Saturday, August 26, 2017

Don't replace God with self styled God men


Mob violence based on blind belief on self proclaimed God men


St. Luke 11:9-20
Jesus is teaching his disciples about faith and the need to bring faith into practice by asking, searching and knocking. The society then and even now is in the habit of being human and one part of us is the part which asks, searches and knocks. But who do we ask, where do we search and when do we knock? In today’s world it is not that we have lost the ability to ask, search and knock but we are doing it in a way which is different from what Jesus is talking about.

We ask self-proclaimed Guru’s, God men and women, and wait to receive blessings from them instead of concentrating on God and what only God can give. Going to church is to receive guidance from God through God’s servant and not to see a person who has replaced God’s self! We are going to places and asking diviners and prophets about what we should do in life, which course we should take, what time we should start a business and where we can built a house. How can men and women be greater than God? Anything that we need can be answered by God and then why are we wasting time on people who can’t even save themselves?!

Jesus teaches us to ask God and not just to waste time with people who are misleading the public. Jesus was questioned by the Pharisees because he was eating into their supremacy and putting an end to the lies they were spreading by replacing God with their selves. The sanctity of worship places were being challenged by changing them from places of peace to places of violence where importance of money was increasing rather than the essence on the importance on God.

What is Jesus then trying to tell us? If a man who has called it a day at home will help his neighbor in being hospitable and if a father will provide for his children how much more will our Father in heaven do for us? We are bound to be sad if we keep our faith in men. Instead we should replace this with faith in God. If someone on earth will offer us help, God will do several times more for us and will do so without expecting anything in return because God will always help people as they are God’s own creation and God loves them (us). 

Jesus casts out a demon from a person who was mute. He then starts speaking. But some then said that Jesus did it because he was associated with the demons. Jesus challenges this and says that a kingdom cannot stand against itself. We must belong to God’s kingdom to be healed by God and be taken care of by God because we are God’s family. We do not need magic, tricks and hallucinations to be healed.

The passage teaches us to be with God and live a life of faith which asks, searches and knocks at the feet of God. Do not place your trust with man made God’s but with the God who can only do good, save human kind and usher in peace. Amen.


Tuesday, August 15, 2017

Independence day prayer


Thank you God for giving us the spirit of independence and for helping us come out of the yoke of slavery. We are thankful for the lives of those who sacrificed everything they had for the freedom of our country. We are fortunate to wake up and sleep every day in a free world and country. The Bible says "Now the Lord is the spirit, and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom." We seek the Holy Spirit Lord so that we will live in freedom and so that whatever anyone does to take away our freedom will end in failure. We pray that the spirit of freedom that is offered to us by God will set every citizen of this country free to live with dignity, being free to make their own choices, eat what they want, pray where they want and speak what and when they want without infringing on the rights and freedom of others. In the name of the one who has set us free, Jesus Christ our freedom. Amen.








Picture courtesy www.abc.net.au