Ministry updates!

Dear FRIENDs,

Sorry for not being able to put my messages on this blog for sometime now. I would love to upload the audio file of my Sunday message, but somehow I am not able to. I am working on it and need your patience and help.

In this post, I want to review briefly what God is doing in our midst and some of our key learning.

Thank God who is guiding us in spite of our many shortcomings. The study of Daniel helped us to see the sovereign rule of God over history, more specifically empires  that would rule the earth leading up to the end time and Second Coming of the Messiah to rule all the nations. God destined Babylon, Persia, Greek and Roman empires to rule the nations until His Son comes and takes the throne of God’s government of the earth. God’s Son Jesus has all authority in heaven and the earth. But he must claim his authority and this would involve hostile takeover of the government of the earth when Jesus Christ will engage the Beast (Anti Christ) and his supporters in a bloody battle at the end of a period of three and half years, otherwise known as the Great Tribulation. The outcome of this battle is that the saints will rule with Jesus in the Millennial kingdom for a 1000 year to prepare the earth for perfect righteousness until the Father Himself comes down and makes this earth His governmental center. Hallelujah! What the first Adam failed to do, the last Adam (Jesus Christ) will accomplish! In God’s perfect will and plan we are privileged to be alive at a period of time when God’s plans are going to be fulfilled, possibly before our very eyes! And this is our privilege as forerunners to open the book which Daniel was told to seal! God is raising up forerunners who will understand God’s end time plan and fulfill it. We no longer study Daniel for learning his resolution of faith or his prayer life or leadership qualities, though we value them and must have those qualities if we indeed are true Christians. Rather we need to study Daniel to get the revelation that was given to Daniel, namely the end time plans of God! Exciting!

After Daniel, we have taken the ambitious plan to study the person and the work of the Holy Spirit from Genesis to Revelation. We studied the work of the Holy Spirit in Old Testament in one single lecture. We learned that God is living: He is speaking and acting in our time and space. And He speaks and acts in our time and space through the Third Person of the blessed Trinity, namely the Holy Spirit. We all have names of our heroes in the Old Testament. But what made them the hero we know them to be? It was the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives. Whenever the Holy Spirit worked in a person three things happened. 1) The spoke extraordinary things which they could not have said otherwise. The examples are the prophets. 2) They did extraordinary work which they could not have done otherwise. The examples are the miracles. 3) Ordinary people became a person they could not have become naturally. Then, the hope of the people in the Old Testament can be summarized in this: The Old Testament hoped for a Spirit-filled King ruling over Spirit-filled citizens. This we know as the Kingdom of God and we were told to pray for this by none other than the King himself: “May your kingdom come!”

In the second lecture, I looked at the work of the Holy Spirit in Matthew, Mark and Luke. The Bible does not include the records and writings of about 400 years between Malachi until Matthew. The simple reason being the phrase “This is what the Lord Almighty says”, which appears more than 3000 times in the Old Testament, does not appear in any of the records and books during this 400 years between the OT and NT. No one performed any miracle by the Holy Spirit during this period. No on prophesied during this period. No one was filled with the Holy Spirit during this period. However, as we read the gospels suddenly we see the activity of the Holy Spirit right from the birth of the Messiah and his forerunner, John the Baptist. John was filled with the Holy Spirit even from his birth, nobody else in history have been including Jesus Christ. Then Gabriel tells Mary that the Holy Spirit would perform a miracle in her womb to let her deliver baby as a virgin. As soon as Mary visits Elizabeth, she becomes full of the Holy Spirit and praises the work of God in Mary. Then Mary filled with Holy Spirit sings what is known as the Magnificat. Even Zechariah when his mouth opens gets filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesies.  Suddenly after a gap of 400 years, we have this description of people getting filled with the Holy Spirit and speaking divine words! Miracles happening as a result of the Holy Spirit’s work.

Then we encounter another silence period. From his birth until he was about 30 years old when he started his public ministry, nothing is recorded about Jesus. And once Jesus is baptized by Jesus, suddenly the gospel narrators tell us that the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus like a dove; He got filled with the Holy Spirit; He was led by the Holy Spirit to be tempted by the devil; whenever Jesus preaches people feel authority in his sermons; Jesus begins to perform extraordinary miracles; he attributes his miracles to the work of the Holy Spirit. What is happening? Why is such a thing not written about him when he was growing until 30. I think for the simple reason that until He was filled with the Holy Spirit at his baptism, he could not deliver any sermon, he could not perform any miracle and he was no special then anybody else. I think that was the very reason people were so surprised because he was not the same person any more. His words were different, his deeds were different and he claimed to be someone (the Son of God) he did not claim earlier, at least not publicly. Jesus himself makes this clear in his hometown synagogue, when he takes the scroll of Isaiah and reads a portion of scripture from Isaiah that anticipates a Spirit-filled King. Jesus declares that He was that Spirit-filled King Isaiah had spoken about, the King who delivers God’s messages (good news), the King who performs miracles (sight to the blind etc) and the King who establishes justice and righteousness in the society (year of Lord’s favor refers to the Jubilee year when all wealth returns to their original owners; slaves restore their right to live as free men etc). What we often miss while studying this person is how could Jesus do all this? Jesus himself said, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me…” He could not do these things earlier, because the Spirit of the Lord was not on Him. But not only Jesus spoke and did extraordinary things, He promised that his followers would do greater things than what He did. My question is how? By what means? The answer is the same: When they too are Spirit-filled!

The New Testament, especially the book of Acts, it is one thing to be born again and believe in Jesus, but it is quite another thing to be filled with the Holy Spirit. What is more, Jesus declared the Holy Spirit is a gift from God. But this gift is not given until we ask with persistence and boldness. In Luke 11, Jesus makes a statement that the Father would give the Holy Spirit to those who ask, after teaching about prayer as a way of asking and knocking. If we are to be effective in serving others for the Lord, like Jesus we too need the filling of the Holy Spirit! Many evangelical leaders have fooled us by telling that when we were born again we received the Holy Spirit. If it were so, what was the need for the 120 to wait until they received the Holy Spirit. By this I am not denying the work of the Holy Spirit in giving new birth. But that does not mean a person is automatically filled. Filling requires asking, knocking, waiting until we receive. I feel sorry that nobody taught me to ask for the Holy Spirit. But I want to make a new beginning and ask God until He gives me the Holy Spirit. I do not hesitate to confess that only when God fills me with the Holy Spirit then I will be effective in serving others for Him. This is my prayer and appeal to our community members. Ask until you are filled! Let’s have our own Pentecost. We will continue our study about the Holy Spirit in other books and epistles of the New Testament believing that there is much more exciting and deeper experience of Christian truth awaiting us.

In the recent time I was blessed to know Pastor Daniel Senapati from Orissa. He got my contact number through one of my relative and met him for the first time. From being only son of his parents in a Hindu family, he was converted in 1987. Due to severe rejection from his family to the point of disowning him, he moved away to a Bible school, and returned to Orissa and served Christ’s ministry in Kalahandi, and Kandhamal. The Lord used him with signs and wonders to lead people to Jesus. The devil also worked hard and three times he miraculously escaped death at the hand of fanatic mobs. In the Kandhamal violence 8 out of 11 churches established by him were completely destroyed and he was a eye witness of the violence. Most of his church members had to run the jungle to escape death where they spent days without food and clothes. When he was giving us his testimony, what surprised us most was that nobody denied their Christian faith in front of such severe and deadly persecutions. A young mother who had already lost her husband in the violence told the persecutors that they could kill her and her child but she would not deny her faith in Jesus. Such stories of faith along with the photographs and videos he showed us moved many of us to think about the kind of faith the people have in Jesus.

God has given a special burden to this man of God to take care of 52 children who lost their parents in the violence. He was able to send 15 of them to Bangalore to someone who was willing to take care. Remaining 37 children in the age group of 3-12 are living with him and he loves and cares for them as his own children. By sharing his testimonies whatever little support he receives from people he uses for feeding the children and their education etc. This is an amazing story that only reflects the heart of Jesus in a redeemed man. We thank God for such sacrificial servants in His work. In God’s leading and plan we look forward to partner with P. Daniel and especially support the children. Sharing P. Daniel’s vision we want to pray that many of these children will grow to be living testimony of God’s love and care in spite of what they have gone through in their life. Let’s pray for the Spirit of Elijah that returns the heart of the father to their children. Let’s return our hearts to our spiritual children who are in need of love and care and blessings.

Thank you for your prayers and love. May God bless you!