Secret of Abundant Life is Generosity (Hospitality)

Taste buds tell us the taste of food; sight reveals us the beauty of scenery, and hearing the sweetness of music.  Someone’s explanation about these things may give us some ideas about them but not the actual experience.  It is in eating, seeing and hearing we acquire the real experience of them.

 

Christian faith is such a thing that loses its flavor, its beauty, and its sweetness when we limit it only to talks.  It is in practicing the faith that makes it a living relationship with God and with one another.  To emphasize this point, Jesus said “Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples” (John 13:35, NLT).  We don’t have to shout out loud to the world about who we are; our lives can become the Bible for the world to read and for the church to be nourished with if we put our faith into action.

Last week I travelled to Aizawl (Mizoram) for one week’s Bible Seminar and stayed the whole week with brother Vanlalchhunga’s family.  He and his wife make a wonderful Christian home with their four amazing children and a kind hearted mother who is about 75 and still very strong.  Every time I happen to meet people like this, I am reminded of the promise the Lord Jesus made when he said “No one who has left home or wife or brothers or sisters or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God will fail to receive many times as much in this age, and in the age to come eternal life” (Luke 18:29-30).  Their hospitality and sincere desire to make my life comfortable while I was there reminded me of what John must have experienced in the house of Gaius in Ephesus.

Gaius was one of the leaders in the church at Ephesus who opened his house not only for John but also for many others who passed through the town.  Travelling ministers of the gospel would come to Ephesus and Gaius would welcome them into the church and also to his home.  He would do everything possible to send them off with some material help for their onward journey as well.  John commends him for such love and hospitality and offers a blessed prayer in his behalf saying, “Beloved, I pray that in every way you may succeed and prosper and be in good health (physically), just as (I know) your soul prospers (spiritually)” (3John 2, AMP).

So many Christians live barren lives because they fail to practice hospitality and generosity.  Much of their faith is limited to talks only and because of that, they neither exhibit the light of the gospel to the world nor enjoy the blessedness John prays for Gaius.  True taste of Christian faith comes to life when we put our words into action.  John says, “Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.  This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence…if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask” (1John 3:18-22, NIV).

The best way to have a joyful Christian life is to put our faith into practice.  Otherwise it is a dead faith because faith without action is dead (James 2:17).  But if we put our faith into action, it becomes a living faith and produces the kind of life Jesus came to give us; “an abundant life” (John 10:10).    

Bible Seminar in Mizoram

Please pray for the flowing Bible Training Seminar in Aizawl, Mizoram.  Pastor Puia has gone ahead to prepare for it and Pastor Bhatta will follow him later.

Thoughts from Hospital

I have been visiting the doctor for sometimes now.  This particular group of hospitals is well known in India.  Comparatively an expensive place, but has somehow earned the reputation of being reliable.  In some notorious places of medical malpractices, patients go for one kind of surgery and come home with some other missing parts in their bodies. 

Visiting a doctor is simply a risk one has to take as a last resort in a culture where there is no moral ground for honesty, trust and service.  Though there is a strong belief in reaping the consequences of a bad Karma in the next life but who cares about the next life.  In fact, the person whose organs are being stolen by the doctor may be reaping the consequences of his or her own Karma in previous life.  Therefore, when you cheat, steal, and kill, you are simply playing the part in this never ending cycle of Karma; you are doing nothing wrong.  In fact, I learned from a taxi driver, alleviating someone’s suffering can be dangerous for those who believe in the law of Karma.  While waiting at a red light, an old beggar approached our taxi.  But the driver chased her away.  When we asked as why he was rude to her, he said; “she is reaping the consequences of her bad karma in her previous life and no one should prevent her from doing so.  If I reduce her suffering, then whatever is reduced from her lot will come to me.”  Didn’t argue with him much but only imagined what he would think if she was his mother or wife.    

Now, about the hospital; every time I visit the doctor, I sit in a crowded lobby, waiting for my turn.  Several doctors’ offices are situated around the lobby.  The waiting time to see the doctor, even after making the appointment, can go up to three hours and gives you the ample opportunity to watch the crowd of hundreds if not thousands of people who come and go.     

Sitting there for hours, you get to see and study all types of people.  Some well-built and good looking while others not so blessed by the nature.  Some overweight and hardly able to walk; even the sitting chairs in the lobby are not wide enough to contain them.  Others so skinny you could feel as if their bones were crackling with every move they make.  Young and old, boys and girls, and all ages rushing through the unknown on their way to see their doctors with the hope of securing better health, a better future by leaving behind whatever the maladies they were struggling with.  With the exception of few smiling faces, almost everyone carried a gloomy and anxious look.   Some were in serious pains; some were carried into the doctor’s office on stretchers and wheelchairs. 

Having sat there for a number of times now, it is not difficult for me to conclude that people will pay whatever the cost within their power if they can get their health back.  We all want to live long; none of us want to die soon.  In fact, we all long for immortality.  Yet, one day everyone will embrace death.  The good looking bodies, the well-built frames and even the healthy genes will come to an end.  Some will be cremated; some buried and so on and so forth.  No amount of treatment will secure an immortal life in this body. 

Sadly, so long as our bodies are healthy, we never think about life.  We make ourselves busy in the rat race of existence for acquiring a few perishable things.  A grocery store keeper gets up early in the morning and begins to think about the day’s business; he won’t mind to cheat, defraud and even mix some harmful and poisonous chemicals in the edibles so that he can get more profit out of his goods.  A milkman adds as much water to his milk as possible.  A butcher selling chicken pumps his meat with water so that it weighs him more in the scale.  A fisherman applies harmful chemicals to his fish so that they can remain fresh for weeks.  Same thing goes for the vegetable and fruit sellers.  The basic necessities of life are poisoned by people who are supposed to be keepers of their brothers.  The people who run government agencies to monitor the quality of food and drugs can be easily bought with the profit people make by destroying the health of general public.  Life is so cheap; everyone wants to make a few more bucks by destroying it. 

Money has become our master, and we have become its obedient slaves.  We will serve this master even at the expense of our own wellbeing.  We will keep earning this money so long as our health is okay or our age allows.  But then, should a terrible sickness visit us or an old age welcomes us, all our money is useless.  It cannot save; neither can we enjoy life because by then life would be gone. 

I have always lived as though I was on a borrowed time.  I was supposed to be killed at birth, but was spared.  I should have been dead before I turned one because of a terrible tumor, but I survived.  Constant suicidal thoughts until the age of 18 could have been actualized, but I failed to act on them and kept living for another day.  But it is only after I met Jesus of Nazareth that life took on a different rhythm.  Everyday became an exciting adventure.  Every opportunity to do good to others became a fulfilling pleasure.  Tomorrow no longer bothered me and yesterday did not matter.  Today became the center of my life and have since lived it to the fullest of God-given ability.

Even then, when this present sickness weakened my body, I began to feel as if I could have done more when my health was robust.  I could have written more, spoken more, helped more, done this and done that kind of feelings surround me when I lie on bed.  I thank God for the medical miracles which give me hope but much more than that, I thank God for the divine healing and health that has carried me thus far.  And God willing, I shall do more before my time is up.

How about you?  Do you take good health for granted and waste your time?  Have you prepared to meet your God?  Have you put your house in order?  Or will you start thinking about such things only when your health begins to give up?

So, my dear reader, believe in a God who loves you instead of the money that enslaves you.  Love your neighbor as yourself and life will simply become a wonderful adventure and a beautiful journey!