Jesus is coming soon!

God has given us one more chance to celebrate ‘the season of advent’ and look forward to Christmas again this year!

The word “Advent” is derived from a Latin word, meaning “coming.” When the early Christians linked ‘Advent’ to the coming of Christ, the ‘coming’ they had in mind was not Christ’s first coming in the manger in Bethlehem, but His second coming in the clouds as the judge of the world! It was not until the Middle Ages that the Advent season was explicitly linked to Christ’s first coming at Christmas. The Advent season focuses on expectation and it serves as an anticipation of Christ’s birth and lasts for four Sundays leading up to Christmas.

The first coming of Jesus was the fulfillment of many prophecies. There are many prophecies regarding His...

Do not be deceived!

The Bible has many phrases that simply catch our attention and one such is the call for us not to be deceived!

Sometimes we tell ourselves, that no one could have done anything better or different in that particular situation or that we did our best even though we did not. Sometimes we tell ourselves that we are not at fault even though we are. We tend to keep telling ourselves somethings over and over again and then they kind of grow in on us and we tend to believe them like the truth. The Bible says in Gal 6:7, “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows “.

Sometimes when we look at the house we live in or the job we hold, we tend to think that they are all the result of our hard work. The Bible says in James 1:16,17, ...

Prayer of Hannah

This story of Hannah is beautifully told in 1 Samuel 1&2. Hannah and Peninnah were the two wives of Elkanah. Hannah must have been the first wife and because she could not bear children, Elkanah must have married Peninnah. But Elkanah loved Hannah!

From what we see in the biblical account, Peninnah seems to be a little mean since she was always needling Hannah, making her sad. But it was Hannah who was childless!

Year after year, Elkanah took his whole family, Peninnah, her children and Hannah to Shiloh to worship the Lord. Year after year Peninnah was getting children. But Hannah did not turn away from God in bitterness.

Hannah desperately wanted to give her husband children, making her score even with Peninnah. In the eastern culture, a wom...

Finishing well!

The Southern Kingdom of Judah had a total of 20 kings out of which only eight were godly. Of these eight godly kings, five were very godly and were used by God to bring revival to the nation. These five revival kings were, Asa, Jehoshaphat, Joash, Hezekiah and Josiah.

1 Kings 15:11 says "And Asa did that which was right in the eyes of the LORD, as did David his father." David was the standard that every king was held up to. We read about Asa in 2 Chron. 14-16 Chapters. Asa was a man who sought God in his own life. Asa was a man who led others to seek God. Asa was a man of peace, yet he prepared for battle against t...

The Failure of Hezekiah

Hezekiah was one of the good kings of Judah. Even though his father Ahaz was wicked, Hezekiah turned out to be a God-fearing king. In Hezekiah’s lifetime, we read of two delegations coming to meet him, carrying letters. One was from Assyria, the Rab-shakeh carrying the letter from Sennacherib, the King of Assyria and the other was from Merodach-Baladan, the king of Babylon.

Many things had happened between these two significant events of Hezekiah’s life. During the Assyrian invasion, Hezekiah turned to God and an angel of the Lord killed 1,85,000 Assyrian soldiers in one night! Sometime after this mighty incident, Hezekiah was sick unto death. Hezekiah prayed and God added 15 years to his life. God also gave him a miraculous sign as confirmation on the sun dial!<...

The Desert Shall Blossom like the Rose!

Reading through Isaiah chapter 35 again and again, I came to the following conclusion:

Wilderness IS necessary. But the desert WILL blossom....

The Highway of Holiness

After reading through many oracles of doom against the nations, the 35th chapter of the book of Isaiah is a wonderful break! It talks about the restoration of the remnant and the future glory of Zion. The prophecy speaks about many natural miracles like the desert blossoming like the rose; the parched land becoming a pool of water and thirsty land, springs of water. It also talks about super natural miracles like the eyes of the blind being opened; the ears of the deaf being unstopped and the lame leaping like deer!

The same 35th chapter also talks about the Highway of Holiness on which the redeemed of Lord shall return to Zion. “And come to Zion with singing, with everlasting joy on their heads. They shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall...

Judge not, that you be not judged

During our 35th year class reunion, I met a classmate of mine whom I had not seen since graduation. During all the years of my Engineering degree, I used to avoid him because he used to have blood-shot eyes. And here I was, face to face with him. Not knowing what else to do I started talking and listening to his story!

Let us say his name is Babu. Babu was the son of a tailor and it seems every day he used to help his father in his shop, stitching buttons and button-holes. He had been so sleep deprived that his eyes were always red. Every year Deepavali came around our first semester and that was the time his father also was overbooked and his son’s assistance was important for his business. Because of this Babu had failed in many subjects. One day he decided to...

God of Second Chances

The book of Ezra is one that describes the return of the people of God to the land of their fathers after 70 years of captivity in Babylon. The people had formerly sinned in their idolatry and were taken captive by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. God was now bringing them back into the land, to give them another chance of serving and following Him.

Ezra, who is a descendant of Aaron, effectively communicated the Lord’s requirements and it led the people into a time of repentance and renewal. The people returned to their covenant relationship with God and renewed their promises to follow Him.

In the book of Revelation, the angel’s charge to the church of Ephesus is that they had left their first love (Rev 2:4). They were actually commended for many things- t...

Bought at a Price!

An evangelist of reasonable age one day told the Lord, “Lord, for so many years I have served you by preaching the Word and mentoring groups of youngsters. Now Lord, I want to retire.” The next day he woke up leisurely and went for a walk. On his way, he saw a loaded bullock-cart with the bullock fallen on the road. When he came close with the thought of helping the bullock up, he rolled his eyes and told the evangelist his story: “My Master bought me at a price and every single day when he picked up the yoke I came and harnessed myself willingly. Even this morning I did that in spite of not feeling too well. Till my last breath, I have served my master because he bought me at a price.” The story goes on to say that the evangelist realized his mistake. (Rev. Rajan Edw...