TRUE BLESSEDNESS!

True Blissfulness!

Verse for Today: Friday, September 27, 2013

Psalms 119:2 – Blessed are they who keep His statues and seek Him with all their heart.

True blessedness is the experience of a heart full of happiness which fills to overflowing. It then expresses itself into other lives around and challenges them to seek such blessedness. But there is a counterfeit blessedness which is based on things people desire and favorable situations. When our desires change as we get older, the things that give us happiness change, our situations become cluttered and plunge us into frustration. The Psalmist found out that true blessedness comes from the Living Word and the written Word of God. When we live on the basis of the written Word, our lives will be filled with the glory of Jesus who is the Living Word and thus makes us blissful. The written Word is given to us for everyday needs. The Living Word is the Spiritual bread of heaven that has come to give us total satisfaction in life. When our desires get tuned to eternal things in life, rather than the temporal which change its quality and value over a period of time, we become blissful. Things around us change, but Jesus the living Word remains changeless along with all that is seen in His written Word. When we imbibe into the written Word, we become saturated with the Living Word. As we thus get immersed in His Word, He fills our hearts and lives with His glory. He satisfies our every longing and takes our minds off the things that erode in value in our ever changing situations. When we grow in His love Him and make Him our number one priority in life, His Word becomes our guide in all our situations. This is the way to keep living a blissful and satisfying life, filled with Jesus, the Living Word and obey His written Word and its statues.

Dear reader, are you in pursuit of true blessedness in life? Blessedness doesn’t depend on things or situations which keep changing and losing its place and time value. The pseudo satisfaction that comes from possessions and circumstances will change over a period of time and will leave you with emptiness in life. If you are in the pursuit of true blessedness, you will not find it in things or situations. But it can be found if you look unto the Lord Jesus and what He has stored for you in His Word. The Word is to comfort, encourage and strengthen you to live happily in this changing world to pursue that which is stored up for you in heaven. God has called us to live such a life of eternal pursuit. He called Abraham centuries back to live such a blissful life. Abraham was able to see the fulfillment of God’s promises by faith as he kept moving forward in fulfillment of God’s promises. His faith enabled him to put all his trust and confidence in God as he lived in pursuit of the eternal and the permanent. When Abraham believed and obeyed God, he qualified to become a friend of God to whom he was able to speak face to face. God appeared to Abraham and spoke to him when the Word was not yet available in written form. Today the God of Abraham comes to us to speak through His written Word which is full of statues to govern our thoughts, aspirations, priorities, likes and dislikes. If we follow on, we would find a life of bliss and contentment. We no longer need to run after the emptiness that is built into the things, circumstances and the untrustworthy people in this world. Let us today look into the written Word and obey its statues to find a blessed life of fulfillment. 

Psalms 84:5 – Blessed are those whose strength is in You, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage.

Thought for Today

When true blessedness fills our hearts, there won’t be any room left for frustration.

Prayer for Today

Dear Lord Jesus: Help me today to open my mouth wide and devour your Word to satisfy my every longing and make me contented and blissful. Amen!

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ESCAPE FROM DUST!!

Escape from dust! 

Verse for Today: Thursday, September 26, 2013

Psalms 119:25 – I am laid low in the dust; preserve my life according to Your Word.

The pressures of life are so powerful as to push us to hopelessness. Our emotions are crushed and our confidence weakened by our situations and we often feel like we are at the lowest ebb of life. It further makes us give up hope about a future and live an isolated an insulated life. But we are reminded by the Word of God that there is hope for us in all our situations. Our hope comes from the promises of the powerful Word of God. When the Word is allowed to penetrate our hearts, it will bring forth strength, faith, patience and hope. Its promises revitalize our broken emotions and revive our sagging spirits. When we read and meditate on the Word, the power of God transmits into our souls and speaks to give us confidence to keep going. Our meditations on the Word open our eyes of understanding to see the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ who is the Living Word. His glory will enable us to see everything around us through Him. We will then realize how His glory takes per-eminence in our souls and allows us to see our situations in its brightness. It is then that faith, hope and trust grow in our souls to see how God will preserve our lives and take us forward by His hands. So no matter how hopeless our situation might look like today, we will see the pathways through which God will lead us forward. God brightens these ways that we tread with His glory and takes away all dark clouds from our horizon. His rays of hope will enter our dark, isolated and insulated closets to pull us out for a walk with Him in faith and hope to renew our confidence and hope day by day.

Dear friend, are you feeling dejected, isolated and insulated in some dark corner of your life because of your dark situations? Are your circumstances putting you down in hopeless dust? Are you feeling like you are forgotten and written off by all and sundry? But do not give up hope because your hope is built on the Rock of Ages. Because Jesus lives, you will also live and face your tomorrows. He is your hope and He will carry you through your difficult situations. His promises will take you through the dark clouds of your horizon to greater vistas of hope. The Son will shine upon you through the dark clouds on the wings of the promises of God in His eternal Word. The promises of the Word make you alive and renew your trust and faith in God. Patriarchs like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph put their total faith in the promises of God which kept them going during rough times. David found these promises to be the sure vehicles which carried him forward in and through a very intimidating and challenging environment. God’s promises were powerful enough for Daniel to survive the hungry lions in their den during night and the Hebrew youth in a fiery furnace. God’s power through His promises was sufficient for Noah to travel through the flood and Gideon through the armies of Midianites. The same promises were the pillars which held the disciples through the wind, waves and the storms. We have a procession of promises for each day of our lives to revive us and bring us to the open to live confidently each day of our lives. Today we are challenged to read, meditate and cling on to the powerful hope that is built into all the verses in the Word to live with courage and confidence.  

1 Corinthians 2:20 – For no matter how many promises God has made, they are ‘Yes’ in Christ.

Thought for Today

God’s promises have His power built-in to it to revive the sagging spirits of His children. 

Prayer for Today

Dear Lord Jesus: Please help me to claim Your promises to climb out of my hopeless holes in the dusts through ardent faith in You. Amen!

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GROOMING HANDS!!

Grooming Hands!

Verse for Today: Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Psalms 105:17 – (God) sent a man before (His people) – Joseph, sold as a slave.

The ways of God are amazing and His plans are unfathomable. Long before our hours of need, God starts working in our lives to meet those needs. But He wants us to trust Him and go forward by faith whether we understand how and when He works in our lives or not. God wanted to protect Jacob and family during a famine which was to come two decades later. God planned provisions for them in neighboring Egypt during the famine. But Egypt was not ready to handle famine. So God groomed one of Jacob’s children to be the custodian of all the food in Egypt during the famine. God moved Joseph to Egypt and led the Pharaoh to make him in charge. In the process, Jacob had to experience bitter separation from his beloved son Joseph for over twenty years. Joseph had to be in the pit to wait for the traders to come to be sold to them as slave and he had to be in the house of Potiphar to make the move to prison to be in touch with Pharaoh’s cup bearer. We often wonder why God had to take such a long and rough route for Joseph to become the Prime Minister of Egypt! But Joseph had to learn the art of management and become efficient. He had to learn humility and holiness and prove faithfulness. In the process, he learned that God had sent him ahead of his family. We also go through such grooming of God as part of His agenda. The process of grooming under God’s hands is often long and painful, but it teaches us patience and faith and brings us to spiritual maturity. Today the loving hands which groomed Joseph are upon us to prepare us for greater usefulness for Him. His hands are full of grace, love and compassion. His hands will not hurt us, but will build us up for His glory.

Dear friend, are you going through tough times in life and wondering where God is taking you and what He is grooming you for? But God’s grooming hands are for your good as it was in the case of Joseph, David and Daniel when they had to go through tough experiences before God elevated up. The Psalms of David reveal how difficult it was for him to go through the grooming process. But those experiences prepared him to become the king of Israel and to face their enemies. Joseph had to go through uncertainty, slavery, false accusation and imprisonment and even had his feet bruised with shackles and his neck put in iron chains, apart from the cruelty of the brothers to put him in a pit, scheming to kill him, separate him from his beloved father and sell him like a commodity. But the years of his rule in Egypt and the way he became the savior of his family show us how God graciously groomed him. If you are going through similar situations and are made to suffer for no crime of yours, rest assured that the hand of God is taking you through it with a divine purpose. He is bending, breaking, reshaping and remolding you to fit the purpose. Unless you are tempered through the furnace of your circumstances, you won’t be ready and fit for His use. So when His grooming hands are upon you, it is important that you should recognize it and thank Him for it. You should ask for patience to hang in there until the process is over. But remember, His loving hands remold you lovingly and His compassionate fingers are on the controls of the furnace to make the heat bearable and the process short and sweet.

 1 Peter 5:6 – Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that He may lift you up in due time.

Thought for Today

God’s remolding plan for us is a process to build us up and not to tear us down.

Prayer for Today

Dear Lord Jesus: Help me to joyfully praise You for Your loving hands even as I endure pain during the remolding process. Amen!

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HIGHER GROUND!!

Higher ground!

Verse for Today: Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Psalms 86:4 – Bring joy to Your servant, for to You, O Lord, I lift up my soul.

Servants look to their Master for all their needs to be fulfilled. No matter who we are in this world, we are all servants of God to do His will. David was a king, but he also acknowledged that he was a mere servant of God to serve His people as their ruler. As the king, he had everything he needed to make him happy. But David had his own share of trials, tribulations and difficulties. He had servants to take orders to fulfill all his desires, but David recognized that he still had to pray and ask for God’s help. He had to learn that he couldn’t rule the country without God’s help and support. The problems of his kingdom, his people and his own household gave David enough and more heartaches and pain. He felt that he was still poor and needy and couldn’t face the realities of life without God’s help. His utter spiritual poverty was evident to him. He realized the threats he faced from the enemies and his own frailties. David felt the absence of true joy in life because of his situations and circumstances. David wanted to rise above the mundane and have his soul lifted up from the problems and threats to a higher ground. He wanted God’s joy to fill his heart and life. He underscored the fact that unless the Lord gave him, he would not find true joy and happiness. He recognized that the joy of the Lord would be his greatest strength to rule the country. His physical strength and that of his army couldn’t give him moral, social and spiritual strength to keep doing right things in the eyes of the Lord. David wanted to climb above all his problems and dwell in the presence of God to enjoy the security and safety that God alone would be able to provide. David’s noble longings in life challenge us today to rise above our situations and dwell with the Lord in His presence. When we lift up our hearts to the Lord, He will answer us and see us through our shattering experiences.

Dear reader, are you finding it difficult to cope with your cloudy situations in life? Do you find yourself intimidated by your problems and taking away your joy? But you don’t need to dwell in the ruts to suffer. God wants you to rise above your circumstances and dwell in His presence to find true joy and contentment. In God’s presence, you will find solutions to your problems and strength for every step of your way. God wants to remind you today that you cannot find true joy in your own way and through your efforts. He wants you to recognize that true joy comes by getting yourself lifted up to the presence of God and dwell there. He is above all your problems and circumstances and His presence rules and overrules all your situations. When you knock at His door, it will be opened to give you joy, peace, patience and faith in your situations. No matter what kind of wind is blowing against you, God will not permit you to be uprooted. When you wait for God in His presence, His Spirit will fill your heart and strengthen your soul. He will give you His peace that passes all understanding. He in control and that He will work out your situation for you. He will find a way out of your current predicaments. He will put His joy in your heart and fill it to overflowing.

Psalms 34:15 – The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and His ears are attentive to their cry.

Thought for Today

The way out of our difficult situations is to be lifted up to the presence of God.

Prayer for Today

Dear Lord Jesus: Please hold my hands and lift me up to higher grounds today to be filled with Your glory which will take away all my cares from me. Amen!

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LESSONS FROM HINDRANCES!!

Lessons from hindrances!

Verse for Today: Monday, September 23, 2013

Psalms 66:6 – (God) turned the sea into dry land, they passed through the waters on foot – come let us rejoice in Him.

God uses the lives of His children to show that He is powerful and willing to turn impossibilities into realities. It is one thing to make people cross seas, but it is more amazing to see how they walk the dry land under the sea. We see God helping His people to cross the sea to continue with their sojourn. He does it according to the needs of the hour and the situation. He uses boats to help His disciples to travel through storms and waves. Paul was helped to cross the sea through a hurricane. God took Evangelist Philip to travel through the air to reach out to the Ethiopian Eunuch who was traveling on a chariot in a desert. He used a basket to transport Paul from trouble to safety. He prepared a fish to swallow and carry Jonah to the safety of the shore. Our God permits us sometimes to travel unhurt through waters and fire. Sometimes He works on the elements and put out its power to allow us to pass through. There are so many such situations in our lives today which we may not be even aware of. But God delivers us from snares and keeps us going in spite impending dangers and threats. He performs powerful acts of deliverance to help us to overcome hindrances. God’s children are blessed to pass through obstacles unhurt in order that His schedule in our lives may be kept. When we see such great acts of our God, it causes us to fall prostrate before Him to praise Him and to rejoice in His deliverance, restoration and victory.

Dear reader, are you facing hindrances and obstacles on the pathway on which the Lord has been leading you? Often hindrances are planted on our way by the enemy of our soul to slow us down or make us take a detour. But God transforms those hindrances into great opportunities to demonstrate His power in our lives. Sometimes God uses hindrances to teach us faith, patience and maturity. The lessons that we learn at such junctures will help us to learn great lessons which will strengthen us in our future experiences. But our human frailties often make us grumble about the tough tests in the Schools of Faith that our Lord has enrolled us in. When we reach a new hindrance in life, we tend to forget the past lessons in faith and fall into discouragement and anxiety. Sometimes we even ask God as to why He has forgotten us and dumped us mercilessly into such straights. Peter, Paul and Silas were in prisons, but they took it as God’s leading and praised Him for it. They were locked up in stocks, but prisons did not enter their souls. Their faith could not be put behind the bars by the authorities. They were peaceful and courageous and even sang praises to God openly and loudly. It is one thing to praise God after crossing the sea and getting a release from the prison, but praising God even during painful prison experiences is not easy. But our God is able to give us grace to enjoy prisons rather than endure it with grumbling. No matter what hindrances come your ways today, rest assured that your Lord knows all about it. He has a plan to help you overcome it and cross over to new pathway to progress. It is not a time to wallow over the hindrances, but to rejoice that your Lord will take you through it to the other side with jubilation and rejoicing.

Psalms 78:13 – He divided the sea and led them through; He made the water stand firm like a wall.  

Thought for Today

In God’s School of Faith, there are tough tests like crossing the seas, staying in Lion’s dens overnight and dwelling in furnaces.

Prayer for Today

Dear Lord Jesus: Teach me today to learn lessons in faith as I face great hindrances in my sojourn. Amen! 

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FIREWALL OF PROTECTION!!

Firewall of protection!

Verse for Today: Sunday, September 22, 2013

Psalms 32:10 – Many are the woes of the wicked, but the Lord’s unfailing love surrounds the man who trusts in Him.

Life in this world has its toll on human beings. The consequences of sin are everywhere and it is abounding. It has permeated into all walks of life and in all spheres of activity. Man is faced with all the associated woes of this sinful world. Human life is full of a series of sufferings because of it. But in such a world of chaos, sufferings, sickness and pain, God’s children have a special covering of grace, love, compassion and mercy to protect them. God’s wings of protection are spread above us. He has erected a wall of grace and compassion around us and hides us under His arms. We are His special possession purchased by the blood of His Only Begotten Son. As long as we live in this world, we might be facing woes of some kind, but our God will help us to handle it in His strength and power. We are asked to follow the example of David to keep trusting our God to keep us safe and secure in times of trouble. When the wicked people of this world try to find escape from woes through the means of the world, we trust in God and enjoy His protection and safety. The unsaved person has no hope when faced with woes, but God’s children put their hope in the Lord who will take them through the woes with His peace daily and hope of a place in the future where there will be no more woes. Such trust is ours through faith in Jesus Christ which helps us to keep going before, through and after woes. It is likely that woes come one after the other, but we have the privilege to keep trusting God through all the woes and the resultant pain and sufferings. No matter what our situations of woes are, we are safe in the arms of Jesus in His presence, enjoying His power, protection, provisions and peace.

Dear friend, are you lately faced with woes of some kind or the other? Don’t be surprised at it because as long as we live in this sinful world, there will be difficulties of some sort that will beat against human life. The children of God also face some woes, but the beauty of our life is that we have our Lord with us when we go through it. Even when we travel in the boat with Jesus, there will be storms and waves beating against our boat. But the presence of our Lord in our boat makes a whole world of difference. He is with us all the time as the unseen lifeguard round the clock in our lives. His mercy and compassion encircle around us and will make a firewall on all sides of our boat. He keeps us safe from the secret weapons of the enemy to discourage us. His presence with us enables us to keep going. He is our travel companion day and night and will not take a break from us any time. He speaks to us as we travel along and shares words of encouragement. He will motivate us to go forward with the hope of His interference in our affairs. He provides for all our physical, emotional and spiritual requirements on a daily basis so that we do not need to have any cares in life. He gives us His peace that passes all understanding in all our cumbersome circumstances that with His help and power, we can handle our situations till the end. When we have such great provisions in our lives, why should we worry or fret?

Psalms 91:4 – He will cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you will find refuge. 

Thought for Today

The woes of life will not break through the firewall of protection God has erected around His children.

Prayer for Today

Dear Lord Jesus: Help me today to put my trust in Your power and strength to take me through all woes without getting hurt. Amen!

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DIVINE HONOR!!

Divine Honor!

Verse for Today: Saturday, September 21, 2013

Psalms 89:50 – Remember, Lord, how Your servant has been mocked.

Mockery, ridicule, despising and rejection are realities that God’s servants often face. These come from foes and friends alike. Mockery is used by the enemy of our souls to weaken and frustrate us in our walk and warfare. The enemy resorts to psychological warfare to subdue us and make us retreat. When mockery breaks the hearts of God’s servants, they might be tempted to quit or slow down. But we can always go to our Lord to share our heartaches and misery as and when we encounter mockery and ridicule. The enemy tries to tell us that our weapons of faith will not stand the test of time. He will even turn the household of faith against us to prove that our spiritual stand and life of faith are too idealistic to be real. When we stand on faith and denounce all other avenues for survival, the enemy comes to ridicule us and show us how thoughtless and unintelligent we are. But our Lord watches the mockery and ridicule that His children are faced with. It is better to tell the Lord about our pain owing to mockery and leave it at His feet. Our Lord will avenge the enemy at the right time. At His time, He will respond in kind to all the ridicule that we face here on earth. He will wipe our tears, remove our fears and comfort us that we will soon receive His acclaim for all that we suffer here on earth for His name’ sake.  

Dear Friend, are you facing mockery and ridicule because of your ardent faith in the Lord and His Word? Is the world around you laughing at your faith as redundant which will not work in the modern world? Remember, those who follow the Lord truly will face such reactions from the world. Nehemiah faced such a situation when he was told by the enemy that his rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem would not stand the test of even a fox jumping over it. Jezebel mocked and threatened Prophet Elijah about his security and safety in God’s promises. The people mocked Noah for building a big ark to protect his family from such a strange event called rain which they had never seen before. The Goliaths of this world would heartily mock small Davids with their sling and stones and conclude that it would never work against a formidable enemy. In today’s world, the army of Gideon will be a laughing stock. They would mock at the six stone jars of Cana, the five loafs and two small fish in the desert for a large crowd of a few thousand hungry people, dipping in a river seven times for curing leprosy or a cloud of the size of a human hand for a thunderstorm. But we know that our Lord can work with little things as much as with big things. He understands our pain as we face the mockery of the world because of Him. Our Lord Jesus went through such mockery and despising in this world and so He will give us the grace to go through similar reactions of the world as He did. He will wipe our tears and strengthen our trembling hearts as we face ridicule and despising for His name’ sake. He will comfort us and reassure us of the great honor and recognition that await us at the Bema. He will transform our shame into jubilation when we see Him face to face. What awaits us in His presence is a fitting reward for our willingness to suffer mockery and rejection for Him today. 

Psalms 69:19 – You know how I am scorned, disgraced and shamed; all my enemies are before You.

Thought for Today

When the world mocks His children, God gives them patience to endure it and wait for heavenly honor.

Prayer for Today

Dear Lord Jesus: When I face ridicule because of my commitment to You, please help me to enjoy grace and strength to overcome all shame and discouragement. Amen!

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