Melody and chords for When I Survey the Wondrous Cross in my format for guitar.
Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.
Archives For Discipleship
Recently, because of my being naïve and careless, a scammer succeeded in defrauding me of a fair amount of money. In keeping with the spirit of Jesus’ teaching to pray for those who wrong us (Matt. 5:44), I offer this prayer for the person who scammed me:
Heavenly Father, please deal with this person in such a way that he will repent of his sin of stealing before it is eternally too late. Let the wickedness of this wicked person come to an end.
If it would please You, so orchestrate the circumstances of this person’s life that it would be unmistakable to him that You have supernaturally intervened so that he “is snared in the work of his own hands” (Ps. 9:16) and thereby brought to repentance. Please also send someone into his life who will give him Your gospel concerning Your Son so that he will believe in Him and have his sins forgiven.
In Jesus name, Amen.
See also Deliverance through Prayerful Persistence
Mere Coincidence or Answered Prayer?
Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.
I have been blogging since February of this year and have learned much about writing, blogs, PHP, CSS—and the practices of spammers. Having to deal regularly with many spam messages, I think that spammers need to consider solemnly that Jesus taught, “Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment” (Matt. 12:36). He
emphasizes the importance of what people say by speaking of every careless word they utter. When people speak lightly without paying serious attention to what they are saying, the careless word, the word uttered without any thought of the effect that it will have on other people, then that word shows something of what they are, deep down . . . This makes it more significant than the person uttering it may think, and it will be taken into account on Judgment Day. Jesus is saying that in the end we must all give account of ourselves and that words we take lightly will then be seen to have meaning, for they show our innermost being.—Morris, The Gospel according to Matthew, 322; bold words are in italics in the original
Based on the content of the spam messages that I am receiving on my site, I believe that their authors are sadly storing up for themselves wrath from God in the Day of Judgment.
Every spam message that supposedly comments on a post but does not have anything to do with the post itself displays a failure to love one’s neighbor as oneself. Spammers fail to obey the Golden Rule of doing to others what they would want to have done to themselves.
May God grant spammers repentance of their multiplying idle words through their worthless messages that display their lack of love for their fellow man.
Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.
On day 161 of 2011, I reached the halfway mark for reading through the LXX this year: 461 chapters/920 total! Lord willing, I may yet make it through the Bible in Greek this year!
Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.
Saint Augustine noted long ago a lack of proper consideration by man of the marvelous nature of the creation of man by God:
Men go abroad to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars; and they pass by themselves without wondering. —Quoted in Fearfully & Wonderfully Made: A Surgeon Looks at the Human & Spiritual Body, 5
More recently, Spurgeon made comments along the same lines:
We need not go to the ends of the earth for marvels, nor even across our own threshold; they abound in our own bodies. —The Treasury of David, Vol. III, 262
In support of these remarks, consider that
the simple act of walking into a room and immediately recognizing all the objects in it requires more computing power than a dozen of the world’s top supercomputers put together. —The Wonder of Man, 19
The human frame is so admirably constructed, so delicately combined, and so much in danger of being dissolved by innumerable causes, that the more we think of it the more we tremble, and wonder at our own continued existence. . . . To do justice to the subject, it would be necessary to be well acquainted with anatomy. I have no doubt that a thorough examination of that ‘substance which God hath curiously wrought’ (verse 15), would furnish abundant evidence of the justness of the Psalmist’s words; but even those things which are manifest to common observation may be sufficient for this purpose. —TOD, 277
Those who were skilful in Anatomy among the ancients, concluded from the outward and inward make of a human body, that it was the work of a Being transcendently wise and powerful. . . . Galen was converted by his dissections, and could not but own a Supreme Being upon a survey of this his handiwork. —Ibid, 280
We today have much more knowledge of anatomy than any of the ancients ever had. For example, imagine putting the whole Bible onto one photographic slide in such a way that it would still be readable. Though doing so would be an incredible feat, compare that with the fact that to put the equivalent of the information contained in one DNA molecule onto one photographic slide would require our being able to put 7.7 trillion readable copies of the whole Bible onto that one slide:
If we want to obtain the DNA packing density on a [single] photographic slide . . . we would have to divide its surface into 2.77 million rows and 2.77 million columns and copy an entire Bible in a readable form in each of the tiny rectangles formed in this way. . . . Even if it were possible to achieve such a photographic reduction, then we would still only have a static storage system, which differs fundamentally from the dynamic storage system of DNA. —In the Beginning Was Information, 192-93
Learning of such wonders as that of the DNA molecule certainly supports the following comments:
The all-seeing God is also almighty, the resources of whose power are already revealed to me by the amazing complexity of my own physical body, which he made for me. Confronted with this, the psalmist’s meditations turn to worship. —Knowing God, 86
Has it ever been the case for you that contemplation of your physical body has led you to worship God, its Creator, for how fearfully and wonderfully He has made you?
Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.
This last act of Christ, namely, his judging the world, is a special part of his exaltation and honour bestowed upon him, ‘because he is the Son of Man,’ John v. 27 . . . In this will the glory of the Christ’s sovereignty and power be eminently and illustriously displayed before angels and men. And this is that great truth which he commanded to be preached and testified to the people, namely, that it is ‘he which was ordained of God to be the Judge of quick and dead.’
—Sermon XLII. Christ’s Advent to Judgment, being the fourth and last degree of his Exaltation, illustrated and improved in The Works of John Flavel, Vol. 1, 525
THESE words are part of a sermon preached by St. Peter to Cornelius and his friends, wherein the apostle briefly declareth unto them the chief particulars in the history of Christ, together with some main points of Christian doctrine most fit for them to know; particularly he doth in these words express the point concerning the future judgment; reporting that our Lord especially did charge his apostles to preach unto the people and testify; that is, first publicly to declare and explain, then by convenient proofs, especially by divine attestations, to evince and persuade this point; the importance whereof, and eminence among other Christian doctrines, doth hence plainly appear, that the author of our faith did make so especial provision, and gave so express a charge concerning the promulgation and probation thereof: the which circumstance is indeed remarkable and weighty; but I shall insist on it, meaning immediately to set upon considering the point itself, as it is here laid down in these terms; that it is he which was ordained by God to be Judge of quick and dead: in which words are couched three particulars most considerable.
—The Works of Isaac Barrow, D. D. with a Life of the Author, 383-384
Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.
Melody and chords for Like A River Glorious in my format for guitar.
My sermon from Wednesday night: Honor God by Being Filled with the Holy Spirit
Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.
Tonight, I had the privilege of preaching at my church, Mount Calvary Baptist, in Greenville, SC. I preached from Acts 6-7.
This passage reveals at least four ways that we are to honor God by being filled with the Holy Spirit:
The record of his initial selection to his ministry shows emphasis on Stephen’s being filled with the Spirit (6:3, 5). His being first on the list of exemplary men among the multitude of disciples shows that he was a man whose life openly honored God (good reputation; full of faith, wisdom, and power). He thus first exemplifies the truth that God wants us to honor Him by being filled with the Spirit in our daily living.
Stephen honored God in his subsequent ministry because he was filled with the Spirit (implicit in the miraculous ministry that he had [6:8] and explicit in the irresistible ministry that he had [6:10]). His irresistible ministry through the Spirit was a fulfillment of promised help from Jesus (Luke 21:15; Mark 13:9).
Like Stephen, second, God wants us to honor Him by being filled with the Holy Spirit in our ministering for Him. The gospel is to come to people through us not in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance (1 Thess. 1:5).
Because of his faithful ministry for God, Stephen faced persecution by unrighteous authorities (6:11-8:1). He honored God in how he faced such persecution.
Stephen faced his persecutors by confronting them with a lengthy message (7:2-53) that showed that he had allowed God’s words to dwell richly in him. The Spirit guided him as he defended the faith, using the truths that he had no doubt stored up in his heart over the years.
Stephen bore abundant testimony to God and Christ by speaking of God more than 30 times. Through a lengthy recounting of Israelite history, he challenged these people about their always resisting the Holy Spirit, even as their fathers had (7:51). His doing so implies his being filled with the Spirit.
He then bore testimony to the chief way in which they had resisted the Spirit: they martyred the Just One of whom the prophets had spoken (7:52). They were persecuting Stephen for his testimony to Jesus about what He would do to the temple and the Law; Stephen turned the tables on them by showing how God does not dwell in temples made with hands and that they therefore had a misplaced focus on the physical structure (7:48-50) and how they had not kept the Law themselves (7:53).
His testimony climaxed with testimony to Christ as the One standing on the right hand of God. Luke’s record emphasizes that truth through two successive statements (7:55-56).
Stephen’s Spirit-filled identification and glorification of Jesus as the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God was another fulfillment of Jesus’ promise (Mark 13:11). His use of both Daniel 7 (passage from the OT that is the most used by the NT writers) and Psalm 110 (passage from the OT that is the most quoted by the NT writers) shows strong emphasis on Jesus as the Judge at the right hand of God (cf. “And hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man” [John 5:27]).
In the midst of gross injustice, Stephen bore Spirit-filled Christlike testimony to Jesus as the Judge at the right hand of God. Powerless to resist their perversion of justice, Stephen entrusted himself to the One who is ready to Judge the living and the dead.
From his Christlike example, we see, third, that God want believers who, for their faith, face persecution to honor Him by bearing Spirit-filled, Christlike testimony to Jesus as the supreme judicial Authority at the right hand of God.
Because he honored God in defending the faith in the midst of official persecution, Stephen was martyred (7:57-8:1). From his example, we learn fourth that God wants believers who face martyrdom to honor Him by Spirit-filled Christlike prayer.
Jesus had prayed, “Father into Thy hands I commend My Spirit” (Luke 23:46). He thereby entrusted Himself to the One who judges righteously (1 Pet. 2:23). Stephen’s first prayer (7:59) displayed his entrusting himself to the One whom He believed judges righteously, Jesus as the God-exalted Son of Man.
Stephen’ second prayer honored God by displaying his Christlike desire and request that his persecutors would not have their sin laid on them (7:60). Jesus had prayed for His persecutors, “Father forgive them” (Luke 23:34). Stephen prayed to Jesus, the Son of Man, who, even when He was on the earth did supernatural works to prove to people that He had authority on earth to forgive sins (Luke 5:24-25). Having been given all authority in heaven and earth, He now is the Son of Man at the right hand of God who forgives people’s sins.
Stephen’s unnatural prayer—he did not pray for vengeance—revealed the control that the Spirit exerted in his life so that he was what Jesus wants us all to be: people who “pray for them which despitefully use [us], and persecute [us]” (Matt. 5:44).
His prayer displays the heart of God who does not take any pleasure in the death of the wicked and does not want anyone to perish; in fact, He is a God who delights in mercy!
Through the account of Stephen’s life and martyrdom, God wants us to learn to honor Him by being filled with the Spirit 1) in our daily lives, 2) in our ministering for Him, and 3) in our facing persecution (and perhaps even martyrdom for some) for the faith by bearing Spirit-filled Christlike testimony and praying Spirit-filled Christlike prayers.
Let us all honor God by being filled with the Holy Spirit!
Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.
In high school, I suffered at the hands of a few people who persecuted me although I had never done anything wrong to them. In study hall one day, one of these thugs came up behind me and punched me in the back very hard.
I hated him for years after that incident. I remember my wanting to take a baseball bat and smash his head in because of how he had unjustly injured me.
After I was saved, God changed me so that instead of wanting revenge, I prayed for his salvation. Through His Spirit’s work in my life, He made me one who prayed for my persecutors the way Jesus taught: “Pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you” (Matt. 5:44).
“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Cor. 5:17). Praise God for His marvelous grace!
Has God made you a new creature in Christ? If He has, there will be real changes in your life.
Have you experienced such changes? If not, I urge you to turn to Christ while there is yet time.
Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.
As Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons went to sleep in their station wagon on January 22, 1999, they surely had no idea what was soon to happen to them:
. . . [Dara] Singh and his mob approached [them] at around 12:20 a.m. . . ., running [in] from the fields, armed with lathis [sticks] and trishuls (tridents – three-pronged spears). . . . [A]s they approached [the station wagon], they began screaming.
Singh struck first, wielding an axe at the tyres, deflating them. The others broke windows and prevented the Staines from escaping. Graham was beaten mercilessly and his boys were not spared either. All three were pierced with trishuls. Singh then put straw under the vehicle and torched it. In seconds, the vehicle was on fire. Graham held his two boys close to him. Anyone who knew him would say that the one name on his lips would be—Christ Jesus.
The killers stood there and watched the three roast alive as the fire consumed the vehicle.
—Burnt Alive: The Staines and the God They Loved, 35
As the news of the martyrdom of this great man and his two sons spread around the world, speedy and widespread criticism abounded for this horrific display of inhuman wickedness. The authorities dealt with the perpetrators, punishing them for murdering these helpless people.
Graham Staines and his sons suffered martyrdom for the sake of their faith. Let us allow the memory of their martyrdom to motivate us to be true to Him even as they were.
Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.
