The Big Question – Is Trustworthiness Worth Trusting?

 

We wish to be trusted by our loved ones even at times when we fail in this virtue and try to make up to them for the misuse of their trust. Trust is such a precious gift which we can offer and receive from someone else. The wisest King Solomon in the Bible states, “Many a man proclaims about their own loyalty but who can find a trustworthy person?” We all get to hear about people ranting about all their goodness and greatness, but in true sense are there faithful people who can be trusted implicitly?

The trust level seems to have gradation in any relationship. It changes over the period, or during different transactions over a period of time. At some point during the course of any relationship one of the parties takes the liberty to slightly break the trust especially when the person sees a better opportunity for self-advantage. They continue to live with the mistrust until something bigger happens that separates the two parties for good. This happens in any relationship. Most of the time people wish to stay in a relationship knowing it is not completely genuine because the person waits for a new opportunity to put their trust or he/she finds a possibility of profiting from the current relationship. We make business everyday out of everything, whether it is sacred or secular.

We all get offended when someone is not completely trustworthy as we expected. But do we check if we are worthy to be trusted completely, as an individual? Trust has become a buzz word in personal life and business world. We all walk on eggshells hoping that our trust is not broken. But the reality is, we all break trust at some point of time.

Is there someone whom we can trust implicitly? Yes, there is, Jesus the Savior. If you see Him as a religion, He is just a god of the Christians and tucked far away in the so-called holy structures. But it was never meant to be that way. He is God incarnated who is connected to our souls and indwells human beings. You can just connect with Him from wherever you are. During this time of lent season people are lost in the rituals of Good Friday, fasting as they call it in many denominations but yet far from Him in relationship. He is not present in any so called holy facilities and structures, or in a particular month or in the holy schedules and definitely not in the altars set at homes. You can reach out to Him from where we you are. Our sins have separated us from Him and once we confess our sins and failures we find forgiveness from our sins and our soul immediately connects with the Saviour. You can trust this saviour implicitly. He has answers to all and any of our problems in this world because He is the risen Saviour. This is the story of the Passion week and Good Friday.  Speak to Him and read the Holy Bible in your preferred language and you will find a best friend in Him to be trusted at all times.

You can follow us on Twitter

 

When you feel something is not right…

 

We often hear about intuition and gut feelings that prompts us especially when we are unsure of something, or we are looking for a confirmation. In such cases our gut feelings indicate us and signals us depending on how we want to go about it. But then the same feelings and intuitions can also give us a false indication when we want to get what we want by any means. Peter Kreeft states, “feelings are wonderful decorations, but they are not a foundation to build on.”.  Therefore, in such cases how do we decide what is right for us? Choices are classified as making the right and wrong ones. When we want something desperately irrespective of any cons, we want to go for it. And that happens to be the bad choices we make. You will notice that we really need to try hard to make the right choices, but making a wrong choice, especially the selfish ones, happen naturally. This clearly tells us we are not generally equipped to do good and that doing bad is spontaneous.

Anything which is not right comes with a huge promise to make us rich and happy quickly. Soon it drags the person to make a quick decision. The right ones are not easy. For doing the right thing or taking the right decision one must be in the right state of mind and heart and have a proper discretion to know if it is right in the first place. Carl Jung states this so beautifully, ‘Deep down, below the surface of the average man’s conscience he hears a voice whispering, “there is something not right,” no matter how much his rightness is supported by public opinion or moral code.’ And Carl Jung is right. Let us not forget the fact that we are created by God and therefore God has purposed a plan for our lives. The spirit of our heart constantly strives to connect with its creator and the God of the universe. When we substitute it by filling the space with gods we make and becoming a god ourselves then our conscience and intuition radar goes out of sync and gives false indication constantly, and we end up making the wrong choice always.

We are created for God and unless our heart finds the Saviour it remains restless. The Bible states this, “do not be confirmed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing and perfect will of God.”. In the age where too many options and suggestions are available, yet humans live with dichotomy and restlessness. True discernment comes from surrendering our body, mind, and soul to the living God, Christ Jesus, the saviour of the world. When the heart fails to meet the true Saviour, hopelessness overshadows and keeps a man in a state of restlessness. However you use the decision making steps effectively it will not be helpful. To understand the perfect will of God in your lives, you need to accept His invitation to receive the forgiveness from all your sins and failures, and allow your heart to make complete space to have the spirit of the Lord live in you and lead you to an abundant life which will help you make right choices not based on your feelings but by His clear guidance. This may sound philosophical and a mere religious idea, but it is not. This is about Jesus who rose again from the dead and is alive to help you find the right direction in life. Turn to God in prayer to help you and lead you to the path of sanity and truth.

 

 You can follow us on Twitter

 

For all who are waiting!

Waiting when it no longer yields results pushes us into apprehension, anxiety and disappointment. We anticipate that we will receive what we are longing for and are eager to be on the receiving end at the earliest given opportunity. Unfortunately, reality is different. Waiting with a definite date of receiving gives satisfaction, provided we receive it on the expected date. But then all who just received it are also not always happy of receiving what they waited for. God in His sovereign plan incorporated the waiting in human life to give the right thing that belongs to us.

The poem by Sarah Bourns Crosby describes it beautifully:

A blessing in the longing

What if the seemingly endless delay

Is full of gifts you wouldn’t receive any other way,

What if walking in the wilderness is the point,

What if waiting in the stillness is the joy,

What if the roots need to burrow down deeper

So the fruit will be that much sweeter,

What if the waiting makes the heart grow stronger

Just as absence makes the heart grow fonder,

What if it’s less about getting to the other side

And more about the slow transformation taking place deep inside

What if the best things don’t happen overnight

And time is actually on your side,

What if you really (truly) are not in control

And all you can do is let it unfold,

What if God hasn’t forgotten His plans for you

He’s simply inviting you to lean in and pay close attention to what He is about to do,

What if, when it seems like nothing is happening at all,

That’s right when God is saying, I Am Still Faithful,

What if it looks really different than you thought it would,

But even then, it could still be really, really good.

 

What we want to receive and actually receive may not exactly be from God but then the Bible assures us that ‘every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”. God the father loved us so much to send His only son Jesus as a sacrifice for the forgiveness of mankind to make a provision for us to trust in Him and be saved. Therefore, every necessity and gift will to be endowed to those who learn to wait not just for something good as one defines, but receive it from the creator of the universe believing in His sovereignty. We can count on Jesus because of who He is. Don’t lose heart. The greatest thing we all need to receive is the salvation. It cleanses and delivers us from all the wrongdoings and sin to give each one of us the heavenly inheritance as well as all you need here. You can pray to Him in your own words. You will never be disappointed!

 You can follow us on Twitter

STAY OUT SO I CAN SIN!

 

“Tis strange-but true; for truth is always strange; Stranger than fiction;… Lord Byron

We are entering into an era where what Lord Byron quotes is a reality. It is becoming increasingly uncomfortable to be wise and intelligent because we are constantly bombarded with instances and happenings that question our credibility for common sense. We are nurtured to believe in the fact that existence of God is always away from us, safe and secure in a religious structure. The concept of keeping God outside of us not only gives us the convenience to be wicked, dirty, and downright deplorable but we also try to camouflage our sinful life by making the outside physical structure more holy and pure.

Not once do we think that if a religious place needs to be holy, pure, and clean, how much more we who are created by God should be holy, pure, and clean. We exist to worship God and have Him in our heart, we don’t exist to go and worship in a religious place. Have we ever wondered, if God wanted to stay in a religious place, why He must create us in the first place. The Bible says the earth and all that is in it is His. If the stones and mud with which we create these religious places are His, then what is the benefit of our earthly existence. The stones and mud are doing a much better job of staying pure and holy than us. He doesn’t need us at all. Have we ever thought of it this way?

The sheer fact that we keep our creator far away has made us dangerously less in wisdom and intelligence. If we ask God to live in our hearts, our conscience will rip us apart. Hence, we conveniently place Him outside of us and replaced God with money, power, greed, and promiscuous lifestyle as the gods of our heart. God created us to live in our hearts and to provide His divine wisdom and understanding. He does not need a time out and rest from taking care of you. Even as humans, would we in our love for a person relent from taking care or from being with a loved one? Why do we think a God who is all powerful will somehow be frail that He needs rest from taking care or being with the one He created when he/she visits Him? We just project our human weaknesses on the divine and lower Him to our pathetic existence.

The problem is we do not want to believe the truth that Jesus is a living God who created us, that He rose from the dead, that He is an all-powerful God who is the maker of Heaven and Earth. We do not want to believe the fact that Jesus is not a myth but a person in history who experienced human frailty and yet remained pure and holy without committing wickedness and sin. We want to refuse a God who loves us immensely that He gave His one and only son to cleanse us from our sins. He is a God who neither sleeps nor slumbers and continuously caring for us. As Lord Byron says, indeed truth is becoming so strange that fiction becomes more convenient and acceptable than truth.

 You can follow us on Twitter

Reference:

https://www.hindustantimes.com/cities/lucknow-news/deity-ram-lalla-to-take-one-hour-afternoon-rest-101708099930797.html

The colour of truth!

 

Everyone in this world, irrespective of who they are, expect truth to be told. Nobody likes to be cheated and manipulated. The original meaning of the word “truth” in Greek is called aletheia. It refers to “divine revelation” and is related to a word that literally means “what can’t be hidden.” It conveys the thought that truth is always there, always open and available for all to see, with nothing hidden or obscured. The Hebrew word for “truth” is emeth, which means “firmness,” “constancy” and “duration.” Such a definition implies an everlasting substance and something that can be relied upon. And from a philosophical perspective, there are three simple ways to define truth:

1. Truth is that which corresponds to reality.

2. Truth is that which matches its object.

3. Truth is simply telling it like it is.

However, the most casualty endured over the ages is Truth. Truth is the most suppressed, persecuted and abused element in the planet earth. People of all ages have trampled and manipulated some or most portions of the truth leaving it voiceless. Every virtue, like honesty, justice, authenticity, fairness exists only with the support of Truth and with the absence of truth everything is meaningless including life. When closely observed, among all the creatures, we humans depend on truth for our existence. Family, society and nation is at war with the presence of half-truth or the loss of complete truth. Fyoder Dostoevsky warns with these words, "above all  do not lie to yourself. The one who lies to himself  and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish  the truth within him, and so loses all respects  for  himself and for others. And having no respect ceases to love. 

Asking the colour of truth may look absurd and foolish. It sounds like someone is asking for the taste of the colour blue. We all wish truth could be tangible. But then what is truth? I think before knowing what truth is, we should first know what it is not.

Truth is not simply whatever works. In reality, lies can appear to “work,” but they are still lies and not the truth.

Truth is not what makes people feel good. Unfortunately, bad news can be true.

Truth is not what the majority says is true. Fifty-one percent of a group can reach a wrong conclusion.

Truth is not defined by what is intended. Good intentions can still be wrong.

Truth is not simply what is believed. A lie believed is still a lie.

Truth is not what is publicly proved always.

Most people including leaders, icons and philosophers tried to define truth to its closest meaning. But no one in history of human existence could claim to be the truth like Jesus did. He had an audacity to claim with these words. “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the father except through me.”. All who existed before and after provided comfort with life philosophy but died like any one of us but the only difference was they were icons. But then this man Jesus was not an ordinary person but God Himself because He was the only one who was resurrected after His death, therefore His claim on truth matters. If we want to know the colour of truth and live the truth you need to know the one who claimed to be the truth, i.e. Jesus Christ. His sacrifice and call to believe and accept Him in one’s heart transforms a person completely. You begin knowing the truth and living the truth as well.

 

You can follow us on Twitter

Wolf in sheep's clothing!

 

Humans are the most complicated being among all the creatures in the planet earth. People are not usually who they pose to be or claim to be. The innocence of childhood quickly passes away, with the growing state of adulthood. People adopt lies more quickly than the truth. Solomon who authors a book in the Bible states this observation about human being. "God made men and women true and upright; we are the ones who made a mess of things.” In other English translations it is said that ‘man pursued many schemes,’ and most of the time the bad ones.

The problem of people is that they randomly do good but predominantly settle with the evil and selfish ones. All efforts are taken to sell oneself as noble and good people than working on the struggles of their personal heart. O S Guinness States “Much of today’s focus is on ‘prevention ethics’ rather than on principled ethics. It is more concerned with ‘not being caught’ (or sued or exposed in the press) than with doing right.” How true the statement is if you seriously ponder on it. Hiding is human nature. We wish to portray the good part while still dwelling on our dirty selfish motives which shows up so casually.

It is recorded in the Bible about Jesus warning people about their hypocrisy, especially the ones who are called as prophets and claim to guide others with the divine insight,  “Be on your guard against false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravaging wolves.". It does not  only refer about people who are outside of us, but includes us too. Most of the time when it comes to evil, we tend to point our fingers on others than pointing the evil and failures within us. Research has repeatedly shown that we cannot tell who is lying. Yet when we are told someone is abusing, we think– “I know that person; it cannot be true!” Scripture warns us that our hearts are utterly deceitful. We do not even know our own! A good heart check for today as Lysa TerKeurst poses this retrospective question: 'Is my attention being held by something sacred or something secret? Sacred worship is all about God. Secret worship is all about something in this world that seems so attractive on the outside but will devour us on the inside.'.

If what is narrated in this blog highlights the state of your heart, then it is high time that you find help from the savior who has offered the salvation already. Here’s what the Bible says about salvation: Jesus is the source of salvation for the world, and He is the only one who provides forgiveness of sins. Rejection of Jesus results in God’s wrath, but belief in Jesus rescues from wrath. You can talk to him in prayer, to transform you to an honest sincere person who God wants you to be. You just don't remain the same thereafter.

 

You can follow us on Twitter

Tell me something that I don't know!

 

Digital age is all about propaganda, bragging, displaying about oneself. Personal information is shared for fun, to find dates, to show oneself marketable, worthy and merchandising. However, it’s strictly restricted to the good and the better side of an individual, whereas the bad and the ugly side of self remains hidden mostly within the individual. Fyoder Dostoevsky in his writing states, “There are things which a man is afraid to tell even to himself, and every decent man has a number of such things stored away in his mind.”. And Fyoder is truthful. Even the best decent person by definition, may struggle to address and eradicate the uglier side stored securely within the heart of a person.

If you were to ask someone you know well the phrase, ‘tell me something I don’t know about you,’. It will stop the person in their tracks, stunned for a moment. In the digital age of dating, exposing physically, being promiscuous, divulging private information to sound attractive are all too common and adds momentum to the excitement. Eventually, the hidden selfish agenda raises its hood, revealing the true intention and spirit of the relationship. All want to grab and possess things whether relationships or material things. John Scott states this so precisely, “Every heresy is due to an overemphasize upon some truths to qualify and balance it.”. Just because some truths are overemphasized, doesn’t mean the wrong intention and motives become sane and noble.

The hidden, unrepented selfish thoughts reveal their ugly intentions overtime and derail relationships or mar them. Purity, sincerity, authenticity and honesty are those that don’t happen naturally or nurtured overtime. It cannot be a lifestyle with practice. The underlying problem of sin needs to be addressed. Religious activity of any sort, magnificent or fancy or legendary cannot sanitise the intention of human heart. None of the spiritual belief system have a formula to make a person sane and saint. The detoxifying or the cleansing of the conscience and the impurity of hearts are not based on any good works or religious practices. Those are some disciplines, but a pure heart is the result of the cleansing of the heart. And only Jesus holds the authority to forgive sins and clean our hearts. Study His life, His birth, the way He lived, His death and resurrection you will be, for sure, enlightened by truth. He is the only resurrected Saviour who lived a holy life and conquered death by rising from the grave. This is an undeniable fact. It is recorded in the Bible, “if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”. And how does that happen? Very simple, confess your sins and ugly intentions to Him and invite Him into your heart. You will become a new person. What you would be left with is to share your amazing story of transformation to the world.

You can follow us on Twitter