God save us from Corono- Have mercy on us!

 

This write up is not a research study on Covid19 or on the pathological cause of the deadly virus. There is plethora of information already out there. Life has become perplexing and unsettling with virus being rampant. Hope is the need of the day.

New York times article on March 10, 2020 Italian Journalist Mattia Ferraresi wrote the following: “Holy water is not a hand sanitizer and prayer is not a vaccine… Bur for believers, religion is a fundamental source of spiritual healing and hope. It’s a remedy against despair, providing psychological and emotional support that is an integral part of well-being.”.  John Lennox puts this way, “when life seems predictable and under control, it is easy to put off asking the big questions, or to be satisfied with simplistic answers. But life is not that way right now –nor for any of us. It is not surprising that, whatever your faith or belief system, the big questions of life are breaking through to the surface demanding attentions.”.

It looks like virus just needs people to latch on and spread rapidly. The statistical numbers are increasing beyond human control in India. The news of so many sadhus affected by Covid became a big news recently.  I am assuming the innocent sadhus, (or so-called holy men) participated in the procession to take a dip in the Ganges over 5-day period. The news reported over 1, 700 tested positive for Covid19. They returned home only to infect many more. The so-called holy places everywhere have become potential threats.

With so much going on, we can infer a very important message that God always wants to indwell in human heart more than in so called holy places. Places cannot be as holier than human hearts. The Bible says "You are the temple of the living God" and expects that we keep our hearts clean and immaculate in order to meet God. Coronavirus confronts us all with the problem of pain and suffering. This, for most of us is one of the life’s hardest challenges. Many have lost their loved ones. It is time to confess human faults,  in-fact each of us their own faults to God and ask for forgiveness of our sins and debauchery, if any. The Bible says, God is gracious and full of compassion. The blame game and the controversies continues to increase, which we see in media, but no one is willing to honestly commit themselves to God and be a noble human being to find God’s mercy in our land. Think about it!

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Alone in the crowd!

  

As the news of the Pandemic poses new threats each day, panic, doubt and fear seem to surge in every human heart. The recent developments of double mutation of the virus raises serious concerns over the credibility of the vaccines and medication. However, people are still willing to be treated with hope. We thank God for the encouraging news of so many people being cured and their lives restored. Kudos to the Medical science and Health department who are constantly trying various approaches and inventing different medicines to treat people.

What is more serious and life threatening than the virus is the considerable number of people around the world who are feeling lonely. The sense of loneliness is troubling them and disorienting people. People are alone in the crowd. Due to constant threat to their jobs people assume they have become dispensable. Suicidal tendency is increasing among people of all age groups. Constant fear of tomorrow and the burden for the present is daunting. Human identity is dictated based on the employment and wealth status.

Another cause for people to feel the sense of loneliness is when they compare with others who are financially independent, leading them to emotional misery. People are becoming insecure by the day and it is becoming insidious. Nothing can kill contentment and feed insecurity like comparison. But remember: every weakness of ours, God knows in greater detail than we could ever imagine. Even if we can’t get our act together, our identity is secure and completely intact in Him because in Christ, who we are matters more than anything we can or cannot do.

Even religions are not helping people in this crisis. And the problem for that is people are so dependent on religion to make them happy. Apparently, now in this crisis religion is having less impact in our life. C. S Lewis puts this brilliantly, “I don’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity”. The Bible gives us some serious authentic information about the end times, which I recommend that we read. It says, “There will be famines, pestilences and earthquakes in various places, all these are beginning of sorrows.”. God wants people to draw near to Him and find salvation, hope and strength in Him. As humans have an expiry date, the earth also has. Let's stop taking the place of God and reach out to the Savior for the forgiveness of sins and find hope of eternity. We may be alone in the crowd but if we trust in Christ the Savior, He is right there beside us to help and comfort us. Our commitment to God will change the entire situation whether physical or spiritual.

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Abuse of the Universe - A Pandemic Perspective!

  

We are all familiar with the slogan, “Make this world a better place to live in!”. We would agree that it takes not only an individual but also the society, to make this happen. Googling on this topic, we would find many sites giving tips on making the Earth a better and a safer place for human existence. Various areas of study are covered like ecological, environmental, social and philanthropical to make this dream a reality. However, what's missing is the heart issue, which is key to why one should make earth a better place and why we need each other. People selfishly bother only about them and their family, totally ignoring the larger society.

‘Abuse’ usually is referred in the context of one becoming a victim of verbal, physical, domestic, emotional or sexual. But I feel all the scamsters, terrorists, murderers, rapists who flee a particular country squandering of its wealth or taking lives of people find refuge in another country and use it as their hideout. To me this is also a form of abuse. They are clever enough to convince the nation of refuge to protect them and overlook their crime. I would like to call this as "Abuse of the Universe".

Being witness to all of this, would you agree with me that Pandemic is God's judgement on us humans? They may have tricked governments and laws and gone scot free but can they escape the Pandemic. The virus can enter their hideout and kill them. Now, that's the power of God.

God of the Bible addresses the problem of sin which has infected the entire human race and defiled it. But we humans live unconcerned of our guilt as long it doesn't affect our security. The selfishness of humans is incomprehensible. Vaccination for Corona may be found, but what about the human debauchery and human wretchedness? Is there a way out? Even in this pandemic there are people who look for opportunities to rob, loot and cheat people. There is no vaccination to clean our heart from the sin problem. The Bible says, "The wages of sin is death.".

Religious rituals can never transform someone to be a better person. We need a God who changes our heart and life, transforming us to love and respect others. Almighty God set an amazing example of love by making the biggest sacrifice on the cross of Calvary for mankind, so that we can receive forgiveness for our sins and receive salvation. Forgiveness from all sins happens not in a place or in doing something to achieve it, but in a person, who died for the sins of entire mankind. Once we receive forgiveness for our sins, through His power we will be filled in our hearts with love and respect for people, which overflows even to the universe God created for us. Human transformation is one of the greatest miracles that can happen to someone.  A pure heart and a clean soul can fight any negative vibes and join hands with the fellow citizens to spread God's love and impact the universe, positively.

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Resurrection special!

 

It is that time of the year people commemorate the holy week around the world, including Good Friday and Easter we celebrate today. Let me make this point, sometimes the greatest events in history, either becomes an occasion to mourn or celebrate with heavy feast and booze, as seen in many cultures and religions. The true essence of the “why’s” are lost most of the time. By the way, people think how does it even matter to ponder over the “why’s”, as long as they have a reason for fun and be in high spirits. In many cases facts are muddled up with made-up stories, and become a reason for celebration and exercising power, and a commodity for money transaction.

Good Friday and Easter are the events in the world calendar which overturns all so-called religious incidents in human history, upside down. Let me categorize the whole thing into two categories. The first category is there are innumerable heroes, gurus and so-called gods in all religion who were born. They lived like one of us, some married, practiced polygamy, had children and after one point, gained prominence and followers during their days on earth. Some crowned themselves as saints, made enormous wealth, waged wars, and their stories came to an end after their death. As a remembrance, their followers later erected temples, monuments and shrines to worship them. The second category is the mythologies with imaginary stories that have been existing for years. It is there, probably to emphasize a moral theme. But ultimately most of them end up in celebration. Some are celebrated violently, some exuberantly just trying to fulfill the rites and rituals. As we try to understand these histories, we notice there is always a story of birth and then gained prominence during the course of time and thereafter came death. With that, things came to an abrupt end. Later, their fans and followers took it forward from there.

But none in human history matched the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus. Every single event concerning Him was prophesized thousands of years ago, recorded in the Bible, authenticated in world history with absolutely zero contradiction. We read one of the fascinating events where Jesus predicted His own death and His resurrection from the grave after three days. Jesus makes a remarkable statement, which came true and has been recorded in the Bible like this, “No one can take my life from me. I sacrifice voluntarily. For I have authority to lay it down when I want to and also to take it up again..”. The story, where Jesus died on the cross of Calvary for the sins of entire human race and rose again after three days, is what is celebrated today as Easter.

Today, human beings are trying to find salvation by their own means and still have no peace and contentment. One of the famous verses in the Bible narrates the central message of the Bible saying, “For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.”. Belief in Jesus Christ transforms your life and gives you the assurance of salvation and eternity. Let me quote this event of Good Friday and Easter from the Bible which validates the central message and core to Christianity, “that he was buried that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures appeared to Cephas then to the twelve, then he appeared to over five hundred brothers and sisters at one time most of them are still alive.”.

Jesus is alive and that makes Easter special and therefore we have a reason to celebrate. You and I have a hope in this life and for the life to come.

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