Biblical Thoughts

  When disciples approached Jesus to teach them to pray, he gave them a model prayer, famously known as the Lord’s prayer. While it teaches us how to pray, it provides a deep insight into the mind of Jesus. It uncovers the enduring intimacy between the son and the father. More importantly, it verily defines how the relationship between man and his creator God should be. Jesus begins by calling out to his father “Our Father in Heaven”. This expression is an acknowledgement of the highest order as to who God the Father is, where he dwells and why he is. All living and non-living things have all their origin from heaven. They have their being in him (Rom 17:28).   While on earth, Jesus could not but acknowledge how exalted the heaven is, which is the throne of God, the seat of all creations, the source of all life. Men of earth marvels at the wonders of the earth whereas the Son marvels at the heaven itself. What is earth after all for one who descended from heaven. As the heav...

    Can man earn the favor of God through good works ? If it could, why did God had to send his son on the earth to redeem man? This could be explained using the principles of mathematics. Let us place the finite man at Point 0 and position the infinite God at Point ∞ on a line segment . Let us assign a score 1 for one unit of good work. So, if a person does 10 good works, he or she gets score 10 and moves from Point 0 to Point 10.   However, ∞ - 10 = ∞. So, the distance remains ∞ even after moving by 10 units to the right as per the definition of   ∞.     Another person decides to do 1000 units of good work and moves to point 1000.   However, ∞ - 1000 = ∞. So the distance remains ∞.     This shows that a person must do infinite amounts of good works to get close to God. But a finite man in his finite life can never achieve this. So mathematically a person can never reach God by good works . However, God the Fat...

  Adam was not born of a woman. He was born of God. God formed him out of dust and breathed his breath into him and there he received God’s Spirit because the Spirit in a man is the breath of the Almighty (Job 32:8). So, Adam began in Spirit. He communed with God daily, walked hand in hand with him. God and Adam had an unbroken companionship because Adam remained in Spirit while he was in his body. To be in communion with God, one must remain in Spirit because God himself is a Spirit (John 4:24). When he ate the luscious apple which was a delight to his eyes (Genesis 3:6) from the forbidden tree, by way of obeying satan, he fell from the spiritual realm and fell to his flesh. This was his spiritual death. When Adam and Eve heard the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, they ran for cover and hid themselves among the trees in the garden (Gen 3:8). When God asked him, where are you (Gen 3:9), he was afraid to face him because those who are in the flesh cannot plea...

    As Jesus passed by Jericho, there was a blind man who shouted out Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me (Luke 18:38). A blind man addressing Jesus as son of David is as startling as ever. Neither the learned Pharisees, the Jewish priestly class, the Roman elite, nor those who witnessed his miracles could recognize who Jesus was. Here we have a blind man who had no physical vision possessing unimaginable knowledge of who Jesus was. How could this blind man address Jesus by his Messianic and prophetic title “son of David?” God had spoken to David “When your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever (2 Samuel 7:12-13). Jesus came from the tribe of Judah same as David, and his kingdom is eternal and timeless. This prophecy is fulfilled through Jesus. ...

  Faith is the assurance of things hoped for (Heb 11:1). So then fear is the assurance of things dreaded for.   Faith is the assured conviction of the unseen we hope for, fear is the assured conviction of the unseen we dread for. Faith is borne out of our dependence in God’s faithfulness. Fear is borne out of our dependence in Satan’s unfaithfulness. Faith takes you beyond the visible, while fear traps you within the visible. Faith propels you into the unknown, while fear fills you with fear for the unknown. Faith pulls you out of the cage of circumstances; fear keeps you bound. Faith emerges from the ashes; fear burns and bleeds in the ashes. Faith builds imagination, fear kills it. Faith is faithful, fear is fearful. Faith drives you into your future, fear holds you in the past. Faith creates the future, fear destroys it. Faith releases, fear restricts. Faith set you free into the freedom in Christ, but fear sets you into slavery to satan. Faith is God-confiden...

    Esau had fallen out of the covenant as he traded his precious covenantal birthright for a bowl of soup. Later he picked his wives from the pagan world (Gen 36:3) much to the disappointment and disagreement of Isaac and Rebekah. He mixed his blood with the pagan’s. He even married his cousin Basemath who was the daughter of Ishmael (Gen 36:3) who himself was driven out of the home of promise by Abraham and Sarah. As we read through Genesis, we chance upon chapter 36 which is exclusively kept for the descendants of Esau. It happens precisely after the burial of Isaac in chapter 35. Why was one chapter of Genesis devoted to Esau by the Providence? Did the author plan to bring a focus on Esau before he loses his presence among the descendants of Jacob, the children of promise? What do we learn from this chapter full of antique names? What is its significance?     When Rebekah found the twins struggling in the womb, she reached out to God and the Lord said to he...

  There are many lessons to be learnt from Paul’s final sea voyage to Rome which turned out to be a major disaster due to crew’s disobedience to God’s word and yet a salvage due to God’s grace. This voyage tells how God sustains a fallen world through his people though they remain a thin minority. It tells how much leadership Godly people can demonstrate in a hostile world if they are led by the Spirit from the example of Paul. Paul was undergoing a trial under procurator Felix after Jews accused him of being a ringleader of the sect of Nazarenes and stirring up riots among them (Acts 24:5). The case dragged on for more than two years. Festus who replaced Felix did not declare his innocence to please the Jews though no charges could be proven. Meanwhile Paul made an appeal to be tried before Caesar. Festus consented as Paul was a Roman citizen and was taken to Rome for a trial. A centurion named Julius was given the charge to escort him to Italy. Paul was accompanied by Luke as...