Hope in God!

"Why are you cast down O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; For I shall yet praise Him, the help of my countenance and my God." Psalm 42:11

Our God is powerful and with Him, all things are possible. (Mark 14:36). Remember, Our God will wait that He may be gracious unto you. (Isaiah 30:18)

Remember, how He answered your prayers in the past and how He wiped every tear shed by you in the dark. He knows you coz He made you. "Know that the LORD, He is God! It is He who made us and we are his;" Psalm 100:3

These times are to be treasured, painful as they may be. Yet, it is during these times He reveals Himself to you! You know Him in way like you have never experienced before.

"I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes." Job 42:6

Revealer of Secrets!

"He reveals deep and secret things; He knows what is in the darkness, And light dwells with Him" Daniel 2:22.

Our God is All-Knowing. There is nothing that is hidden or can be hidden from His sight. In fact, He discloses things that are hidden from the knowledge of man. Also, darkness is light to Him!! Think about this for a minute. How do feel when you are groping in darkness, when the electricity's out?? Helpless and lost? Not so, with Our Great God! What a warning to unrepentant sinners who think they can cover their evil deeds. What foolishness on display!

We hide so much, every living person is a mystery. But nothing limits God!! Absolutelsy nothing! He not only knows everything but makes known to us, profound and intense things.

He is the 'Revealer of Secrets'.

The blessing of trials!

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comforts those who are in any trouble with the comfort which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds through Christ." 2 Cor.1:3-5

How wonderful to know that no matter what pain we go through, or how agonising our circumstances may be, we can always run to God who is Our Dear Father! He comforts us in all our troubles. His mercies are new every morning.

God's desires in this, is that we be made Christ-like. To bear the nature of Christ in our mortal bodies. To shine forth His glory to an unbelieving world.

Trials are to break us, stretch us, refine us and mould us! It removes unwanted sin patterns, bad habits, sinful thought processes. In other words, God uses trials to purify us, make us holy, to be like Him!!

To be partakers of His holiness and His righteousness is what God desires for His dear children. Oh!! How much we should love Him and desire His Glory always!!

Give glory to God alone!

"Not to us, O LORD, not to us, but to your name give glory." Psalm 115:1a

This should be our heart cry and prayer, coz what is the true estate of man without God? We are because God is. Everything we see, every blessing we experience in Christ, every sin we conquer should make us give God the glory.

Let us watch our hearts and its inclinations, when we praise God. We must be utterly honest before Him. Even the ability to worship and draw close to God is from Him alone!!

Oh!! What miserable creatures we are, that we cannot please God apart from His enabling grace!

Love not yourself, but Christ alone. Please Him alone and not yourself. For this, we were made-To glorify God through Christ for glory alone belongs to God!!

He leads us....

Three years ago, I was reading Amy Carmichael's biography by Elisabeth Elliot, "A Chance to Die". (Btw, I could not finish the book, as it was borrowed :(.....) Anyways, I came across this poem written by Amy's mother which really inspired me......

He who hath led will lead
All throughthe wilderness,
He who hath fed will surely feed....
He who hath heard thy cry
Will never close His ear,
He who hath marked thy faintest sigh
Will not forget thy tear.
He loveth always, faileth never,
So rest on Him today-forever.

How wonderful to know that our God leads us in paths of righteousness.

My prayer!

Heavenly Father, I thank You for You are good and You do good! Your loving kindness is better than life. I rejoice in You and surely, my soul delights in You alone! Your promises are true and an anchor to my soul. Your goodness, who can compare and who is as tender as You are?

Thank you LORD, for the trial that You put me in. What comfort to my heart to know that in much love and wisdom you placed me in the fire. Your promise, "I will never leave You or forsake You", keeps me from fainting! Your grace is sufficient for me. For in my weakness, You are strong.

Even though, I walk through fire, You promised that I will not be burned or consumed. Your word is sufficient and it is good that I am being afflicted coz I will learn much from Your Word!!

Thank you for Your dear Son, Jesus Christ.... He is my Sympathetic High Priest and He knows my every weakness!! Your grace is sufficient!

My prayer is that I will glorify Your Holy Name during this time of affliction and that my faith is made perfect. In Christ's Name. Amen.

Unconditional Love

I have been thinking about my salvation a lot lately. To remember what God saved me from, my eternal standing was changed the day He turned my heart of stone to a heart of flesh. There is not one day that I can go by without thanking Him for this beautiful gift of salvation. To be known as His heir. What a privilege. Praise God for adopting us as His children.(Ephesians 1:5: He predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ,according to the purpose of His will.)

Have been going through the book of Hosea in my reading time. We know the story of Hosea, where God tells him to marry a women who would later be unfaithful and leave him for some other man (Hosea 1:2). Something that struck me hard was that I was like Gomer, before God saved me from my sin, running after the world and the pleasures of the world. Yet He was merciful and bought me back. Praise God our great shepherd who will bring His scattered sheep back into the fold. In the analogy Hosea depicts God and Gomer, us .

We see Hosea's unconditional love displayed to Gomer. This is the same love that our God has shown on us. What manner of love has God bestowed on us that He gave His own son to die on the cross for our sins.( John 3:16 "For God so loved the world, that He gave His own Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life").

So let us not take our salvation for granted and remember the work of Christ and what He had to go through to give us this new life. To come down on earth in the form of man, humble Himself to the point of death, to save miserable creatures like us from damnation. Praise Him for His unconditional love.

I will cast my cares on you....

Something that I have to be constantly reminding myself is that, when I am going through a difficult time all I need to do is to go to the Lord and cast my burden on Him.. Most of the time its a matter of pride that we don't go to Him, because we think we can deal with it on our own. We have to accept our weakness and go to Him in humility...This song portrays those same emotions...

I will cast my cares on you..

Jesus, I'm frail, I'm so very weak
My faithfulness fails, my courage will flee
But You are my rock, my shelter and shade
When I'm burdened down, You'll carry the weight

So I will cast my cares on You
Yes, I will cast my cares on You
I will rest within Your arms
Knowing I am safe from harm
I will cast my cares on You

When I'm overwhelmed and I cannot stand
You hear every cry and You lift my head
I'm desperate for grace and mercy anew
I must have Your strength, Oh I must have You

Words and music by Stephen Altrogge
As recorded on In a Little While
© 2007 Sovereign Grace Praise (BMI)
Listen to the song here:

True Humility

This is a devotion by Charles Spurgeon on the humility of Christ. So much to understand what true humility is...an example set forth by Our Lord!!

"He humbled himself." -- Philippians 2:8

Jesus is the great teacher of lowliness of heart. We need daily to learn of him. See the Master taking a towel and washing his disciples' feet! Follower of Christ, wilt thou not humble thyself? See him as the Servant of servants, and surely thou canst not be proud! Is not this sentence the compendium of his biography, "He humbled himself"? Was he not on earth always stripping off first one robe of honor and the another, till, naked, he was fastened to the cross, and there did he not empty out his inmost self, pouring out his life-blood, giving up for all of us, till they laid him penniless in a borrowed grave?

How low was our dear Redeemer brought! How then can we be proud? Stand at the foot of the cross, and count the purple drops by which you have been cleansed; see the thorn-crown; mark his scourged shoulders, still gushing with encrimsoned rills; see hands and feet given up to the rough iron, and his whole self to mockery and scorn; see the bitterness, and the pangs, and the throes of inward grief, showing themselves in his outward frame; hear the thrilling shriek, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"

And if you do not lie prostrate on the ground before that cross, you have never seen it: if you are not humbled in the presence of Jesus, you do not know him. You were so lost that nothing could save you but the sacrifice of God's only begotten.Think of that, and as Jesus stooped for you, bow yourself in lowliness sat his feet. A sense of Christ's amazing love to us has a greater tendency to humble us than even a consciousness of our own guilt.

May the Lord bring us in contemplation to Calvary, then our position will no longer be that of the pompous man of pride, but we shall take the humble place of one who loves much because much has been forgiven him. Pride cannot live beneath the cross. Let us sit there and learn ourlesson, and then rise and carry it into practice.

I don't deserve to be treated that way...

I think I have made the above statement a lot lately and I am not proud of it. I should be thankful for what the Lord has given me instead of being prideful and arrogant. The way things have been going at my workplace many a times I tend to think, this is not what I deserve, I am qualified to do more. God has been very patient and gracious with me. I was reading 12 Ordinary men by John MacArthur, and one of the incident that was mentioned in the book was about Jesus washing the disciples feet (John 13:1-20). Even as I was going through the context I realized that what Jesus did (by washing the disciples feet) was a very menial job. Yet He did it, without complaining & grumbling. Let us not forget who we are talking of; He is the King of Kings and Lord of Lord’s, creator of the heavens and the earth.

It is such a privilege to worship a God who is perfect and Holy and the best example we can follow. Reading that passage made me think, that God being so great went down to the level of a servant and washed the disciples feet, and thus set an example of humility and genuine love. So every time you feel that you are being told to do something (which in your own eyes, seems low) look unto Christ “who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” Philippians 2:6-8

David's Song of Thanks

Today is Sunday morning and instead of being at church I am at my office desk. I was quite sad in the morning even as I left for work, as I knew I would miss corporate worship and fellowship today. But then i realized that i can worship God anywhere. Why sulk and be a bad testimony amongst my unbelieving friends, when I can be thankful and give Him praise for everything that he has done for me. So i opened my bible and turned to 1 Chronicles 16:8-36 David's Song of Thanks. Will share a few verses from the passage:

8Oh give thanks to the Lord; call upon his name;
make known his deeds among the peoples!
9 Sing to him; sing praises to him;
tell of all his wondrous works!
10 Glory in his holy name;
let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice!
11 Seek the Lord and his strength;
seek his presence continually!
12 Remember the wondrous works that he has done,
his miracles and the judgments he uttered,

Just reading the first few lines made me thank Him even more for everything that He has done in my life. His wondrous works! I love verse 10"let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice!" I then realized that i should not be a sulky Christian. He has blessed me with every spiritual blessing (Eph 1:3"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places")

After reading the passage i knew that I had to focus on Christ, and not myself. Never to forget that He is a great God: Sovereign,Wonderful, Just, Holy, Compassionate and Lovely. And these are just some of His attributes.

Will just end with a few verses from the passage:

For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised,
and he is to be held in awe above all gods.(vs 25)
Worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness; (vs 29 b)
Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
for his steadfast love endures forever!(vs 34)

My precious Saviour

Like the morning dew on the petal
Your word captivates my heart
Just as the bud begins to unfold
My heart begins to grasp
The glories of my Master
For what He rendered for my soul.

You are precious to me my Saviour
Much more than diamonds or pearl,
Your glory shines far brighter
Than the glaze of the rays of sun
You are my real treasure
You are my only hope.

How Deep is Your Love

I love this song and have been singing it a lot lately. Just to focus on His attributes and remember what Christ had to go through so that we have eternal life.

How Deep

You were broken that I might be healed
You were cast off that I might draw near
You were thirsty that I might come drink
Cried out in anguish that I might sing

How deep is Your love

How high and how wide is Your mercy

How deep is Your grace

Our hearts overflow with praise To You

You knew darkness that I might know light
Wept great tears that mine might be dried
Stripped of glory that I might be clothed
Crushed by Your Father to call me Your own

Words and music by Stephen Altrogge
As recorded on Valley of Vision

© 2006 Sovereign Grace Praise (BMI).

Jesus-My all in all

A weak attempt in writing a few lines to express my Saviour's sufficiency.

Oh to live in the light of His Glory,
To breathe the air of His grace,
Eat of the bread of His life-giving word,
Health to my bones and strength to my heart,
Tis presence a shade from the scorching heat'
This is how my soul gets refreshed.

Are you burdened and in turmoil?
I give thee a sweet suggestion,
O go to Him weary spirit,
Carry no burden that is heavy
Leave it there at His feet,
For it is Jesus who will refresh thee.

Christian Life

Something that i am always thankful unto the Lord for is my church, Kerusso Bible Church. I am grateful to the Lord for the elders who minister to us every Sunday and at the weekly Bible Studies. Many a times we get all charged to up on Sundays after being fed with God word, to live godly lives. But many a times the zeal fades off by the end of the day. We need to meditate on His word daily. It is the food to our spiritual growth. Just like we don't eat the whole week's meal on one day, for our spiritual growth we need to feed on God's word every single day. That's the only way we can live God honoring lives by meditating on His word and praying continuously. Let us not forget that we are living in a wicked world, and if we don't guard our hearts and minds with the truth, we can start believing the lies the world offers.

Ephesians 6:10-18 explains it well as it says

10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.
11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. 12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
13 Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.
14 Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness,
15 and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace.
16 In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one;
17 and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God,
18 praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication.
To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints.

Therefore knowing what we are up against, we should be wise Christians, clinging on to His word. It is the only way we can stand firm in our faith and fight life's daily battles. Let us humbly come before God for wisdom, and not be wise in our own eyes.