This Week With Jesus

"He shall not be afraid of evil tidings: his heart is fixed, trusting in the LORD" . Psalm 112 ver 7 We are no strangers to bad news. Not one of us. And we are no strangers to fear as well. Fear is the one thing that can undermine our belief and faith in our God. It is well written that fear is the sharpest tool of Satan and which he uses well. When we fear, it is because we see no hope for the future. We depend on man and human power to bail us out.  If we treat the word FEAR as an acronym, the full form will be "False Evidence Appearing Real". Fear is mostly based on an untruth. The best of sales people use a technique called FUD - Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt, wherein they sow the seeds of fear and doubt to "help" you make up your mind about buying their product.  But as a follower of Christ and God, and with the presence of the Holy Spirit in us, we do not need fear. We need to  Trust in God and wait patiently for Him. Our wisest course is to do as Mos

                                 Predestination” as it is used in the Bible means something different than most of us probably think it means. For starters, it does not mean that God has already decided what our life is to be, every instance or step, and that we really have no choice in the matter and if we don’t, we have rejected God. “Predestination” as used in the Bible refers to the individual talents and skills which God gave us as well as his purpose for us in life. In other words, God has a unique mission for everyone in life and he equips us with all of the necessary talents and skills to accomplish that goal. However, we still have a choice in the matter. Many people choose to be slothful rather than pursuing God's path for them. Many people don’t recognize His will. Therefore, even though God “predestines” us for a certain mission, it does not interfere with one’s free will to accept or reject that mission. This is in fact what the parable of the talents is about. Althoug

  Psalm 14 - Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord! It can be tough to wait on the Lord. It is much easier and tempting to find our own solutions for what we need, and then ask God to bless those efforts. Do you think He will? Not a chance!  Waiting on the Lord means we are waiting on His will and His time. Two components, each as important. God knows, in His infinite wisdom, the right time, place and event which we need to address our problems or needs. Then why should we play God in our lives?  We may justify to ourselves that if some action is not taken, a mountain of problems will fall on us. You think God doesn't know? He does, and while we wait on Him, he will give us the strength, grace and interim solutions to get through. We need to have that faith and dependence on ONLY God, not on ourselves, or others.  The Bible is full of countless examples of people who didn't wait on God and took things in their own hands, much to their 

* the Free Dictionary How many times in life we take a decision or done or not done something only to realize we have blown it? When failure stares us in the face we dread the result with that sinking feeling, with the knowledge of the outcome of our failure? But guess what? We know of at least 5 Biblical characters who went through failures and yet built on it for success. You see it is not the failure itself that Hurts us but our reaction to that failure . And there are enough examples in the Bible. But God does not turn His face away when we fail. He loves a good come back ! Look at King David - he broke half the commandments! David coveted Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba (2 Sam. 11:2-3), committed adultery with her (2 Sam. 11:4) effectively stealing her from Uriah (2 Sam. 12:9), lying to him (2 Sam. 11:12-13) , and eventually having him murdered (2 Sam. 12:9). The prophet Elijah had such a major burnout he ran and hid himself. And what about Paul's awful history, Peter's denial,

Management has a new Mantra these days: Leadership . Leadership courses are being taught all over while management consultants and coaches specialize in Leadership. According to McKinsey, a very respected consulting firm, Leadership is defined as a set of behaviors used to help people align their collective direction, to execute strategic plans, and to continually renew an organization. In short, it addresses one of the activities of management know as influencing. But Leadership is nothing new and the Bible is full of examples of Leadership. Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Saul, the apostles, Joseph and so on, all appointed and mentored and led by God, the greatest leader of all. If God produced so many leaders, and is the greatest leader, is it not worthwhile to understand how He defined leadership?  because it logically follows that His definition and therefore His method, would be the best. To understand this, we need to remember that leadership stems from management, which stems

  We are not Robots. We all have the ultimate freedom - the freedom of choice. “Thou mayest choose for thyself, for it is given unto thee” (Moses 3:17). As did Adam, we are also free to choose between good and bad and live our life the way we choose to. These choices reflect both in our professional and personal lives. I can choose to make good decisions or bad decisions for both.  God has given us this gift of free will, the freedom to choose. Why? Because He would have us as His children, not as His slaves or robots . God created humanity in the image of Himself and called them to partner with Him in expanding his creation. But partnership requires trust, so God trusted us and gave humanity the freedom to choose.  So, we can either choose to work and live with God, following His wisdom or we can choose to live our life, according to our minds and heart. Sadly, humans often make the choice to trust their own wisdom over God’s, and our own understanding while making choices.  Like Ur

  Sometimes, challenges can lead us to complete inactivity and paralyses. We do not know what to do or where to go. This is not new.  Read 1 Samuel Chapter 14  to see what I mean. Saul was paralyzed and sort of gave up fighting the Philistines because they outnumbered him and had superior war technology.   But while he sat under a tree in dejection, surrounded by his six hundred men, Jonathan decided to take some action. He reasoned with himself and his armor carrier, in complete logic built on his faith in God's promises, on why and how he could possibly defeat the Philistines alone, only assisted by his armor carrier. It is worthy to note that the carrier did not flinch from his duty, and supported Jonathan verbally and in action. From all human aspects, Jonathan took a leap of faith, supported only by his belief. How many times are we faced with similar hopeless situations and succumb to inaction like Saul? Jonathan lays out the perfect example of battling our own fears, by goin