kosarajuraj

Giving To GOD “Honor the Lord with your possessions and with the first fruits of all your increase”- Proverbs 3:9 God does not ‘need’ our money to get His work done.  He is sovereign and could do it without our help.  Yet He has arranged it so that His work often depends on our generosity. At least two things happen when we give.  First, when we give with the right attitude, God reminds us that what we have isn't really ours. He gave us everything we have, and it actually belongs to Him.  King David prayed, “All things come from You, and of Your own we have given You” (I Chronicles 29:14).  We need to learn that truth. Second, when we give, we help meet the needs of others whom God also loves.  By giving to others we testify to God’s love for them, and we point them to the greatest gift of all—God’s gift of His Son for our salvation. Someone has said that our lives should resemble channels, not reservoirs.  A reservoir sto...

                                                        commons.wikimedia.org An Effective Witness The vast majority of the world's people are religious, and at the very deepest level of their being, it is their religion that governs them. We can't even begin to understand them without knowing of their religions. We Christians know that Jesus commanded us to make disciples of all nations (Matt. 28:18–20). We also know that he commanded us to love our neighbors as ourselves (Mark 12:33) and to follow the Golden Rule (Matt. 7:12), treating others the way we want to be treated. Suppose my neighbor already believes in a god of grace (as many Hindus and Buddhists do), and I assume he knows only a god of law, and our conversation reveals my lack of understanding to him. In other words, he believes his god forgives sins out of...

The wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable” – James 3:17 Today there is more knowledge in the world than ever before.  Computers or fiber optic cables can transmit information in a millisecond to any part of the globe.  More facts have been discovered in the past century than in all of the other centuries of human history combined. Yet the same century also recorded the most devastating wars and the fiercest genocides in human history.  We have never been farther solving our basic problems. The Bible says there are two kinds of wisdom in the world.  First, there is wisdom that is given by God, a wisdom that views life in terms of eternity.  Of this wisdom, the scripture says, “The wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy” (James 3:17). The second is the “wisdom of the world”, This wisdom excludes God and His moral standa...

The untouchablity feature is one of the cruelest features of the caste system. It is seen by many as one of the strongest racist phenomenon in the world. Untouchables or Dalits may not enter the higher-caste sections of villages, may not use the same wells, wear shoes in the presence of upper castes, visit the same temples, drink from the same cups in tea stalls, or lay claim to land that is legally theirs. This therefore makes them “untouchable.” Untouchables are seen as “pollutants” and their dwellings are distanced from the settlements of the four Indian Varna communities. The untouchables are not allowed to touch people from the four Varnas. They are not allowed to enter houses of the higher Varnas, enter the temples, drink from the same cups in tea stalls or use the same wells used by the Varnas, nor lay claim to land that is legally theirs. On public occasions, they are compelled to sit at a distance from the four Varnas. In regions where the attitude towards ...

So here was Joseph, at the bottom and in danger. Things could not be any worse! Yet, as we the readers know, Joseph was on a journey to becoming one of the most powerful and wealthiest men in the ancient world. This was the beginning of Joseph’s journey to success. From the pit, Joseph would be sold to a band of gypsies, who, in turn, would sell him as a slave to a prestigious Egyptian master. From there, Joseph would rise in rank only to be sent to prison on false accusations from his master’s wife. Yet, Joseph’s imprisonment would lead him to encounter one of Pharaoh’s servants who eventually would bring Joseph to Pharaoh himself in order to interpret a dream. Joseph would successfully interpret Pharaoh’s dream, which would earn him the honor of becoming second-in-command to Pharaoh, ruler of the world’s super-power. So in hindsight, Joseph’s “rock bottom” was the springboard for his rise to the top. His journey was full of strange twists and turns, ups and downs. A...