When the roll is called up yonder…

My mother was a pianist, a violinist, and a good soprano singer. And my father sang bass. So, there was a lot of singing at home. We lived in Neyveli at that time. I remember Boniface uncle but do not remember the others. They used to come home to sing from the Songs and Solos and the A&M Hymnal.

One of the songs that were frequently sung was

When the trumpet of the Lord shall sound, and time shall be no more,
And the morning breaks, eternal, bright and fair;
When the saved of earth shall gather over on the other shore,
And the roll is called up yonder, I’ll be there.

written and set to music by James M. Black, in 1893 in Pennsylvania.

It was truly one of my favorites and I used to sing it with great gusto. I was...

Do not remember the former things

I recently had an opportunity to listen to Mrs. Bharathi Baskar, a famous Tamil Pattimandram speaker (an inspirational speaker). She is a chemical engineer and is the Vice President of Citi Bank. She made some very valid points when she spoke about a ‘dustbin'. She pointed out that every home has a dustbin to hold trash and many times our own fridges double up as ‘trash' containers holding old stuff. More than that she pointed out that our own hearts and minds become the greatest dust-bins holding hurts, regrets, and pain of all the years past!

How very true! I have heard people say that discouragement, dejection, and disappointment are the tools of the devil. When we hold the past hurts and the unkind treatment we have endured from the hands of the peop...

Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin

I had been wanting to visit Tranquebar, the place where the first Protestant missionary Ziegenbalg had lived and worked for a long time and the Lord gave me that opportunity in March 2018. Ziegenbalg was born in Germany, on 10 July 1682 to poor but devout Christian parents. Ziegenbalg responded to the King of Denmark’s call for a Christian mission to spread the Gospel in India, an...

No Man is an Island!

During my school days, one of my English lessons was an essay titled “No Man is an Island”. I do not remember who wrote it or the entire essay but his thought has stayed with me ever since. The author explained how Man is a social being and how we need each other to live. No one can truly succeed or even survive when isolated from others. Mankind is connected at different levels, physical as well as emotional. Now the whole world has shrunk due to technology and has become a ‘global village’ and even the economy of one nation depends on other nations!

When we see the anatomy of ‘sin’, again, ‘no man or a woman is an island’. No sin affects only the person who commits it. At one level, it affects the spouse; in the next level, it affects the children and at another...

Me and my God!

An abusive childhood, a loveless marriage, a debilitating disease, a traumatic sickness, or a financial loss, they all need a double portion of God's grace. We have no control over such situations in life. Some of it is allowed by God and sometimes some things are the result of our foolish choices or the result of our sin. Whatever be the reason, we cannot run away from it. We have no option but to live through it and endure it until the Lord Himself intervenes to change that situation. That is why God's unmeasurable grace is so very important!

Such trying situations truly shape us to be who we become in life. Some turn away from God and in so doing and lose hope and the will to live. But when we turn to God, God in His mercy sustains us; protects us; f...

The Emmaus Road!

When we read about the disciples on the Emmaus road in Luke 24:13-33, what impresses us most is the condition of the disciples! They present a very dismal picture; a picture of doubt, defeat, and discouragement. The disciples Cleopas and his friend had been hoping that Jesus would redeem Israel. But instead, Jesus had been crucified! Their hopes of restoration had been completely dashed and now they were confused beyond measure because some women of their group claimed that Jesus was not in the tomb and that He was alive!

The Emmaus road is about the disappointed, the discouraged, and the disillusioned people. It is about those whose expectations have gone unmet. It is about those who are being crushed by life’s circumstances. Surely all of us have walked that r...

Mary Magdalene

Many women were at the foot of the Cross; Mary, mother of Jesus, her sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, Mary Magdalene (John 19:25), Mary, the mother of James the younger and of Joses (Mark 15:40) and Salome, mother of James and John (Matthew 27:55) were all there.

The Bible tells us that Mary Magdalene was from Galilee, probably from the village of Magdala on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. The gospel writer Luke tells us that on Jesus’ Galilean mission, Jesus and the disciples were accompanied by several women, including Mary Magdalene. But what is so special about Mary?

Mary Magdalene had been bound by seven evil spirits! (Luke 8:1-3). But when she met Jesus, He liberated her and she was no longer under the control of the evil spirits. We see Mary serving H...

Oh Death, where is thy Sting?

When Jesus bore our sins on the Cross, He suffered the agony of separation from His Father in heaven. Jesus cried, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? That is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). When God the Father saw Jesus on the Cross, He only saw the sins of all humanity and those sins separated Jesus from His Father’s face. That moment of separation was the worst of all His suffering!

A child of God, whose sins are forgiven, need not ever experience such separation. All our sins are forgiven and washed away because of the blood that was shed on that Cross of Calvary. When we are washed by Jesus’ blood, the Father sees in each of us only that finished work of the Cross. The Father does not see our sinfulness but sees us covere...

Jesus came to seek and to save

We read the story of Legion in the Gospel of Mark 5: 1-15. When Mark says “Then they came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gadarenes …” (Mk 5:1,2), it appears as though that place was on the way to some other place. But in reality, it is a very lonely and out of the way place. When Jesus chose to go there, He must have had a special purpose and a specific person on his mind!

Legion had been living in the region of Gadarenes, among the tombs. Legion had cut himself off from family, friends and the fellowship of God. But he was not cut off from the path of Jesus. We do not read of anybody pleading the cause of Legion or praying for his restoration. Legion’s family and friends had completely given up on him and committed him to the tomb...

Today is the day!

March 2nd, 2018 is a memorable day in my life! During our early morning walk, I tripped and fell flat on the road. But for some bruises, nothing happened to me. Later that day, I learned that someone who had a fall just like me, was in the hospital waiting for a hip replacement! That same evening I went to a college to distribute Gideon New Testaments along with my friends. Suddenly we heard a crash and the building itself shook. We were horrified to see the corridor over which we had walked five minutes back, collapsed completely! Oh, what a day! That day, the Lord preserved me from all harm!

Psalm 95 is an amazing Psalm of David. No wonder our Church fathers included it in our regular Sunday worship! It is a praise and worship psalm originally written for the F...