benefit of mankind all over the world. The nature, geography is consisting basically common elements like land, vegetation, animals, lakes, rivers, seas and oceans all over the world.

If we keep talking like this ample of examples we can speak about the commonality that mankind and nature share all over the world. And above all, according to what we have spoken of earlier, mode of people entering this world and leaving this world is the same undoubtedly.

So it is highly unbelievable that so many different Gods would have made all these. Logically speaking if there are different gods for different geographical locations, how would it be possible for them to create a creation that has common features?  According to some mythological stories, Gods too contradict with each other...and there exists times when two gods opposed each other. Even no two mens thoughts are completely alike.

Then how so many Gods will have same thought for their creation. Obviously there should be some other dominant forms of life intelligent/competent with human race if so many Gods would have made the world. If we just ponder a while on this fact it will lead us to a conclusion about GOD, he must be ONE.

Not only that God must be someone having a superior nature above that of a human being. He should not be some one who share common grounds with humans. If he also marries, and if he feels jealous, and if he steals, and has same lust as a human being has, if he has to trick like humans to survive, then how he is superior to man? If we just think about all these things we will be able to accept that God must be some one who is having some special attribute that no human being can carry and that is Sovereignty. Then obviously God must be ONE.

Myth and Faith - 8

 Myth - Nothing can change the fate of the person. If a person did one grave mistake, his life is gone, he may not cope back..

Faith - Yes, when people make big mistakes, there will usually be no comeback, but confidence in self, faith in God and proper repentance do work to give better time, probably life even.

Naturally human life is a series of events, not a single event as a whole. It cannot be defined in one go or depend wholly on one event. It depends on a number of actions that a person takes towards betterment. In this course, if one step is correct and another step is wrong the overall result may nullify and betterment maynot be seen. 

In other words to say, if you take some steps 1, 2, 3 alright and take 4th step wrong, and then 5th step fine also, the end result will see a decrease,  because of the wrong act. This all the steps in perfect agreement and uplifting will happen with the grace of God. When one depends on God, God gives us the wisdom to take right decisions and guides our way. Not that alone, God makes the things to fall in place to give the final good outcome. So the grace of God is much needed in such a case. It is actually the lie that Satan says you cannot come back... There is HOPE in the Lord JESUS, for He is the redeemer, from whatsoever...

It is worth wondering how things work for good...by seemingly simple things like praying in the name of Jesus day and night, and reading God's Word to hear what God will say through his Word, worshipping the Lord with other believers

Myth and Faith - 7

Myth - Forgiveness for sins is not necessary. When no one knows/sees what we've done, when no one received any harm through us forgiveness for the sins is not needed.

Faith - Forgiveness is necessary no matter what, whether the sin is performed in secret, whether or not someone knows it or someone faces problem with it or not, sin needs forgiveness, and it is through the precious blood of JESUS CHRIST alone!                                 

Reason # 1: The very definition of sin says "transgression of law is sin" (1 John 3:4) If we observe and try to understand for an innocent child who does what his parents say, doing wrong for the first time will be of great trouble, and he fears much. And doing the same wrong second will not cause the same amount of fear as he had the first time. If the child happens to repeat same wrong thing, it becomes much more easy and he gets habituated to do that. Likewise transgression of law for first time will be very difficult, second time bit difficult, repeated subsequently becomes easy, habituated and becomes part of life. There are many sins that will not cause harm, therefore human beings tend to do them habitually. These habitual sins itself will decide the very nature of the human being, in other words our nature becomes sinful. Deliverance from such sins is needed obviously to get the holiness to reach God and to become a better self too.

Reason # 2: If dangerous sins were carried out secretly without other people being aware of them, the person practicing them might get effected in physical, mental and spiritual levels. Sins mentioned in Mark 7:21 like theft, murder, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance, folly and sexual immorality like self-pleasure, fornication and adultery come under this category. The consequences of such sins may or maynot befall on the person, but they are dangerous sins that cause the entire chaos in the entire human society as we all know. Therefore it is beyond question that deliverance from them is required for the good of human society.

Reason # 3:  We can stop doing habitual sins only by repenting about them deeply and refraining from doing so again. But this point of refraining from doing so depends entirely on one's self, which in turn is dependent on the strength of self-will and depth of repentance. In other words at any stage if the person feels 'this is fine, I can do this at least this one time' again the person falls into same sin. At this juncture, there is no force that can actually stop or persuade a person from refraining to do sin. But when we accept Jesus Christ and repent for our sins, He is Just to forgive all our sins(I John 1:9) and we will be washed from the sin and sinful nature by the precious blood of Jesus Christ. This removes the guilt, and the deliverance we get helps us to refrain from doing it again, therefore change for a better self is possible. Whenever we get the desire to sin, God, the Holy Spirit will help us to overcome the desire. Speaking in intellectual terms, we fear to sin again at least because, we believe in the holiness of God and we know we should be holy, or at least when we remember the love of JESUS which He bestowed on us, we refrain from doing the sin.

Reason # 4: Deliverance from the sin is only by believing that Jesus Christ shed every drop of blood for the sake of our sins. But since we are living in the world with our mortal body, desire to sin again can be removed only through the continuous fellowship with God. When we do not commune with the Lord enough, satan will provoke/tempt us in which areas we are more prone to fall. If we fall, our conscience pricks, and if we dont set it right immediately with God and man, we tend fall again and again and eventually backslide, which is satan's desire for our lives. So immediately we have to repent if we make a mistake or sin after we are saved. Repenting before God and getting forgiven strengthens our faith in God and our spirit. Otherwise its Satan's trap to pull us down into the miry clay of sin. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

Myth and Faith - 6

Myth - Christianity is also one way to God. All religions say the same thing, to love and help others and live in harmony with others...Christ also said the same things.

Faith - The converse of both statements is true. Let us see some arguments to unfold the truth.

1. Christianity is not a religion, but its a way to God. You may see many religions - Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Judaism are religions that indicate a group of people that follow a specific belief system. 

Whereas Christianity, as the word indicates (unlike the religions ending with -ism), is a quality acquired by the person by accepting Christ as the personal savior, and it qualifies a person to reach God. Accepting the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross as redemption from sins (Christianity) is the only way to God. 

2. All religions say, to love and help others and live in harmony with others...but not at the expense of your own will and happiness and interests. This tends to build a wall around people of like interests, and harmony exists within the walls, and a kingdom of men/people will exist, as it is occurring in the world now.

But Christ said to love others and help at the expense of your own will and happiness and interests so that God who sees from heaven will reward you. At the same time, you will win their heart because of which there will be harmony. When every single person does the same thing, there will be overall harmony, which prevails in the entire world. 

There will be peace in the world when men follow the scriptures, the ten commandments given to Moses by the LORD. In the New Testament, in Mathew 22:37-40, Jesus said the entire law hangs on two commandments, the second one being 'love your neighbor as yourself'. This is because, if you love your neighbor then you would not steal from your neighbor, you will not covet his belongings or his wife, neither you can harm him, can say false things about your neighbor, nor you can commit adultery which is against your spouse and the other person involved too... This is the essence of Jesus's commandment. 

When Jesus said that you should love the LORD your God with all your soul and with all your mind, as first and foremost commandment, it meant that man should be aware of the existence of a SUPREME BEING who is the controller of all things and give all the reverence that belongs to HIM alone, which is the only means to reduce the pride of the human being and limit over exultation of one's self. And it also follows that because a person learns to love God first - he starts loving his neighbor. 

But human beings made Gods of their likeness and convenience, from their very nature of accepting/living up to things that only meet their convenience/demands. So as discussed above so many kingdoms and kings exist, and there are differences in societies and people of one society are not able to accept the other society.

Since all human beings came from one father ADAM, all the humans should have same treatment, same law, same freedom, same quality of life. In simple words harmony is needed in the world, as in the Garden of EDEN. 

Just because only Christianity supports this cause of world harmony, Christianity is the only way to GOD. Just because JESUS Christ gave the commandments that fulfill the commandments of the LORD given in the Old Testament, in Moses's time, JESUS is the Son of God, or God Himself, or the Only way to God. And accepting Jesus Christ as personal saviour (Christianity) is the only way to God...

Myth and Faith - 5

Myth - People who are successful spiritually won't have any troubles (or) people who don't have troubles will be successful spiritually

Truth - Hard truth is that satan has its own Suttle ways to shake the faith of people whatever is the level of spirituality, how well settled the person maybe. Every human being will carry few weaknesses by nature, that came from his parents and brought up. Unless the person repent deeply and get transformed, satan continuously provokes the person in these areas to bring him down spiritually. This is one reason why a person should die to the older self when converted and become a new person. Otherwise satan will get a strong hold on the person. 

Stronger the persons faith grows and the person grows spiritually, stronger the attacks will grow. One should be wise enough to be able to guess the attack and handle and also should be strong enough to keep faith and eyes on the LORD. Otherwise we lose!!

Myth and Faith - 4

 Myth: God also cannot help if the person is not willing to change.

Faith: Even if the person is not willing to change, if the person have desire to change himself, if he surrenders himself to God to bring about that change in him, God will definitely help, because our God is a compassionate God who sees the inner most thought/motive of human heart.

God gives many chances to a person. Even though he is not willing to change but waits upon God, God makes that person learn the need to change, and shows the way how to change, in a way understandable by that person. Only God can do that, just as a mother is the only most satisfying thing in this world to a little child, only a mother can quieten her crying child, so is God to a believer. He can make the person understand the value and help to change. 

And God has that patience to wait upon a person. Men(human beings) give few chances and will say that - useless, hopeless, cannot change etc, etc, but God keeps giving second chances untill we understand and change, provided we are in the right path, in the midst of fellowship of Godly people, and continuously be in his courts and plan, and try to move towards God and value Him. If we move away, go astray from the path, then the our fate befall on us. 

Myth and Faith - 3

Myth - If I believe in Jesus I should forsake all my pleasures, habits, friends, relatives etc

Faith - If we believe in Jesus only thing we need to forsake is SIN. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation 2 Corinthians 5:17. If you believe in Chirst, you will be transformed into a new creation whose interests will no longer be the same as that of the old being. The focus of the person actually shifts to the reality.

Believing Jesus and accepting Him as our personal saviour is an instantaneous decision. Repenting deeply for our sins and seeking the forgiveness and promise of the LORD for us is the process we go through at the time of salvation. God's grace is so abundant that He NEVER EVER rejects a person approaching Him seeking salvation. So by His grace we will be saved. 

But after being saved, sanctification is actually a process, that depends on the level of obedience and faith a person has. If the person is very obedient, has a strong faith and have strong revelation of truth,  sanctification of the person occurs very easily, and such people wont feel desire for the worldly pleasure much. They rise to be best of the pastors and leaders who lead multitudes to the LORD, like Bro.Bakth singh and Mr.N.Daniel, through whom fellowships like Hebron and LEF came up. 

More resistant the person is more lessons will be given by God to submit and surrender totally to God. In process the person may not obey God totally and be separated from SIN and WORLD, but our good LORD is patient enough to lead and protect His children (Romans 8:26) and wait upon them until they understand and experience the truth actually. 

Once the person actually understands and experiences the truth, no one need to forcefully drag him away from world and its pleasures, but he himself willingly, and lovingly submits himself to the LORD. This is the most beautiful experience of being a Christian. But nothing might actually happen simply by singing famous Hymn "I surrender all..." or forcing ones self to quit few things. It is actually a work of Holyspirit, an inside matter, which happens only on showing obedience.

But here is a DISCLAIMER. No one knows when the LORD returns or when we may die. So it is always better to show obedience when time is there...because we know not when our END is...

People who are given chances till they learn truth will be lucky enough, and people who don't get chances will become examples...which none of us want to be!

Myth and Faith - 1

Myth- I am all alone, nobody in this world loves me.

Faith- God loves you! (and its true!)

God loves you more than anyone else does!

God loves you as if you are the only one in this world, as if there is no one else in this world!

God loves every human being in this world in the same way.

You may wonder how God can do all these, and why God will do all these... Its because God is love...I John 4:16. And it is said that Jesus is the Gift of God to the mankind, for God so Loved the world Gospel according to John 3:16. 

So lets try to understand the reason behind all these. If we observe love between man and woman, they try to cling to each other life long(by getting married to each other), if they have true love on one another. This is most common understanding we all have.

So according to the scriptures, God loved the man. But if God wants to stay with man, He cannot do that because, man is unholy because of his sinful nature. No man who is clean want to sit and dine with an unclean beggar or a rouge right! So in the same way God cannot have fellowship with man even though He loves man very much. 

So, if God has to have fellowship with man, man should become holy. For the man to become holy, his sin should be punished. But the wages of sin are death, that means man should die for his sin. So to remove this death, and restore the fellowship of man with God, Jesus took mans punishment, died on the cross. But since Jesus is God, death cannot hold Him for longer, so He rose from dead. 

Now whoever believes that Jesus died for him on the cross - Romans 10:9, is saved from sin and death, which means that man is made holy, free of sin. Now the God will have fellowship with that man in the form of HolySpirit, residing in his heart. 

Now therefore, God is always there with you, to love you, to lead you, to guide you, to help you live in this world, if you believe that Jesus died for you on the cross, to remove your sin.

So you are not alone in this world if you believe in Jesus really, since He will be your everlasting friend, who will never leave you nor forsake you, no matter what!

Myth and Faith - 2

Myth- Few people wont correct themselves no matter how many times we forgive them and give chance to them to be our friends and acquaintances and relations. They keep doing wrong against us, misbehave with us, mis-handle us ill treat us, hurt us etc. We should not give second chances to such people, because they don't deserve them.

Faith- Actually no human being is worthy of a second chance. Sin in his body needs to be punished in his body, for the wages of sin is death. But God out of his love, sent his only begotten son to this world as JESUS to bore the sin of mankind, to bear the punishment of our sin in His body Isaiah 53:5. Jesus took the sin of every human being on himself, died on cross and resurrected to forgive mankind and gave second chance to live. And Jesus said we should forgive others seventy times seven mathew 18:22... meaning we should forgive a person endlessly, how many times he does the sin, those many times we need to forgive, or simply we should bear the persons weaknesses forever. If we are forgiving, we are giving second chance. Forgiveness is an unmerited favour, which is given to the one who is not worthy of it. We Christians, having received forgiveness should forgive or should be able to forgive others who wrong us, unknowingly or wantedly (Mathew18:21-35). This is the deepest meaning of Christianity.