Reflections

DISCIPLESHIP: CALL TO WITNESS ACTS 2:37-47 Verse 38: Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” In the book of Acts, we can see God’s original plan and formation of the Church. We can see in Acts, Chapter Two that the disciples were all together in one place and this shows their unity among the early disciples. It was the day of Pentecost, fifty days after the day Jesus rose from the dead. 120 followers of Jesus had gathered to pray in the heart of the city of Jerusalem in a house, the whole building was on fire and the sounds of a strong wind was heard.  The coming of the Holy Spirit of God with power was accompanied by a mighty wind and the second one was cloven tongues like a fire. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues. The news of the strange events taking place on the day of Pentecost quickly spread throug...

DISCIPLESHIP - CALL TO WITNESS Mathew  16: 13-20 v16  Simon Peter  replied,”You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”.                        How  often  we  fail  to realize that we are called to be Christ's witness to the world?  Martin Luther said, “ A  religion that gives nothing - costs nothing, suffer nothing  is worth  nothing.” A christian disciple is one who is a dedicated follower of Jesus, who  is adherent  to the teachings ,  lifestyle and commandments of the Lord Jesus. Disciple is to become Christ like in all respects, before  making someone, or leads one to Christ  - which is Discipleship.  Late Abraham  Mar Thoma  Metropolitan  said,  Every Marthomite is an evangelist". Probably one might feel  it is very  easy to  be  a disciple.   Being a true discip...

DISCIPLESHIP -CALL TO WITNESS                                                     2 KINGS 2:1-15 Vs 15 The Spirit of Elijah doth rest on Elisha. And they came to meet him and bowed themselves to the ground before him. What is the cost of being a disciple of our Lord Jesus Christ? In Luke 9:23 it reads “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow me”. It is not an easy task to be a disciple and to be a witness. It needs lot of sacrifice on one’s part. We have to modify our plans, actions and attitude towards life. Our goals and priorities will change as well as our approach to problems in life. We will be the only Bible many will be reading and if our actions, words and dealings do not ...

Discipleship: Call to Witness John 3:22-30 v30 - He must increase, but I must decrease John The Baptist was the forerunner of Jesus Christ. The last link to the prophets. The calmness and depth of his personality distinguished him from the others. He was the prophetic testimony of the size of humility. There is no complaining that a person who has a keen sense of his own self and a generous mind to consider the other is ignored. The grandeur of the words used to convey to his companions and to those who come after him, to determine his greatness. Thus John the Baptist has set before us a lofty example of discipleship through his life. To fulfill assignments with justice To perform duties without blemishes To live in the light of the Call of God To bring everyone to Christ To become a guide to the quest of God Only those who have such attitudes can give the highest impression of discipleship to the world. He was man of humility. The humility stems from knowing who God i...

Worship: Celebration of faith of the people of God 1CHRONICLES  16:23-31 23 Sing to the Lord, all the earth; proclaim His salvation day after day. 24 Declare His glory among the nations, His marvelous deeds among all peoples   Worship is an extreme form of love with unquestioning devotion. When we worship God we show our love and reverence to God without questioning Him. Christian worship involves praising God in music and speech, readings from scripture, prayers of various sorts, a sermon, and various holy ceremonies. Why do we worship Jesus and not another, or for that matter, nothing at all? It’s a crucial question. If we have no answer to that question then we have no reason to be Christian. Jesus Christ God’s Son, the King of Kings, and the Lord of Lords, Himself held back from the privileges of His Divine Son-ship in order to take upon Himself our weakness. By becoming man, He was able to bring mankind to God. As one ancient writer said, “He became what He was not ...

Worship: Celebration of the faith of the people of God  Psalms 148 v1 “Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord from the heavens” The Christian faith centers around the love of God the Father towards us, which made Him give his only Son Jesus Christ to die for our sins. It’s all about believing in what Jesus did for us on the Cross of Calvary, that we may not perish, but have eternal life. We have been sealed as righteous and justified through our faith in Jesus Christ (Romans 5:1) and there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1). A proper response to such a great love bestowed upon us would be to express our honor to God through extravagant respect, reverence and devotions i.e. to Worship Him. Different ways of worship as mentioned in the Bible are: Bowing down and kneeling before God (Psalms 95:6) Offering prayers by lifting holy hands (1 Timothy 2:8) Coming before Him with happy songs (Psalms 100:2) Sharing our testimony and making His deeds known...

Worship - the celebration of faith of the people of God Ezekiel: 47. 1-11 . V1b” And the water was flowing down from under, from the right side of the house, from the south of the altar.”                This is the vision of the prophet Ezekiel. He saw a river emerging from the Temple, flowing eastward beginning as a trickle and becoming a deep river. Trees will grow along the banks. As river flows into the Dead sea, this water turns it into clean water for the life of fishes. Through the above vision of Ezekiel we see the origin of worship, the place of worship, the form of worship and the final result of worship. Where to worship?  We can see the answer to this in the conversation of Jesus with the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4:16-26. Worship transcends space and we can worship our Lord in all places when we worship Him in truth and spirit. We would be able to experienc...

WORSHIP - CELEBRATION OF THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE OF GOD 1 THESSALONIANS   5 :12-21 Vs. 16. Rejoice always. Worship shall be a place where we can meet and converse with our Lord. It need not be within a framework of four walls of a building. It can be anywhere we can spent some time concentrating and free of other distractions. If we can come to His presence on a one-to one basis in our loneliness, in our moments of despair and freely talk to him and listen to him, that is true worship. Many a times we may think that God has forgotten us since we have drifted far from him due to increased worldly attachments resulting from our inability to worship him in truth. But the truth of the matter is that we have a God who sees us as we are and where we are and he is all the time ready to listen to our supplications and answer. No matter how deep the stains of our sins are loving God assures that he can make it clean as a freshly fallen snow. Restoration is always possibl...

Worship: Celebration of Faith of people of God                       Isaiah 6:1-8                     Vs 5. Then said I Woe is me! For I am undone because I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, Jehovah of hosts.  Isaiah 6 is one of the most relevant chapters in the Bible as we find here Isaiah’s intimate account of his experience with God. Isaiah is having a firsthand knowledge of who God is, and is feeling his majesty and glory. Our ultimate goal in life through our worship, prayers and fellowship meetings is to taste and know our God, who is our redeemer and savior. Isaiah came to know the God in His righteousness and Holiness. When we happen to meet God which as a believer have to in our transit journey in this world we will get a better und...

Celebration of Faith of the People of God St. John 4:16-26 v.24: “God is Spirit, and His worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” This is a portion of the passage that is famous to all of us, Jesus talks to the Samaritan woman at the well.  Jesus was one who did not care about social constructs that was set by the culture of whom one should and should not talk to or interact with.  Much surprise to the Samaritan woman, we see Jesus took time to not only have a conversation, but to spend more time with her by requesting water, to drink it and interact with her.  The time Jesus was willing to stop and interact was the opportunity for the woman to know that the truth of the Gospel is available to a Samaritan as herself.  Jesus enabled her to know that He knows her more than she knows herself, He had her understand her wrong ways of life and to also seek and submit to the true living God. This allows us to reflect and ask ourselves, how many opportunities...

Creation Declaring the Glory of God Psalm 19 Psalm 19:3,4a-  They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. On a family vacation, some years back, we drove to the Grand Canyon. It was on our list of places to see for a number of years. We had researched it, saw pictures of it, but in the end nothing would truly prepare us for the experience of seeing it first hand. At the South Rim of the Canyon is a plaque with a bible verse: All the earth worships Thee, They sing praises to Thee, sing praises to thy name. - Psalm 66:4. For some moments, no words were spoken. We could only stand there in silence. Silent, yet overflowing in praise and thanksgiving.  The first part of Psalm 19 (vs 1-6) draws our minds back to the creation narrative in Genesis 1. But instead of God declaring, “It is good”, here the heavens declare of the glory of God. Creation continues to talk ab...

The Imprint of God     Isaiah 42 v5-7  This is what God the Lord says – the Creator of the heavens, who stretches them out, who spreads out the earth with all that springs from it, who gives breath to its people, and life to those who walk on it: “I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness; I will take hold of your hand. I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles, to open eyes that are blind to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.”     Praise God! This week as we have just celebrated Environmental Sunday – we look at how creation describes the glory of God. We see God’s imprint all around us. He is the creator of the heavens and the earth. He has weaved intricately our very being and the earth around us. He has breathed His breath into our nostrils and has given us stewardship over the land. He has called us out to preach the good news to the lost. We ...

Creation describing the Glory of God Colossians 1:9-20 v 9-12 “For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you.  We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way; bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to this glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience and giving joyful thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of life.”  These are the words of Paul to the Colossian church and yet in 2020, in the age of CoVid and racial divide this prayer is timely. Since CoVid-19 began, we’ve had to uncomfortably change the way we go about our daily routine.  But it also gave us and the world time for some much needed self-...

Beginning of the Fast of the Apostles Luke  6:12-19 v13 - When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them, whom he also designated apostles   The idea of fasting and praying is one that is rooted in submission and complete surrender to God and His will. In the passage for today, we see Jesus pray prior to choosing his twelve apostles. The passage specifically states that Jesus  spent the night praying to God . As we think about our everyday lives and the major decisions we make, are we truly  spending the night praying to God ? Or are we just looking to God to affirm the choice we want to make? As we think about the disciples that Jesus chose, each one of them was picked for a specific, God ordained reason. Even Judas, the one who betrayed Jesus, was chosen as a result of Jesus fasting and praying. Just as when Jesus went off to pray prior to Judas betraying him, He could have easily chosen the easier option, but He chose the path ...

New Creation Revelations 21:1-8 v 3.4 “Look God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain”   These words are to the believer water in a dry desert as we stand behind three weeks of protests, exhausted healthcare systems, unprecedented rates of unemployment, and the loss of loved ones. Over all of it, John paints for us one of the final scenes in God’s grand story of salvation: the completion of New Jerusalem. This promised future to those redeemed in Christ is a deeply intimate picture of hope and restoration. God himself will dwell once more with his people, as was his design for Eden. His people will be brought to glory and justice, every pain and sorrow a thing of the past. How our souls long for this order now! But I think it’s important for us to know what this picture follows, or we miss out on the de...

Wisdom in Creation    Proverbs 8:22-31 v23-25 “I was formed long ages ago, at the very beginning, when the world came to be. When there were no watery depths, I was given birth, when there were no springs overflowing with water; before the mountains were settled in place, before the hills, I was given birth”   My favorite place to spend time with God is in nature. When I look around and see various trees, plants, and even annoying bugs, I am reminded of the complexity and intentionality with which God created the world around us. Everything in nature serves a purpose and has a role to play in sustaining our ecosystem. Simply looking around at nature shows us the wisdom of God. Proverbs 8:22-31 illustrates how wisdom was present before all creation. It is primary and fundamental to everything in our world, and it serves as the foundation for all of creation. In the New Testament, Paul draws a parallel between the wisdom that was present before the world was created and...