Biblio

I have witnessed how Christians respond in times of personal, local, national or international situations of crisis. Most of the time I came across Christian responding following three ways: 1. We need to repent.  I have absolutely no doubt about the need for repentance in crisis. All the prophets and ministers come up with this message, especially in seasons of crisis. Here are my questions: when you say repent in crisis, do we imply that the crisis is the judgment from God? Can we attribute all the crises to God? Another direction in which I am concerned, why are we preaching aggressively repentance ONLY in the context of crisis. When everything is going fine, do we need repentance? I believe that repentance must be part of our daily devotional life before God. It is not something that we need to preach and think only in the season of crisis. Repentance is an essential part of daily Christian life. Moreover, let us not forget that before we preach repentance to others, we need

Elijah was a man with a nature like ours; yet he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the land. (HCSB ) James 5:17 Elijah was an ordinary man like us. Yet he released an enormous level of power and influence around him. It includes stopping rain, turning the nation to God and deciding the future of the nation prophetically. Prophets of Baal, drought, king of Israel and difficulties could not stop him. He could take victory over them. The key thing in his life was prayer. He was an ordinary person like each one of us, yet he exercised extraordinary power, authority over the nature, nation and evil forces through prayer. Prayer brings God’s rule over us. It brings God’s power down to us. It brings the Kingdom authority to us. It brings God’s enormous power to influence the society. Many people want to influence society and situations around them. But many of them feel powerlessness. Today the church really want to influence the

your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. (NIV) Matthew 6:10 God’s desire is to bring what is in heaven to this earth. “Your kingdom” refers to God’s rule or dominion. God’s will and rule or dominion like in heaven should come to this earth. This is why Jesus taught us to pray “your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” The implication is that we are on a mission to bring what is in heaven on this earth and remove what is not heaven from this earth. I believe that there is no sickness, depression, disturbance, bondage, debt, anxiety, fear, poverty etc. in heaven. His dominion should manifest over these forces. Whatever is not allowed to exist in heaven should be bound on this earth.  We are citizens of heaven. Our model is heaven. We are ambassadors of heaven. We are sons and daughters of heavenly Father. We represent another world, power, king and reality. If something is there in heaven, we should lose them on this earth through

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. (ESV) Matthew 6:13 It may be common to each one of us to feel the following at the end of the day: it would be nice if I could avoid shouting at my spouse/children/subordinate etc; it would be nice I could speak to so and so with little more gentleness and sweet words. This kind of feelings would run through our mind at the end of every day. We often recognize how difficult situations exposes our weakness, character flaws and areas where we need to overcome the fruits of the flesh. Some of these areas such as anger, bad temper, harsh words, lying etc. may be repeating very frequently in our lives. One of the keys to overcome this kind of issues is to pray for spiritual protection over our lives before we start our day. The probable meaning this verse is that “If it be thy will do not permit us, weak as we are by nature and prone to sin, to enter into situations which in the natural  course of events would expose us to tempta

Read 2Chr 20.1-26 1. Natural Power Vs Power of Heaven We all live in this physical world where we see power of natural things such as power of fuel, power of medicine, human strength and so on. However, they all have limitation. Physical power can do lot of things but still they cannot do lot of things. Here, in the story of Jehoshaphat, the natural power of army of kings was in conflict with the divine power of God which was released for the protection of the praying people. 2. Prayer Releases the Power of God Prayer the Greatest force: Prayer is one of the greatest powers in the world. Prayer power is spiritual while other powers are natural. Prayer opens the door for God to work. Prayer releases power of God Almighty to our lives. The power of prayer is that it connects us to the power of God. That’s why, it is a great force. Jehoshaphat never depended upon his force rather he depended upon God through prayer. For him, prayer releases a great force of God to the situatio

Ephesians 6:18  “And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.” 1 Thessalonians 5:17  “pray continually.” How can we pray continually without ceasing? Ø   Keeping an attitude of thanksgiving and total dependence upon God as we go about our everyday life. Ø   Turning our thought to God in the midst of doing all things as we have to do. Ø   Life style of prayer: ·          MISCONCEPTIONS : Stop thinking prayer as an event. Check your concept about our prayer. We think prayer means   §   We should sit and set apart a particular time to pray. §   We should pray loudly. §   We need to get up middle of night or early morning to pray. §   We make rules for our prayer life. §   We should be in room without doing anything. §   If you can do these, good. But reality is that there is no absolute rule about prayer with respect to time, posture, place, sound and so o

What is prayer? Ø   Dependency upon God Ø   Prayer is simple. It is nothing more than talking and listening to God. It is two way communications. Why we are not satisfied with our prayer life? Unsatisfied prayer Satisfied prayer Panic-based, carnal, soulish Spirit filled, led and faith based Praying for outer life Praying for inner life Rigid, duty oriented, time bound, obligation prayer Communicating with God throughout the day, complete dependency Irregular prayer Regular disciplined without being legalist Fear, doubt Boldness, privilege of sonship, expectation Now let us read Lk 11.1-8 3. Why we should pray that “Lord, Teach me to pray” as disciples did in Lk 11.1? ·                      If you are frustrated in your prayer life , you need to pray “Lord, teach me to pray.” We know we should pray. We know many ideas of p

John Knox the Scottish Reformer was a mighty man of prayer. He was an instrumental to bring great reform and revival in Scotland.  Here is an example of how he prayed, “O Lord, give me Scotland, or I die !” After a time of stillness, again the cry, “O Lord, give me Scotland, or I die !” Once more deep silence. Then again the cry with more intense pathos, “O Lord, give me Scotland, or I die.” God gave him Scotland. He saved many from wrong faith to real salvation and pure doctrines. Another powerful example for power of prayer is China. It was a communist-atheist country. The churches were closed down and Christians were eradicated from the land. Bible was destroyed. However, believers from the many nations interceded for China, at present the Chinese churches are fastest and rapid growing churches in the world. We limit our prayer often to our personal needs. However, one of the best ways that we can do our ministry to build the Kingdom of God is prayer. Today we will look i