Hand - in - HAND

Esther 2:

Vs 1 - when sinful anger subsides, we are able to value the priced possessions given to us.

Vs 3 - there is a preparation period to tone and make ready our needs and wants. Till it is fully prepared it will not be visible to us. The time duration of this preparation period is unknown and varies for each person decided by the Lord.

Vs 15 - ‘the turn came for Esther to go to the king ‘ => there is a time for the answer or blessing to be revealed, until then it is in preparation for the appointed time.

Esther asked for nothing other than what Hegai had planned for her to take to meet the king => our requests in prayer before attaining the answer should be as per the will of the Lord rather than our own desires. We see only from a short term goal perspective but the Lord sees a long term permanent objective to be attained through us.

Vs 17 - as soon as the answer/ blessing was revealed, everything else was left aside. No other girls came to the king after that.

Vs 18 - the king proclaimed and set forth a banquet to establish the answer he obtained after the long waiting period => we need to proclaim and testify when we have obtained our answer from the Lord instead of being silent about it. It’s for others to know and believe!

Vs 20 - Esther did not break her ground rules that was taught to her during her upbringing by Mordecai => No matter how high our position maybe, we cannot compromise on our foundation values and Christian rules. The Lord cuts no slack for that! He alone has to be our foundation and basis for anything.

Let us pray that we are able to follow the example of Esther and Mordecai. God bless!

Mark 15 - 3 to 5

Vs 3: The chief priests accused him of many things.

Vs 4: So again Pilate asked him, “Aren’t you going to answer? See how many things they are accusing you of.”

Vs 5: But Jesus still made no reply, and Pilate was amazed.

Verse 5 really touched my heart ❤️. Just imagining the actual scene of Jesus being falsely accused, insulted and blamed, yet he made no defensive reply to support himself but remained silent to every single charge against him.

To think of it in our human lives, it’s an uncomprehending amount of grace and self bearing attitude that is so hard to replicate in our daily lives.

I thought about how many instances I myself might have been blamed or misjudged by others or vice verse! And every single time I think we took a defensive route! It would be best to take my own life as an example here to share ☺️

My mom always says that l’m just like my Dad ! Although I truly love that, the reason for her conclusion is because we are such blunt and open books!! We could speak exactly what is in our mind loud and on the spot with no diplomacy strings attached to it. What’s in the heart is evident on the outside and that’s it, we have the memory of a fish - we forget / forgive everything totally! 😀

I don’t know if this is a good thing or a bad thing but this character might lead to many misunderstandings or wrong judgement from others in our lives. My point here is that during all these misjudgment/ misunderstandings/ misconceptions we face in our daily lives (definitely not equal to what Jesus faced!) how do we react? Do we begin to defend ourselves with justifications and reasoning? Or are we able to stay quiet like Jesus did? Even Pilate was amazed seeing Jesus silence!

This verse made me remind myself once again that Jesus chose the option to let the appointed time to reveal the truth to the chief priest and people. He did not defend by any sort of justifications. It is really difficult to attain this sort of grace to be silent in the midst of accusations and misconceptions but definitely something I need to strive to learn and do! I’m sure many of us might feel the same and I hope we can try to attain the same grace that Jesus showed!

May God bless you!

Mark 12 : 43-44 “Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.”

The widows offering reflects how much the Lord delights in the Quality of our giving unto him.

Most of the time we focus a lot on the amount of time we have sat in prayer , the amount of tithes we have given, the amount of time spent to read the full Bible. But in all of this, the Lord delights in a more quality time spent in each of these things.

The Lord delights much more on the sincerity and genuineness of our prayer. In another passage Jesus wants us to spend private intimate time with him in a closed room and have a good quiet time of prayer. It is important that we try to attain that but at the same time every single moment while we walk, do our daily chores and tasks if our mind is constantly dedicated to communicating with the Lord, praising him and submitting our requests unto him I believe this is very pleasing unto the Lord than sitting for many hours with little focus.

One of my friends rightly said that it is very much similar to spending quality time with our beloved spouse and kids where we express to them our love, deepest emotions, and care with no bounds or restrictions. We can do it anywhere anytime. And that’s the same bonding Jesus stressed in this passage.

Let us continue to speak to Jesus anytime and at every moment of our life. He is there for us to speak to us, comfort us and guide us every single second and we don’t need to wait at all.

This passage could have varied insights and more than happy to chat 💭 on this topic. Do PM me, let’s talk 🖋💬

God bless!

Am I Qualified?

Mark 10 : verse 15 & 25

From verse 13 onwards Jesus is teaching us the prerequisites to enter the Kingdom of God.

He shared 2 instructions -

1. To be like little children

2. To give away all our riches to the poor

Verse 15 - I love kids way too much and I am trying to think what are the special things in children that Jesus also loves so much that He wants us to be like them before stepping into his beautiful home. Little children are way too innocent, they carry no burdens in their hearts or minds, they truly live and enjoy every single moment with so much happiness that the people around them would also be uplifted and laugh with joy! Jesus delights in cheerful, pure hearts that only desires for good and holds no knowledge of wrong. We need to become more child like.(🧒 👶)

Verse 25 - While researching about the eye of the needle, I have learnt this refers to the name of a gate in Jerusalem. The point of the metaphor was that camels had to be unloaded of everything they were carrying before they would fit through it. In other words, it is not the rich man as an individual, but the rich man with his "baggage", who can't enter the kingdom.

The Lord wants us to be burden free when we enter His brand new kingdom. Just like little children, on whom we would place no burden on their backs, the Lord wants us to lay down every single thing that is pulling us down with heavy laden backs.

If it is a burden of sorrow, disappointments or failures, He wants us to give it away and enter his House.

If it is a burden of too much wealth & possessions, He wants us to share it with those who have none and then only enter His house. Just like we train little children to share , it is a simple concept that Jesus is also reminding us!

Do we possess these 2 qualifications stated by our Master? May the Lord help us to attain His simple expectations to be able to enter His beautiful majestic home!

For quite a few days my heart has been guilty of not penning my thoughts here 📝 I’m glad to be back☺️

Mark 8 : 22 to 26

The healing of the blind man at Bethsaida

The healing of this blind man is slightly different when we compare with the other healings done by Jesus. Jesus did not heal this man by one touch but it took two touches of Jesus to restore the blind mans complete vision. It was a different approach of healing that Jesus took here.

Many at times we have faced similar situations in our lives where we feel we don’t get a complete deliverance but instead a partial one. Sometimes our minds rage with different questions - is God hearing me? Why is there so much delay for an answer? We can be filled with a feeling of total rejection and we give up hope!

From this blind man we see he received the first touch of deliverance from Jesus with positivity. He did not say that “Jesus I still can’t see!” But instead he accepted his partial healing and testified it by saying “I see people; they look like trees walking around.” He accepted whatever deliverance he got and Jesus then placed His second touch of healing on the man.

Deliverance may take time for some of us while it can be instant for others. Let us continue to keep our hope and faith high so that Jesus can proceed with His next touch of deliverance in our lives.

May the Lord bless each of us with a beautiful day ahead!

Mark 7:37 - He has done everything well! The people testified about Jesus.

Looking back at every single day of my life, makes me ponder, “ am I really worthy of all that the Lord has done and given?!”

Self reflecting on each day only reveals more and more how much the love of God is on each of us. More than anyone has ever loved and been patient to us Jesus our Lord has surpassed everyone.

With no Pre- requisites he has blindly loved, healed, delivered us. In this chapter he delivered the Syro Phoenician’s daughter without even looking at her background or she being a gentile. His love was immense and Omni present to heal her daughter by a single word.

At Sidon he healed the deaf and mute man again by his love and compassion. Many at times we find Jesus taking the sick to a secluded place for a one to one encounter of healing!

He longs for us to have a secluded time just with him.

I look back and realize how many times I’ve failed to give Him the same love and dedication He has so faithfully showered upon me. Yet He remains so consistent in His love and mercy every single hour and second!

Thank you Lord for your unconditional Love ❤️

May these words be a blessing and reminder of His bottomless love to each of us..

God bless!

The first 6 verses of this passage shows Jesus being unwelcome in his own home town.

It is quite an experience that we see even today where many at times we could go unrecognized amongst our own kin of people but rather feel special and welcomed anywhere else!

Verse 7 to 13 we see that the unwelcomed Jesus tweaked his execution of HIS ministry by now empowering the disciples to take on the spiritual baton from village to village:

1. Jesus sent them out in pairs of 2’s - this reminds me of the proverb “two is a company and 3 is a crowd!” Might have been applicable even in those old days ☺️

2. Jesus instructed to take nothing with them- carry no money 💴 / bags , carry no expectations, carry no hopes to get something in return. Just go empty handed!

3. Only one thing Jesus asked to take was their staff - right from the old testament we find the staff being used as an instrument of wonders and miracles. This continued in the New Testament too and the disciples were to carry only that instrument for doing miracles!

4. The last instruction from Jesus was to shake off the dust from their feet if any house did not welcome the disciples. This is quite similar to point 2 above. Jesus did not want the disciples to carry any opportunity of negativity from one house to the other. Each house or village had to be a new ground for miracles and spreading the word.

It is not an easy execution but helps to be a reminder how Jesus would like to set us out for Ministry.

God bless!

It’s been a while - iv been away! ☺️

Let’s look at Mark 5

This passage focuses on the sequence of suffering to deliverance

Bleeding woman for 12 years & Jairus daughter:

Their suffering -> led to belief and faith -> led to physically touching Jesus -> led to power going out from Jesus to the victim -> led to physical healing / deliverance.

It’s rather surprising to see Jesus say that power went out from Him. How can Jesus run less in power or run out of power? Makes me wonder!

Jesus is always to be FULL in power, as of what we all know!

This thought of Jesus in verse 30, where He realized power had gone out of Him, could mean a couple of things :

1. Jesus is so FULL of power at ALL times that it only takes a believing heart to have HIS power go out of Him to that believing soul.

2. It could be a transferring of Jesus healing power to the believing woman.

3. The prerequisite to have Jesus power transfer to us is a suffering and believing heart. We see the similar sequence also in the next immediate story about the daughter of Jairus

In the suffering of Jairus daughter, Jesus sent away every unbelieving heart and asked only for the believing faith filled souls (father, mother and disciples) to be inside the room with Jesus. Jesus touch created the transfer of healing power to the child bringing her to Life!

‘Just believe’ is the keyword that Jesus stressed on in verse 36!

Suffering + belief = transfer of the power of Jesus into our lives

God Bless!

What are the external influencers in our lives?

We usually read Mark 4 from an internal perspective of the type of soil our Christian lives are grounded in. Is it a stony, thorny or good soil etc, but today let’s look at it from a different angle, in a sense where the soil could be the different external influencers in our lives.

Mark 4 - 3 to 8

“Listen! Behold, a sower went out to sow. And it happened, as he sowed, that some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds of the air came and devoured it. Some fell on stony ground, where it did not have much earth; and immediately it sprang up because it had no depth of earth. But when the sun was up it was scorched, and because it had no root it withered away. And some seed fell among thorns; and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no crop. But other seed fell on good ground and yielded a crop that sprang up, increased and produced: some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some a hundred.”

There are 4 external influencers mentioned in this passage:

1. Wayside - we maybe externally surrounded by biased people who seem to be good on the outside but on the contrary prepare evil schemes to devour us before we know it. Let us cut off such influence immediately, let us also not let it creep into our lives

2. Stony - we maybe externally surrounded by hard hearted stony people who would not have the heart or time to hear our pains and sorrows. Let us cut off such influence immediately, let us also not let it creep into our lives

3. Thorn’s - we maybe externally surrounded by pricking forces who tend to mean harm in our lives. We may not realize it at the start but such forces never want to see our blessings, instead rejoice in downfalls. Let us cut off such influence immediately, let us also not let it creep into our lives.

4. Good ground - these external influencers are probably the least and handful but the best influencers that we need to sustain around us. Such people help us to grow deep with them and also be our support of strength in times of need. A plant in good soil - it’s roots grow deep within the soil and also provides nutrients to the plant to grow. The same way if we are sure to have such good external influencers around us, it is a two way support to each other in our Christian lives. A sustainable blessing!

So let us revisit our influencers and prune our lives to keep only the good external forces in our lives to maintain a Christian balance.

God Bless! Have a blessed day!

What’s in a NAME??

For the past couple of days, infact this whole week these same verses are ringing in my mind... at first I felt there was nothing special about this whole chapter Mark 3, but as I kept reading something starting ringing a bell 🛎

Mark 3-13:19-And He went up on the mountain and called to Him those He Himself wanted. And they came to Him. 14 Then He appointed twelve, that they might be with Him and that He might send them out to preach, 15 and to have power to heal sicknesses and to cast out demons: 16 Simon, to whom He gave the name Peter; 17 James the son of Zebedee and John the brother of James, to whom He gave the name Boanerges, that is, “Sons of Thunder”; 18 Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, Simon the Cananite; 19 and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed Him. And they went into a house.

What so special about these verses?

1. Peter, James and John were the first or only ones to have a different name assigned by Jesus

2. Usually in daily life we tend to call someone with a different name only when we have a special relationship with that person or love that person too much. Only if we are too close to somebody we have the liberty to call them with a different name. Officially none would call a person by another name.

3. From the 12 disciples Jesus had a special bonding with Peter, James and John and we see it in their daily life where these 3 disciples always accompanied Jesus on his special missions be it on the mount or anywhere.

So, there needs to be something special in our character and attitude for Jesus to identify us with a special name!!

With that special calling we can walk with Jesus on His special missions like Peter, James and John!

It’s a weekend and weekends are never the usual routine.... so I’m late to post 😀.... a lazy day!

Today the Lord helped me read Mark 3: 1 to 6; and something that really annoyed me was verse 2! “So they watched Him closely, whether He would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse Him.”

Literally if you imagine the scene of this verse in your mind, you would feel just like me - this is a scenario which happens to us almost daily. Most of the time we would find ourselves surrounded by people waiting to watch our downfall or the suitable time they can trap us. All of this happens without our knowledge; unlike Jesus who knows the deepest motives of each and every onlooker.

A couple of points that came to my mind to keep ourselves armed:

1. If we see the people around do not speak for us or be involved in what we do, that is a hint that they are people who are around us for a different objective. Be alert! Matt 3:4 had the same scene - “Then He said to them, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” But they kept silent”

2. Even if we know that the people around us are with a different motive, let that not stop us from continuing what we started. Continue to stand for the TRUTH. This exactly what Jesus did in Matt 3:5 - “He said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored”

3. Always remember to gauge people around. Not everyone are TRUE FRIENDS. Infact majority of those around might be people waiting to trap us just like the Pharisees to Jesus.

Started my day a bit rough, but the Lord has continued to be good... thankyou Jesus for your patience with me!

Let’s look at a small simple thought in Mark 2:27-28:”And He said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. Therefore the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath.”

Many of us beleive there is no concept of Sabbath in the New Testament age, however I find one interesting thing about Sabbath that I feel we can still continue. Infact in the New Testament Jesus highlighted this one fact to continue about Sabbath!

Matt 12:12-“and Jesus said, it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath."

Why then can’t we dedicate 1 out of 7 days to accomplish this? To leave work aside and do some good on this day! It could be like visiting friends and knowing their areas of pain to pray for them or spending a day in intercession for others, charity work, visiting the sick and lending a hand to them. I don’t know the list could be big of good deeds to be done! May God fill our hearts with the barren areas HE SEES with things that we could do to fill the gap of doing good atleast on one day than being fully drowned in our own families and selves!