A swindler in the garb of a monk was traveling by train without a ticket. The ticket checker came checking tickets and asked him for his ticket. The monk answered, “Monks don’t need to buy tickets” the ticket checker said, “This is not your father’s train, either get off it or pay up.” An argument ensued, the situation got ugly and the monk was thrown out on the next stop. On the platform, he created a ruckus, a crowd gathered and the monk declared “I’ll see how this train moves now.” In a little while, the guard blew the whistle and waved the green flag to signal the train’s departure and the train driver started the train, but the train would not move. The driver tried his level best but the train would not budge. The crowd started to get restive; the train’s passengers became annoyed. The station master sensing trouble told the ticket checker, “Before the crowd starts any trouble, go and apologize to the monk for the situation you created.” The ticket checker refused, the monk also held his ground and the situation continued to deteriorate. Ultimately, the ticket checker had to back down and apologize to the monk; the monk also exploited the situation to his advantage and demanded hefty offerings, flowers, sweets and that the ticket checker should publicly fall at his feet to apologize. All done, the monk in a dramatic manner ordered the train to depart and now it did. Not just the train but even the monk’s reputation took a surge. He became an instant hit, people started to flock to him, and life became quite comfortable for him.
Time passed, as the monk lay on his death bed, one of his close followers pleaded to know from him how he had managed to keep the train from moving. The monk answered, “Now that I am nearing my time, I won’t lie to you; I had given a heavy bribe to the train’s driver for it.”
Many such charlatans similarly are fooling several today and playing with their faith. Therefore many people question the very existence of God. If one talks about God to people, some retort –“Keep your God to yourself. Where is God? Has anybody ever seen him? What is the proof of his existence? You keep frightening people with the fear of hell and Day of Judgment or enticing them with stories of heaven. Go tell your stories to the timid, if you ever come back to me, I’ll pack you off to your God.” They behave in this manner because they are convinced within themselves that there is no God.
Others are somewhat gentler and say, “Where is the need of a god? When life is moving well without him, why drag him in unnecessarily?” They too do not want to accept God’s reality. Then there are others who believe in God, only in a casual way, or because of fear of suffering a loss, or just for the sake of pleasing others, or to fulfill a ritual for the demands of a religion. But there are a few who honestly and with a sincere heart search for God; their ways and methods may not be right, but they honor Him from their hearts, not hypocritically.
It is a very simple fact, nobody needs to be a genius to understand it, can anything be made without a maker? He who made everything is God.
Everything has two aspects, one that is evident on the outside and the other that remains hidden. Things that seem similar on the outside are actually very different from within. Something that seems to be very nice and attractive on the outside, may be very repulsive on its inside. Religion is one such entity; on first look it appears to be very good but is actually very ghastly. Ponder for a moment and check it out for yourself, don’t the evils that plague our society e.g. terrorism, sectarianism, divisiveness etc. have their origin in religion? These religions have raised the egos of common people to their extremes, for their religion its leaders goad their followers to proclaim – “Say with pride that I am a…” Is this not an indirect way to debase other religions? On the other hand, how many ever spur people to say “I am proud to be humane”. They will never say this because they have no compassion for others. Today, religion has become more important than God. In fact, religion has now become another name for terror.
For the politicians, religion is no problem. It is evident to all that for them, religion is a means for self-serving. In the financial world, man is the cheapest and most efficient machine to earn profits; humanitarianism has no place there. There is no lack of anything in our country, still people are restless. If there is anything is lacking, it is integrity and honesty.
There is no rose in this world that does not have thorns on its stems. The thorns in man’s life are because of sins that he has sown in his life. There is no home where these thorn pricks are not felt. Just look around in your own home, how many thorns of pride, anger, resentment, greed etc. are strewn around, causing pain and problems. Problems always remain with man, as long as he lives on this earth, he will have problems. Sin is the root cause of all problems.
Even a blood brother cannot be relied upon, who knows what selfish motives are keeping him attached to you? The conditions are worsening by the day and the world is facing its most difficult times. Everywhere people are perplexed and groping for answers – what’s next? What to do? Calamities and problems are coming upon the world very unexpectedly. Man is suffering the consequences of his own doings, and is now unable to find a way out of them. Whose fault is it? The fact is that the fault is with us, dwells in us, in our behavior and in our temperament. We don’t need to bring about hunger or thirst; they happen naturally, they are built into the system of our physical self. Similarly our heart has its own nature that manifests on its own; one does not need to learn e.g. to be greedy, to be proud, etc. these are all naturally present in the system of our hearts.
Mullah Nasiruddin invited one of his friends, a maestro of classical music, with his group of musicians for dinner and a night of music. The friend was perplexed, how come Mullah Nasiruddin has developed an interest in classical music? Anyway, he and his group reached Mullah’s house that evening. Food and drinks were served lavishly and the party carried on till around mid-night, and then Mullah requested his friend to start the music. The friend said, “The whole neighborhood is now sleeping, this is no time to start music.” Mullah replied, the whole night the neighbor’s dogs bark and disturb me, I never complained. So what if I don’t have dogs, I have a classical musician. So now why should they complain?” The wish for revenge and the desire to settle scores is present in every person. There are no exceptions. People may have changed the method to settle scores, but nothing in life has changed.
What actually is, may not be evident. The sky appears blue, but who can paint it blue when it is not even real? In reality there is nothing there, the blue color that we see is only an illusion. That which appears to be an ocean of bliss is just a mirage. The idea of contentment through the possessions of this world is a similar illusion, the moment you acquire them, the feeling of satisfaction vanishes and the discontentment recurs.
Till the problem of sin is sorted out in our society, nothing else will be sorted out. Our knowledge, religion, wealth will all keep us entangled in problems of one kind or the other. We have corrupted our environment, our life, our air, our society, our social and family relationships. No matter how many religions, governments, neighborhoods and families we may change, unless our hearts change, nothing else will change.
‘Baul’ is a religious tradition from Bengal, its followers live a solitary life, and the ‘Baul’ plays a single stringed instrument while singing songs to his deity. In one of the songs, a Baul, in front of the dead body of a young man is complaining to his deity, “This is absurd, I should have gone, but I did not. He who did not want to go has gone. Those who do not want to go are taken away.”
The only certainty of life is death, but the weird thing about death is that it takes away those who don’t want to go but leaves behind those who are waiting and wanting to go. Who knows whose turn will come when? Some play with death and escape, others are not even thinking about death but get snatched away by it. We don’t know whose turn is it, but surely somebody’s turn is next. If you die in your sins, then think for yourself where will you be?
The days of life are numbered and one by one everyday dies away. Some have completed their days, others are about to complete and some will be completing them in the days to come. Everyone is on the road to death. No religion, wealth, knowledge or science will deliver you from death. You are absolutely unaware of what tomorrow will bring.
If we give up our stubbornness, then being delivered from sin will not take any time. Sin does not die, it slays. It destroys all our peace and happiness. When we talk against sin, please take note, we are not talking against any sinner – a person, we are talking against sin – the act. We do not stand against any particular person or religion. We stand against sin that destroys the sinner, the very person who indulges in it; while our effort is to see the sinner being saved, not perish.
The moment we talk of Jesus, people have a conceited response – “Jesus of the Christians? Christians, who go around converting people to their foreign religion, by enticing people through their foreign money. They have opened shops of prayer to sell promises of jobs, healings from diseases etc. They only deceive people. ” Other’s say, see crowds flock to them, can so many people be wrong? Are they all out of their minds? But believe me, it is a crowd that behaves crazily. Jesus never promised that if you convert to Christianity, you will get jobs and will be cured of all diseases. I challenge you to show me one instance from the Bible where such a claim has ever been made.
The fact is that you do not need to convert to any religion. To convert to or from a religion is meaningless, is a deception and is sin. Jesus Christ wants you to convert your heart, not your religion. The same heart that is troubled, sad and restless. The heart that is full of envy, lies, greed, adultery and all evil thoughts. Jesus died on the cross and rose again the third day to deliver you from these sins. His blood cleanses us from all sin. Give Him an opportunity through just one simple prayer – “Lord have mercy on me a sinner and forgive my sins.”
To listen to all this is okay, but to accept and follow this is the problem. Many people frequently ask for prayers for their various physical needs, but never have the courage to pray a single prayer of repentance. They are worried about how others will react – “What will the people say about me?” Many counsel themselves that nothing happens by mere prayers, you have to do some rituals. But this is an undeniable fact that whoever has come to the Lord, He has never turned him away (John 6:37). There is no other way out of this.
Consider, for example, that the President of the country is willing to forgive a heinous offence, but the offender says that I don’t need any forgiveness from anybody; I’ll find my own way out. Would that not be insulting the President? Similarly, the God of this universe is willing to forgive your sins, by spurning away his forgiveness you are insulting His grace and pouring scorn on Him.
If you have the courage and honesty for it, take an account of your life. There is so much written against your name; even things that you yourself will be ashamed to admit. There is a time for everything, you now have this time of opportunity before you. You can accept it or reject it. There are some who would be reading this out of curiosity or just to pass time, or even to ridicule. But some will be there who will take this seriously.
Now the time has come for you to come to conclusion about yourself. If you are obstinate and unwilling to accept, then there is nothing left to say. The Lord has brought this to you in His grace and with a purpose. I ask you dear reader, what do you think about yourself? You have this opportunity to step out of all problems and despair. This is not the wizardry of words but the call of God to you. He is waiting to shower His grace and mercy upon you, all you need to do is reach out to Him with a prayer, “Lord Jesus, have mercy and forgive me a sinner.”
Time passed, as the monk lay on his death bed, one of his close followers pleaded to know from him how he had managed to keep the train from moving. The monk answered, “Now that I am nearing my time, I won’t lie to you; I had given a heavy bribe to the train’s driver for it.”
Many such charlatans similarly are fooling several today and playing with their faith. Therefore many people question the very existence of God. If one talks about God to people, some retort –“Keep your God to yourself. Where is God? Has anybody ever seen him? What is the proof of his existence? You keep frightening people with the fear of hell and Day of Judgment or enticing them with stories of heaven. Go tell your stories to the timid, if you ever come back to me, I’ll pack you off to your God.” They behave in this manner because they are convinced within themselves that there is no God.
Others are somewhat gentler and say, “Where is the need of a god? When life is moving well without him, why drag him in unnecessarily?” They too do not want to accept God’s reality. Then there are others who believe in God, only in a casual way, or because of fear of suffering a loss, or just for the sake of pleasing others, or to fulfill a ritual for the demands of a religion. But there are a few who honestly and with a sincere heart search for God; their ways and methods may not be right, but they honor Him from their hearts, not hypocritically.
It is a very simple fact, nobody needs to be a genius to understand it, can anything be made without a maker? He who made everything is God.
All boasting vanishes away
For the journey of life we need various ways for various situations. Look at it this way – man cannot face every kind of adverse situation by his limited physical abilities. He cannot face wild animals directly, and if confronted by a lion, all his bravado vanishes. Forget facing a lion, if even a street dog chases him, he runs for a place to escape and hide. Man does not have the abilities of animals, his eyes are not like theirs, and neither does he have their agility nor their speed. He does not have claws, nails, teeth like them nor wings to fly like birds. So he has made arrows, spears, swords, knives, guns, airplanes, boats etc. to overcome his limitations. It was man’s compulsions that made him to invent the weapons. He has made his own ways for everything (Ecclesiastes 7:29). Even to reach heaven after his death, he has devised his own ways – ways of religion to carry him from here to there.Everything has two aspects, one that is evident on the outside and the other that remains hidden. Things that seem similar on the outside are actually very different from within. Something that seems to be very nice and attractive on the outside, may be very repulsive on its inside. Religion is one such entity; on first look it appears to be very good but is actually very ghastly. Ponder for a moment and check it out for yourself, don’t the evils that plague our society e.g. terrorism, sectarianism, divisiveness etc. have their origin in religion? These religions have raised the egos of common people to their extremes, for their religion its leaders goad their followers to proclaim – “Say with pride that I am a…” Is this not an indirect way to debase other religions? On the other hand, how many ever spur people to say “I am proud to be humane”. They will never say this because they have no compassion for others. Today, religion has become more important than God. In fact, religion has now become another name for terror.
For the politicians, religion is no problem. It is evident to all that for them, religion is a means for self-serving. In the financial world, man is the cheapest and most efficient machine to earn profits; humanitarianism has no place there. There is no lack of anything in our country, still people are restless. If there is anything is lacking, it is integrity and honesty.
There is no rose in this world that does not have thorns on its stems. The thorns in man’s life are because of sins that he has sown in his life. There is no home where these thorn pricks are not felt. Just look around in your own home, how many thorns of pride, anger, resentment, greed etc. are strewn around, causing pain and problems. Problems always remain with man, as long as he lives on this earth, he will have problems. Sin is the root cause of all problems.
Even a blood brother cannot be relied upon, who knows what selfish motives are keeping him attached to you? The conditions are worsening by the day and the world is facing its most difficult times. Everywhere people are perplexed and groping for answers – what’s next? What to do? Calamities and problems are coming upon the world very unexpectedly. Man is suffering the consequences of his own doings, and is now unable to find a way out of them. Whose fault is it? The fact is that the fault is with us, dwells in us, in our behavior and in our temperament. We don’t need to bring about hunger or thirst; they happen naturally, they are built into the system of our physical self. Similarly our heart has its own nature that manifests on its own; one does not need to learn e.g. to be greedy, to be proud, etc. these are all naturally present in the system of our hearts.
Big in name, small in deeds
We are quite different in our words and in our deeds. What we appear is a facade, and what we actually are.Mullah Nasiruddin invited one of his friends, a maestro of classical music, with his group of musicians for dinner and a night of music. The friend was perplexed, how come Mullah Nasiruddin has developed an interest in classical music? Anyway, he and his group reached Mullah’s house that evening. Food and drinks were served lavishly and the party carried on till around mid-night, and then Mullah requested his friend to start the music. The friend said, “The whole neighborhood is now sleeping, this is no time to start music.” Mullah replied, the whole night the neighbor’s dogs bark and disturb me, I never complained. So what if I don’t have dogs, I have a classical musician. So now why should they complain?” The wish for revenge and the desire to settle scores is present in every person. There are no exceptions. People may have changed the method to settle scores, but nothing in life has changed.
See the condition of this home
The wife grumbles, as long as this irritating man remains out of the house there is peace. As soon as I see his irritating face, I start loosing my temper. There was a time when she pined to have a glimpse of his face and she considered herself to be his handmaiden. He had loved her more than his life, but today the same handmaiden has made his life miserable. Now his feet tremble at the thought of her who once desired to stay at his feet.What actually is, may not be evident. The sky appears blue, but who can paint it blue when it is not even real? In reality there is nothing there, the blue color that we see is only an illusion. That which appears to be an ocean of bliss is just a mirage. The idea of contentment through the possessions of this world is a similar illusion, the moment you acquire them, the feeling of satisfaction vanishes and the discontentment recurs.
Till the problem of sin is sorted out in our society, nothing else will be sorted out. Our knowledge, religion, wealth will all keep us entangled in problems of one kind or the other. We have corrupted our environment, our life, our air, our society, our social and family relationships. No matter how many religions, governments, neighborhoods and families we may change, unless our hearts change, nothing else will change.
Life waiting to die
This is the story, actually the tragedy of a young man. On being asked what he was living for, he replied, “Living is not a necessity for me, but a compulsion; but I cannot gather the courage to commit suicide since I am afraid to die. The arrows of destiny have left me neither dead nor alive.”‘Baul’ is a religious tradition from Bengal, its followers live a solitary life, and the ‘Baul’ plays a single stringed instrument while singing songs to his deity. In one of the songs, a Baul, in front of the dead body of a young man is complaining to his deity, “This is absurd, I should have gone, but I did not. He who did not want to go has gone. Those who do not want to go are taken away.”
The only certainty of life is death, but the weird thing about death is that it takes away those who don’t want to go but leaves behind those who are waiting and wanting to go. Who knows whose turn will come when? Some play with death and escape, others are not even thinking about death but get snatched away by it. We don’t know whose turn is it, but surely somebody’s turn is next. If you die in your sins, then think for yourself where will you be?
The days of life are numbered and one by one everyday dies away. Some have completed their days, others are about to complete and some will be completing them in the days to come. Everyone is on the road to death. No religion, wealth, knowledge or science will deliver you from death. You are absolutely unaware of what tomorrow will bring.
Eyes full of helplessness
A doctor advised an 80 year old man to have his eyes operated; a small surgery and he will be able to see again. The old man answered the doctor, “There are 34 eyes looking after me day and night. I have 8 sons, their 16 eyes, my 8 daughters-in-law their 16 eyes and the 2 eyes of my wife. So why should I bother about an operation at this age?” He disregarded the doctor’s counsel. Not even a week had passed since this incidence when his house caught fire. Everyone rushed outside to save their lives; alone and unable to see, he was left groping for the door but could not find it. Flames and smoke prevented help to come his way. He now remembered the doctor’s counsel, but it was too late. The 34 eyes that he had boasted of could only watch helplessly, full of tears as he succumbed to the fire.If we give up our stubbornness, then being delivered from sin will not take any time. Sin does not die, it slays. It destroys all our peace and happiness. When we talk against sin, please take note, we are not talking against any sinner – a person, we are talking against sin – the act. We do not stand against any particular person or religion. We stand against sin that destroys the sinner, the very person who indulges in it; while our effort is to see the sinner being saved, not perish.
The moment we talk of Jesus, people have a conceited response – “Jesus of the Christians? Christians, who go around converting people to their foreign religion, by enticing people through their foreign money. They have opened shops of prayer to sell promises of jobs, healings from diseases etc. They only deceive people. ” Other’s say, see crowds flock to them, can so many people be wrong? Are they all out of their minds? But believe me, it is a crowd that behaves crazily. Jesus never promised that if you convert to Christianity, you will get jobs and will be cured of all diseases. I challenge you to show me one instance from the Bible where such a claim has ever been made.
The fact is that you do not need to convert to any religion. To convert to or from a religion is meaningless, is a deception and is sin. Jesus Christ wants you to convert your heart, not your religion. The same heart that is troubled, sad and restless. The heart that is full of envy, lies, greed, adultery and all evil thoughts. Jesus died on the cross and rose again the third day to deliver you from these sins. His blood cleanses us from all sin. Give Him an opportunity through just one simple prayer – “Lord have mercy on me a sinner and forgive my sins.”
To listen to all this is okay, but to accept and follow this is the problem. Many people frequently ask for prayers for their various physical needs, but never have the courage to pray a single prayer of repentance. They are worried about how others will react – “What will the people say about me?” Many counsel themselves that nothing happens by mere prayers, you have to do some rituals. But this is an undeniable fact that whoever has come to the Lord, He has never turned him away (John 6:37). There is no other way out of this.
Consider, for example, that the President of the country is willing to forgive a heinous offence, but the offender says that I don’t need any forgiveness from anybody; I’ll find my own way out. Would that not be insulting the President? Similarly, the God of this universe is willing to forgive your sins, by spurning away his forgiveness you are insulting His grace and pouring scorn on Him.
If you have the courage and honesty for it, take an account of your life. There is so much written against your name; even things that you yourself will be ashamed to admit. There is a time for everything, you now have this time of opportunity before you. You can accept it or reject it. There are some who would be reading this out of curiosity or just to pass time, or even to ridicule. But some will be there who will take this seriously.
Now the time has come for you to come to conclusion about yourself. If you are obstinate and unwilling to accept, then there is nothing left to say. The Lord has brought this to you in His grace and with a purpose. I ask you dear reader, what do you think about yourself? You have this opportunity to step out of all problems and despair. This is not the wizardry of words but the call of God to you. He is waiting to shower His grace and mercy upon you, all you need to do is reach out to Him with a prayer, “Lord Jesus, have mercy and forgive me a sinner.”
No comments:
Post a Comment