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Seek the source of blessings and Not the Blessings

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The Holy Bible is a collection of testimonies about blessings, which presents God as the source of blessings. God, the embodiment of blessings, has brought us into this world to bless. That is why he blessed a people who had been in slavery for 430 years, with all kinds of riches by giving them his promised land of Canaan. When we refer to a person and say that he or she is blessed, we mean that God has blessed the person. True blessing is from God. In the Bible, the word “blessing” refers to the reward that God gives to a person who stands with God. It may be asked whether the devil and his brooding plagues also do reward. The answer to that is that wealth can be bought also from the devil. But it is not called “blessing”. What God gives is eternal. It will last as long as the blessed person stays with God. But that of the devil is different. He who possesses it will not have peace. As time goes by, he will also destroy everything. Someday, at least the next generation will have to give back what they got from the devil. The word ‘bruk’ in Hebrew means to bless or bless. This word is used when any person, society or thing is filled with goodness and prosperity. Just as God is love, God is also blessing. When God loves a person, God’s vitality the source of that love, is poured into him. One becomes blessed by God only when God’s life force is poured into him. That is why some individuals can bless others. Individuals indwelling the divine life force can impart that life force to others. Thus the persons who become God’s representatives and mediators can bless others. It is another blessing from God; is a gift God wants man, his most beloved creature, to be a part of his blessed life. God is trying to do that. There are no other shortcuts to attain God’s grace. The important thing is to connect with God, the source of life and blessing. God’s blessings are easily obtained by the person who keeps in touch with God through constant prayer, organizes his life according to God. God created Adam to be the storehouse of His blessings. God filled him with blessings. Look at how God blessed him after the creation: Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so. (Genesis 1:26-30). According to the Bible, man was created last in God’s creation. If you look at the verses given above, God has given a series of blessings to men. God created man in His image and likeness. This means that man was created with God-like individuality, rationality, and moral consciousness. They were given the gift to multiply. God has given man the blessing to rule the whole earth. God gave him glory and honour. And he put all things under his feet. God created Adam to be blessed with His blessings. But Adam failed to live a life under God’s control, full of divine blessings. How did he fail? Blessings are not free from God. Man is filled with divine goodness when he stands and builds his life with obedient to his covenant. In the garden of Eden, God made a covenant with the first man. Along with the blessing, it also included the rules for obtaining those blessings. Those promises and conditions are as follows: God only commanded not to eat the fruit of the tree of good and evil. God did not say why. God demands obedience without questioning. The reward for that has also been said – What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived”— the things God has prepared for those who love him. 1 Corinthians 2:9 In this situation, the devil took the form of a snake and went to their residence. Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’” “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. (Genesis 3 : 1-6) This is what caused the primitive man to distance himself from God, the giver of blessings. With this, the blessings from God also became limited.

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Shallow Focus of Clear Hourglass

God is waiting

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The Holy Bible presents the holy God as a good father who is loving and merciful. Jesus addresses God as Father. Jesus is the only person in history and scripture who fully obeyed, accepted and honoured God as Father. Jesus repeatedly makes it clear that he was sent by the Father and that God the Father is the source of power for all his activities. In the 17th chapter of the Gospel of John, Jesus repeats the word Father six times in his prayer. Jesus said: “No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” (John 11:27). It is human nature to seek to persecute those who oppose them, those they dislike, and to rejoice in their downfall. The nature of God the Father is so different. God is so much higher than human nature. Jesus presented a God who ‘makes the sun shine on the wicked’. If you love those who love you, what will be the reward for you? – Jesus asked. The law in the Old Testament (Leviticus 19:18) asks you to love your neighbour. But Jesus taught us to love our enemies. No other teacher has ever taught us to love even our enemies so deeply. God loves his great creation, man, more than anything else. God hates no man; never forsakes. God the Father loves with all his heart even those who disobey Him and turn their backs on Him! When Jesus revealed this divine love through his own life, those who prided themselves as the elite of society turned against Jesus, to the extent of crucifixion. But even on the cross, Jesus addressed God as Father. Jesus approached those who criticized him for being loving and friendly with sinners, by telling parables that reveal meanings. Jesus told them parables, taken from familiar situations and related to nature. In the 15th chapter of the Gospel of Luke, we see the joy of the return of the son who was thought to be lost. This is a parable that has found its place in the world literature under the name “The Prodigal son.” This parable has been considered as one of the great stories of the world classics. It depicts the relationship between God and man in a paternal relationship. It is also a historical story of a man who is alienated from God. In the Gospel of Luke, there is a journey that begins at 9:51 and ends at 19:46. This is the journey of Jesus to Jerusalem. During this journey, we meet Jesus as the Saviour of sinners and those rejected by society. It was during this journey that Jesus presented the parable of the prodigal son to the community. As an introduction to this, Jesus tells two more parables. The first is the parable of a shepherd who leaves ninety-nine in search of one missing sheep among a hundred sheep. The second is the parable of a woman who, after losing one of her ten silver coins, lit a lamp and sweeps the whole house. The man searching for the lost sheep and the woman searching for the lost coin symbolize the Father, Mother, and Guardian God who lovingly seeks out the sinner who strays from Him. “What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish.” Matthew 18:12-14 It is after these two parables that Jesus presents the parable of the prodigal son, the most well-known in the world. This parable has twenty one verses and three characters. The youngest son who divides all his property and leaves home away from his father, the eldest son who is although hardworking, but also selfish and jealous. The third character is the compassionate and loving father who embraces and happily accepts the return of the youngest son, without showing any resentment. The main protagonist in this parable is the father who shows immense love, mercy and affection to his two children. The parable begins as follows: A man had two sons. The youngest of them said to his father: Father, give me my due share in the property; And he divided it for them. A family consisting of two sons and a father who live by hard work. It is normal to think that there was nothing lacking in the house. But the younger son is not satisfied with that. The younger son found it difficult to live within the confines of the house under his father’s control. It is difficult for many people to live under the divine rule like this. According to Old Testament Jewish law, when property was divided, the eldest son would receive a double share. That is, when the property is divided between two sons, the elder son gets two-thirds and the younger son gets one-third. The property thus obtained should be transferred only after the death of the father. In prodigal Son’s parable the younger son is hastily trying to take over his father’s property. He prefers to live his own life without wanting to be with his father and family members. The father, on the other hand, divided the property without expressing any objection. Perhaps many advices might have been shared. Everything we have belongs to God the Father. All gifts, physical, financial, mental and spiritual, are from God on high. The father divided the property without disturbing the younger son. Here we see a dignified father. Father respects individual freedom. God has given us the freedom to accept good and evil. We have the individual freedom to choose

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Become a good friend of God

Become a good friend of God

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I love God, I worship HIM – this is what those who claim to know about God say. If so, what is the relationship with God, that they claim to have found? Have you known God personally? Most people approach God like walking into a store or supermarket with a shopping list. They submit their needs to God. There would be necessary and unnecessary things in it. That is their prayer. God knows us best. Even our thoughts are clear to God. But to know about God who is our good benefactor, we neither have desire nor time. Many people have the image of a God who gets mesmerized and is obsessed with flowers, garlands, bundles of notes and gold coins, and does anything for them. God, who is the owner of all the wealth of this world, does not look at the things or the hands of the devotee who approaches Him. They are only a measure of what one gives back from what HE gives. God cares only whether the doors of the heart of the devotee, who approaches Him, are open for Him. He will see if a seat has been prepared for him, in a heart prepared for him. He needs a devotee, who comes with gifts, not gifts. God cares more about the giver, than the gift. God wants him whole. Let us surrender ourselves to God. That is the greatest gift to God. The Holy Bible, in the New Testament, tells about the great gift of love, that God gave to the world. It is said that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. God showed His love by handing Jesus over to the cross and giving that sacrificial blood to mankind. Jesus is the person who taught us how to live in this world and how to love God and man. Jesus continues to this day as a guiding light that has never been extinguished for two thousand years. Jesus is always our role model. Who was this Jesus who split time in two, divided history into AD and BC? The Bible says that when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son into the world (Galatians 4:4). When Jesus grew up, he showed the world a lifestyle different from what the world had seen. Jesus taught the world about a new system of life based on divine laws. Jesus taught about life in God’s kingdom according to God’s system of governing, how to experience God’s closeness, how to receive God’s blessings, how to live beyond financial bondage, how to get healing from God, how to break the bonds of demonic bondage. Jesus gave hope to the underprivileged and oppressed. “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.” Luke 4:18, 19 Jesus, who was born as a Jew, revealed to the world how to be saved by putting aside religions. The birth of Jesus reminds us of God, the great star that still gives light to the world today. Prophet, guru, sage, philosopher, financial advisor, miracle worker – although Jesus embodies these personas, Jesus is more than that. There were ups and downs in the life of Jesus too, like people call good times and bad times. Jesus is one of the most persecuted people in history without committing any crime. But neither time nor this world could weaken the mind of Jesus. That life was always full of hope. God and the time gifted Jesus with resurrection. It is this resurrection that draws many to Jesus. If God is with us, no time, no man, no devil can weaken or destroy us. For that, we must become completely under divine protection. Throughout our lives, God is trying to bring us to Himself. Often we just don’t know it. It is because our desires and God’s desires do not match, that we face difficulties. God deals with each person in a different way. It might not be others’ experience that we have. If you look for the circumstances and experiences of getting closer to God, they will all be different. God has always been the embodiment of the most transcendental personality. Be it a beggar, a millionaire, a child, a woman, a man, God can handle them in their own circumstances. Jesus chose 12 people as his main disciples. They all lived together, slept together and died together. But they were all different characters. It may seem difficult for a common man to understand that Judas was one of them. Judas carried the money box of Jesus and his companions. It was the eye on that money box that brought Judas down and led him to suicide. Peter was fickle and angry. At first, Peter was also a coward who denied Jesus, even in front of a woman. Thomas looked for reasons behind every incident. John, on the other hand, was loving and a gentle person. We may all be different personalities. But God the Father can guide us in any situation if we surrender ourselves. So we should not try to imitate others. Let us surrender ourselves to God. Then God himself will take control of us. None of us are perfect. We are the owners of imperfect personality. God is fully convinced about this better than us. God will work in our weakness. If we rely on God, we will see that He stands as a crutch in our weakness. Loyalty and love are important to approach God. Who are we? What do we love? So why don’t we love God the most who paved the way for our beloved relationships and is always with us in all things? Faithfulness is also needed with love. Faithfulness is necessary for a warm husband-wife

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