kosarajuraj

Four children were engaged in the timeless "My Dad" argument. Tim said, "My dad works for the largest computer company in the world, and he travels everywhere." Kip replied, "Well, my father owns a shipping business with hundreds of boats, and even airplanes. I get to ride on boats and planes whenever I want." Darryl chipped in, "My father works for the government, and he even gets to talk to the president sometimes. We have security men at our house all the time." Stanley stood quietly for a moment, because his father had died not long before. Finally, he said, "My dad is in Heaven, and gets to see God every day." The other boys tried to think of something to say that could top that, but nothing came to mind. Nothing can top the Lord our God! He is above all else. Nothing compares to Him. Therefore, nothing else in this world is more worthy of our worship and devotion. Great is the Lord, and greatly to be ...

One-word descriptions of my condition? Disillusioned. Stretched. Learning. Lonely. Determined. Sincere. Uncertain. Afraid. But how can we live that pure life when our sin nature continues to tempt us so strongly? Our struggle is even harder because of the sinful world that surrounds us and presses in on us every time we turn on the TV or the radio. Even going to work, school or sport presents struggles if the people we’re with are worldly. God will often call us to face difficulties because of our obedience to Him. But it’s in those times that we must remain steadfast in our faithfulness and, like Joseph, trust God to bring us through it. Face any hardship with faith and trust God! From time to time I have seen people pour out their heart to the Pastor because their sins had been discovered and they were in serious trouble. They wept bitterly because they had devastated their marriage or ruined their reputation.      But later someone would tell me t...

“I will . . . lie down in peace . . . for you alone . . . make me dwell in safety” – Psalm 4:8  Billy Graham says, by any measure drug and alcohol dependence has become one of our greatest social problems.  The issue isn't just illegal drugs; many depend on alcohol or over-the-counter or prescription drugs just to face each day or to get to sleep at night. We are not the masters of our fate.    We think we control our lives---but we don't.  In an instant life can radically change---a car accident, a heart attack, a pink slip, a child's raging fever.  Frustrated researchers conquer one deadly virus, only to discover one even more lethal. I am not a doctor, of course, and I fully realize some drugs have a legitimate place under careful medical supervision.  But in my experience far too many people turn first to drugs or alcohol instead of to God.  Rather than face their problems and deal with them (with God’s help), they use drugs ...

You are no stranger to trials. The lab report came back malignant. The school called, demanding that you pick up your child who has just been expelled. Your husband informed you that he no longer wants to be married to you. Your boss called you into his office to let you know that you are being fired. Financial disaster seems certain while dependable friends seem to vanish. Yes, storms will come, and bad things will happen – even to fully devoted followers of God. No one would call George Smith a coward. Smith was a daring jet test pilot in the 1950's when the sound barrier was first being broken. He could face anything - until he had to bail out of a jet going 805 miles per hour. Smith survived, but was hospitalized for weeks. Smith shared his fear of ever flying again with one of the nurses who had become a friend. The nurse smiled and said, “I have an antidote to fear. It is courage. To have courage is to know the worst, and to discover that, in God's economy, ...

Let’s create a culture of kindness where acts of generosity and compassion permeate our days. These small acts of kindness are the force that will change the world. How might you contribute to that change in your “world” today? While most people walk through life asking how they can be blessed, the question we ought to be asking is, “How can I be a blessing to others?” Here’s why: When we bless others, it means that we have so much blessing in our own lives that we can share with others; we can lend and not borrow. When we bless others, we receive a joy that ironically is even greater than when we are the recipients of blessings from others. Most significantly, when we bless others, we please God, and God blesses us even more in return. We should start every day asking how we might be a blessing today. Explaining what it means to be a social entrepreneur, Kosaraju said,“Being a social entrepreneur means leveraging business principles and sensibilities to create ...

“There remains therefore a rest for the people of God" - Hebrews 4:5''   Billy Graham says, we are the most entertained generation in history.  Television sets pull in hundreds of channels; professional sports teams and pop music groups take in (and spend) billions of dollars; million s of people own second and third homes for vacations; our children are upset if they don't get the latest computer games for Christmas. I believe this frantic search for entertainment is a symptom of something deeper.  Some have suggested we are the most bored generation in history--and perhaps they are right.  Down inside is an empty place in our hearts--a restlessness, a search for inner peace and tranquility--that will not go away.  The irony is, the more we try to satisfy it, the less content we become.      I know little about nuclear fission or uranium and other elements used in making nuclear explosives.  Yet I believe in the atomi...

Suffering is the common lot of the human race.  We see pictures on television of people ravaged by war or famine, and our hearts are touched (as they should be).  But all around you are people who suffer in others ways: loneliness, fear, rejection, disability, grief, poverty, discrimination, addiction, or a multitude of problems. But God has compassion on us--He suffers with us.  He knows what we are going through, and He cares.  The greatest act of compassion in the history of the human race was the Cross, for there Christ suffered for us. He endured sin's penalty so we would not have to endure it ourselves. Now He calls us to have compassion on others, for His sake--suffer with them, and to point them to the One who suffered for them.  The Bible says, "Be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble" (I Peter 3:8) - Billy Graham “Neither death nor life,….nor things present not things to come,….shall be able to separate us from th...

The year 2014 marks the 13th anniversary of the horrific attacks by al-Qaeda terrorists on the U.S. Memories of the day that saw thousands of deaths and injuries and loss of pivotal infrastructure will always remain engraved in the hearts of Americans. Sept. 11, 2001 was one of the saddest days in the history of the world. On Thursday, the world will remember the day that changed the life of millions.      This date of September 11 will be engraved on the memories of people everywhere for generations to come.  On that terrible day when terrorists commandeered several passenger planes and killed thousands of innocent people in New York and Washington, we began to realize the true depths of evil in the human heart, and the uncertainty and fragility of life itself.      What lessons would God teach us from such an appalling tragedy? I confess I don't know the full answer.  Many people, I know, for the first time faced the sha...

Choosing to trust God is so daily, isn't it? When I only looked at the "what-ifs" of Tom’s job situation – the possible unemployment, the grueling process of job-hunting, the financial strain unemployment would bring, and the uncertainty of the economy – my faith and God-confidence shook and waned. Fear and doubt knocked on my heart, suitcases in hand, wanting to move in and take up residence. On the other hand, when I fixed my eyes on God, looked at His character and at the ways He had brought us through hard times in the past, my faith was strengthened. Courage, confidence and joy knocked on my heart! This reminds me of Chuck Swindoll’s  article’’ Fighting the Fast Fade’’ he says....  Jesus illustrated this struggle so vividly in Mark 4. Do you remember? The seed is carefully sown. Yet shortly after God's Word is heard, the enemy of our souls, Satan himself, comes and snatches away the biblical insights that have been deposited in our hearts. Is...

Billy Graham once said: Our modern philosophy of self-reliance and self-sufficiency has caused many to believe that we can make the grade without God. “Religion,” they argue, “may be all right for certain emotional people, but you can’t beat a man who believes in himself.” But this self-confident generation has produced more alcoholics, more dope addicts, more criminals, more wars, more broken homes, more assaults, more embezzlements, more murders, and more suicides than any other generation that ever lived. It is time for all of us to take stock of our failures, blunders, and costly mistakes. It is about time that we are putting less confidence in ourselves and more trust and faith in God Paul writes, 'Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God?...If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ' (Galatians 1:10 NIV). A true servant of God is content to work quietly in the shadows. They know that in Heaven God will openly reward people we...

Billy Graham once said our modern philosophy of self-reliance and self-sufficiency has caused many to believe that we can make the grade without God. “Religion,” they argue, “may be all right for certain emotional people, but you can’t beat a man who believes in himself.” But this self-confident generation has produced more alcoholics, more dope addicts, more criminals, more wars, more broken homes, more assaults, more embezzlements, more murders, and more suicides than any other generation that ever lived. It is time for all of us to take stock of our failures, blunders, and costly mistakes. It is about time that we are putting less confidence in ourselves and more trust and faith in God I wonder if you've ever thought about the incredible number of messages that rain down on us every day; television ads, e-mails, phone calls, magazines, junk mail. Videos, billboards, conversations—the list is almost endless.      How many of those shape our thinking?...

In life, we have a choice. We can expose the weaknesses of others, or we can look away and help cover it up. Likewise, we can expose the goodness of others or look away and ignore it. All too often it seems that people uncover the bad and bury the good. Strange though it may seem, these are often the people most difficult to love. Why? Because they feel unwanted, they are convinced that their lives are wasted, useless, and a bother. They wrestle with inferiority, thoughts of suicide, a twisted self-image, and a loss of self-respect. This results in all sorts of unattractive and unappealing responses. Because they entertain such a repulsive self-image, it is only natural that they act repulsively. This unpleasant lifestyle isolates them even more, of course, "confirming" their gutter-level opinion of themselves. What a sad, sad cycle! Instead of loving these people, we usually label them. Instead of caring, we criticize. Instead of getting next to them, we r...

We all have a dream. For some people it might be finding the right mate and living happily in a nice house with a white picket fence. For another person it might be achieving a certain level of success in a career and getting that corner office in a high-rise building. But, whatever your dream, all our dreams have something in common — as we achieve one dream, another appears and we are on the move once again. This is because, as the saying goes, “Life’s a journey, not a destination.” We can never truly arrive anywhere. We will be forever traveling, forever on the journey of life. Money and prosperity not only have the ability to create conflict between family members and friends, they can also wreak havoc in the Christian community. In many ways, nothing has a greater ability to derail ministry work than a rich endowment. Some Christian leaders may balk at this statement, but the truth is not hard to discern. Many of America's universities were founded on Christian...

I see people in pain, hurting, broken, and feeling as though they are without hope.  I’ve seen all of these things within just a few minutes of scrolling through the news feed of my Facebook page posted within the past 8 hours. I see broken people who need healing and restoration who are searching for real hope. God can heal a heart no matter how paralyzed, no matter how dead. And when I see the hopeless, and I feel I have nothing to bring relief, Do I believe that they can find comfort and peace and maybe even purpose again? I do. Isn’t that why I believe in a Savior? It’s the sick, it’s the hopeless that need one. It’s all of humanity really. It’s the worst thing watching someone you love in pain. But it’s this feeling that drives me to fight for their life. Because it makes me hurt a little less when I can bring a smile to their face. And I’m not the savior of the world but I can be a part in the healing process. I can be the hands and feet. As a Christian I...

We all have a dream. For some people it might be finding the right mate and living happily in a nice house with a white picket fence. For another person it might be achieving a certain level of success in a career and getting that corner office in a high-rise building. But, whatever your dream, all our dreams have something in common — as we achieve one dream, another appears and we are on the move once again. This is because, as the saying goes, “Life’s a journey, not a destination.” We can never truly arrive anywhere. We will be forever traveling, forever on the journey of life. I was reading an interesting article - “Is Change Really a Problem?” By Dr.Jack Graham. He rightly says: Not only that, but look at the number of options we have today. When I was growing up, we had two channels we could watch on television. Today, we can turn to hundreds of channels without finding a single thing worth watching! One thing I’ve noticed over the past 40 years is just how much...

Life in general is filled with highs and lows, but it can especially be apparent for those in Christian ministry leadership positions. Just look at how many pastors, youth ministers, and worship directors eventually leave ministry. The work wears on a person. The constant complaints of doing too little of this or too much of that can drain anyone. As a leader, you are expected to be there for everyone at every moment of the day. No one is able to be there at all times. Still, guilt fills the mind and causes you to doubt your ministry and your effectiveness. Malachi preached after Haggai, Zechariah, and Nehemiah—about 430 B.C. The Temple had been rebuilt for almost a century, and the people were losing their enthusiasm for worship. Apathy and disillusionment had set in because the exciting messianic prophecies of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Micah had not been fulfilled. Many of the sins that had brought the downfall of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. were still being practiced in Judah. Thi...

There is a lot of misunderstanding around this word. Karma simply means action. Every action has consequences. Conscious choice making is the most effective way of creating future consequences of karma. Karma creates the future, but it is also an echo from the past. Karma conditions our soul through memory, desire and imagination. Most people are prisoners of Karma, because it becomes a conditioned reflex and produces predictable outcomes in their lives. The goal of enlightenment is to break the in shackles of Karma. Every person is responsible for his or her acts and thoughts, so each person's karma is entirely his or her own. Occidentals see the operation of karma as fatalistic. But that is far from true since it is in the hands of an individual to shape his own future by schooling his present. Hindu philosophy, which believes in life after death, holds the doctrine that if the karma of an individual is good enough, the next birth will be rewarding, and if not, the ...