The Losses of Prayer

A woman was once asked: What do you "gain" from praying to God regularly?

She replied:

Usually ′′ I don't earn anything ", but rather ′′ I lose things ". And she quoted everything she lost praying to God regularly:

"I lost my pride.

I lost my arrogance.

I lost greed.

I lost my urge.

I lost ′′ my ′′ anger.

I lost the lust.

I lost the pleasure of lying.

I lost the taste of sin.

I lost impatience, despair, and

discouragement".


Sometimes we pray, not to gain something, but to lose things that don't allow us to grow spiritually.

Giving is part of Thanksgiving! Pastor Rajiv's Mid-Week Message

With Thanksgiving around the corner next month, Pastor Rajiv talks about the importance of giving in a Christian's life. 

 As Thanksgiving approaches, we may consider submitting a part of our blessing to God, which, in todays world which is tantamount to sharing His Blessings with others as well. Pastor Rajiv talks about the importance and more, of sharing God's Blessings with others who may need what we will share. 

Lets us thank the Almighty for deliverance from a pandemic which hit the world after a century; for our deliverance from it and other evils which may have befallen. From hunger, as even today 345 Million People Are in Hunger Crisis while the haves waste food (40% of the food produced in America is never eaten and. if just half of the food waste worldwide were recovered, we could end World Hunger). 

In this context and background, Pastor Rajiv's message is ever so important. 

My Closet

It is a done strategy in the software app industry that when you want to personalize a service, you usually add the word "my" before the name. For example - MySpace, mywhiteboard etc etc. Psychologically adding "my" creates a personal relationship. It also shows ownership.

Drawing a parallel to our relationship with our creator, many of us need to personalize that - time set aside, cut off from the pressures of the outside world, when we can talk to Him in silence, relate to Him, be still in our hearts and hear Him. It is very important that we build this personal relationship. This is where my prayer closet comes in. I go into it , shut out the world and focus on only Him. Matthew 6:6 talks about this with an outcome attached -

"But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly".

Jesus reminds us that the Father touches us personally, when we become personal.

It is not a mental closet: the noise and pressures of the world have to be stopped - so it may be best to retire to a quiet place. Relationships are personal so building one is personal as well. While corporate prayer is great and needed, personal prayer and relationship building is equally important. The closet allows us to personalize and customize our conversations with God.

We also need to stop mechanical prayer. For example, when one says grace before a meal do we recall all those hungry? As many 10% of the world population go to bed hungry every night. That's 888 million people! When we are not one of those - it's only because of Godly provision and blessing. We often see people of other faiths praying before a meal as well. Hunger can happen not only because of financial constraints. Scarcity of food is another reason - can happen due to war, famine, supply chains and so many reasons. As of March 2023, 350 M people were facing famine! If we are not one of those, it's a blessing! Think of them and try to share.

When we wake up in the morning - do we say thanks to the almighty? Do we even know how many people in the world never wake up?

These are simple examples. As you can see, we are blessed each moment of each day. So, a personal thanks to our creator would be in order.