Sunday 30 October 2011

I SURRENDER ALL !

... And they all sang the hymn with much gusto today. Zac had completed the message for today (His second of the series of four, in Dubai). I Just stood there with tears in my eyes, tongue-tied! Todays message tore through my heart and stabbed me several times. God's WORD is a force to contend with!
For the first time in my life i realised that i was giving without hurting. Whenever i gave to God, i always gave out of the excess that i had. There was no sacrifice in the giving!

[Luke 21:1] As he looked up, Jesus saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. [2] He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. [3] "I tell you the truth," he said, "this poor widow has put in more than all the others. [4] All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on."

What does that teach me? NEVER TO OFFER TO GOD WHAT COST ME NOTHING!

For the first time in my life there were many things said in Zac's message that felt like God speaking directly to my heart. For example, the following hit me really hard:

NOT WHAT YOU GAINED
BUT WHAT YOU GIVE
MEASURES THE WORTH
OF THE LIFE YOU LIVE.

If say i am a Christian, i have to answer to Phil 2:5-In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus. Am i living as Christ lived? Am i serving my purpose to build his church?
Am i taking up my cross and following Him?

600,000 Israelites were redeemed from their harsh Egyptian masters, but only two entered the Promised land!

THE LIGHT OF A SINGLE GOOD BULB IS BETTER THAN HAVING A 1000 FUSED BULBS!

Some day soon, i want to sing that hymn I SURRENDER ALL with full conviction invmy heart that i've run my race well. I've decided to live a true Christian life at last!

Saturday 29 October 2011

ZAC'S MESSAGE

I attended a prayer meeting in Dubai today. The speaker was Zac Poonen. I was blest with a few new 'takes' on spiritual matters like the following:

- FAITH is ... God is eager to give, but how eager are you to receive?
- FAITH is ... to believe that even if you've reached rock bottom, God still loves you! (But note: As much as He loves you, He hates sin!!!)
- Being Holy Spirit filled, is to look at everything the way Jesus looked at everything.
- What is IDOLATORY? When something other than God takes the place of God in your heart!
- You cannot be under two masters. It is either God or Money. When your mind is free, what does it gravitate towards? That will be the true test of which master you are following - God or the devil!
- If you run away from the scan for fear of discovering the cancer, the cancer will destroy you! If you expose yourself to God, the 'cancer'(sin) will be revealed and you will be saved.
- When you have learnt to 'put Gold under your feet' then you will start experinecing 'heaven on earth' (The Book of Revelation says that in heaven the New Jerusalem, the heavenly city, has streets of pure gold like "transparent glass"-Rev 21:21)
- 'Give to ceasar what belongs to caesar' means you have to first settle all your earthly dues (taxes, debts etc) and then give to God what belongs to God. Even Zaccheus gave 4 times back to those he cheated and gave half of all he had to the poor.
-Buy what 'you need' and 'give remaining to God's work'. Do not judge others in this matter (in any case, you are not supposed to let others know what you've given to God (the right hand should not know what the left hand has give...remember?)

The key to sure blessings? ....MATTHEW 6: 33 SEEK FIRST THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN AND HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS AND ALL WILL BE ADDED UNTO YOU.



Friday 28 October 2011

THE ORDEAL

I visited Xavier, who i spoke about in my 'PAIN-GOOD or BAD' post, yesterday evening. He is now out of the ICU and is doing well (Thanks for your prayers!).
On the way back from the hospital, i received a call from an old colleague from Goa who insisted that i come for the Konkani play. The play ended at 2.30 am and by the time i felt into a deep slumber, it was 3 am. Lorine and i were rudely awoken at about 4 am, by loud screams from the children's bedroom. Leander was in very bad pain. He was clutching his left shoulder and was howling with pain. We rushed him to the Welcare Hospital and he was kept on pain killers under observation till 7 am in the emergency ward. Later he was shifted to the surgery ward. We were shocked to see the whole arm dislocated from the shoulder joint! Leander had a fall on the football field the day before yesterday but made light of his injuries. He told us later that he had felt a big click in the shoulder joint when he fell but it must have slipped partially back into the socket when he stood up! Leander was put under the expert care of Dr. Abhay Dandawate and was taken into the operating theatre at 11 am. All went well, and the bones were aligned again under general anaesthesia without making an incision in his arm. Lorine and i are now waiting for Leander to wake up from his well deserved 'knock-out' sleep! He will be discharged by 5 pm this afternoon.
Why did i write all of the above? Well, it is related to the earlier topic on PAIN. But today, i would like to say a few things on HEALING ... I prayed fervently for Leander's pain to go away. I believed that God had already done this miracle for him. But i still saw him suffer very badly. I did not stop praising God for the gift of this child and i waited on the Lord for his healing.
 I've always pondered on this issue of miraculous healings specially at miracle crusades conducted by 'Men Of God'. Sometimes people get caught up in the excitement, and believe that they were actually healed when they may not have been. Sometimes the effects are immediate, sometimes it takes a while for the effects to show up, sometimes it doesn't happen at all. God doesn't take it away. Faith is a very important factor, but God's will and plan may not always include healing, for whatever reason. It's not really for us to know, all will be revealed when we reach heaven. It is confusing and hard to understand, but God's plan prevails.

Thursday 27 October 2011

PAIN - GOOD OR BAD?

Two days back, Louisa, my wife’s colleague, received a call from her daughter telling her that her husband was very sick and had been admitted in a hospital. The news came as a shock to her and she broke down crying. She was so scared that her body went cold. One of the mates from the office took her to the hospital.
Later, when Lorine visited the hospital, she was told what had happened that morning. Xavier, a perfectly healthy middle-aged man, who was on holiday in Dubai with his daughter, experienced some pain in the chest. He ignored the pain as being gas pain and went for his normal 5km jog. By the time he returned, the pain had increased so much that his daughter rushed him to the nearest hospital. There, the doctors told them (after performing some tests) that two of his arteries were blocked and angioplasty had to be done immediately. Now the procedure has been done and Xavier is slowly recovering from his ordeal.
In this instance, pain was good because it sent alarm bells off, alerting one to the fact that something drastically wrong was going on inside the body which needed urgent attention. Imagine, if there was no pain! The blockages would have lead to a major cardiac arrest leading to his death!
Spiritually speaking, one of the benefits of pain is expressed by James: “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance” (James 1:2-3). According to James, when we endure painful trials, we can take joy in knowing that God is at work in us to produce endurance and Christ-like character. This applies to mental, emotional and spiritual pain as well as to physical pain.
Pain also provides one an opportunity to experience the grace of God. Consider what Paul said: “And He has said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.’ Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me” (2 Corinthians 12:9). Paul was speaking of a “thorn in his flesh” that was troubling him. We don’t know what it was, but it seemed to have been painful for Paul. He recognized that God’s grace was being given to him so he could endure.

God will give His children the grace to bear pain.

Wednesday 26 October 2011

DINNERTIME BURP (THOUGHT I MEAN!)

Lorine and i just returned from a quick dinner at Chinaman, after Holy Hour at church. The couple at the adjacent table ordered more than they could eat (probably in the Diwali spirit!) and left half the food on the table. I couldn't help making the following observation: - The couple did not offer the food to the adjacent tables because they did not know them. - If they had offered, surely we/others would have graciously declined. - If the waiter had to offer the food to us/others after they left the restaurant, we/others would have declined too! - So the food went straight into the trashbin! ( I checked with the waiter who is a good friend) First of all it was irresponsible of the couple to have wasted the food. Secondly, they could have taken the food and given it to the car cleaners in the parking lot or their 'nathur' (building watchman). The other day someone was telling me about a 30 kg cake that was cut during a rich man's party at a 5 star hotel in Dubai. Only about 5 kilos were consumed and the remaining 25 kilos were trashed ( Due to some policy about not giving food away lest someone fell sick and the hotel got blamed for it!) How i wish there was a government law that would require good leftover food from chefing dishes to be packed and sent to Somalia, Ethiopia, Philipines, India etc to be distributed among the poor! JUST SOME FOOD FOR THOUGHT!

Tuesday 25 October 2011

AN UNNECESSARY DETOUR!

This afternoon, I was on a site visit to Aquadventures at Atlantis Hotel on the Palm Jumeirah in Dubai. I was to meet our Indian Clients there, to conduct a case study of the waterpark. I was blest with an open road, hardly any traffic to hinder me in my progress. But then I received a phone call and that slight distraction made me turn into a wrong road! Soon, to my chagrin, I was crawling bumper to bumper in a traffic jam! It took me a good frustrating half hour to get back onto the right road again! The rest of the evening went off very well and I thanked God for it!
So what lesson did I learn from all this?
Often, in our spiritual journeys, we cruise along a path that is full of blessings but suddenly there comes a distraction and in that split second, we go astray. Although we realize we have made a mistake,  it still takes us some time to get back onto the right track! … Moreover, in retrospection, we know we could have avoided the mess!
St. Paul says to the Galatians in chapter 5 verse 7and 8," You were running a good race. Who cut in on you and kept you from obeying the truth? That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you"

So when the evil one knocks, send Jesus to the door!

Furthermore, St. Paul in verses 22 to 24 says," But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires.
We are all called to live a life in the spirit. For the sinful distractions are contrary to the Spirit!

Sunday 23 October 2011

FAMILY FEUD (from 1890)

I was having lunch with a business colleague from Canada and we got talking about how people can be utterly vengeful over trivial matters sometimes to such extents that it continues to affect generations!
He went on to tell me the story of his Serbian and Croatian neighbours back home. Apparently, the both the neighbours never spoke to each other to the extent that even their children did not play with each other. But strangely, when everyone was at work or at school, the grandmothers from the two houses would walk out of their houses and meet at the gate of my colleague and chat for a long time! These people (except the grandmothers) had left their home countries for the promise of a better life in Canada but had not shed their vengeful sentiments!
This also reminds me of my own great grandfather and the feud he had with his uncle over property matters in 1890! Both houses stand almost next to each other. The children from both homes were told never to go to each other’s houses nor play with each other. I remember very clearly as I grew up in my uncle’s house, how he would have bitter fights with this neighbour long after their own fathers had died without forgiving each other. Whilst the fights continued, the one good thing my uncle and mother did was that they did not feed us with hate-filled thoughts against our neighbours. The opposing party also did the same! So as we grew up, the youngsters from both houses played with each other and even ate at each other’s houses and now we have grown up as friends! The irony of it all is that my uncle died without ever reconciling with his foe. The neighbor survives but he boycotted the funeral of my uncle! I thank God that both the parties did not infuse such hateful thoughts into their children or else the feud would have continued even in this generation and maybe even the next!
Christianity is not a club. You don't have to dress a certain way to be a Christian. You don't have to only listen to approved music. You don't have to belong to any particular denomination. All you have to do is believe in Christ and do His will. His will is to love God and to love each other.
We call ourselves Christians but we do not live Christian lives. We are ready to fight over trivial ‘doctrinal’ matters and allow religion to divide us. We won’t even take time to delve into the word of God and study what God has done for us and what he continually does for us. We fail to understand His will for us.
Let us reflect on the following scripture: John 13:34-35- "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."
Our Lord calls us to love with an AGAPE kind of love. Not an erotic or a familial love but a ‘sacrificial/spiritual’ kind of love!
From Acts 2:42-47, we know that he early Christians did it!
"And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved."
Let us therefore end senseless generational feuds, if they still exist and live proper Christian lives and add many more to God's kingdome through our LOVE!

Thursday 20 October 2011

THE FAVOUR OF THE LORD


I was born a 'blue baby'… almost given up for dead!

The umbilical cord had choked me as I entered into this world. My heart was hardly pumping and the heartbeat was slowly fading. The doctor apparently said that only a miracle could save me. The Hospicio Sisters (nuns) went down on their knees and prayed tearfully. My mother and father were too shocked to pray. The whole family on the paternal and maternal side were storming heaven's doors too! It took a whole hour to restore the heart and I was gifted a bonus life. Satan had dropped a catch! The favour of the Lord was upon me!

Sometimes when overwhelming situations try to get me down, I recount this scene at the Hospicio Hospital in Margao, Goa and I say to myself, " You were saved for a reason. Go be a blessing in somebody's life!" But this realisation struck me very late in life. Although I was born a Christian, I began to live a Christian life only 3 years back (2008). All my life I went to church because others were pushing me to go to church! I lived a dual life. In front of my parents and extended family, I was a saint. Outside of that circle, I did a lot of wrong … even hurt people physically as well as emotionally. In that time, I experienced the powers of darkness, practiced Zen, became an atheist but through all that I experienced emptiness, insecurity and a feeling of hopelessness. It was only after I found Christ in a powerful way did I begin to understand what a true Christian love meant! My mother always told me that I was blest and that I would be someone in this world. But most things were going against me in my growing years. At some point in my life I drowned and a muslim friend arrived on the scene just in time to save me. Again, on another dark and rainy night, i went to catch frogs and I fell into a fertilizer well. Again, I came through that ordeal alive! My father had cancer and I had to interrupt my education and start working soon after my graduation. I couldn't understand how I could be blest with all this happening to me, until … I read the story of Joseph!

I can draw many parallels between my own life story and Joseph from Gen 37  (Not just the fact that I'm a dreamer!). Maybe a quick synopsis of that long story will help me share with you a few lessons that I’ve learnt from that story.

Joseph was the beloved 11th son of Jacob. When God showed Joseph through two dreams, who he was destined to be, his brothers including his father were annoyed with him. His brothers were already jealous of their father's love for Joseph. From being thrown into a deep pit by his brothers, to being sold as a slave to Ishmailites and later to Potiphar, from being falsely accused of rape by Potiphar’s wife and being thrown in the prison, Joseph had to wait 13 long years for the dreams to manifest in his life. To be in Egypt at the opportune moment when the Pharaoh wanted someone to interpret his dream. Joseph not only interprets the Pharaoh's dream but also saves Egypt from a catastrophy. Joseph becomes the second most powerful man in Egypt after Pharaoh and is able to forgive and save his own brothers and father!
However, there was a huge gap between the promise and the performance. But the bible tells us that in everything Joseph kept a right attitude and God's favour was not only upon him but even his masters prospered for Joseph's sake!

-From this story, I learnt that there is a difference between reaping what you have sown and being persecuted for doing right. If you are in the right, then you can expect the Blessing of God to flow in your life.

-Joseph’s master Potiphar prospered because of the blessings on Joseph. That means if the blessing of God is upon your life, you take that blessing everywhere you go.

-Another reassuring thing is that the ‘dream/promise’ does not die because bad things happen.  We must keep hold of the dream in our hearts.

-Joseph did not allow the obstacles he faced to cause him to question His God and he still believed that God was going to make his dreams come to pass.

-Faith, Patience, Joy, and Peace all four of these contributed to Joseph’s confidence before Pharaoh. If he didn’t have patience he would have given up on God a long time prior to this event and he would have broken his relationship with God. Patience enabled him to endure while he waited. But he did not wait with a bitter spirit. Joseph had a positive attitude and outlook while he waited for his turnaround.

-He had an inner joy that enabled him to keep a smile on his face, even while he was in prison. And he had an inner peace that stabilized him during the years it took for him to get to the point where he stood before Pharaoh. His joy, peace, and patience fuelled his faith in His God and when he finally got before Pharaoh he was ready to step out in faith.

-Joseph was not afraid to take God public: Joseph was standing in front of man that worshipped the sun, but he still took his God public. When you openly declare, by faith, what you believe will happen, before it happens, then you are taking God public.  God loves when you believe Him enough to say it in front of others.

-There is nothing too hard for God: Joseph did not know what the dream was about, he did not know any of the specifics, but as far as he was concerned they did not matter. No matter what – Joseph believed that God could handle it. 
NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE WITH GOD!

Wednesday 19 October 2011

WHY DID I WRITE THE BOOK ‘DONA PAULA’?


My only motivation was that I wanted to pay a tribute to my beloved maternal grandmother for the numerous stories she told me in my childhood days.

It was not until many years into my professional career and long after she had left this earth that I began to realize that there was one story that stood out from amongst the other ‘Chinese whispers’ I’d heard in Goa! It was the Legend of Dona Paula told in a version that I was yet to hear from others! Could it have been a fiction of my grandma’s  imagination? (Too late to ask her now!). In any case, who cares! It still makes a captivating story!

The more I thought about it the more I was motivated to publish the story. When I first began writing the story about three and a half years ago, I could not go beyond a thousand words! I was faced with a new challenge of embellishing it with my own musings on Goa – the Portuguese influence on life and culture, the folklore, the introduction of a new religion and the accompanying corruption of state and religion - Etcetera. Etcetera!

Initially, I was not in the WORD … just the once-in-a-while church-going Christian! I had very strong views on the church’s continuing influence on Goa and I gave vent to many things I wanted to say against the church. I was strongly self-righteous then and critical of everything that the Catholic Church did. I had already positioned the story in 1667 due to the mention of the ‘inquisition’ by my grandmother. I realized that the era of the inquisition was a horrific one and my hatred for the church increased in leaps and bounds. It was not until I handed over the manuscript to my brother Cosme that I realized what I was doing was seriously wrong! We discussed and we argued about what parts should be included and what parts should be deleted from the story. My brother was in the Word much before me. He had actually experienced the touch of the Lord and had received a convincing miracle too! It was not until I had my own encounter with the Lord that I had to rewrite the story, carefully considering every word that went into it. Even when I had to describe the passionate moments in the book, I had to carefully weigh each word to avoid making the book sound vulgar and unacceptable to my readers. After all, one cannot know the joy of day unless he has experienced the gloom of the night and so, in a couple of places, the story may get a bit intense! (Believe me there was no other way!).

Praise be to God, the feedback has been good thus far. What is even more exciting is that the story is under review by a well known movie producer in Mumbai, and a Dubai- Goan has approached me with a konkani movie proposal!


Book Summary:  "Dona Paula" by Joseph Canisius Dias is more than just a historical romance novel set in Goa’s Portuguese colonial days--it is a fine example of quality writing about a young lady and an army officer. Paula, The lady-in-waiting to Lino’s wife discovers the Captain’s wife in an adulterous act with another man; Threatened, Herodiana is determined to get rid of her at any cost. With the careful weaving of true history with romance, "Dona Paula" is truly a pleasure to read.
Note: Those in Goa/India who wish to place an order for the book should visit WORD VENTURES in the Reliance Trade Center, behind Grace Church, Margao, Goa.India.  Tel: +919822157695. www.word.diaz.co.in.
For those who reside outside India, should either order from WORD VENTURES via the website OR from AUTHORHOUSE. (http://www.authorhouse.co.uk/Bookstore/BookSearchResults.aspx?Search=DONA%20PAULA)

Tuesday 18 October 2011

Understanding TIME, and GOD’S WAYS

In my walk of faith, I’ve always been asked this question by people who have felt ‘let down’ by God: “If God exists, why do bad things happen to good people?”
Psalm 73 is a classic lament of all those who love God but feel ‘let down’ by Him. But in verse 27 of the same Psalm, the psalmist admits, “Those who are far from you will perish; you destroy all who are unfaithful to you”. It took me a long time to realize that God first wants to secure our ETERNITY and IN HIS TIME makes all things beautiful!
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 is such a masterpiece written by the wisest of men; King Solomon! – “ To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing. A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace”.
St. Paul tells the Thessalonians in his first letter to them, “ Rejoice always, Pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus”… and boy oh boy! Didn’t Paul and Silas practice what they preached in that prison in Acts 16:25?
Much in the same way, Victor Frankle (Holocaust survivor) had nothing to praise God for! He was in a concentration camp, beaten, brutalized, treated like an animal, awaiting his turn at the gas chambers. He saw his own people die around him. But yet, he survived the ordeal by maintaining his ‘joy’ in that very hopeless situation! He later wrote, “Spiritual life strengthened the prisoner, helped him adapt, and thereby improved his chances of survival. It was the only thing the SS could not take away from him!”
You may have heard the Cliche 'God's ways are not my ways'. It comes from Isaiah 55 verses 8 and 9 –‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts,neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth,so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts’. In the book of Habakkuk, you will see how God answers the prophet’s prayer to correct Israel’s ways. He gets a heathen nation,Babylon, to defeat the Israelites and bring them to the very pit, such that the Israelites have to repent and cry out to their God for help. God, in His great mercy, later saves them from their enemies. Initially, the Israelites may have felt totally let down by their God but later, they realize that God had employed a ‘smaller’ evil to remove a ‘greater’ threat to His kingdom. This is very much like what Dr. Edward Jenner did when he developed the vaccine for smallpox. He innoculated people with cowpox and proved to medical science that the smaller infection made people immune to the deadlier smallpox!
Jeremiah 29:11 says, ‘For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future’. God calls us to be people of faith. He has created the whole universe on the principle of ‘polarity/duality’. One cannot appreciate day without going through the night. One cannot measure joy without knowing suffering. God’s Word confirms this principle to us! But how willing are we in trusting God in his ‘plan’ for us?
The following story really opened my eyes to understand it all!
A man gets hopelessly lost in a snowstorm. He makes his way towards a light in the distance. As he approaches the house, he finds a frozen river that separates him from his safe haven. He treads very carefully on the ice. A step at a time. As he nears the middle of the river, he panics. Fearing that the ice could be thin out there, he gets down on his knees and crawls. Just then he hears hoof beats and the very next moment, to his utter disbelief, a heavily laden horse drawn carriage thunders past him!
The driver of the carriage could do that because he knew the bearing capacity of the ice and had done it several times year in, year out, day in, day out!
Like the driver, how well do we know our God, to trust him to carry us through our worldly strife into the eternal life that He has prepared for us?
And by the way, God, in His entire WORD,  has never forsaken His own ... ah! but once ... His only beloved son Jesus! ( Remember ' Eloi! Eloi ! ....? )so that by His death, we, could be buried with Him and by His resurrection, could enjoy a triumphant(victorious) life on earth!

Monday 17 October 2011

THE FOG

I arose early this morning (5.15 am!) to drop my son to School for his football practice. Little did i know that we would encounter dense fog ... so dense that i could not see more than eight meters ahead of me! The very road that was familiar had become totally incognisable! Leander's school is located at Nadd Al Sheba # 3, off Al Ain road in Dubai-UAE. On normal days, i hardly depended on the road signs since i'm accustomed to the route. The 'map' in my brain is composed of the odd Gaf tree here and a building there, a gas station here and an underpass there ... but today there were no markers!

Although i was looking for signs, they would suddenly appear right overhead and i would pass them by too quickly to even focus on the text! And yes, you guessed by now ... i missed the all important exit that would take me to Leander's school and i was pitiably lost! That mistake alone added half an hour to the commute and that too, i found the school after much prayer!

According to an article i found on the internet, a dense fog covering several city blocks to a depth of 30 meters is composed of less that one glass of water. That amount of water is divided into about 60 billion tiny droplets. Yet when those minute particles can almost blot out everything from your sight!

Many Christians today live their lives in a fog. They allow a cupful of troubles to cloud their vision and dampen their spirit. Anxiety, turmoil and defeat strangle their thoughts. They allow their lives to be “choked by the cares of this world” (Luke 8;14). REMEMBER? ... “God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline” (II Tim. 1:7).

Let’s not let the fog engulf us! “Let’s live in the Sunshine!"

FEAR (The Power Of Words)

Some months ago, my two sons got trapped in our building lift for about half an hour. Leander is 15 and Leroy is 13. Once before, when they were very small, we (The whole family) were all trapped in a lift for only 3 minutes (That was in Antalya,Turkey). The difference there was that my wife panicked and therefore the kids panicked and i had a hard time explaining to them that we were in a 5 star hotel and they would surely have a generator that would kick up within three minutes. And it did! (Being an architect, i had the experience on building sites where i myself was trapped in lifts a couple of times!). When ultimately the Otis guys came to the scene and opened the lift doors (The lift was stuck between floors), i could see Leander and Leroy squatting on the floor, having a hearty laugh about some joke they were sharing (Absolutely NO FEAR on their faces!). There are many things to learn from the incidents above.WORDS are SPIRITUAL containers which carry SUBSTANCES, which when spoken are released in the hearer's mind and produce the desired/undesired effect! There is an interesting link i want to share with you on WORD POWER. Please do listen to ALL 3 PARTS for it to make sense! Be blest! http://www.word.diaz.co.in/node/437

Saturday 15 October 2011

Abraham - The Father Of Faith

Dear Friends,
Please click on the following link to listen to a short reflection on Abraham. This is my first post ever and i hope you are blest by this message:  
http://www.word.diaz.co.in/node/373