Christiangurl

          Mark 1: 35 (NIV)" Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up,  left the house and went off to a solitary place,  where he prayed ." This prayer was done after a busy day of ministry, including healing many people and casting out demons late into the night. This shows that even for Jesus, power and purpose came from his private time spent with God i.e. power to do his ministry and his purpose because following this prayer, when his disciples found him and said everyone was looking for him, Jesus stated that he needed to go to the nearby villages to preach, which was the purpose for which he came. This action shows the importance of prayer in Jesus's life, a habit of seeking private devotion with God. It shows Jesus’s dependence on God and he was prioritizing his relationship with the Father.          It is mentioned "as usual" (Luke 22:39-41 NIV) Jesus went to a so...

                                                             As I was reading the passage from 1 peter 5: 5- 11(NKJV), which is about Submitting To God And Resisting The devil , the latter half of verse 10 said “……after you have suffered for a while; perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you.’ I got stuck on the phrase ‘suffered fo r a while’.       Lately my mind has been wrestling with that word ‘while.' I know of God’s goodness. I have tasted and experienced it personally, I know of God’s Sovereignty. I know that nothing is impossible with God. There is not an iota of doubt in my mind about his capability to perform miracles or HIS grace or HIS mercy or HIS perfect ways or HIS perfect time. BUT it’s been 13 years since my last brain-surgery, since I have walked around witho...

                 When I was reading Nehemiah chapter 3, which is about rebuilding the wall and the different gates of the wall by various people, I came across lot of names of builders building different gates. The entire chapter was just names as to who rebuilt which section of which gate and who repaired what and the different goldsmiths and the perfume-makers, etc. It was a bunch of names and I was so tempted to skip the chapter as usual, because reading a bunch of names that we can’t even pronounce is not fun. And we are not “particularly” gaining any “insight” or being “spiritually awakened” from reading names. After all, we all have skipped chapters in Exodus with names!                 I remember an Achen(priest) had once, in my Sunday School class, said that you shouldn’t skip any chapter of the Bible because of names but read it entirely because what if God asks you about it when you meet h...

           Today in the morning while listening to Dr. Charles Stanley share from the passage of The Prodigal Son (Luke 15: 11-31),  He commented on how quick we all usually are to study   about the younger brother who left home and went away to a far-away country with his portion and lived in Sin. But we tend to overlook the older brother who didn’t leave home, who was with the father the whole time; who faithfully served his father. And yet this very older brother, was filled with unforgiveness,   bitterness, jealousy, self-righteousness, was disrespectful as soon as he felt he was betrayed or wronged. His attitude steered towards bitterness at the drop of an unpleasant circumstance. (luke 15:28-30)   That’s very true!             We usually sit and study and analyze the younger lost son’s actions and maybe, sometimes , compare ourselves with him. But what if we are like the ot...

                            I imagine The Apostle Paul's life when he was Saul. It would have been a good life before! He would have definitely been a part of an elite group of learned scholars.  He was a Pharisee, a Hebrew of Hebrews, of the tribe of Benjamin and he referred to himself as faultless and righteous, based on law (Philippians 3:4-5). Also, considering his status and position, his lineage, his sincere zeal and passion for the Pharisaic laws and his religion: prestige, privilege and power would have been synonymous with his name.                     But then when he chose to go by his Roman name Paul, when he became a follower of Jesus Christ, he experienced  a 180 degree flip in his life. He went from one extreme elite, “looked-up-by-the-world” group to the other extreme hardships–filled, sufferings and prison-filled, being beate...

               2 Corinthians 4:15-18  15  All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God. 16  Therefore we do not lose heart.  Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed    Day by day.   17  For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.   18  So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen,  Since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal  This is one of my go-to verses when I am feeling low and exhausted or anxious or stressful or worthless or hopeless because it instantly makes me feel just the opposite of all those words. Though The Bible as a whole, has the ability to change you, your feelings, your emotions and give you peace because it is filled with hope and promi...

  In Luke 5:4 Jesus is telling Simon (Peter) “Put into deep water and let down the net for a catch.” Jesus is talking to Peter in the context of catching fish i.e. go into deep water, away from the surface , let down your net and you will end up catching fish       Now,I feel, th is verse has a very deep meaning in itself for us. 'Go deep... for a catch' i.e. we should go deep , dive deep into the Word inorder  to Completely understand what God is trying to speak to us through his Word . We can’t just float on the surface and search for something deep and meaningful. We should be willing to not just read but meditate and study His word and seek His help. We should be ready to take our boats and go deep with Him, letting down our guard, our pride, our shields and being vulnerable and honest about our emotions with God and telling Him how exactly we feel  and asking God to intervene!   We have to dive deep!       Another noticea...

        ".....he fell to the ground in worship!"…Job 1:20   There is nothing unusual about this verse to understand because it's very common for us to fall on our knees and praise and worship! ! We all do it or have done it!            But it's very uncommon and extremely difficult for us to fall down and "worship", especially just after hearing a series of losses and disasters!!           Job is seen here doing just that!!          Job lost everything...Everything!! His wealth, his property,his life-long earnings and most importantly his children….all ten of them, on a single day!!        How great and unimaginable must be that loss!! In a matter of some hours,he was informed about the losses that happened ,the disasters that had taken place and the deaths of his loved ones...one after the other! Hearing all this ,he got up, tore his clothes and shav...

Luke 13:24 .. Jesus said "make every effort to enter through the narrow door...."         As a Sunday-school going young kid, I always imagined when a person died, he would go up to God and then God would show him two paths: a wide path and a narrow path, LITERALLY !! Like an actual wide road and a narrow road is placed in front of him and he has to make a choice,there and then! The wide path would lead to hell and the narrow road would lead to heaven .        The wide road was a Tar road, widespread and smooth and shiny, was very easy to walk on, looked very strong, good-looking, a concrete with no cracks ; a textbook "Pakka" road in hindi. ‎While the narrow path looked very parched and muddy and dusty with all cracks, and had red soil....a " Kaccha " road(I imagined my native place roads : my 'then' Kerala roads. ..("then" because now it's all Tarred ). A not-at-all smooth road with tiny stones and pebbles lying ...