New Creation - Growth

As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby: I Pet 2:2

Greetings to everyone in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I wrote my last article which was just a revisit of many of the new creation series and I hoped to get the series going. But, to be honest, I am finding it difficult to keep writing. My worldly commitments are increasing where it looks like I am losing my spiritual discipline with growing pressure due to family needs and my professional works. In short, I am turning weary and tired. But, I know my redeemer is alive and He is standing at the door. I know I will see Him with my own eyes. Job 19:25,27 And, I know very well, the spiritual life may take ups and downs as I wrote in one of my previous articles. Sometimes, it looks like it gets in a drained state for too long but I do remember the one who said "I am with you always even unto the end of ages" is faithful and sincere. Matthew 28:20 He sustains me. I never dare to say that I stand in my own. If I claim such a thing, I am prone to failure like Peter who told to Jesus that even if he had to die with Him, he will not denounce, only to fail eventually. The reason for his failure is he counted on his own strength when he made that statement. He thought he could claim witness to Jesus on his own mortal strength, but when the testing came it was more than what he can face. He failed. But, the same Peter, indeed gave his life for the Savior, not in his own strength but by the strength and power of the Holy Spirit. Praise God. By Him, we are more than conquerors in everything. Romans 8:37 Things which are not possible for men are possible for God, for that nothing is impossible for God. Luke 18:27  Hallelujah.

So, instead of quoting Peter, I would like to quote Paul, who said "for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day." 2 Timothy 1:12. It may look like that the enemy may be winning all posts, but be assured that the ultimate victory is  ours through our loving Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. No matter what, we are destined to win. Our Lord knows it all. He is sovereign. All things are by Him, through Him and for Him. To Him be the glory for ever and ever. To every one reading this message, please keep me in your prayers. Our prayers are mighty. Our spiritual armors are mightier than of those of the powers of this world that they pull down the strongholds. 2 Cor 10:4

Coming to this chapter, we resumed the new creation series from last chapter. The core verse is 2 Cor 5:17, that if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature and all old things had gone and everything became new. We also saw how Jesus told Nicodemus about the need for a person to be born again to enter the kingdom of God. John 3:1-10  Now, this is exactly going to be the same as such that of a birth of a new baby. Any unbeliever who puts his complete faith in Jesus and accepts Him as a Savior becomes a new person in Christ. But, he is equivalent to a new born baby and he needs to know the truth. Once he becomes the children of God, he automatically becomes the enemy of the powers of darkness. The spiritual battle begins. Now, we need to see how a baby grows to a child in order to understand how a new born Christian should grow up. When a baby is born, the first thing it needs is food. It cannot take anything. It only needs the mother's feeding for the first few days in order to receive the strength and grow thereby.

Exactly, that's what the Word of God does to a new born. The Word of God is the spiritual manna which builds, strengthens and enriches the soul. One should learn the basic teachings of the gospel, understand the power of the sin, temptation, our requirement and our support from the Word of God. He should attend a regular bible study from a church that preaches truth in a right way. It is good to listen to some of the popular preachers but my personal advice is to get into a proper fellowship in a Church or a prayer cell and start to learn. Before that, the new born Christian should take his spiritual life seriously and should be willing to spend time to know Jesus in person through the Word of God. Moreover, the bible reading and meditation should go along with the prayer life. If not, it will be like a seed planted on a land without water and die soon. Prayer is like a water to the seed which is the Word of God.

The newborn baby should be properly vaccinated regularly for diseases. Caution should be exercised on what vaccination the baby is given. A high powerful vaccination shouldn't be administered for a new born. We can only give what it takes. So, a new born person should have proper spiritual mentor for his spiritual growth and should learn about the truth and the armor of God. Ephesians 6:12-18. He should read the Word of God regularly but too much reading at initial stage is also not good as it will exhaust a new born. Too much feeding is obviously bad. Christian life is a marathon and not a sprint where one runs fast and then falls down. We need to properly pace our run to be victorious. Initially, all these things may not be possible but with sustained reading, meditation and prayer, it is possible.

The Old testament is definitely important to understand but the New Testament is a must. Old testament shows the various characters who won and lost their battles. God shadowed many things there which are yet to come. But, one cannot understand them quickly. Both OT and NT are like two sharp edges of the sword. But, we live in the period of New testament so one should learn how to run our day to day life based on the truths of new testament. But, one is considered spiritually mature when he is able to understand how Old testament serves as the shadow to the New testament. How the Old testament promises are fulfilled in New testament. If one has that level of understanding, he is considered mature. The author of Hebrews explains that the readers are like babes. He wonders they are still not grown. "For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which  be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. For every one that useth milk  is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe." Hebrews 5:12,13. So, the growth according to the author of Hebrews is really get mastered in the scriptures to the level of connecting the OT and NT.

It is interesting to see where the author says this verse. He was just telling this when he quotes about Melchizedek and he sighs that the hearers are babes. He says this, "Called of God an high priest after the order of Melchizedek. Of whom we have many things to say, and hard to be uttered, seeing ye are dull of hearing.". Hebrews 5:10,11. So, the expectation of the author is the mature reader should be able to preach all these things by themselves with the help of the Holy Spirit. In other words, the author of Hebrews considers a believer or Christian is mature when he or she is able to understand the old testament figures or foreshadows with the association of Jesus Christ. An important point to note. He defines that such a person should be able to discern what is right and wrong and should be able to exercise the Truth of God in their day to day lives. "But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil." Hebrews 5:14. Moreover, the author wants us to be mature instead of laying the same foundations again and again. Hebrews 6:1-3.

Even Paul writes the same thing when he addressed the church of Corinth in his first epistle. The church of Corinth didn't show enough maturity, they were fighting, there was adultery and fornication in church members, they were divided in groups and were not united for Christ. When Paul addressed he told, "I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able  to bear it, neither yet now are ye able. For ye are yet carnal: for whereas  there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?" 1 Corinthians 3:2,3. Sounds like modern day churches? No wonder, Christendom is going like that. But, Lord knows His flock. So, what we understand from here? It is the wish of the Holy Spirit for us to grow. Think how an adult who doesn't have mental growth behaves. How difficult it would be for his parents? Would be terrible. That's how it will be for our Father as well when He sees us only drinking milk after so much of years living as a Christian. He expects us to grow. The advice is straightforward given in the title verse, As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby: I Pet 2:2. You may ask but after attending some level of maturity, how to grow further. Again the same verse applies, we can say, as children, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow again you can take the same verse to grow from child to adult, adult to matured man, etc. But, one difference is as you grow in the spiritual life, Holy Spirit helps you out at every stage. You will win more and more challenges. Remember the struggles will make you more stronger and make you more matured in Christian walk.

When the growth stops? or when the challenges stop? Only when we die or meet our Lord and that will be the time when our faith completes. Jesus is called the author and finisher of our faith. Heb 12:2. When we see Him, our faith completes because faith is not required any longer as it is written "For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?" Romans 8:24. Until then, we are supposed to run our race patiently. "Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith;" Hebrews 12:1,2. Until then, we need to grow in our every day life. As per our physical growth, we should grow in our spiritual aspects too. I remember a modern saying, "Even if we are on right track, we will get run over if we don't move." So, move on my dear brother and sister. Our Lord promised that He will help you when you are blocked. Cast your burden on the Lord, for He will sustain you. Psalm 55:22.

With this I complete this chapter. If Holy Spirit helps me with more points about growth, I will either update this one include in my subsequent posts. Pray for me so that I get the strength and motivation of the Holy Spirit and right time to carry on writing for Him. All glory, honor, praise, wisdom, dominion, power and strength to the one who was, who is and who is to come. Majesty to the lamb who sits upon the throne. Amen.

New Creation - Lookback

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. 2 Cor 5:17

Greetings to all of you in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I am glad to resume back my blog articles after a long gap. As per the intuition of Holy Spirit, I am resuming the New Creation series that I had been writing and this is really going to be a short chapter summarizing what and all we had seen in this series till now.

This series started with a question of What should I do to please God in my life ? or How do I fulfil His will in my life? Should I be an apostle or a prophet or an evangelist to please God. I explained that the will of God is to walk this life as a true Christian. The word Christian means to have Christ in our life. To be a true Christian we have to walk in the spirit of Christ. We have seen this in those chapters.

We have seen how sin divided man and God and how God provided solution to fix the gap through Jesus Christ. This is essentially what is salvation process. Once we are saved through our belief in Jesus through our acceptance and declarration, we should affirm that by the process of baptism. Baptism refers to the process of getting immmersed in water where our old man getting crucified with Jesus and buried with Him through faith and when we raise up the new man gets created. This new inner man is a baby now and he needs to grow. We will see these process in the upcoming posts. I have also mentioned about the other types of baptism (Baptism by Holy Spirit and Baptism by Fire).

I had dealt some of them in detail in the older chapters. I will focus on how to walk in the spirit of the Lord with faith, how to grow the inner man, how to sustain when troubles come our way, how not to turn back to the older ways and keep focused, how to bear fruits for Christ and more in the forthcoming chapters. This is just a very short summary. Remember me and my family in your prayers.

Sometimes we feel upbeat in our spiritual life and sometimes we feel very down. This is normal. But, one thing for sure is our Lord Jesus Christ is always with us. One who promised is truthful and sincere. He never changes. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. Hebrews 13:8. He neither leaves us nor forsakes us. Even through our worst mistakes or sins, He helps us to come up and climb back. With His loving arms, He brings out from the miry clay, cleanses us with His blood, lifts us on the mountain. So, hold on to Him even if situation turns from worse to worst. Be worried for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Phil 4:6,7

All glory, honor and praise to God through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be dominion, glory, power for ever and ever. Amen.

Overcoming lust

Flee also youthful lusts: but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart. 2 Timothy 2:22

Greetings to all in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I was not able to write for some time as I was busy with other works. In this article, I would like to focus on one of the very important aspect of temptation which is lust. It is very crucial to understand lust in order to overcome it. Overcoming lust is very important to lead a successful Christian life and I believe this will be very useful for the readers.

First, let's understand lust. Lust is the sexual attraction towards opposite sex in order to satisfy our own self desires. Unlike other habitual sins like smoking or drinking or gluttony, this is something that comes in built in our body. There are lot of hormones in our body that energize us and when we attain certain age, the sexual hormones in our body start to work. Before understanding lust, let's ask this question. Is sex a sin? Is sexual thoughts are sinful? Why it is required? To answer these questions, I have to refer all the way back to creation in Genesis. It was written when God created human beings, He created them as male and female. "So God created man in his  own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them." Gen 1:27 Why? In order to fulfil His purpose. What is the purpose? The next verse states that, "And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it:" v28. So, God wanted us to multiple and fill these earth. To multiply, the design of God is male and female to unite and bring forth younger ones. This is applicable not only to humans but to every creation like animals, birds, sea creatures and plants.

When we see further detail in 2nd chapter, we see the order of God saying, "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh." Gen 2:24. One flesh states that they are one in their bodies and they are inseparable and there is nothing hidden between them, including their bodies. So, now to answer our question. Is sex sin? The answer is No, not at all. Because it is written in Timothy, "Every thing God created is good". I Timothy 4:4. So, sex is not a sin. In fact, Sex is a beautiful thing created by God and it is holy when it is between two right persons (male and female) and performed at the right place at the right time (after marriage, i.e, after getting the approval of God by entering the wedding covenant). You may ask that the child birth is due to the act of sex which is considered as sin because it is written, "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me." Psalm 51:5 where David laments after he lusted after Bathsheba and committed adultery with her. Even my understanding was like that for a long time after the Holy Spirit clarified the truth behind that verse. The truth was the seed of man was corrupted after Adam committed sin. So, whoever borns of a seed of man is a sinner by birth and that is the actual meaning of the verse. It is not the act of sex that is sin but it is the seed of man which is sinful and hence it makes every human being a sinner except one, the Lord Jesus Christ who was concieved in a virgin and it was the only virgin birth because a man's seed is not qualified to atone for the sins of others so Holy Spirit gave that seed and Jesus is considered as the seed of a woman. Please refer to Gen 3:15 and Gal 4:4 that says "God sent forth his Son, made of a woman." Hope it is very clear now that the sexual act between a husband and wife is never ever considered as a sin in the site of Holy God.

In order to fulfill this God given purpose of multiplication and filling the earth, there are sexual hormones and physical feelings that are generated in our body. We need to understand this very clearly. But, when these feelings overtake God's standards, then it turns as lust which is a sin. When these feelings go out of control, then it will lead to lot of sinful practices like adultery, pornography, extra marital affairs and other illicit sexual practices. The world that we live in today promotes lust and sex are very casual and they give a feel like nothing wrong in that. All the mainstream media like cinemas, movie songs, advertisements, news and even games like cricket matches promote lust by showing male and female in inappropriate postures, half dressed women and all the indecent stuff. No wonder John wrote "the whole world lieth in devil." I John 5:19. All these things are running based on money making business and behind the scenes, the world runs this show and behind the world, the satan works. All the stuff that you see in the world are designed in order to deceive you to make you fall under sin and separate you from the living God who loved you and gave His life for you and to stop you from attaining eternal life. If you have this clarity, the way you feel about lust will be different.

But, knowing this clear idea alone is not going to help you to overcome the lust. In one of my previous companies, I attended an induction program. The trainer quoted a very good example. He asked a question first saying, "How many of you believe doing exercise for 30 minutes per day is good for health and help you to stay fit?" and he asked those who believe that to raise hands up. Almost all of the participants raised their hands. Then, he asked the second question, "How many of you are actually doing 30 minutes exercise every day?" and when he asked to raise hands for that only a very few hands went up and we can finger count that. So, there is a difference between knowing and doing. Knowing the truth alone won't help you succeeding in the battle against lust. You may tell that Jesus said "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." John 8:32. Of course. But, the word also speaks a.bout walking in truth. 3 John 1:4. What Jesus really meant is, without knowing the truth one cannot practice it. So, without knowing the above facts about lust, we cannot overcome that. So, knowing is the first part of it. But, walking in the truth day to day is essential to live a victorious Christian life and overcome all these temptations.

Hope the explanation is clear and clarified many doubts concerning it based on biblical truths. Now, let's see how to overcome this. We have seen that lust is not like other temptations and very difficult to overcome and many times we fall in it because the roots for lust are present within ourselves and it overcomes us often. To overcome this temptation, one must desire holiness and Godliness more than the physical desire to fulfill the lust unless it is impossible to overcome this because this is going to be a life long struggle and not a one time stuff. I would like to quote a short story. A grand father told his grand son "My child, there are two animals living inside every person. One is good and another one is evil and they keep on fighting." The boy asked back, "So, who wins at the end?". For that, the grand father replied calmly saying, "the one which was fed often wins the other one". That forms the crux of the idea. Let's see what do we need to do in order to overcome lust on a day to day basis.

1. Read and meditate the Word of God regularly. The scripture is insipired by God and it will make you holy. Jesus said this in John 17:17, "Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth." So, sanctification is through the Word of God. One more verse says, "Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you." John 15:3. So, make a decision to read and meditate the Word of God for one hour everyday (morning 30 minutes and evening 30 minutes) and make it a habit like brushing everyday. Making decision is in your hands. If you do that regularly day-in and day-out, it is 100% sure you will be purified. That's why whenever you get into a sinful habit, the first thing it attacks is your scripture meditation and prayer time. Because, sin could separate you from God whereas living a holy and righteous life bring you nearer and nearer to God. There is a video that shows a glass cup filled with ink but pouring out water continuously inside it slowly removes the ink and eventually makes the cup full of clean water. Exactly that can happen to your mind as well. Your mind may be full of filth but pouring out the word of God continuously inside it will remove all the sinful thoughts and make your mind and heart pure. Remember, it is not an easy process and you need to be very consistent, otherwise it will not yield. It never works if you read 20-30 chapters per day and then ignore the Word of God for next 5 days. You need to read day in and day out. We shouldn't complain we don't have time. God gave us 24 hours per day and if we are not able to spend 1-2 hours with God everyday, our life will go waste.

2. Control what you see. Our eye is entrance for our heart. What you feed your eyes, directly gets into the heart. A major application is lust. The desire starts from our eyes not only for lust but for any greediness, we are attracted towards beauty in all forms. If we see a beautiful house or a beautiful painting or a natural scene, we are all attracted towards that. That's why Jesus said in Matthew "The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great  is that darkness!" Matthew 6:22, 23. The last 2 of 10 commandments speak about lust and the origin of both starts in eye. It is not enough to read Word of God but seeing whatever we want. We should avoid every pitfall to the extent we should not read a sexist news if we think it will occupy our mind. Better be ignorant of such news insted of corrupting our mind. Should stop every kind of movie song or scene or anything that could corrupt us. In the example mentioned in first point, if you pour both water and ink in the jar, definitely you will not get a pure water. So, this is also a decision that we should make, however much we are tempted in lust in our flesh, make a decision that we will not yield to the pressure and will not feed the eyes.

3. Tell your problems to God and sought the help of Holy Spirit. We should not think that we can overcome this temptation by ourselves. Definitely we will fail. Instead ask for the power of Holy Spirit to overcome this. Tell God frankly about your problems, how you are tempted and tell God that you want to live a holy life, pleasing to Him and need His help for that. God will definitely help you out with giving you the power to overcome the lust.

4. Spend a calm time of prayer everyday with God. Bring back the scripture memorizations, recount the promise verses and praise God. You may feel like there is no effect after continuing for certain times. But, persist in prayer. In my experience, persistence with prayer and scripture meditation is more important to lead a victorious Christian life. It is about depending on the strength of God and not fighting the battle alone. Jesus told to His disciples, "Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye  are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing." John 15:4,5.

5. Realize that the resurrection power of Jesus which is working in you is more powerful than any other power in this world. It overcomes the power of lust, temptation and possibly everything else. Remember one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. When you ask for more power, God unleashes more power in you. Remember without knowing the truth, you cannot walk in truth. Everyday morning declare that you are going to walk this day in power, the same power that resurrected Jesus from the dead. "But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you." Romans 8:11. Don't focus too much on the power of lust and attraction instead change your focus to the power of resurrection.

6. Avoid situtations that could make you sin. For example, if you are often tempted by a girl, just forcefully avoid her completely. If you tend to stare the bodies of women, don't go to beach. Avoid friends who talk about lust and sex. I think a better example is if you have the drinking habit and freed of it, never walk in the street that has a wine shop. You better know about yourself and you should act accordingly during times of temptation. Remember how Joseph fleed away pothibar's wife when she tried to force him to commit adultery. Another example is explained in Proverbs 7 and Proverbs 6:25 says "Lust not after her beauty in thine heart; neither let her take thee with her eyelids." This is often difficult but that's why I told earlier the desire for Holiness and Godliness should overcome the desire for temptation and only if you have such an attitude, you can overcome lust.

7. When you are alone or if you are not getting sleep, often you would tempted by the sinful thoughts. That's where the scripture memorization and reciting it in our mind comes handy. The way I overcame it was, I memorized a list of psalms. As of this day, I know around 25 psalms by heart and whenever I was aroused while I am in bed, I start recounting the psalms and by the time I say around 3-5 psalms, I usually sleep. If I don't get sleep within the time of reciting 5 psalms, I will recite around 10 psalms. We should defend and attack the problem of lust with a specific strategy, otherwise we are prone to fail. Remember it is not an easy battle because it comes day in and day out and we need to win each and every moment to be on top of this.

8. The final and most important suggestion is when you fail at times, never lose heart or never condemn yourself or give up saying "This is my nature or I am like this". Because, say if you are avoiding a sinful habit for 50 days and then you are falling back, then the sin will pull you back all over again will try to make you worse than previous time. Remember our God is a loving God and He is interested in you standing up and running again instead of laying down where you had fallen. He promised that He neither leaves you nor forsakes you. He gave His own life to redeem you so He will not leave you as such. But, you have to take the positive steps agian and should not yield back to the habit. Don't think you are a sinner if you fall back. Instead, say that you are righteous and a saint before God not because of your actions but because of what Jesus did for you on the cross. Just tell the enemy back, "I acknowledge you won in this round but in next round I will have an upper hand and you know what, the final victory is going to be mine no matter what" and start fresh all over again.

I believe it is a huge post but I believe it is really an important and helpful for the readers. I declare that if you committed to do the steps mentioned above, you will overcome the lust 100%. No doubt at all. It may even take 2-3 years to get into a winning practice of overcoming lust everyday. But, persistence and patience is the key. May the Holy Spirit guide you and assist you in this battle and directs you to success.

Praise to the God who gives us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. All glory, honor and praise to you Father through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Overcoming Temptation

Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him. James 1:12

Let's continue the study about temptation in this chapter. We saw about three types of troubles that we face in our spiritual lives and we saw about how the first two types of tests and trials and biblical examples of them and we gave an introduction about the third type which is temptation. I gave a note that temptation never comes from God but comes only from the devil. The satan doesn't need the permission from God to tempt people. Because, it is within his limits and God allows his children to be tempted by satan and He wants us to overcome the temptations because that bring glory to His name and glory to us as well. Jesus Himself gone through the temptations at the start of His ministry. We will study about temptations in detail and how to overcome them in detail.

We must understand that temptation is not a sin in itself but it will lead to sin. It means that the devil cannot push you to commit sin. All he can do is, He can tempt you with all the attractions and he can hit your weakness areas, he can work in your thoughts, give you sinful memories but he cannot make you commit sin. To better explain, let's take the temptation of Eve. The serpent asked the question to Eve and spoke to her, lied to her and convinced her to cross the line. But, the serpent didn't pluck the fruit and pushed it into Eve's mouth. This is the way the devil works. Take the temptation of Jesus, Satan didn't bring food and pushed Jesus to eat that, didn't push Jesus from the pinnacle or didn't make Him bow under him. Just he tried to convince Jesus to commit those sins. Hope you understand now. That is the trick of Satan. He designed the sins that the entire world commit and tries to make the believers commit the sins but he can only tempt but the choice of committing it or not. That's where the control is given to us.

To know why we commit sin, we need to understand about temptation in detail. Let's study about the three basic forms of temptations. The lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life. 1 John 2:16. The SELF nature of flesh crave for these appetites. For example, I can say our mind is like a remote control for these temptations which are like TV programs. Whatever we want to tune using our remote, the programs will run as per our choice. But, there is a built in nature in human flesh for these things like how all the channels are built in inside remote. When Adam and Eve sinned, all the humans got a bondage for these types of temptations. Let us take the original sin. When the serpent tempted Eve, we could see there are three ways in which Eve got tempted. "when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it  was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat." Gen 3:6. First, she saw the fruit was good for food and it shows the lust of the flesh, Second, it was pleasant to the eyes, directly corresponds to the lust of the eye. Thirdly, it is desirable to make one wise, it shows the pride of life because it promises to get her wise in a form equivalent to that of God. Looks like it is the best thing in garden of Eden except that it was forbidden by God. Can you make out a point here? All that glitters is not Gold.

Let's understand why God has put such a condition and tree. God created man not only in His own image but He created them with the free will. Otherwise, He is like some other animal creature which cannot think and decide. Animals just work based on their instincts. If they want food, they find food or hunt other animal. If they want sex, they find a mate and just they were driven by what they want next. A human is far above an animal being and the specialty is he can think and decide, he can choose what he wants to do. The ability to think and the free will of choice makes man superior than the other created beings. God created humans in His own form to complete His masterpiece. One more point, let's understand why God created humans at first place. The reason God created human is because He is love and He wants to show His love to someone who could understand that love and reciprocate it back. Though He created many angels and other spiritual beings who are at heaven, He wanted someone like Him to show His complete love. Whom do we love most, our child or our pet, a silly question, but as simple as that, isn't it? Instead of just an obedient angel who works like a machine, God wanted a similar kind of being who could think independently and at the same time show the same love back to Him.

To know whether human loves Him back, God just wanted to test the obedience of Adam and Eve whether they love Him, honor Him even if He is not present with them. For that, He designed a condition in the form of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. If I want to know my daughter truly respects me or honor me, I can give a condition like that there is a box which is available for you to access but you shouldn't open. Obviously, she is not going to open at my presence. But, if I am not. Why that condition? Not to forbid her from the contents of the box but to say everything I do have belongs to you but still I am your master. God wanted the same thing out of Adam and Eve. He let them know all of the world created is theirs but just wanted to let them know He is their creator and they should love Him and obey Him and trust Him alone for their needs. But, to really test them, the object that is forbidden should be attractive. If I give something of little value to my daughter, that is not of much importance to her she will obviously won't be interested. But, if it is something thrilling, something of lot of interest, she will have the temptation to check what is in the box. Same thing happened to Eve. But, their is another player here in the form of serpent who really wanted to upset God who had thrown Him out of heaven tempted Eve to disobey God. Before that though Eve might have saw that fruit, she wouldn't thought about eating that. She didn't have a pressing need to eat that one. But, when there is one who tempts, then your mind actually conceives the action first. Eve thought about eating the fruit in the mind, to know its taste and she couldn't resist. Hope you understood how she had fallen.

Now, I feel it is clear what is temptation and what is sin. Until the thought comes up, Eve was clean. But, when the temptor brought the idea, Eve was tempted and thought about committing the act. She is still in temptation phase but the sin has originated in the thought. But, only when she plucked the fruit and ate that, she committed the sin. Now, the sin got fulfilled. This is exactly what each one of us go through in our life. This entire cycle is well documented by James in his first chapter. "Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death." James 1:13-15. There is a phase by phase development from temptation to sin and to death. If we learn to realize and stop this cycle, we can overcome the temptations from getting converted to sinful ideas and then actual committing of sin.

Jesus is also tempted based on these three forms. First, to make the stones to bread represents the lust of the flesh as he is hungry. Second of jumping from the temple tower tempts whether he boasts about His power and to prove He is indeed the son so it attributes to the pride of life and the last one of riches of this world is the lust of the eye and pride as well. But, how Jesus overcame every temptation. Jesus didn't argue with satan, He simply didn't refuse or He didn't say "I am Son of God, I know that and I needn't prove to you." Instead, He faced each and every temptation with the Word of God. He met every situation with the appropriate scripture that made the devil powerless. When Jesus answered for the first temptation that it was written a man doesn't live just by bread but by every Word of God, the devil couldn't oppose. But, he is clever and cunning, he immediately tempted Jesus by the basis of another scripture in the second temptation. He used Psalm 91 and tried to misuse the promise of angels carrying without stumble but by making Jesus to fall from the tallest tower and tried to made Jesus to commit suicide. But, Jesus, our Lord simply overcame by another scripture. It shows that sometimes even we get tempted by some scriptures which are inappropriate to the situations that we are in. Unless we are strong in all the scriptures, we will tend to fail. And the third one, though Jesus had already overcame two temptations, He could exercise the power to drive satan out this time. So, He told away with you satan. But, He is sure to set the scores right by quoting the appropriate scripture again and told the devil we always have to worship God alone. Glory to God. The tempter can never ever win over his creator. He might be clever but one who created him is omniscient and He Himself is the source of wisdom.

The first and foremost weapon in battling out temptation is the Word of God. You could see the armor of God in Ephesians 6 and we could classify them to defense and attack. We need to have the truth as belt and the Word of God as sword to overcome all these types of temptations. How can we use the Word of God as sword if we don't know that at all? That's why we need to meditate the Word of God day and night and filled our hearts and minds with the truth of the Word. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. If our heart is filled with scriptures, we will give more fruits, overcome the temptations and live a victorious Christian life. Let us try to fill our heart, mind and thoughts with the scriptures and replace the sinful thoughts with the Word of God from today on wards. Memorizing scriptures and recollecting them is another method. Meditating the scriptures is best according to Psalm 1:2-3. The Word of God is power. Let's take a decision to read and meditate the scriptures every day. If you are not doing already, I believe the Holy Spirit has lead you to this page to start this habit immediately from this day on wards. As a personal testimony, I was also a sinful person living in lust and filth. But, the Holy Spirit touched me changed me to meditate the Word of God daily. Only thing I did is, I took a decision that I will stick to reading the Word of God everyday whatever the situation may be or whatever the difficulty may be. There could be few days where you could never read. But, that doesn't mean we start to slip. We need to develop a habit of reading the Word and praying as some of our other habits like brushing, bathing and eating. So, I invite every reader to try and follow that.

In my next chapter, I will try to explain how to overcome lust, the common temptation that we prone to fall every now and then. Why it is so hard to resist the lust? I will try to present some useful ideas. May God give you all the wisdom and strength and make you bear plenty of fruits for His name. All glory, honor and praise to you God through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

TTT

As mentioned at the end of my last article, we take part in the sufferings of Jesus Christ as well. In general, the sufferings are classified into three types. I call them TTT and the term stands for Tests, Trials and Temptations. I would like to deal with different types of troubles and problems we face in our life both physical and spiritual but the stress is on spiritual side of it. First, we should understand the basic difference of the three so that whenever we are in a situation we can assess the situation and found what we are in exactly. If we understand the type, we can better respond to the situation.

Test is the first type where God tests a particular person to certify him, to approve him. The best example I could take from the entire scripture is God's calling of Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac on altar. So difficult, isn't it? It is a biggest test of the faith in Abraham. "And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am. And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of." Gen 22:1,2. The phrase says "that God did tempt Abraham" but I believe the right way of telling that would be "God did test Abraham" because God is never a tempter as we see later. This is the greatest shadow of the God, the Father is going to give His only begotten son, Jesus Christ on cross as burnt offering. As I wrote already, here God needed the approval of Abraham to give His son Isaac as a sacrifice so that He can give Jesus as sacrifice on cross. But you may ask, why that is required? Simply because of the fact Jesus Christ is going to be Abrham's son as well in future and only if Abraham who represents God the Father of GodHead (as he the Father of Israelites) willing to sacrifice His son Isaac who represents Jesus Christ, the son of the GodHead, then only in future, the Father can give Jesus on cross. When Isaac was thought of as human son of Abraham, the ram (Jesus Christ) which was caught in thorns by its horns is the substitute of Isaac (who represents all the believers) and it was eventually sacrificed in place of Isaac. What a figurative representation? 

Abraham succeeded in this greatest test of faith by strongly holding on his faith on Lord. This is beautifully explained in Hebrews as "By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, Of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called: Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure." Gen 11:17-19. No more explanation required. These kinds of tests would come and essentially they test our faith and if we stand strong, we will receive greater blessing. When Abraham offered the ram in place of Isaac, the angel of the Lord called from heaven for the second time and assured His promise and blessed Abraham greatly. Because, Abraham just fulfilled God's divine plan of salvation in shadow. Praise God, to Him be the glory now and forever. "And the angel of the LORD called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time, And said, By myself have I sworn, saith the LORD, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son: That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which  is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies". Gen 22:15-17. Peter says about this type of test as, "Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perish, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ: Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see  him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory: Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of  your souls." I Pet 1:6-9. 

The second 'T' stands for trials. We can also call this as tribulations. I would like to classify this as the distresses from having a small difficulties like suffering from a minor disease to deep sorrows and distresses like losing our loved ones and losing our life itself for the glory of Lord's name. That's why this is also called tribulation. The best example I can quote from Bible is none other than Job. None of us could ever imagine a Job like situation happening to us. Here the devil, one who accuses the brethren all the time (Rev 12:10), put a blame on Job in the presence of God and we all know what happened later. God gave everything that Job had in hands of satan. Job lost all His possessions, all His sons/daughters all of a sudden in one day. Not only that, the devil made Job to suffer with sore boils. His pain was too great that even his wife encouraged him to curse the Lord and commit suicide. Even his friends who came to console him, couldn't recognize him and cried for seven days and seven nights. Job chapters 1 and 2. Unimaginable situation. More difficult than losing our lives for the Lord. If we are killed, the pain is for a matter of few minutes and then we will be with the Lord for ever. But, living like that for few months is horrible, cannot be expressed. The rest of the book of Job is a lamentation book with the friends trying to accuse him and Job trying to justify himself and we all knew that. This stands for tribulation.

But, when God put a challenge on a person, He will give him enough strength such that the person overcomes the tribulation. That's what happened in Job's situation as well. Finally, Job as he himself said, came out like gold purified in the furnace. The Word of God states that "In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly". Job 1:22 and finally God testifies Job that he spoke upright. "in that ye have not spoken of me  the thing which is right, like my servant Job." Job 42:8. God blessed Job twice than his earlier state. None of us need to go through such a trial. Because, Job's situation is completely different than ours because during Job's time there is no mediator between God and man during that time and the Holy Spirit, who is the comforter and counselor was not indwelling in humans that time. Even Job states the need for a mediator "O that one might plead for a man with God, as a man pleadeth for his neighbour" Job 16:21. This mediator who pleads for us is Jesus Christ. Regarding this types of trials, which we call as tribulations, Paul writes in his epistle to Corinthians that "There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it." I Corinthians 10:13. Here, I believe we can replace the word trial for temptation. It makes more sense. 

We can say this also means as chastisement where a Father chastises His son so that he can learn some good thing. Hebrews chapter 12 quotes the verses from Proverbs to explain this. "And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?" Hebrews 12:5-7 and the fifth verse is taken from Proverbs 3:11,12. When God brings you through such situations, He will either make you more pure and righteous or he will teach you how to respond to certain situations. Anyway, it will be beneficial to you on a long run. Remember, our Lord is good all the times. "but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness" Hebrews 12:10.

Let's see the third type which is Temptation. This is the dangerous one of all the three. Though the other 2 gives us suffering and difficulties, this is the one that impacts our eternal glory. Temptation comes from the word tempt and this refers to the situations that lead us to sin, thereby making us sliding down from our spiritual standards, make our conscience guilty thereby separating us from our Lord. More important point to note here this doesn't come from God but from devil. You may ask me Job's sufferings too didn't come from God but came from devil. True, but there is a catch. Devil has to take permission from the Lord to touch Job and his possessions there by making Lord indirectly responsible. That's why it was written in the last chapter of Job, it was written "and they bemoaned him, and comforted him over all the evil that the LORD had brought upon him" Job 42:11. So, it was Lord who permitted devil so this was attributed to Lord indirectly. But, it turned out in a greatest testimony to Job and his righteousness and it meant to give way for the book of Job that shows how much a man suffered but yet lived sincere for the Lord and it was set as an example. On the other hand, the temptation is the direct weapon of the devil and he absolutely doesn't need to take permission from the Lord before tempting a person. Remember, the devil didn't take permission from God to tempt Eve on garden of Eden. It is permitted for him. But, devil was only given permission to tempt us but he cannot force us into committing sin. This is one of the biggest subjects for study and I am postponing that to the next chapter where we see the temptation cycle from the book of James, Eve's temptation and the three tempting attempts on Jesus.

Hope this article is useful for your spiritual life. Taste and see that the Lord is good. All glory, honor and praise to God through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. May He be exalted now and forever, Amen.

Old covenant vs New covenant - Part 3

In this chapter, we will close this series. We have written a lot about old covenant so if you have read the previous parts, you can clearly say what old covenant is all about, why it was given and what is the perception of Jews and Israelites about the law. Let's see more about the new covenant. But, before getting into the new covenant, let's see what is the purpose of law. As per Galatians, law is equivalent to the school master to govern things until the new covenant comes in. Law consists of list of commandments that the Israelites have to obey and if they didn't it was a sin. We have also seen  the goal of the commandment is love. The purpose is to have the love of God (Agape) in the heart and mind of humans as well. That is the crux of the ten commandments, to love the God with full heart, mind and strength and to love others as one love himself. But, the law was all about rules and it cannot bring that Agape love in the hearts of people because sin was at rule inside the individual. So, we saw they literally fulfilled the commandments to some extent but didn't follow them with their full heart. So, they often failed.

We can illustrate this by simple example of following traffic rules. If we are just afraid of being fined, then we will always check if there is a traffic cop standing nearby and if we find one, we will tend to follow the rules (like don't over speed, follow signal). But, if we don't find one, then we will violate the traffic rules. But, if you decide, no matter what, you want to follow all the rules and regulations, then irrespective of whether there is a police man or not, you will follow all the rules. Law was exactly like the first way of following commandments because Israelites were afraid of getting punished. But, God wanted a second way of doing it, that is by Agape love which is not possible for humans because of sins. God says this in Genesis 8:21, "for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth".

Let's see how new covenant accomplishes God's expectations whereas man's shortcoming of abiding with God's expectations. First, let's see what is new covenant. In last chapter, we saw the old covenant is about being the children of God and inheriting God's possessions through circumcision that was handed to Abraham and applicable to only Abraham's bloodline (can say Jacob's lineage). But, the new covenant says "But as many as received him (Lord Jesus Christ), to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." John 1:12,13. So, anyone who believes and accepts Jesus Christ to be his Lord and Savior become the son/daughter of almighty God. This is what new covenant is all about. We need to have faith in Jesus to accept Him and by believing Jesus we are automatically becoming the children of Abraham. Bible calls Jesus as the mediator of the new covenant. "And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant" Hebrews 12:24. Because, He is God in human form, He abolished the old covenant through His death on cross and established the new covenant through His pierced body and spilled blood. Jesus created this during His last supper with His disciples "And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed  it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body. And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave  it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins." Matt 26:26-28. This is mentioned in other gospels as well. Let's realize the importance of communion, every time when we observe it we remind ourselves of the new covenant that our Lord made for us. Let's remember the extent of suffering He had gone through to save us, to be with us. Praises to Him and thank Him for all His mercies. Please take a moment and show Him your love and gratitude. Humble yourself before Him and say "Thank you Jesus".

We understood the new covenant and we are also children along with Israelites. But, don't we need to obey the commandments? Do we satisfy God's expectation automatically? To answer this questions, we need to understand the third person of the trinity, the Holy Spirit. By accepting Jesus, we are born again through Holy Spirit. I wrote a lot about this in my New Creation series. God promised the Holy Spirit to those who obey Him and accepts Jesus Christ. When Holy Spirit comes to you, He started living the holy and fruitful life in you and starts fulfilling every requirement of God in your day to day life. Let's see what Paul says about satisfying the God's requirement of Agape love. "And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us." Romans 5:5. With Holy Spirit, we not only fulfill the commandments of God but started to live a life pleasing Lord altogether.

We saw in last post about Jesus' sermon on the mount and his teachings about lust and murder. With Holy Spirit living inside you, our master who taught that commandment, Jesus Himself lives inside you. So, you can follow those impossible commandments with ease. That is the power of Holy Spirit. That's why Jesus said, "Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear,  that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come." John 16:13. So, we don't falter like the Jews and Israelites. As the Holy Spirit gives the power to overcome sins, we can continue to walk in the light. I had written a lot about Holy Spirit in my New creation series and will resume to write further in that series.

Remember, we are obliged to fulfill the commandments in old covenants. Because, the law and ten commandments say, "You shall do" and "You shall not do this". But, under new covenant, God is obliged to do things on our behalf. Under new covenant, God says, "I will give you new heart" and "I will make you walk in my ways". Hope this is clear. Let us ask the question ourselves, are we living under old covenant or new covenant? How do we see the salvation? Do we think that we get salvation through our works or by faith? Do you want to satisfy Lord through your good things? Now, if you read the book of Galatians, you will understand it fully. Paul says "For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith. And the law is not of faith: but, The man that doeth them shall live in them. Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed  is every one that hangeth on a tree: That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith." Gal 3:10-14. Very plain, isn't it?  This is stressed in Romans 8:13,14 as well. "For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." Same chapter verse 9 says "Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his." Jesus said the same in John 3 to Nicodemus, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." v3 and "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." v6.

Hope I covered most of the points with respect to old covenant and new covenant. Having said that, I will touch and revisit whenever there is a need in future chapters. As the children of new covenant, we enjoy every spiritual blessing, blessings of the old covenant as well, promises of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, we are the children of most holy high God. We are the church of God and the bride of Christ, we have the fullness of Holy Spirit, we own everything. We are more and more special than orthodox Jews or Israelites by our faith in Lord Jesus Christ. He made us kings and priests before His Father through His blood. But, having said that, in this earthly life, we take part in His sufferings and tribulations too. Let's see to that in our next chapter Tests, Trials and Temptations. As the Holy Spirit instructs, I have to finish just two more chapters and then resume back the New creation series which I paused during the holy week this year. Understanding the epistles of Romans, Galatians and Hebrews is very important to lead a successful Christian life. We have to read, re-read and meditate to imbibe those spiritual truths. May the Holy Spirit give you the light when you read and meditate the Word of God. I pronounce the blessings on you in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Love you all brethren. All glory, honor and praise to God through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.

Old covenant vs New covenant - Part 2

Let's see the continuation of previous post here. Just to summarize, we have seen how God gave the old covenant to Abraham in order to bring the new covenant through Jesus Christ at the appointed time. We have seen how great are mercies and wisdom of God in the way He treated Jews and gentiles and brought them together through our Lord and Savior. In this post, we will see the essence of both the covenants and what it mean for us.

First, the old covenant deals with keeping God's commandments. God certified Abraham, "For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the LORD, to do justice and judgment" Gen 18:19. This particular statement is about following commandments and doing justice and judgment which Abraham was sincere and truthful before God because he knew the Lord through his complete faith. To follow those commandments, he received a sign from God in the form of circumcision. "This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; Every man child among you shall be circumcised." Gen 17:10. So, doing circumcision is just a sign and by taking that sign Jews/Muslims decree that they will follow the commandments like Abraham but unless and until they fulfill all the commandments, the covenant is not completed. Romans 4:11 says circumcision is a sign that Abraham received and Galatians 5:3 says "For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law."

Lord confirmed this to Israelites by the old covenant through the Moses. Now, the old covenant says whoever does the law will live by it. "For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, That the man which doeth those things shall live by them." Romans 10:5, again Paul states "The man that doeth them shall live in them." Gal 3:12. So, the people of Israel tried to follow the commandments and we must say some of them fulfilled it to some extent for some time but nobody could fulfill it completely. But, why?

Here is where the divine wisdom of God shows again. To understand this, we need why God gave them the law. Again, Paul says in Timothy, that end of the commandment is love. I Tim 1:5, and Jesus shrunk the commandments to two, 1. To love God with full heart, strength and mind and 2. To love others as we love ourselves. But, what Israelites tried to do is they tried to follow it literally without having the love of God in their heart and pure love couldn't stay in the hearts of people because sin was still at work and sin was at work because Holy Spirit couldn't live inside humans and Holy Spirit couldn't enter humans because Jesus was not crucified yet. This is the core understanding from the scriptures. But, the jews and israelites without understanding this just tried to follow them, failed and offered sacrifices. If humans can completely fulfil the law, there is absolutely no requirement for burnt offerings and altar sacrifices for those who follow them. But, God told everyone to bring their offerings and sacrifices because no one could follow it completely. Wait, is there any proof from scriptures that Israelites couldn't follow the commandments fully? Not only Israelites, but none of us could follow the commandments by ourselves.

We can explain that from the scriptures. For example, let's take the ten commandments. The problem with the law is, if we fulfill 9 commandments and fail with at least 1, we are still condemned as sinner. That is the basic requirement of the law. James explains this in his letter, "For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one  point, he is guilty of all. For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law." James 2:10,11. So, even if a person follows the first 9 commandments, the 10th commandment "Do Not Lust" can never be fulfilled by anyone. Because, it is not about what we did but whether we have a lustful thought or desired anything in mind that belongs to other person. No one could escape it. This is explained in Romans 7 and I am not explaining it just not to make this very long. Romans 7 is key to understand Bible's most important chapter Romans 8. So, please read and meditate. What is still worse is, Jesus made the condition more difficult by placing God's standards in His sermon on the mount. Jesus said "You need not commit murder but if you were anger with your brother you are in danger of judgement and call him a fool, you are in danger of hell fire" Matt 5:22 and "You need not commit adultery but a lustful look at a woman is enough to commit adultery in heart" Matt 5:28. If we say it is "very very difficult", it is not appropriate. The right way to call that is "impossible". Then Jesus said pluck right eye if that causes you to go to hell and severe right hand if that causes you to go to hell. So, to fulfill the commandment to the core, we need to be half blind and with only one hand. Does that make sense? Not at all. Then, why Jesus said that. Jesus wanted to show how God's standards are and how holy and just God he is. But, the main purpose is no one could come to God and say I have fulfilled all the commandments by myself. Because, God's standards are unimaginable.

So, what's the point? The point is though none of us qualify if God took the holy and righteous standards, all of us can qualify before God through His grace and mercies. Because, they are endless. As holy as he is, as much gracious He is. As righteous he is, as great are His mercies. Grace and Mercy has another name and the name is JESUS CHRIST. Hope you understood the point. The point is everyone of us can qualify by accepting the sacrifice that God provided for us on the cross of Calvary. Without understanding this point, Jews wanted to please God just externally (still to this day) but the Lord was not pleased. God told this through Isaiah as "Wherefore the Lord said, For as much as this people draw near  me with their mouth, and with their lips do honor me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men:" Isaiah 29:13 and in Hosea He said, "For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings." Hosea 6:6. That's why Jesus condemned the Pharisees and Saducees in Matthew 23 as they were doing things for men and not for God.

I believe this gives a very good explanation about the old covenant. In short, old covenant was actually made with Abraham and to his descendants, the sign was circumcision and the meaning of it is to fulfill the law. But, no one cannot fulfill completely and they can fulfill it literally to some extent but still fall short in a way such that they can please the Lord. Now, let's see what is wonderful in new covenant. We spoke about living by doing the law. But, there is a second way too. Yes, it is also written by prophet Habakkuk as "but the just shall live by his faith" Habakkuk 2:4 and this is what new covenant is all about. Hallelujah. (I felt an overwhelming presence of Holy Spirit when I write this.) "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:" Ephesians 2:8.

Let's again see this in the life of Abraham. He got the promises through faith much before he received the covenant and sign. We see the covenant and circumcision in Genesis chapter 17. But, much before that in chapter 12 itself when God called Abraham out of Haran, he showed his faith by simply obeying. He was 75 at that time. Gen 12:4. God certified His faith in chapter 15 as "And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness." Gen 15:6. Abraham should have been around 85 at that point of time and he didn't have any child as he says in verse 2 that Eleazer's son is the heir for him. In next chapter, we see Abraham was 86 when Hagar begat Ismael for him. Gen 16:16. He was faithful for 10 years from the time God called and him and patiently waited. But, the next visit from God was during his 99 years of age and at that point of time, he was asking for blessings to Ismael and by saying that he wanted to have Ismael as his heir (way better than Eleazer's son, isn't it). But, God still refused and told the heir will be Isaac, because when it is considered impossible, God made Sarah to conceive and gave Isaac to Abraham as He promised. That's how God glorifies by doing things what the world says impossible, what it is considered impossible is nothing before God, what is considered wisdom for man is foolish to God. Praise Him. By the way, I am off the topic by long way. But, still flowing through the spirit of God. All these incidents has important connotations as we read in Galatians.

So, what came first? Faith came first and circumcision came later. He got circumcision as a sign for his faith as well as covenant. So, only faith matters. Same way, first came Ismael which is an example for law and old covenant whereas Isaac is the example for faith and God glorified not by conception of Sarah because it was from flesh. But, instead God was glorified by conception of Sarah where it was considered as spiritual because it was impossible for Sarah to conceive. So, Ismael is sign for following works to please God, in other words, just following old covenant whereas Isaac is a sign for being made righteous by faith. This is what explained in Galatians 4:22-31. Hagar is equivalent to Sinai, Sarah is for Jerusalem, what God told about Hagar and Ismael, cast out the bondwoman and her son which means cast out the old covenant and its principles. What a stunning revelation? This concurs with Hebrews 8:13, When God said New covenant, He made the existing one as old and then it has to be vanished. See the consistency of the Word of God.

Another one point I want to mention before closure is, with God the best is always yet to come. Ismael came first but God gave Isaac later. With Jesus, the better vine comes later. Jacob saw the new covenant in his spirit when he blessed the sons of Joseph. So, he made the second one Ephraim the primary one and placed Ephraim above the legal first one Manasseh. Same way the new covenant came after the old covenant. First came the old weak body. Adam came first and Jesus the second Adam came later. The best heaven and earth are yet to come. We are yet to receive our glorious bodies. Praise God. The best is yet to come for those who believe. That's why it is written in Proverbs that "But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day." Proverbs 4:18

So what now? What is new covenant exactly? Shouldn't we follow the commandments as Jesus Himself told to follow the commands? If we can follow God through faith, is it only enough to believe? No need for works? I will answer these in my next chapter as this one became already a huge topic. I originally wanted to cover that too here. But, still it will take some more space so better to make it a separate one. May God bless you all. All glory, honor and praise to our God through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Old covenant vs New covenant - Part 1

I am very glad to present my 30th article in this blog. I thank God for giving me this opportunity to write what he reveals to me. I still remember when God gave this interest, I created this blog some 4 years back but just put a title of my first topic "Word of God" and the John 1:1 verse alone and it has been 2 years post when the Holy Spirit empowered me and by His grace and strength I write the 30th article today. Please pray for me that God may give more articles and reveal more secrets from the scriptures so that I can present them in the form of articles and through sermons and the Lord may give me more time to write. All praise and glory to God and let the Lord alone be magnified.

In this post, we will see in detail about the old covenant and new covenant. I have written a lot about the covenants in my earlier chapter but hadn't dealt with them directly. In this post, let us examine both the covenants and compare them. Understanding the new covenant is essential to inherit the promises and blessings that had been made to Abraham. As a church, we are not Israelites (unless the reader is a Jew or Israelite by birth) but as a gentile church, we are also sons and daughters of Abraham through our faith in Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

To start with, the Bible is divided in two parts, Old testament and New testament. The old testament stands for old covenant and the new testament for new covenant. The old testament deals with the account of the nation of Israel, the descendants of Jacob (Israel), the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham. The new testament deals with the account of son of man, Jesus Christ who is God Himself. If you ever read and understood the book of Galatians, this post will make more sense as the crux of Galatians is with new covenant.

To understand this completely, we need to examine the jewish principles. In old testament, God called Abraham and told that He will make Him a great nation and as He promised, He created the nation of Israel through Jacob and His 12 sons and their generations. The nation of Israelites, as the children of Abraham, are the direct heirs of all the possessions and blessings of God. The Lord called them as His own. God told in Deuteronomy 7:6 as "For thou  art an holy people unto the LORD thy God: the LORD thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that  are upon the face of the earth." Even Paul the Apostle, in his letter to Romans stress this point out. "Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises;" Romans 9:4. The jews today have a great zeal for God, no doubt about that. Even Paul says that in Romans 10:2, but at the same time he decrees it as not according to knowledge. "For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge."
So, in short, any orthodox jew cannot accept a gentile being accepted by God as His own because they consider it as a birthright of Israelite or Jew. That was an abomination to them.

Jews couldn't simply accept the idea but that's where they all mistaken. They didn't understand the God's purpose and plans He had for mankind. God is so huge that if He is just a God for a nation and a group, it doesn't make justice to Him. So, God decided to save the entire world but for that He Himself has to come as a man to set things straight and that's why God took the form of flesh in the name of Jesus and born in this world through Mary. When He took the human form, He took a lower form of human, a form of suffering servant, and hence called as son of man as well as son of God instead of directly called as God. Again a fulfilment of Psalm 8:4 explained in Heb 2:6-10. What Jews missed in prophecies is the part of Isaiah where God specifically called it is not a big thing for Him to save just Israelites or Jews alone through the servant but to make Him a light to the nations unto the ends of the world. This verse stands as a testimony against those who claim that the God is only for jews. "And he said, It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth." Isaiah 49:6. So, those who read just think about this. On the other hand, whoever believe in the name of Jesus and have faith in Him as their own Lord and Savior are considered as direct heirs and children of living God. John 1:12. Romans chapters 9 to 11 clearly explains why jews were rejected by God and how gentiles are accepted by the sacrifice of Jesus. A must read.

Remember God made a blood covenant with Abraham and His descendants through circumcision and everyone in Abraham's household was circumcised. Genesis 17:10-27. Later when God gave the Law and commandments at Mt. Sinai through Moses, God confirms this covenant with them and what that means is whomsoever a descendant of Abraham through bloodline is supposed to undergo circumcision and whoever undergoing circumcision is under the law and he is supposed to fulfill all the commandments given under the law. But, what happened later is important. Generation after generation, the Israelites gradually withdrawn themselves from the Lord and started to worship other idols and ignored the law altogether. Then, God told through prophets that He abolishes the covenant that He made with Israelites because they didn't stand in that. At the outset, it looks like Israelites were not able to fulfill the law and got what they deserved. But, if you think more and meditate more, you will realize something. The divine plan of God. Yes, it is the divine design of God to show His grace towards mankind. God gave the commandments to Israelites at Mt. Sinai but didn't give them a heart and mind to obey those commandments. That's why most of them were not able to follow that and they often failed that. Later when they transgressed more and more, God announced through prophets that He abolished the old covenant that He made with Israelites. We can read this in Jeremiah and Ezekiel that God says He will establish new covenant with Israelites. Jer 31:31,32, Ezekiel 16:59,60. Under this, God promises to give them a new heart and a spirit through which He makes us follow His laws and commandments. Jer 31:33, Ezekiel 36:26,27. This is again quoted in Hebrews 8:6-12. The author of Hebrews finishes with an emphatic statement, that by calling it a New covenant, God made the law given to Moses at Mt. Sinai an old one and the old should vanish away.

But, How God can abolish the old covenant He made with Abraham? To replace the old covenant, there needs to be something superior has to be sacrificed in place of old circumcision based covenant. The superior thing is the most supreme thing one could ever think of. That is, sacrifice of God Himself on the cross and that could only happen if our Lord takes human form and that's the exact plan of God and divine design. To make His grace available to all the people, to fulfill the promise He made via Isaiah 49:6, the word of God took the form of flesh and offered the perfect sacrifice. Jesus came among Israelites, in the bloodline of Judah, in the generation of David and He is a jew by birth. He did many miracles to the jews, priests and pharisees. Did good to all the people. But, they rejected Him to be their Savior (Messiah) because they were expecting the Messiah to give them deliverance from the then Roman government and they were expecting a King and He didn't fit in to their expectations and they crucified Him finally. But, they didn't understand how the prophecies of old testament will fulfill and they didn't understand the mind of God. Even, until today and that's why they refuse Christ. In turn God rejected them fulfilling His prophecies, by accepting the gentiles. Praise and glory be to God, He made salvation available to everyone freely through the faith in Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul explained this in Romans 9 - 11 and finally wonders about the God's wisdom at the end of the chapter of Romans 11. Finally, what would happen is until a completion comes in the Church of Jesus Christ, there will be a portion of remnants in Israel and Jews who won't accept Jesus Romans 11:25 and at the end through the disobedience of gentiles, the last portion of Israelites would be accepted. Romans 11:29-31. At the end, Paul exhorts,  "For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all." Romans 11:32. So, this is all a divine plan of God and we need to accept that as such. Paul wonders finally by quoting Isaiah 40:13,14 - "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable  are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!, For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counselor? Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom  be glory for ever. Amen." Romans 11:33-36.

After analyzing all this and seeing God's mind and will, knowing God knows the end before the beginning, we can say that God gave the old covenant in order to establish the New covenant through Jesus Christ in appointed time. So, until that time, old covenant ruled and law was mentioned as school master in Galatians 3:24,25. Ever thought why it was called school master? Because, a student will obey and afraid for school master only till the time he is in school. Once he is out of school, he no longer needs to fear about the school master. He is matured now and older enough to do things that he got from his school. That's what exactly it means. Law was only allowed to rule until the greater thing which is called faith comes. To understand more, read and meditate Galatians chapters 2 through 4. Let's close this portion with this understanding of Old covenant and New covenant, and let's examine about fulfilling the commandments which was the basis of old covenant against living in spirit which is the crux of the new covenant in next part and conclude the comparison of old covenant and new covenant. All praise, honor and glory to God through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. May God be glorified forever and ever. Amen.

PPP

Writing my next article after quiet some time. I was on vacation during the month of May and couldn't find time for the next article. As I am getting busier in my works as well, I want to set aside a time to write more articles as the Lord gives me more content. Today, June 11th, we celebrate the last church festival of this year, which is festival of Trinity. So, to bring glory to the triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, this article has a three repeating letters PPP.

Last month when I was driving to work, I was thinking about patience and when I thought more about it I remembered about the concept of 3P (PPP) which I read long back in management principle. The 3P in business stands for People, Process and the Product. When I was thinking about that, the Holy Spirit told me there is PPP (3P) with respect to spiritual things as well and then the Lord revealed me that the 3Ps stand for Patience, Perseverance and Persistence.

I wondered a long time about the late Dr. DGS Dhinakaran who was a powerful man of God. He had preached to millions about the love of Jesus and demonstrated the power of God in a mighty way. God healed plenty of people through His ministries and did miracles for millions of people. He did a powerful ministry of God and the grace of God is still with the Jesus Calls ministry which He found. I wondered many times what is the secret behind His successful ministry. But, the Holy Spirit answered me the secret behind the power and anointing in his ministry is because of PPP - Patience, Perseverance and Persistence.

Dhinakaran faced lot of struggles in his early life due to failures in studies, unemployment, poverty and was depressed. He decided to commit suicide by falling before train and he started walking towards nearby train track. But, on the way, he met his uncle who told him about Jesus and he decided to pray to the Lord. When he prayed, the Lord showed him his past sins and he repented of them immediately. He got an inner piece afterwards and then from that day, his life changed. He started tasting success in education and got a job. But, the real difference in Dhinakaran's life is he started seeking the Lord continuously through prayer and Bible reading everyday. He was so consistent and faithful in his ways in front of the Lord. At the end of 7 years, when he earnestly prayed for the anointing of Holy Spirit, He received a visitation from Lord Jesus and then the Holy Spirit started His work in him. And still he continued earnestly with his call and at a later point of his life, he received all the gifts of the Holy Spirit and started to minister for Lord in a powerful manner. The secret behind his anointing is the patience, perseverance and persistence that he had towards the Lord. Brother Dhinakaran's life itself is greatest testimony for our living God because a man who was about to end his life came back and preached and brought the love of Christ to millions of people. This can only possible with Lord Jesus Christ.

Many young people get saved, they immediately start to do some ministry and later they grow weary and then deceived by the devil and changed their tracks. But, those powerful anointed ministers, who shine for Lord Jesus today, if we go and search their past, they would have certified truthful and sincere in all their troubles and temptations. Throughout their difficulties and challenges, they would have had PPP. Anyone, who wanted to do the will of God, should have these three Ps and should be ready to wait even for years to know the will of God before jumping into the ministry.

The Holy Spirit instructed me about each of this 'P' in the life of patriarchs. I never thought that one before though I know the scriptures but when Holy Spirit told me, it was clear. The first P stands for Patience. The first patriarch is Abraham from whom Judaism, Islam and Christianity derived. I believe the entire world population may be the descendants of Abraham now though not all of them are spiritual. Why Abraham is so special? We can easily answer because he is the father of faith. Yes, it is absolutely true that Abraham was called friend of God because of his faith. But, Hebrews says it was not only his faith but it was also his patience that he waited on the Lord to give the first promised legal heir, Isaac. "And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise." Heb 6:15. Even, we need patience along with faith to receive the promises of God as our God never acted out in hurry. He will have plans for our entire life span and if we expect quick fixes, it is not going to work. The same chapter advice us to follow the footsteps of Abraham as his children. "That ye be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises." Heb 6:12. Is God's promises yet to be fulfilled in your life? Never let your patience worn out. Abide in the scriptures and prayers and God will fulfill His promises in His time.

The second 'P' stands for perseverance. It is not sufficient to have patience alone but we need to follow up along with patience. Perseverance is unrelenting effort on something unless it is achieved. Let's see the second patriarch, Isaac. When he was living in the land of philistines, there was a famine in the land. But, Isaac went and sowed and God blessed him hundred fold and he became great. Gen 26:1, 12-14. Remember, Isaac was already rich because Abraham gave all that he had to Isaac apart from what he shared to the sons of Keturah. Gen 25:5,6. But, Isaac just didn't depend on the cattle stock for his living but he chose to sow the fields and God gave him a big fold reward for his efforts. Then, Philistines envied him and argued with him regarding his wells three times. But, Isaac didn't just leave it as such. He continued to dig wells unless the philistines stops their fight. This shows his perseverance amidst the opposition. We may do small works for the Lord as sowing directly represents sharing the word of God and when it looks like we are getting water, the devil (philistines) may come and try to spoil our work and even the evil forces may get success. But, if we persevere, we will reap the rewards for our efforts and perseverance from the Lord.

The third 'P' stands for persistence. We see it in the life of the third patriarch Jacob. We may see the character of Jacob from his early childhood. Whatever he does, his eyes will always be on one thing, that is blessing. He took the firstborn right from Esau and the type of Esau represents people who just want to satisfy their momentary worldly pleasures. Later the price they pay is so great that is they lose their eternal life for this momentary pleasures. More specifically, Esau was compared to those who commit fornication and adultery in Hebrews. "Lest there  be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears." Hebrews 12:16.17. How true? Hope that doesn't need much more explanation as the verses explains. Immoral sexual activities may give momentary pleasure and satisfaction, but it takes out the eternal life of the soul. On the other hand, Jacob was focused on the blessings. The second time, he deceived his father, not by himself but through the advice of his mother. God too wishes to bless people like Jacob who wants to seek blessing. At a later point of time, psalmist too writes, "As he loved cursing, so let it come unto him: as he delighted not in blessing, so let it be far from him." Psalm 109:17.

We need to love the blessings that come from the Lord. There are people who teach that we should not look for blessing, we should not seek blessing, we should only live holy and righteous life for the Lord. Actually, we need to rightly divide the word of God. Blessing doesn't just apply to material possessions and money alone. There are spiritual blessings (for soul and spirit), good health (for body) and material possessions for a good living. We should seek the blessings of the Lord not the blessings of this world alone. But, this kind of people try to outsmart God with their holiness and righteousness, but at the end they will realize they are foolish. I will try to explain this on a dedicated chapter. For now, just want to say in short that we should live a holy life, righteous life but at the same time a blessed life as per 3 John 2.

Coming back to Jacob, his persistence with blessing is revealed when he wrestled with the Lord for blessing. The interesting point here is, Jacob was already blessed with two bands of cattle stock. He said that he crossed the river Jordan with empty hand and a staff but he had been blessed with two bands of animal stock, wealth and family members and He confess he was not worthy to receive them all. Gen 32:10. This shows the humbleness of the man and as we read in our last chapter, God favors the humble. This time he is praying for a protection from his brother Esau. verse 11. But, at that point the Lord himself came down but Jacob catch hold of him for the entire night and asks for His blessing. Because, he knows when he gets this particular blessing of the Lord, he will be protected and he can guard his other material blessings. He wrestled with the Lord for entire night and Lord Himself gave a certificate that He will be called Israel which means a prince who prevailed with God and Men. That made the name of Jacob and Israel special. That night made the difference. Every other book of the Bible speaks about the name of Israel or Jacob continuously. We should be persistence in going after God's blessings, we shouldn't stop when we didn't get. Anyone who asks will receive. Remember the code - ASK (Ask, Seek and Knock) Ask and it will be given, Seek, you will find and Knock, it will be open to you. Matthew 7:7. When you pray with code ASK, look for greater things such as the power to change the world, your surroundings, greater things, inheritance of the land. Ask for great measure of Holy Spirit, fruits of the Holy spirit and all the gifts. You need a thirsty towards all these great things and spiritual blessings. But, you should have PPP after ASK to receive what you have asked. If you endure, you will receive for sure. If you ask like a grown up man, you will receive. If you are like childish just asking a for a meager increase in salary or promotion or for material or for money, you will receive little.

Pray for the perishing souls with patience, perseverance and persistence. Finally, I close this with Paul's advice to Galatians, "And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not." Gal 6:9. All glory, honor and praise to God, the Father, Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and to the Holy Spirit. Amen.

5 - Number of Grace

I wish every reader love, peace and joy in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I gave a brief gap after a series of continuous articles during the holy week about the sufferings and crucifixion of our Lord Jesus. In this article, I would like to write about how the number 5 signifies grace. The first place we see number 5 is in the fifth day on which God created the form of life. We read as "Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life" Genesis 1:20. Although God has created seeds of plants, they were not came into existence until God sent the rain and we could read that in Gen 2:5,6. So, the very first form of life in Earth is created on the fifth day and one more notable point is the  were not destroyed along with land animals and humans during great floods as they live in waters.

The number 5 is often associated with sacrifice and because God accepts the sacrifice and makes covenants with the people who offer sacrifices. The first instance of this is when Abraham wanted to know how he would inherit this nation, God instructs very specifically to bring 5 different types of animals for sacrifice. We see that in Genesis 15:9, "Take me an heifer of three years old, and a she goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon". We see there are five types of animals and so the number 5 represents grace. Why three years old heifer, she-goat and ram. That represents Jesus would be crucified after 3 years of His Baptism and successful completion of ministry. Even we could read, while Abraham was called to sacrifice Isaac on Mount Moriah, they reached the spot on the third day. Gen 22:4. The three here also indicates that on the third day (after 2 days which marks two thousand years), post 2000 years Jesus will redeem back the mankind.

Next, there are five main types of sacrifices, or offerings given in Leviticus. The burnt offering (Leviticus 1; 6:8–13; 8:18-21; 16:24), the grain offering (Leviticus 2; 6:14–23), the peace offering (Leviticus 3; 7:11–34), the sin offering (Leviticus 4; 5:1–13; 6:24–30; 8:14–17; 16:3–22), and the trespass offering (Leviticus 5:14–19; 6:1–7; 7:1–6). This can be directly attributed to five holy wounds of Jesus Christ on cross (2 hands + 2 legs + 1 rib). These 5 wounds directly points to the prophecy of Isaiah 53, specifically the verse 5 says "But he  was wounded for our transgressions,  he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace  was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed." The verse 5 again represents that grace is given to us through the wounds and there are 5 holy wounds and hence 5 represents the grace. God cannot pardon our sins just like that without any sacrifice and that's why He ordained the above offerings in Leviticus. Because, God is righteous and He is a blood avenger (Gen 9:5), a blood has to be shed for and without bled shedding there is no remission of sins as it is written that the life is in blood. Leviticus 17:11, Hebrews 9:22. So, at the end of great floods, we see Noah providing a sacrifice for the entire life that was wiped off on earth and God had accepted it as a sin offering and made covenant with Noah that He won't destroy life on earth for man's sake through water. Gen 8:21, 9:11. So, we see a sacrifice is required for grace to be provided and Jesus Christ is our perfect sacrifice on cross and He is God Himself so we get abundance of grace and mercy. John 1:17.

What is grace? As I have already explained in my earlier chapters, Grace is the unmerited favor. If you are reading this article, it means you have the unmerited favor of God (Grace). Grace is something which we don't deserve where as if we deserve it, it cannot be called as grace. Mercy means cancelling our righteous judgement and punishment for our sins and transgressions. But, grace is something more, apart from cancelling the punishments, it is extending the blessings of God to us which we are unworthy to receive. If we have God's grace, then we would succeed in everything we do. We will receive favor in men's eyes as well and whatever we do will flourish. I will list out few ways of receiving God's grace at the end of this article.

Now, we will see a list of places in scriptures where we find the number 5.
1. The first five books of law, Genesis to Deuteronomy are called Pentateuch which form the portion of Torah, that the Jews still use the Holy Word of God. All these five books were written by Moses.
2. The five types of offerings that we saw in Leviticus.
3. The five pebble stones that David took before he faced Goliath. 1 Samuel 17:40
4. The five divisions of Psalms. Psalm 1 - 41, 42 - 72, 73 - 89, 90 - 106 and 107 - 150.
5. The five names of the Son of God in Isaiah 9:6. Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
6. The five types of ministries also called as ministries of grace specified in Ephesians 4:13 - Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors and Teachers.
7. The five types of crowns in New testament.
- Incorruptible crown - I Cor 9:25
- Crown of Rejoicing or Joy - I Thessalonians 2:19, Phil 4:1
- Crown of Righteousness - II Timothy 4:8
- Crown of unchanging glory - I Peter 5:4
- Crown of Life - James 1:12, Rev 2:10

Now, let's see some ways of receiving grace. The Word of God says "By his abundance, we receive grace upon grace" in John 1:16. So, the default way to receive grace is to accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior but we see specific ways. In old testament, God was gracious to selective people as written in Exodus 33:19 "and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy." But, after Jesus paying the perfect sacrifice for us, it is written in Titus that God is gracious on all humanity. "For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men" Titus 2:11. So, those whoever accepts Lord Jesus Christ gets grace by default but to get more and more grace, we have the following 5 specific ways in my opinion.

1. The first and foremost way to get grace is having the character of humility. Bible clearly says, God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble ones. James 4:6 says "But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble." This verse is repeated by Peter as well in I Peter 5:5. Jesus also said in the parable of people identifying prominent places in the marriage feast as "For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted." Luke 14:11 and we know the parable of prayers of pharisee and publican and who has been made righteous at the end. Jesus repeats this verse here too. Luke 18:14. Few more verses from old testament. Psalm 138 verse 6 says Though the LORD  be high, yet hath he respect unto the lowly: but the proud he knoweth afar off. Proverbs 3:34, 15:33 and 18:12 speaks about the importance of humility and humbleness.

If there is one particular sin, God vehemently opposes, it is the character of pride. Because, the first sin in universe could be the proudness of lucifer, that made him fallen as satan. That's why God attacks the proud and he cuts all the proud tongues. So, we should be very careful not to be proud. The world teaches us to be proud in our achievements and every worldly stuff wants its own to be exalted among others. But, the word of God teaches opposite to exalt God in every thing and humble ourselves. The best example of a proud person who had fallen from his position was Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon. At the same time we see the humble saints of the Bible who had been lifted up by God.

By the way, God even blesses those who don't accept His son Jesus Christ and those who may be part of other religions but if they are humble enough, it will bring them worldly blessings. I could quote many personalities in the world arena who are humble and exalted. But, we as the Christians, if we are humble to God at all the times of our lives, He will exalteth us to the height that we could never have imagined. Because, His word is true.

2. The second way to receive grace is to fear the Lord. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom but it also brings grace to us. One of my favorite verses says, "But the mercy of the LORD  is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children's children;" Psalm 103:17, Here we can consider the mercy as grace as the difference in both is minor as explained earlier.

3. The third way to receive grace is to love God and follow His commandments. Exodus 20:6 says "And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments." If we truly and sincerely love God, we will spend time in reading the scriptures, prayers and worship. If we do that, we will abide with Holy Spirit and we will automatically follow His commandments and we will get more and more grace.

4. The fourth way to receive grace is to praise Him. 2 Cor 4:15 clearly says "that the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God." So, with thanksgiving, praise and worship, we will get abundance of grace.

5. The fifth way of receiving grace is to give testimony for Jesus Christ and His resurrection. We have to says our Jesus is a living God. If we do that, we will get perfect grace. The scripture reference is Acts 4:33, "And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all."

Finally, I want to close this with some of my general observations. It is interesting to notice that the word GRACE itself contains 5 letters. The Roman letter representation of 5 is V. The letter 'V' is significant as it stands for Victory. When we raise our hands in worship, the two hands and head forms this letter V and it further means if we have grace we will be victors and overcomers and enable us to receive the crowns while our Lord returns. Having abundant grace never promises that we will have problem free life or trouble free life, but if we have grace we will overcome every problem that comes on our way and will stand above all. Best example, David overcoming Goliath and impossible scenario in world's perspective. But, David was anointed and is full of grace, he got that courage to defeat and kill Goliath.

I wish and proclaim fullness of grace to you. May the Lord's name be glorified. All honor, glory and praise to God through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ now and forever. Amen.