Nepali videocast

जीवनमा आशिष् र श्रापको रहस्य (भिडियो सन्देस)

Why Should We Pray?

No Margin for Error

विनाविस्वास परमेश्‍वरलाई रिझाउन असम्भव छ

Eureka! Have you got what you are looking for?

In every culture, we all remember as little kids playing "hide and seek".  Being able to locate the hidden member brought a sense of wonder and immense pleasure to the heart of the seeker, and the game continued without getting tired of doing it all over again.  As a father, I used to play this game with my son from the time he was a toddler; every time he found me under the blanket or behind the door, he would laugh his heart out; I could see a great sense of joy in finding what he was looking for.  I wish life was as simple as like that toddler finding his half hidden father behind the door or under the blanket so that, as often as possible, we would throw our hands up in the air and laugh our hearts out with a sense of accomplishment in finding what we were looking for.  The game of "seeking" continues in the adult life; even though we often do not know what or who we are looking for.  Some of us spend a life-time of seeking and still remain empty-handed, disappointed but unwilling to end the game, knowing that there lies an elusive object of our search in which we peg our hopes of finding happiness and final accomplishment. 

When I first read the New Testament, the first verse that stuck to my mind was Matthew 7:7 in which Jesus says "seek and ye shall find".  I was 17 and nearly all my conscious life up until that time, I had spent in seeking something.  I remember seeking it in the Hindu Holy books, in the temples, in the holy places in India, and in the starry night sky of my remote part of Nepal where you could count the stars; they felt so close and so real as if a voice from them would bring me the answer to my deepest longing - who am I, where have I come from, why am I here, and what is my end?  These were not philosophical questions of a person who had become weary of life; these were existential questions of a boy who never knew his parents until the age of 11; these were questions ingrained in my psyche from the day I became conscious of my existence.  But by 17, I had decided to end my quest; I was ready to end the game, but something kept me alive, a something that Tolstoy also did not know as why he did not end his life;

I was happy, yet I hid away a cord to avoid being tempted to hang myself by it to one of the pegs between the cupboards of my study where I undressed alone every evening, and ceased carrying a gun because it offered too easy a way of getting rid of life.  I knew not what I wanted, I was afraid of life; I shrank from it, and yet there was something I hoped for from life. 

At the age of 18, Tolstoy became skeptical of everything he learnt as a Christian. In his Confession he says; “Every time I tried to display my innermost desires-a wish to be morally good-I was met with contempt and scorn, and as soon as I gave in to base desires I was praised and encouraged.” Tolstoy gave in to all kinds of immoral life.  The more immoral and filthy he became, the more people around him gave him the company and praised him.  Such an irrational praise of an immoral person finally got to him and began to suspect the very kind of life he was living; he found his soul within himself protesting the kind of company he was in and the kind of life he was living.  This inner quest for truth and meaning hunted him so much that he began to envy the peasants whose lives were filled with all kinds of hardships and sorrows but they lived life without fear; to them, life was not wearisome whereas the rich and famous found no meaning in life.  For the peasants, when time came for them to leave this world, they would do it with tranquility and an assurance of surety that Tolstoy could not comprehend.  Eventually, he discovered the reason for such a tranquil life of the peasants compared to the strife ridden life of the counts and noblemen; the difference was, the peasants had faith in God whereas the rich and the famous believed in themselves or in their wealth and power.  That was the turning point for this man whose last audible words are believed to be "To seek, always to seek".  Ever since he came to his senses, biblically speaking, he lived his life with the quest of seeking the "Kingdom of God within".  His view of God and Bible were not accepted by the church; and duly got excommunicated, but he was a man who spent his life searching this God without whom he said, it is not possible for human to live.  In the Kingdom of God is Within You, he says;

Let a man only understand his life as Christianity teaches him to understand it, let him understand, that is, that his life belongs to not to him--not to his own individuality, nor to his family, nor to the state--but to him who has sent him into the world, and let him once understand that he must therefore fulfill not the law of his own individuality, nor his family, nor of the state, but the infinite law of him from whom he has come; and he will not only feel himself absolutely free from every human power, but will even cease to regard such power as at all able to hamper anyone.

After seeking power and passion throughout the better part of his life; Tolstoy finally found what he was looking for.  At the age of 82, he renounced the material life and the strife ridden family behind and went on a quest for solitude so that he would be united with the one he had finally found.  And in so a fitting way, after two months of leaving home, his earthly journey came to an end in a rural railway station. 

When I first read Matthew 7:7, again it ignited in me a desire to seek that which I didn't know, and coming to the gospel of Luke 15, I began to see a different Jesus; a Jesus who was seeking me all along the way.  Finding me was his greatest joy that he would call the angels in heaven to join him in celebration!  Such a revelation of Jesus brought me to tears and finally to my knees; he made his way into my barren heart, filled me with his love and compassion so deep that all my questing came to a grinding halt.  Like a little toddler, I laughed alone in the jungle where I had gone to surrender my life to Christ; like Archimedes running out of the bath tub naked into the streets of Syracuse, I wanted to jump in the streets of Dhangadi shouting "Eureka", but decided to keep it all in my heart and chose to talk to the trees about my new found life in Christ.  After several months of excitement, I finally mustered my faith to tell about this Jesus to my co-teachers and students of the school where I was teaching and rightly was expelled from that school for doing that.  Losing that job was no big deal, this was one of the greatest discoveries of my life and I had to tell it to as many as I could!   Only after I found him did I know that all along I was looking for him and him alone because nothing else could have satisfied me so fully and so completely.  It is now almost 30 years and the excitement has only increased; nothing excites me more than telling to People who Jesus is and what he can do for them.

Looking at people's life today, I see in their faces a similar kind of quest.  They hide their quest behind humor, knowledge, wealth, fame, power and pure absurdities; but the inner quest goes on.  Like Tolstoy, they think that having power and fulfilling their passions would somehow bring fulfillment but they find, as he found, that this only makes them emptier.  In the most lonesome moment of life, there is no one or nothing on which they can lean and like many, including Tolstoy, they would be tempted to look for the rope or a gun; and some manage to do it anyway.  But for those of us who have managed to survive, we can testify from experience and revelation that there is no hope apart from Christ.   Therefore, as the prophet Isaiah said, "Seek him while he may be found"; it is my desire that the reader would turn to Jesus and find what life really is.  There may come a time when it will be impossible to seek him and thereby forfeit this amazing life. But so long as you are alive, it is time to seek him if you have not found.

However, seeking does not come to an end in a different sense; in the sense in which Tolstoy went to seek at the age of 82; not because he had not found but because he had found the one he was looking for.  This is the kind of seeking Jesus meant in Matthew 6:33; it’s a seeking in which we discover what life in Christ is really like; it is the kind of life that is absolutely free; free from the control of any power or the properties of this world; "You will know the truth and truth will set you free"!

Why and What Should We Pray For?

A Choice with no margin for Error (27/01/13)

A Christian with Un-Confessed Sin??

Can a Christian ever claim that he/she has no sin?  Or the better question would be; can a born again Christian in right mind sin and not repent?  The answer appears to  be obvious; a Christian can not claim to be sinless in or by himself/herself and neither can a genuine Christian remain unrepentant in case of moral failures.  A born again believer, if falls in sin (moral, ethical or religious), will stand before God with a broken and contrite spirit, pleading the blood of Christ that was shed for the remission of sins once and for all.  In fact, When a a believer realizes that he/she has violated God's commandment of love, will look to the heavens and thank God for sending Jesus Christ as the substitutionary atoning sacrifice on his/her behalf so that the wrath of God could be averted in the events of such failures.  Therefore, a genuine Christian will not live in a state of un-confessed sins even for a moment.

But the problem arises when we read 1 John 1:8-9 where John implies that there is such a possibility of a Christian not confessing sin.  There is no doubt John was writing to the Christians and in his writing, he supposes this possibility.  He says; 

^"8 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. ⁹ If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. ¹⁰ If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us."

The conditional clause "if we claim, if we confess" implies the existence of the opposite "if we don't claim, if we don't confess".  John thinks that Christians can deny sin and make themselves liars by refusing to confess the existing sin.  The question then arises; what kind of Christian is John thinking about when he writes this passage?  How can a genuine Christian not confess one's sin?

The answer lies in the kind of sin John is talking about.  In 1:5-7 John says;

"⁵ This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. ⁶ If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. ⁷ But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin."  

The un-confessed sin has to do with walking in darkness.  It seems that a Christian can claim to be walking in the light while still being in darkness.  There appears to be some kind of deception or the believer's inability to distinguish between darkness and light.  How could this be?  John answers this by connecting "confessing sin" and "having fellowship with one another".  In both cases, the result is the forgiveness of sins and truthfulness.   So, if we are walking in the light, we will confess our sins and remain in fellowship with fellow believers.  But if we walk in the darkness, then, we will not confess our sins and will not be in fellowship with one another.  Then, the next question is, what is walking in the darkness?  John answers this in 2:9-11;

^"9 Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates a brother or sister is still in the darkness.¹⁰ Anyone who loves their brother and sister lives in the light, and there is nothing in them to make them stumble. ¹¹ But anyone who hates a brother or sister is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness. They do not know where they are going, because the darkness has blinded them."

Now we can see what walking in darkness means; it is as if walking with eyes closed.  A blind person cannot differentiate between the light and the darkness.  There seems to be the possibility of blind Christians refusing to confess sin and live in immorality while claiming the opposite.  According to John, the cause of such a blindness is hatred towards fellow human beings.  Especially the hatred of fellow believers in the church.  Once a Christian entertains hatred in the heart, he or she loses the ability to see the light; which means, loses the ability to confess one's sins and live in fellowship with fellow believers.  It is in this state that we hear about great preachers living in immorality and still pretending as if everything is all right; if the root of their immorality is traced, it will inevitably lead to a broken relationship from where the slide in immorality began.

Such a believer not only loses the fellowship with others, if not dealt in time and manner, he/she also loses fellowship with God "Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love" (4:8); receives no rest in the heart, no confidence before God and thus no answers for the prayers (3:19-24).  In fact, a Christian with hatred in the heart has the possibility of losing life "Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him" (3:15).

Now, hate may be a strong word for many Christians; many will think that they don't hate anyone.  But hate can begin with a small resentment, a small dislike, a small disagreement.  These things if not dealt in time, will gradually climb the ladder of hatred and blind the believer in such a way that he/she may never be able to see the sin of hating someone.  Hatred also may have a legitimate beginning; one may be an innocent victim of the other people's actions.  One may have suffered with no fault of own.  Whether it begins with a small dislike or a tragic offence committed against, hatred has such a blinding effect that even when we stand before God, we think we are "RIGHT" to feel that way.  We think it is the fault of the Other person and not ours.  It becomes like the plank in our eyes (Matt.7:5) while blaming the other for the offense committed.  We refuse to confess either to God or to the one who we hate.  When a Christian falls victim to such a blindness, his or her life generally deteriorates.  Prayers are not answered, health fails and relationship continue to go sour; joy of life flies out of the window.  Christian life becomes a miserable journey.

On the other hand, John tells us that if we confess our sin and walk in the light we have fellowship with one another and we live in the truth; we know God, we have clear conscience, we have confidence before God, and our prayers are answered because we forgive those who offend us and pray for those who persecute us instead of hating them.  We are dead to what people do to us but alive to what God does to us.

That is why John has taken a great pain to remind us of this danger and he asks us to fulfill the commandment of love instead of being blind and live in sin.  In 3:21-24 John says;

^"21 Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God ²² and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him. ²³ And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. ²⁴ The one who keeps God’s commands lives in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us."

In order to live a forgiven life before God and a harmonious life with fellow brothers and sisters in this world, John reminds us two commandments of our Lord Jesus Christ himself;  1) believe in the Lord Jesus Christ (John 6:29), and 2) love one another (John 15:12).  If we obey these two commandments, there is very less chance of a believer committing sin and if in case one does commit sin, there is no possibility of remaining in sin without confessing it.  If this is accepted with whole heart, we become the temple of God; God dwells in us "greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world" (4:4); God hears our prayers and our heart's desires are fulfilled; life becomes a joyful journey!

Let us therefore, confess our sins of pride and hate and be healed and helped in our life here on earth.  Let us walk in the light as he is in light!!

Never Ending Adventure

It has taken me a long time to put fingers to the keyboard for this blog in a personal way.  Xanga was my companion for the early years of my blogging experience but for some reason, I fell out of love with Xanga and along with that, other things in life caught up with me and the regular writing flew out of the window.

Now, I am coming towards a place in life where I can afford to spend some time before the computer and allow my heart to reach out to those I love and also to those who I may never know in this life.

Life is an adventure and it never ceases to surprise me.  Each passing year leaves behind so many memories and treasures to cherish while the new year stands in a distance smiling mischievously; asking me to come and find out what my father in heaven has lovingly prepared for my arrival.  Something wonderful lies beyond the horizon and it is my joy to pursue the course that will eventually make my adventure a blessed accomplishment and a reservoir of strength and vitality for the remainder of the journey.

I am so grateful to the father in heaven who has blessed me with so many friends and a platform from which I can reach out to many more.  There are many of my countrymen and women who are laboring in foreign lands as immigrants and migrant workers; and Internet provides me the medium to speak to them the words of hope and comfort.  I am grateful for the response I have received for the Nepali and English Video blogs.  I am excited to see what this new year brings in my life, family and ministry!

When God's Kingdom is Your Priority, You become God's Priority