The Resurrection revolution!

Today, Easter is celebrated all over the world. However, contrary to our understanding, it is not a just a celebration of religious festival that recurs every year or about Easter eggs. It is about resurrection event that is historical and has proved all fabricated stories by the world, wrong. Every religion has a story irrespective of whether it is tale or a narrative story or found validation in history and archaeology. One of the recorded facts in the Bible and in history is the record of this statement which says, “They went in (to the tomb where Jesus was buried) but did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.” (Luke 24:3 Bible). This, is the greatest undisputed fact recorded in the Bible, in history and more importantly by the all the world’s historians and archaeologists, including the records of the renowned Roman Historian, Cornelius Tacitus.

Every single detail in the Bible is a verifiable fact. For example, the phrase "under Pontious Pilate" is possibly the smartest phrase recorded in creed. It takes Christianity from being like any other religion where these tales could have been at any time, if they happened at all, and puts it at an exact historical time. It makes Christianity a historic religion that can use history as proof to its claims. Christ lived, and died under Pontius Pilate, a real life Roman prefect of Judea. This is fact, and it makes Christianity truly special, and historically real.

Many in the past, challenged and took all effort to disapprove the resurrection, because it is one of the greatest breath-taking happening in the entire history of mankind that stood distinct, thereby giving hope to mankind to follow a living God and make Him the Lord of their life.

Let me name few of them:

1. French philosopher Voltaire in the 17th century. He predicted in 1776, “in one hundred years from my day, there will not be a Bible on earth except one that is looked upon by an antiquarian curiosity-seeker.” As the story alleges, within fifty years after his death, in an ironic twist of Providence, the very house in which he once lived and wrote was used by the Evangelical Society of Geneva as a storehouse for Bibles and Gospel tracts and the printing presses he used to print his irreverent works were used to print Bibles.

2. Gilbert West lived in 18th century. He did not like Christians growing in numbers so he decided to write a book to disprove resurrection because by disproving resurrection, one can disprove Christianity. So, he started researching and writing the book. Halfway through the book he met Jesus. He ended up writing a book with a reverse focus.

3. American atheist in the 19th century: He didn't like it that Christianity was growing. Had a great friend who was very famous general called General Wallace. He said to his friend, “Lew you've got to help me out. Let's damage Christianity and let's damage the church. Why don't you write a book disproving the resurrection?”. So, Lew begins to write his book. Lew's wife was actually a Christian. She was praying while he was writing. When he got to chapter 4 of one of the Gospels in the Bible, he met Jesus. He ended up writing a book with a reverse focus and it is called “Ben Hur”.

4. Frank Morrison lawyer and a journalist in the 20th century: He decided that he would shatter Christianity and the only way you can do that is to disprove the resurrection. Being a lawyer, he knows how to play around with the material. He got so much of evidence, half way through the book he met Jesus and he ended up writing a book with a reverse focus. The book is called ‘Who Moved The Stone?’.

The disciples of Jesus and Roman soldiers were amazed to see the sealed tomb exist but Jesus’ body was not there. The resurrected Jesus lived with people for 40 days appearing to many and eating with His disciples. He promised abundant life and eternal life. All this is possible because of His resurrection. You can find Him to be the Savior and Lord of your life.

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The half bad and the half good!

 

The beautiful poem 'Two Kinds of People' by Wheeler Wilcox brings out the great analogy of the good and the bad divide. It says:

"There are two kinds of people on earth to-day;

Just two kinds of people, no more I say.

Not the sinner and saint, for it's well understood

The good are half bad and the bad are half good.

 Not the rich and the poor, for to rate a man's wealth,

You must first know the state of his conscience and health. . ."

The problem of bad is that it is embedded in the good. This is why people often mistake good for bad and vice versa. One of the characteristics of the God of the Bible is Love. The Bible says, “God is love.” But if we have to find one word that captures the essence of God’s nature, it is 'holiness'. It is written “Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts”, And again it says, 'Be ye holy, because I am holy'. This means anything bad or evil cannot survive in holiness as much as good does.

God’s holiness makes us unreachable, hence religion suggests techniques, advice and rituals to work out our salvation. But sadly, religious dogmas don’t guarantee salvation. The reason being it gives us vague assumptions that through constant births and rebirths, at some given point, we will attain salvation with our ongoing religious rituals, giving us no definite assurance. And some religious beliefs even say, it is the will of the sovereign one to grant Salvation or withhold man from finding it.

There are countless suggestions to reach God, but no one has given definite assurance like Jesus, in human history. Coming week, the world will celebrate Good Friday. Have you ever wondered why it is called ‘good’? The reasons being He was a holy God who is “the way, the truth and the life”, was in human form embodying innocence. He healed the blind, deaf, mute, lepers, and all kinds of sickness and raised people from the dead, but ended up being crucified on the cross. He was God who lived among us as a human, predicting the details of His death and resurrection on the third day. This is what we celebrate as Easter, as we know, globally. He said, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me, even if he dies, will live. Everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” Do you believe this?

One may wonder, how does His death and resurrection help human kind? It is because of the hope He gives in this life and after our death too. We find salvation when we believe and accept Him as our Saviour. It is in the Person Jesus; this is achieved and not in any religion including Christianity, as we often misunderstand. He died and rose on the third day, which makes Him a living God. The Bible says, "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.". I highly recommend you to refer to the Bible first and to further feed your curiosity, you can read the writings of Cornelius Tacitus, the finest Roman Historian and Josephus, the Greek historian, whose writings are accepted worldwide.

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Trusting on God- Does it matter?

 

The world we live in and the age that we are in are continuously being revamped and modernized with unimaginable alterations. I don’t intend to comment if it is getting better or worse but the ones who belong to the time period before 1970’s or 1980’s would say, life was simple and enriching, when compared to the present. Though the present world looks modernized it is filled with doubts, fears, challenges and uncertainty. We have become gods of our generation. Trust in God is either deteriorating or it is not making much sense, today. We live in an information age, which means things are swifter to an extent that we don’t have to wait much. And moreover, each one of us to a larger extent can independently manage things faster, by ourselves. In such situations our need for God usually tones down drastically.

We choose to do things that has the ability to make us happy, and that’s all that matters. One of the main reasons that we trust God too little is because we trust our own wisdom too much. We think we know far better than God and do things that make us happy. Every human being who has lived into middle age knows how often we have been wrong about that. Yet our hearts continue to operate on this same principle, year after year. We remember how foolish we were at age twenty but think now that we are forty we know better, failing to acknowledge that fact that only God knows.

Humans are not god, though in most cases we humans elevate a particular person to be called as god. And we have stories of such elevated godmen indulging in all evil things including abuse of children and women. Jesus’ story has revolutionized the entire world because of the history that validates every single event. The way He lived was matchless. He lived a holy life and demanded people to repent of their evil deeds, healed the sick and raised the dead people to life and most importantly predicted His own death, was crucified, buried and was resurrected. Soon people around the world will be celebrating ‘Easter’, the only event of a man resurrected from death and is a living God. If this doesn’t fascinate us, then nothing else will. His priority was not building empire or encourage His followers to erect Cathedrals, but giving hope to people about life after death. And that makes sense because of His own resurrection. He made this fascinating claim by saying, “I am the way the truth and the life”. You can trust this God and accept the salvation offered on the cross of Calvary. Trusting Jesus matters because of the difference He made in human history. He is in absolute control including the minute details of your life. You can get a copy of the Bible and read the book of John to understand for yourself in this Easter season.

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Are we dancing to hormones?

Our vital organs are so important to be in good shape and be healthy. In our own little ways, we try our best to take care. Some are conscious of body care by choosing right foods and follow good habits to live healthy, but whereas, some just survive. This blog wants to address a little more than managing a healthy life. It’s about the effects of the hormones. “Hormones control a host of our bodies’ functions,” says Troy Dillard, MD, a PeaceHealth endocrinologist in Bellingham, Washington. Your hormones are generated by your endocrine system, which is made up of glands and other parts of your body that make and release various hormones. There are a lot of things we do every day that trigger our hormones.

Let me point out a few. Chronic stress puts your health at risk and can wreak havoc on your mind and body. When you are in extreme stress, adrenal glands located atop your kidneys, release a surge of hormones, including adrenaline and cortisol. Adrenaline segregated increases your heart rate, elevates your blood pressure and boosts energy supplies. Then there is cortisol that curbs functions that would be nonessential or harmful in a fight-or-flight situation. The long-term activation of the stress response system and the overexposure to cortisol and other stress hormones that follows, can disrupt almost all your body's processes. This puts you at increased risk of many health problems, including: Anxiety, Depression, Digestive problems, Headaches, Muscle tension and pain, heart disease, heart attack, high blood pressure, stroke, sleep problems, etc.

Oxytocin, dopamine, and serotonin are often referred to as our “happy hormones.” When you’re attracted to another person, your brain releases dopamine, your serotonin levels increase, and oxytocin is produced. This causes you to feel a surge of positive emotion. Having too much dopamine — concentrated in some parts of the brain and not enough in other parts — is linked to being more competitive, aggressive and having poor impulse control. It can lead to conditions that include ADHD, binge eating, addiction and gambling.

We may not be able to successfully manage our hormones every time even with medicines, but most of the reactions can be addressed by how we manage our thoughts positive or negative including our emotions.  Most of the thoughts good or bad or how we feel and what we feel emerges from our heart. We don’t dance to the reactions of our hormone, but basically by what we think and how we feel in our heart. Meditations, external factors and situations are just a temporary solution. You need to have your heart right, to have the thoughts processed through your mind. When it comes to human problem, Jesus estimates the true state of human heart which says, “For from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, all sexual immorality, theft, lying, and slander. These are what defile you…”. But, instead of setting our heart right, we perform rituals for our body hoping things will be taken care. Further, the Bible estimates the state of a human being, “The Lord observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and he saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil.”. Do we have a solution? Yes, we do. To be saved from our wretchedness of sin we need the cleansing of our evil from our heart by trusting Christ who by His crucifixion, death and resurrection offered salvation. A simple prayer can transform you to become a new person and you don’t have to bother about your hormones because you will be able to keep your heart at peace.

 

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How you want to be remembered?

 

For a few minutes, forget the fear of dying and look at your life from the outside. If your time was up tomorrow, what kind of legacy would you leave behind? Besides your friends, who would miss you? Apart from your family, who would mourn for you? And who, ultimately, would have benefited from knowing you? How many lives would your life have influenced? Would anyone pay attention to your passing, or would it go unnoticed? Five years after your passing, would your memory — your presence — still live on?

Hard questions to answer and, sometimes, hard answers to face. Fortunately, there's still time to change your life for the better. If you're not where you want to be, it's not too late — yet. But personal growth doesn't come easily or painlessly. Those who contemplate on the above questions seriously, would want to make some meaningful shift to lead a quality life. That shift demands commitment to change with perseverance and dedication. When one lives a life full of purpose and inspiration, they are cherished and followed by many. Their influence continues to impact lives, even though they pass from this mortal world.

Mr. Steve Harper from the book “Ripple Effect” states, “Even though our physical bodies break down, I believe our spirit and memory live on in the lives we've touched. In my imaginary funeral, the friends and family present are living treasure chests, filled with good memories of our time together. As long as they continue to cherish those memories, I'll never be truly gone. I'll continue to impact the lives of the people I cared about long after my body has turned to dust. That's something I find both reassuring and powerful.”. How true!

We don’t have to dwell on our death and this blog isn’t emphasizing the same, but I believe that it is relevant to think about the kind of lasting impression you'll leave on, in this world. How will you be remembered? And by whom? The connections we form with the people around us, whether at home, in the office or on the playground, define the pattern of our lives. It's the relationships in our lives — with God, with ourselves, with our family and friends, with our co-workers, even with casual acquaintances — that matters most. This is why Jesus never formed a religion with set of rules and rituals but the summarized the entire laws in two greatest commandments i.e., to love the Lord with all our heart, strength, mind and soul and to love others as we love ourselves.

We need to constantly remind ourselves that we don’t own anything in this world. Though we have our properties legally in our name, when we are called to eternal home, we have no choice but to go empty handed. What counts is how well we lived here and did we actually find the savior in this earth for the remission of our sins? Or are we finding salvation in our good works and rituals, which don’t give us guarantee? This is God’s world, let us not forget it. It is only knowing the Savior and making Him the Lord of your life that will save your soul for eternity. Jesus exuberantly claimed because of His resurrection from His death by these words, “I live therefore you will live also.”. Prepare yourself not to just be a legend on this earth but to live eternally with God.

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Have you figured it out?

 

We are stressed and bogged down every day by different challenging situations compounding to different problems. Instead of addressing them systematically, we conveniently learn to manage and mitigate with a short cut solution, which by itself can become another potential threat. Life, flies past us that we neither have time nor the capacity to address the challenges systematically. And at times we are not always in a right mental state to solve the crisis.

An easy way to find a solution is to be more precise in defining the problem. "I feel bad" can have a million causes. But when you narrow it down to a situation, which can be for example when you say, "I didn't sleep much last night and I haven't exercised in a week" has a very straightforward answer. But most often our challenges and crisis are more complex and keeps us guessing what the actual issue is and to narrow it down.

Dr. Jordan Peterson puts it this way, "If you want to know something about yourself, sit on your bed one night and say, “What’s one thing I’m doing wrong, that I know I’m doing wrong, that I could fix, that I would fix?”  Meditating on that will give us an answer. It may not be the one we want, but it will be the necessary one. It is usually is not the situation or technical error that shows up as the problem but our human dealings that create a mess.

The core of the issue turns out to be our disrupted spiritual connection. In other words, when we are not in our right state of our heart, we end up doing things that pose as a threat or the potential problem. What I mean by spiritual disconnection is that it means finding help from a true living God and not a mere religious intervention.

We are all comfortable looking for a god of our imagination, visiting religious places, hoping things will be taken care of by itself, but we fail to realize and acknowledge a divine holy God who indwells human heart and the one who can help in our struggles. I endorse Mukund Rita’s perspective emphasizing this, "I respect all religions. However, politics in religion has to go. Politicized religion is toxic for world and adds up to the existing problems.". Religion today to a larger extent is politicized. Jesus never intended to start a religion or gave a call to follow Christianity but to believe and follow Him who claimed to the way, the truth and the life and most importantly, was victorious of man's greatest problem, the death.”. He claimed, "He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”.  And that means you are less prone to creating or becoming a victim of a situation that can forfeit your peace and happiness but will ensure a right state of heart to do lead a tranquil and productive life. Christ is the answer to all your problems you are struggling with.

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Misleading external factors!

 

We are influenced more by what we see and witness than what is happening within us. This age is all about digitalization, graphics, animation, with 5d and 6d images. Even relationships are promoted digitally and people find them more attractive and convincing than reality, emphasizing the fact that visual connections are more powerful. Yet, there are undeniable breath-taking facts occurring inside our body every second, which never get us excited.

The facts that happen inside our body are mind blowing. Yet their brilliance does fail to our attention towards the Maker, who so awesomely created us. It is said that we have 37 trillion cells in our body, 50,000 of which will die, replaced by the time we finish reading a sentence. In a day our heart pumps 100,000 times. That is 3 million litres of our blood pumped in a year. And about our brain, it is known as the most powerful computer in the universe with more than 86 billion cells at work every second, waiting for our instructions. Either we drive our mind or our mind drives us. The very fact that we are alive by itself is magical and demands our gratitude.

The externals are always temporary and passes quickly before we can even realize it. The breath that we breath is so divine. In the first book of the Bible where the creation story is documented, it says about the creation of man. “Then the Lord God formed man out of the dust from the ground and breathed breath of life into his nostrils and the man became a living being.”. Today, even the best doctor who performs the most complicated operation on the human body can only so much until breath is available. The unseen wind that is breathed in a human being is life. And we are sustained by it. It is important to acknowledge such important factors that are described in the scriptures, which are way beyond the mythical stories. Our living soul needs to find the true God and make a meaningful commitment to follow Him.

Stop fighting for your religion and the rituals, which are created, developed and improvised by humans every day. A true God cannot be a limited by a religion nor can it prescribe works to find Him. The Bible says, “we are saved by grace through faith and not from ourselves…not from works so that one can boast.” And this Jesus’ plan for salvation for human beings is remarkable because of His resurrection. By believing and accepting Him in our hearts, we find salvation and we become the temple of the living God. Life journey continues beyond the life on this earth i.e., Eternity.

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