Tag Archives: christianity

Aug 10 2023
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Breaking Tradition

Jesus tells us to pray “thy kingdom come…on earth as it is in heaven.” John, His disciple, tells us, “The Son of God [Jesus] appeared…to destroy the works of the devil”
(1 John 3:8).

In other words, we as Jesus’ followers have marching orders. We are engaged in a spiritual war to regain territory from an illegal occupier, Satan, who stole it from us through deceit. Through the cross, he has no further authority to keep it. The mission involves both angelic and human forces obedient to Jesus, our Commander-in-Chief.

Military operations require an overall plan and objective that unfolds in different phases. The operation depends upon troop flexibility to shift direction and action at a moment’s notice.

Acts 10 exemplifies one of those momentous shifts.

Phase one began with the Abrahamic Covenant. Most Jews came to see this as a covenant exclusive to themselves. Everyone else was regarded as “gentile,” or pagan, though God told Abraham, “Through you all the nations will be blessed.” For most Jews, this part was forgotten.

Before Jesus ascended into heaven, He told His disciples they, the Jewish believers, would take the gospel to the “uttermost parts of the earth,” that is, to the outside Gentile world.

Peter, Jesus’ disciple and apostle of the early church, was a traditional and patriotic Jew. But Jesus wanted him to preach the gospel, not only to a man and his household regarded as outside the Covenant, but who came from among hated Roman conquerors. This Roman officer, Cornelius, had learned to worship the true God, but because he was “gentile,” his faith was regarded as inferior. For Peter to willingly obey this order required a massive paradigm shift.

God required him to abandon 2,000 years of traditional thinking at a moment’s notice. In Acts 10, Peter’s housetop vision (repeated three times) prepared him for his mission, with God commanding him to kill and eat animals regarded as unclean by Jewish law. In the vision, Peter at first refuses this order, saying, “By no means, Lord!”

In the end, Peter gets the message. He obeys God and preaches the gospel to Cornelius and his household. They all commit their lives to Christ and experience the filling of the Holy Spirit, identical to what happened to the blood children of Abraham at Pentecost.

This event is so momentous to Peter and to the Jewish believers that they marvel over it in the next chapter. They are advancing in their faith, but they are still learning about God’s overall plan to destroy the works of the devil and to bring the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven. They didn’t have the whole picture, and neither do we. We receive it just one order at a time.

Are we ready to abandon at a moment’s notice beloved and familiar traditions to destroy Satan’s work and reassert Christ’s authority? Are we willing to accept people as fellow believers whose looks and ways differ from our cherished expectations?

As we learn in Acts 10, God still brings blessings to and through the very people we least expect and whom we even despise. God’s love and mercy is greater than our own. His sovereignty is more sovereign than we know. His grace is more gracious, His love more loving.

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Jul 01 2023
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Unexpected Jesus Follower

The miraculous conversion of Saul of Tarsus gives us hope for our own day.

Saul of Tarsus was the last person anyone expected to follow Jesus Christ. That he would later become the missionary to the Gentiles, willing to face beatings, stonings, prisons, shipwreck, and to lose his life for the sake of Christ was beyond unthinkable to anyone who knew his murderous reputation.

Already, he was implicated in the death of Jesus’ first martyr, Stephen. He possessed a fanatical hatred and fury against Jesus’ followers that rivaled or surpassed that of today’s radical terrorists. When Jesus’ followers fled Jerusalem to escape him, he chased after them, determined to destroy this affront to his beloved traditions. Who knows how many more believers died at his hands or at the hands of those who followed his orders?

In Galatians 1, we read his own description of his total devotion to the faith of his forefathers. The more people who followed Jesus Christ, the more infuriated he became. Nothing, he resolved, would or could stop him from achieving his goal of 100% eradication of Jesus’ followers and Jesus’ memory from the earth. And then…

On the road to Damascus, he met Jesus Christ face-to-face. In a split second, Saul’s life—and our own lives and destinies—were forever reversed.

In that split second, Saul of Tarsus became the man later known as Paul the Apostle, the greatest Jesus-believer the world has ever known. Everyone who reads this piece owes an unpayable debt to him and to Jesus Christ, our risen Lord, who made it all possible.

In those dark days before the light from heaven blinded Saul of Tarsus, most Jesus followers wondered how long it would take before that determined killer caught up to them. They did not count on what God was about to do to change the course of history.

In our own dark days, with so much demonic activity in India and our own nation arrayed against the advance of the gospel, is it not also hard for us to believe that anything will soon change? By the day, everything seems to get worse and worse and worse.

Many prominent Christians even say we live in a post-Christian age. Many of our children and grandchildren, raised in the church, are deserting the faith in droves for New Age, witchcraft, drugs, transgenderism and the like. We are told we will live as powerless exiles on the outskirts of Babylon until Jesus raptures us out of the mess.

But God never adopts a losing scenario. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. He is the same God who reversed the life of Saul of Tarsus in a split second. Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, the coming of the Holy Spirit—and Saul of Tarsus’ conversion—remind us that God’s work on earth never retreats but advances.

What God has shown us in the past is a foretaste of what He plans for the future. The greatest works of Christ have yet to take place in India and the world, in this country, in your lives and in the lives of those we love.

Surely, that day will come in a moment, like the conversion of Saul of Tarsus on that Damascus road. Pray and praise God for that day!

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Jun 03 2023
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The People You Detest

Philip’s story in Acts 8 has profound lessons for us today. Though his divine appointment with the Ethiopian eunuch is perhaps better known, his ministry in Samaria is equally profound.

Philip’s adventure in Samaria teaches us that we should never put God in a box, but do whatever He asks of us even when it appears detestable and absurd.

It takes place at a time of persecution. Stephen’s martyrdom set off the persecution directed by the fanatical Saul of Tarsus, forcing Jerusalem believers to flee for their lives. One of those exiles was the Spirit-filled Philip who felt nudged by the Holy Spirit to proclaim Christ to the Samaritans in their capital, Samaria. We first read of him in Acts 6, one of seven men selected to meet the needs of Hellenistic Jews.

This venture of Philip into Samaria is most unusual. Philip was a Jew, and the average Jew detested Samaritans as half-breeds whose religion was an odd mixture of Jewish and pagan beliefs. They hated the Samaritans so much, they took the longer and harder route around their territory just to avoid contact with them. This deep-seated and irrational hatred had persisted for centuries.

If Philip had any of these natural tendencies, he pushed them aside and obeyed the Holy Spirit. When he did, he discovered sincere spiritual hunger among these hated and rejected people. They saw signs and wonders, heard of Jesus’ love for them, and experienced multiple deliverance from demonic spirits. They welcomed Jesus as their Messiah and received the Holy Spirit. Luke tells us in Acts 8:8, “There was much rejoicing in that city.”

Not many years earlier, Jesus Himself had visited the Samaritans and changed the life of the woman who met Him at Jacob’s Well, near the town of Sychar. That transformed woman opened her people’s eyes to the true Messiah and made it possible for Jesus to do a great work among them (John 4). These people had already demonstrated their spiritual hunger.

But Jesus did not complete the ministry to the Samaritans. He paved the way for Philip to do even more. He wanted to share His own joy with others like Philip who would obey His invitation to join Him in His work.

Did He not specifically tell His disciples before His ascension, “You shall be My witnesses . . . in Samaria” (Acts 1:8)?

What an important lesson (and invitation) this is for all of us! We all have people in our lives whom we regard as “impossible” when it comes to openness to the Good News. Like the Samaritans, they could be members of a particular ethnic or cultural group. They could be family members whose rebellious or obnoxious ways have repulsed us for years, even decades.

When Jesus included Samaria in His Great Commission, He was essentially telling His disciples (and us), “You shall not only be My witnesses to the people you know, but also to the people you most detest. You and they will rejoice when you do this unlikely and impossible thing.”

Let us allow the Lord to identify any “impossible” people in our hearts so He can transform us to accept His possibilities and obey Him. In this way, we all, like Philip and the Samaritans, will also rejoice when we see God bring the impossible to pass.

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Nov 29 2022
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The Early Christians Recognized this Threat

Sometimes it really strikes me—the irrationality of unbelief. The refusal to bow to fact, to rational argument, even the clear hand of God. What is most striking is how the most unbelieving can also be the most religious.

In Acts 4, Peter and John, by the power of Christ, have just healed a man lame from birth, convincing 5,000 people to follow Christ, demonstrating the power of God. But the ruling religious Sanhedrin of Jerusalem arrest both Peter and John and throw them into jail. The religious leaders could not deny the healing. They could not deny the power and boldness of Jesus’ uneducated disciples, but they want to stop them.

They knew about Jesus’ miracles. When Jesus died, they saw the massive temple veil rip from top to bottom. They could not deny Jesus’ resurrection. In Acts 5, Gamaliel, a wise elder member of the Sanhedrin even warned them that if what Peter and John did “is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them; or else you may even be found fighting against God.” They could have reconsidered their position, but they refused.

Unbelief shows little compassion for those freed by Christ from bondage. The religious establishment did not share the healed man’s joy. They did not empathize with his years of infirmity, his inability to care for himself, his wasted talents, his decades of destroyed dreams, the lectures from others about his imagined “sins” that brought his condition, the taunts of thoughtless children. They were lifeless and loveless.

Stone-cold unbelief can strike fear in those who speak truth, especially if the unbelievers have more power, money and political authority.

Don’t we find stone-cold unbelief in our own world today, even in our churches, whether in India or the USA? In both nations, men and women with power and authority care nothing about the God of the Bible and want to hurl Him from His throne (see Psalm 2). At times, they appear to be invulnerable, subject to no other law but their own whims and agendas that drip with unbelief and contempt for God and others they regard as lesser than they.

The early Christians recognized this threat. They saw the odds against them, but they did not flinch before the stronger foe. Peter said, “We cannot stop speaking about what we have seen and heard.”

They went to prayer, remembering the God who called them is the same God who created the heavens and the earth. They remembered Jesus’ wondrous acts. They remembered how God uses even His enemies to accomplish His purposes. They knew that the stronger power of God who raised Jesus Christ from the dead would sustain them. The scriptures tell us they prayed for boldness to preach, for signs and wonders.

God answered their prayers. He filled them anew with His Holy Spirit. In time, in 70 AD, after much patience and giving the religious authorities forty years to repent of their unbelief, He destroyed their decadent and unbelieving religious structures. In the meantime, the gospel continued to spread to “the uttermost parts of the world” as it does today.

May God help us to continue steadfast in their footsteps before our present opposition. The gospel of Jesus Christ always has the last word.

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Oct 21 2022
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How to Convince Many

Often, Christian witness today is based upon apologetics—rational arguments. While apologetics has importance and may win a few people to Christ here and there, too often we are satisfied with a few. The problem with apologetics is the likelihood for someone to make counter-arguments and excuses. The arguments may go on forever.

Acts 3 demonstrates that in the power of the Holy Spirit, our witness can become an irresistible force with which no one can argue.

Acts 3 begins on an average day with Peter and John just before afternoon prayer at the temple. They confront a lame man. For years, the man was a fixture at the temple gate, eking out a living in the only way he knew—begging. Most likely, Peter and John had noted the man before, but on this day, the Holy Spirit enabled them to really see him.

They did not just stop to toss him a coin or two, or ask God to bless his day with successful begging. Instead, they invoked the authority of God to heal the man. That day, the man, lame from birth, stood and walked.

A great crowd saw the miracle and gathered around, amazed. They were not hostile. They gazed in wonder. They all had seen this man for years, carried in and carried out, unable to move on his own. Now, he was running and leaping in joy. The healing of the lame man got their attention.

Peter and John quickly told them it was not their own power, but the power of Jesus that healed the man. A few weeks earlier, some of the people who heard this had called for Jesus’ crucifixion, but they did it in ignorance, not knowing who Jesus really was. Peter told them how the prophets prepared the way for Jesus and for this day. This healing was a sign that a time of great restoration had begun that will eventually rid the world of Satan, evil and death.

The amazed people hung on to Peter’s words. In Acts 4, we read that at least 5,000 men believed the message because of what they saw that day.

A display of God’s power prepared the way. The people could not deny what happened. Arguments alone would not have won so many people.

This same power of God is available in our own day. Our evangelists in India, many from non-Christian backgrounds, experienced healing and deliverance which brought them to Christ. Now, they go into unreached areas doing the same works in the power of the Holy Spirit that changed their own lives. Acts 3 is taking place all over India today—power encounters that convince many that Jesus’ power exceeds the power of their old deities.

Acts 3 is our model as well. Let us not be cowed by the anti-supernatural element in many of our churches that tries to preserve an orderly status quo but paralyzes our influence. Let us not say we aren’t good or pious enough for this. Like Peter and John, we have been made clean by the blood of Christ.

Around the world, people are convinced more by God’s power, less by arguments. In today’s evil world, why would Jesus abandon his most powerful weapons against Satan? Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever.

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Sep 16 2022
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A New Era in World History

Acts 2 is one of the most amazing chapters in the Bible. It marks the beginning of a new era in world history—the era of the Holy Spirit. That new era came by the will of God, but at the same time, God willed it to come through the actions of His children.

First, they waited on God. They had to wait in order to learn that God’s plans are bigger and better than their own. They had to abandon their own expectations. They waited on God because God was waiting on them to adopt heart attitudes needed for receiving the Holy Spirit.

Up until now, most of the 120 who waited in the Upper Room expected Jesus to set up an earthly kingdom. They didn’t realize that such an earthly kingdom would become subject to the same forces that brought to ruin every other kingdom—the power of the devil.

Jesus’ plan was to completely rid the world of the devil’s power, and that depended upon the power of the Holy Spirit. Once their hearts were ready, the Holy Spirit came upon them with great power that shook the place and attracted thousands from the outside.

That day, Peter preached a short and simple message that went right to the point and pricked the hearts of those who heard it. There was nothing seeker-friendly about it, yet 3,000 people responded—a 2,600% increase in their number in less than 24 hours. All because the original group had gained expectant hearts to receive the Holy Spirit.

How many churches today expect great things from God through the power of the Holy Spirit? Today, too many churches depend upon seeker-friendly methods, intellectual powers of persuasion, social media and fancy programs, but the culture and influence of the church has continued to decline. Little is said in most churches about the Holy Spirit. In fact, there is much suspicion about the Holy Spirit. This must truly delight the devil!

Yes, we must establish a strong intellectual foundation for belief. But Peter was no intellectual. His blunt message to the crowd reflected his own “blue collar” background as a fisherman. His message demonstrates what the Holy Spirit can do through anyone who abandons his agenda and waits upon God with expectancy to do great and mighty things in his/her life.

A few years later, Paul came along and demonstrated his great intellectual powers in such works as his epistles to the Romans and the Ephesians. But even Paul knew that any intellectual arguments he used depended upon Holy Spirit power to truly transform lives.

Too many people treat Acts 2 as an isolated phenomenon. But Acts 2 lies at the heart of what Jesus introduced in John 14-16 regarding the Holy Spirit. In John 17, Jesus prayed not only for His disciples in their generation but all His people including our own generation and beyond. No, Acts 2 is not an isolated phenomenon but a model for every generation.

Like the 120 who waited for the coming of the Holy Spirit, we also must put aside our own expectations and wait upon God to work through us in Holy Spirit power to preach the gospel to all peoples. In the meantime, God waits for us…

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Aug 04 2022
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God’s New Thing

In our troubled days, it is good for us to remember and practice what Jesus’ disciples learned and did as they faced their own days of uncertainty when Jesus left them and ascended into heaven.

The memory of Judas’ betrayal of Jesus was fresh. Yes, Jesus rose from the dead, just as He said He would. But now, He did something totally unexpected. He was not about to restore the kingdom of Israel as they hoped. Instead, Jesus was about to leave them.

This caught them unawares. Now, the future became a question mark to them. Their expectations became irrelevant. Instead, Jesus promised them the coming of the Holy Spirit about whom they knew nothing. In effect, Jesus told them, “You are at the beginning of a New Thing.” But they still didn’t understand the implications of that “New Thing.”

In His departing conversation with His disciples, He gives them at least five instructions as they wait for this “New Thing.” His instructions carry down to us as we wait for God’s “New Thing” in our own time of uncertainty and change:

  • Give up your own expectations.
  • Trust Christ Himself alone—He has the bigger picture.
  • Don’t try to figure out the future. Live in the present and leave the future to God.
  • Trust the power of the Holy Spirit to take you to the promised “New Thing” about to happen.
  • Continue in prayer and supplication before God, and expect God to answer with great and mighty things.

This was a huge and painful paradigm shift for the disciples, but they still trusted Jesus to do what He promised.

Acts 1 tells us that 120 followers of Jesus gathered together and prayed “steadfastly,” that is, without distraction. They prayed “continually,” that is, with perseverance. They prayed “with one accord,” that is, with united focus on Jesus’ instructions. They prayed “with the women,” that is, with those they normally didn’t pray with but who shared the same Lord and destiny.

The Greek word for “to pray” (see also 1 Timothy 2:1) indicates they prayed prayers from the heart directly to God, not as a rote religious ritual. They did not just voice wishes but direct and specific requests of God. They kept a spirit of thanksgiving, remembering Jesus’ miracles, His resurrection, and everything else He did in love for multitudes of people. They knew they were not abandoned, though they still didn’t understand the profound changes about to happen.

They did not focus upon their weaknesses and failures. Their small number did not trouble them, nor the formidable power of the Romans or the impressive religious establishment. The size of the unbelieving community did not sway them, nor did their lack of social or religious influence.

They kept focused on the promise—the good future to which Jesus pointed them and the power He had already displayed in their own lives and those of others.

In our troubled days, let us remember that Jesus has not changed. The promise of the Holy Spirit He gave to His followers comes down to us today. Let us continue to follow the instructions Jesus gave His uncertain followers that we might live out the “New Thing” God has for us in our own day and for a world that still does not know Him.

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Jul 10 2022
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What To Do When You Fail

Do you ever feel you have failed your Lord? Have you felt you have denied Him by your words, deeds, inactions—even your cowardice? Let Jesus’ redemption of Peter in John 21 encourage you.

Like Peter, we set high standards for ourselves in our discipleship. We have the best of intentions. We will succeed where others have failed. Yet not only do we fail, but our failure is miserable, humiliating, wretched.

Look at Peter, boasting of his loyalty and bravery. But when the test came, he crumbled. He denied Jesus Christ three times, with curses, cowering even before an unnamed, powerless slave-girl.

Now, even after he witnessed the resurrected Christ, he felt like a failure, unworthy of his calling as a disciple of the Lord of Glory. In consternation and confusion, he went off to fish, joined by several of his fellow failed disciples. They caught nothing. Another failure.

Enter Jesus, who first reminds Peter of His original calling by giving Peter another miraculous catch of fish (see Luke 5). Then comes a remarkable confrontation. “Do you love [agape] me?” Twice, Jesus asks Peter, using the word for perfect love. Peter can only say, “I love [phileo] you,” a lesser form of love. Can any of us honestly do any better than Peter? Then Jesus comes down on Peter’s level and asks a third time, “Do you love [phileo] me?”

Remarkably, Jesus accepts Peter’s imperfect love. It is not perfect, but real. Peter reveals himself as a “flickering flame.” His love flickers, but it still burns, and Jesus is a master at fanning flickering flames (Matthew 12:20).

Jesus responds to Peter in three ways. His responses in the Greek reveal that His call on Peter’s life has not changed.

“Tend my lambs” suggests his future care of immature and vulnerable people in need of special attention. “Tend my sheep” indicates Peter’s role as an overseer, a shepherd. The third response should read, “Pasture the sheep,” indicating Peter’s role in preaching and teaching from the Word of God, inspired by the Holy Spirit.

Peter’s failures have broken him and given him humility, the very quality he needs (and we need) to perform his (and our) calling. We know from history that Jesus fanned Peter’s “flickering flame” into a refiner’s fire through the coming of the Holy Spirit. Days later, filled with the Holy Spirit, he stood before thousands, boldly preached his first sermon, and saw 3,000 people follow Christ.

Later, he stood before the same religious authorities who crucified Jesus, now threatening him with prison or worse if he continued to preach Jesus. Peter fearlessly responded, “It is better to obey God rather than man.” Jesus indicated that Peter would give his life for Him with a rare courage.

It is good for us to confess and grieve the times we deny Christ by our words, deeds and inactions, but it is better for us to remember how He has also filled us with the same Holy Spirit that filled Peter. He still says to us, as He said to Peter, “Feed my sheep.”

In our families, communities, workplaces, schools, creative activities, governments, and around the world, we have opportunities to do just that. Jesus has even told us as He told Peter, “Greater works than I have done, you will do.”

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Jul 09 2021
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What Does Abundant Life Look Like?

In John 9, Jesus heals a beggar blind from birth, enabling him to live a full life, not just live on the edge of life. The religious leaders of the day opposed this healing for silly and irrelevant reasons. In John 10, Jesus responded to the religious leaders with the parable of the Good Shepherd (Himself), contrasting Himself with the false shepherds of that day.

Unlike the false shepherds, Jesus says, “I have come that they might have life and have it more abundantly.”

What would Jesus say about today’s prominent religious leaders and Christians? Do we live the abundant life, reflecting our Master? Truth is, to the world, the church often appears weak and irrelevant. Too many churches do not preach the Word. They dilute the gospel and its mission. Its people are rampant in unbelief. Its young people look elsewhere for answers the church does not provide.

Christian marriages fail as often or more than those in the world. Where are the signs and wonders? How many churches go for years without a single conversion or baptism?

Recently, I heard of a church that was closed down and sold to Buddhists. Weak preaching and teaching and lack of faith in God’s power gave the people no motivation to keep coming. The few who were left sold the building to the highest bidder. False shepherds.

We have more Bible reference books than ever, better-trained pastors—but more ignorance. Most people still cannot give a reason for the hope in them. They don’t know how to pray with power. Again, false shepherds.

As a church, we have allowed the world’s agenda to govern our lives and attitudes. Few Christians develop a Christian worldview, applying Bible standards to situations in the natural world. Is it any wonder the humanists and secularists have taken over? It is because of our weakness, not their strength. False shepherds, just as in Jesus’ day.

What does the abundant life look like? Think of Brother Lawrence, a lay brother in a Carmelite monastery, a man of limited schooling, born in poverty, suffering from wounds of war and imprisonment, awkward and rough in appearance. He had none of the things most of us count as needful for life. Yet he exhibited a profound wisdom found in few men. He found such joy in practicing the presence of God, he became the envy of all who met and knew him.

The collection of his letters and conversation, “The Practice of the Presence of God,” has become a classic portrait of the abundant life Jesus intended for all of us.

What does this mean for us today? To really believe and practice God’s presence means His presence will be strong in our meetings. We will no longer need gimmicks to attract people. People will hunger for God’s Word and ways. Preachers will preach with Holy Spirit anointing. The church will manifest the presence of God in signs and wonders.

Salvations will come by the millions from every class and age group. The love of God in our midst will overcome oppression, racism, immorality, hatred, anger, fear. Social transformation will take place. The gospel will burst out of the churches into the surrounding communities and into other nations of the world. Laws will change, becoming more righteous and just.

Amen! Let that day come, Lord Jesus!

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Jun 06 2021
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Which Camp Are You In?

The Gospel of John’s account in chapter 9 of Jesus’ healing of the blind man at the temple gate that we examined last month brings us to another side of the matter.

John shows us that the blind man’s healing did not suddenly end all his problems. When Jesus healed him, not everyone rejoiced and praised God for this good thing.

The religious Pharisees became very upset. Although the man had sat at the temple gate for years, they apparently paid no attention to him. They did not take compassion on him. They did nothing to help the man to better his condition. They just left him at the gate to beg and barely survive. They just assumed the man was a sinner who deserved his fate. Jesus’ compassionate act put them in an embarrassing position.

These religious Pharisees were those to whom others traditionally looked for religious advice and counsel. But Jesus demonstrated godly authority, power and compassion they did not possess. He demonstrated that they were really charlatans. With this healing, they must humble themselves and submit to Jesus or resort to reckless means to discredit Jesus. They unwisely chose the latter course.

Jesus’ healing violated their protocols about how and when these things should happen. Also, since they were unable to heal the blind man themselves, they feared that people would look to Jesus rather than to themselves as their authority. None of this met the man’s real needs.

They regarded themselves as a religious elite. To them, Jesus threatened the social order, namely, their own power. Behind their anger lay fear and jealousy because this man, Jesus, from a small town demonstrated God’s power and authority they lacked.

These religious phonies also reacted by attacking the healed man’s character and throwing him out of the temple as an example to others who dared to challenge them. They wanted to intimidate others who might question them. They refused to consider the possibility that Jesus’ power to heal demonstrated His authentic authority from God. Their power over the people meant more to them than a diligent search for truth.

The work of Jesus always winds up dividing people into two camps—those who accept His transforming power and those who rely only upon themselves, even when they use religious terms.

Does not this story of the blind man reflect what has happened to many of you who read this? Like the blind man, you have submitted yourselves to Him, but there are people in your lives who do not rejoice with you in your new-found freedom. They see you as a threat.

Jesus did not leave the man alone in his predicament with the religious leaders. He came to him and encouraged him. The man submitted to Jesus, and Jesus met the man’s need in the face of fierce opposition. He will do the same with each of us who puts our ultimate trust in Him.

We believers in Jesus Christ must ask ourselves: Are we more like Jesus or the Pharisees in our attitudes toward those who suffer for no fault of their own?

Let us who know the power and authority of Jesus Christ in our lives help to make His saving power manifest in all of India and throughout the world.

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