This Week With Jesus

What's in a name? Plenty if we go by the Bible. Name changes, most often given by God, establish a new identity and purpose God wants its user to embody. In the Bible, names often convey identity, destiny, or divine promise. The practice of changing names marks transformative journeys and reflects new beginnings, new statuses, or new roles designated by God. Based on your journey, what name would you choose today? Some may define who you have become and some may define who you want to be.  Here are a few suggestions:  1.       Abigail: Hebrew — The father’s joy. 2. Alexandra: Greek — Helper; defender of mankind. 3. Alice: English — Noble; kind. 4. Amara: Latin — Strong; attractive; stylish. 5. Amelia: German — Industrious; striving. 6. Anne: Hebrew — Favored grace. 7. Arianna: Greek — Holy. 8. Avery: French — Wise. 9. Charvi: Sanskrit — Beautiful. 10. Gabriella: Hebrew — Devoted to God. 11. Grace: Latin: Goodness; generosity. 12. Hannah: Hebrew — Fav

                                           Studying Gods word is essential to a Christian, and prayer is essential to be able to study and understand Gods word & put it in practice. Yes, it includes intercession, it includes a call for help, it includes thanks and praise, but prayer is so much more. Prayer is essential in studying the Bible. Asking the Holy Spirit for understanding and guidance can illuminate passages and reveal deeper truths. Prayer also helps apply the Scriptures to one’s life, aligning actions and decisions with God's will. (Crosswalk) But most of all, that prayer helps us to dwell in the secret place of the "Most High and abide under the shadow of the Almighty". So today, we pray for our own daily devotions, where the Holy Spirit opens our minds to understand the message God wants to convey. We also want to pray for: 1. A Pastor in Melbourne who needs continued strength and healing to become fit to continue Gods work. We than God for His bl

  The Tipping Point  :  Fire in the belly of every believer The Wind and the Sail  : Partnering with God

“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel” - Maya Angelou A compliment, a thoughtful deed, an act of kindness, a blessing and a thank you go a long way in making someone feel seen, heard and valued. Words and actions can create a feeling of being important. We are all created in the image of God and when we recognize that fact, we acknowledge that other people have a worth in Christ. We don't look through people. When someone talks, we pay attention. We don't humiliate, nor do we build ourselves at someone's expense. And if we have done that by mistake or inattentively, we apologize so that the other person feels valued. It takes a lot of strength, humility and empathy to be genuinely  kind, so  let us start training today.  Proverbs 16:24 Gracious words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body. Proverbs 15:1 A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up ange

Pascal's wager is a philosophical argument advanced by Blaise Pascal (1623–1662), seventeenth-century French mathematician, philosopher, physicist, and theologian. This argument posits that individuals essentially engage in a life-defining gamble regarding the belief in the existence of God. So, true to form, we humans have evolved a devilishly clever logic to follow God, based on the premise that we have everything to win and nothing to lose. If that is the motivation, I am afraid that's a no go because belief and love of God is based on faith and faith is based on experience. Faith follows no logic. God follows no logic either, because our logic is based on the natural order of things in this world which were anyway created by God. Therefore, God created His won logic. For us, the parting of the red sea followed no logic. The healing of the lepers followed no logic. The resurrection followed no logic. If you are peaceful, that is illogical because how can you find peace in th

How many people across the world live in windowless homes or rooms? I don't think anyone has calculated that simply because we have not yet acknowledged the health risk of living in a windowless room. One a cold winter day, one of my to do list is to open the window and let the sun and warm breeze warm up the room. The warm breeze and bright sun cheers one up no end. And then I think of all those people who live in windowless rooms. In those cheerless, unhealthy conditions, how would they feel or survive? Just like living without a window in the home is unhealthy, living without a spiritual window is also fraught with the danger of becoming spirituality empty and open to becoming a victim in the spiritual war around us, unseen, unheard, but very much there. Jesus Christ is that window we need. Through Christ we can build a relationship with God the Father. Through Christ we can get the Holy Spirit to help us, protect us and guide us. Thrpugh Christ we can beat the threat of a secon

                                            "Ye offer polluted bread upon mine altar; and ye say, wherein have we polluted thee? In that ye say, The table of the LORD is contemptible. And if ye offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? and if ye offer the lame and sick, is it not evil? offer it now unto thy governor; will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person? saith the LORD of hosts" . Malachi 1  When we have esteemed visitors over for a visit, we try and offer the best we can. Best crockery and cutlery, the best of foods, the best seat in the house and the best comforts. When God knocks, in the form of a hungry person, what do we offer? Stale food? When asked by beggars -do we give s oiled or unusable currency and keep the crisp notes for ourselves? It's not what we give. It's how we give. Let's not put terms and conditions to our giving. Recognize the need and give honorably, thereby honoring God for there is God in each human.  Give more or give l

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ Reference: Matthew 25: Ver 35-40 If God comes knocking at your door today, what will you do? Seriously. What would someone do? Would we be excited? Would we be afraid? Would we run around like chickens not knowing what to do? Or would we turn Him away? The fact is, God does come knocking at your door, at your car window or in your office . And every so often we turn Him away. The fact is, there is God in everyone. The hungry beggar, the homeless man or woman, the lame and the sick. He comes to our door in many shapes and forms, but we do not recognize Him. So little is our faith in man that we judge: "oh why should I give? Can he not work?" Or "He will only go and drink it away". Or simply "this is another way of thievery". Friends, we justify our apathy with judgements. Yes, everything we think maybe true. They might drink

In the 70s there was a very famous song called American Pie. It was a chart buster and remains popular till this day. A line in the song is very thought provoking and it says, "I saw Satan laughing in delight" .  Strange, isn't it? But think about it. What makes Satan delighted. Do you and I delight Satan? We spend so much time on developing our lives to delight God and trying to follow it, we seldom stop to think what about our life delights Satan. Let's think about it today. Possibly because we are a material society, we believe what we see, therefore we have a far-off belief in the spiritual wars we face and hence don't take the trouble to know our enemy - Satan. Big mistake because then we severely underestimate the tactics and character of our enemy. In the ancient Chinese military classic, The Art of War (attributed to Sun Tzu), it is commented, "If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know your

Have you noticed how angry so many people in the world seem to be? They are angry with themselves, with their jobs, with their governments, with other people, with stores, with products with life, with their surroundings, in short nearly everything. According to the Gallup Global Emotions Report, anger around the world has been rising since 2016, with 23% of respondents now feeling angry on any given day. That's about 2 billion people being angry every day. Wow! What makes people angry though? Harvard Health says one of the main reasons is a sense of powerlessness. But a kind of overarching reason maybe the difference between what we expect and what we get in life. This is not to say one can't have dreams to work towards, dreams are goals, not expectations. Problem is the outcome of anger only leads to more trouble and holding it in causes health problems. So what do we do? Let's see what the Bible says . The Bible showcases expectations not just as the anticipation of an o

"For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father's house will perish. Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” - Esther 4:14 What a profound ultimatum was given to Esther!  But in  Esther we find a powerful message of courage and divine providence. Esther found herself in a powerful position as a queen. She used her position to save her people from a terrible fate at the urging of her cousin Mordecai, who is quoted above as well. In fact, till this day the Israelites celebrate Purim , to commemorate the defeat of Haman's plot to massacre the Jews as recorded in the book of Esther.  Like Esther, have you ever felt you were in a certain situation for a reason? That perhaps, like Esther, God has orchestrated events in your life to fulfil a special purpose? It can be easy to feel insignificant and powerless, but God often places us exactly where we

Imagine you are being chased by violent robbers who not only want to rob you but do bodily harm. You run here and there, trying to find an escape route but they are relentless. There is a whole bunch of them, brandishing knives and pistols, shouting and screaming about what they will do to you when they catch you. You run and run, hard and fast but they are catching up. You know it's only a matter of a couple of minutes before they catch you. As you run you think of your family, friends. You also think of who or what can help you. You rue the fact that you did not put emergency on fast dial on your phone, because you know when they do catch you, they will take away the phone. Suddenly as you zig zag you see an alley... though it's dark but it does provide you with an escape route. You duck into it hoping to find escape. The robbers are right behind you. As your eyes focus in the dark you see that it's a dead end. A 20 feet fall blocks any thought of escape. You turn to face

The Good news is that Sundays will not be blank for us!  We will be repeating some meaningful posts on Sunday. So here are our suggestions for today:   1.  Transforming Sadness to Hope - Jesus transforms lives. Can we help?  You can read it here   2.  An Accidental Human - For management strategists & practitioners as well as Christian professionals .  You can read it here   Happy Weekend Reading! 

                                  Addiction is so prevalent in the world today that it encompasses nearly a quarter of the world. And if we add food addiction that figure would probably be three fourths. Food addiction will probably include you and me. Addicts of all kinds are looked down on, sometimes with sympathy and sometimes with disgust. Seldom with empathy. Addicts need to be treated not with sympathy or disgust but with kindness and support. Pastor David Jacobs says - "No matter where you are from, if you are old enough, you have been exposed to some form of addiction. Whether you have battled addiction yourself as I have or you have seen it grip somebody that you know, the depths of addiction and the hold that it can have on people is terrifying. Knowing all that we do about addiction and the harms that it brings, how are we not more wary of it? How do we not do more to resist its temptations? The enemy is stronger than we imagine, prowling like a lion on helpless prey.

Who has the power to reject you? Isn't rejection a judgement? And who in this human world can judge?  Unfortunately, we all do, belying what Jesus taught or tried to teach. Judging others seems to be second nature to us. The question is why we do it. Firstly, we build our own castles by bringing others down . For example, some public speakers comment adversely on their audience to make a point, thereby positioning themselves higher than the audience, so that the audience accepts their views without question. Secondly, it sometimes helps to fit in the crowd . If 5 people we know don't like someone, we too pretend so that we may fit in and build a bond. And sometimes it may just be a self defense mechanism , not to get close enough to someone so you don't get hurt, therefore we build a justification for that by a negative judgement. Lastly, and this is a universal fact, we all have a perception that we are entitled . No. We are not. That's an illusion we have created abo

Some people know the true meaning of the words "God provides", because they have lived with nothing in hand, no idea from where they will meet their daily expense and yet they are able to. Quietly and without fanfare, through some God given providence. While Gods provision is true for all, these people have lived on the edge of collapse, with nothing in sight except hope for Gods provision, unlike other people who have wealth or jobs or plans which they depend on, not realizing that even those were provided by God. One is not better than the other. We all go through hard times, possibly living on the edge. We may feel let down or that life is unfair, but there is another perspective: it brings about true dependence on God. Such times remind us of the journey of Israel as they walked to the Promised Land. They were not allowed to store manna as an exercise in trusting Gods daily provision. Why? Ms. Francis Taylor explains it beautifully - "We take these troubling events a

Not many of us like to be corrected, whether by a true friend, a parent, a partner or even God! We also do not like "change". We are happy to continue in our state of ignorance, rather than correct ourselves.   Chipotle Biti has this to say about correction.  "It is far better to be smarting from the correction of a friend who cares for you, instead of being led on the wrong path by people who try to deceive you with false approval. If you choose to base your life on positive feedback only and you block out any form of correction, you will end up with the wrong people advising you" . Such a situation has been the ruin of many a leader, and many Christians. In fact, it is equally harmful to always give false feedback which a lot of us do in the name of "motivation".  It's tantamount to "bearing false witness".  She goes on to say - " Correction is necessary for our growth as Christians . We need correction in our spiritual lives in order

Today we will share a short story, based on our post of yesterday, where we talked about how we, as individual humans, can carry the love from God that we have received, the sacrifice of Christ and the daily guidance of the Holy Spirit, and can make sure we get up each morning, filled with the vigor of knowing our duties for the day, as outlined by God.  This story was shared by a person, whose age I cannot determine, and whose nationality can be that of anyone and whose name does not matter. This story was written during Covid days, reflecting the pain, failures and setbacks of those times, of all those youth, students and young workers who got stranded without jobs, food or shelter. This story is also an ode to all those Human Angels who chipped in and made sure we all got through.  So, without further delay, here is the story, and we hope it encourages each one of our readers to be running for God when that sun comes up every day. Click anywhere in this para and read. 

"Amos 8:11 Behold, the days come, saith the Lord GOD, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD: Amos 8:12 And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the LORD and shall not find it". As believers and followers, we are extremely dependent on the word. We may not be regular, we may run to in times of trouble only, we may not be familiar with it, but the truth is our lives are centered around the word of God. The word acts like a rudder as we sail to the other end.  What then would happen if suddenly we were left bereft of the word? Bereft of the rudder? Can we imagine such a scenario in our lives? We would panic at the slightest mishap; we would feel directionless.  The fact is that we realize the value of something, when we are left without it. It could be a person, a blessing or anything we take for granted like food

These days we honor some thinker or scientist or politician saying "she (or he)" is a visionary. The meaning of that erm is thinking about or planning the future with imagination or wisdom and believes in it. They are full of knowledge which they apply and practice. According to world norms, everyone is not a visionary. Only a few exceptional ones. According to Christian terms, who are the visionaries? Well, everyone, has the opportunity. Few perhaps take it. Visionaries are the people who look at the world as it is and see what it could be instead. A Christian visionary sees it as it is today, and what he will become beyond, and plans for it. S/He sees and believes that there is a life beyond death which they want to save and are ready to invest in it. S/He researches, believes and plans. S/He shares. Christian visionaries are not afraid to pivot, and lead a life based on Christ's way. They believe there is a war out there, an unseen but not unfelt war. They pray for, a