Shifting my blog

Dear Reno, Priji, Neelam and Blesson,

Thank you so much for choosing to follow this blog. Appreaciate your passion to read about our SAVIOUR KING. Just to inform you guys that I will now be hosting all my spiritual blog posts on my Wordpress blog. You can sign up and receive the updates to your mail directly. Apologies for the inconvenience caused. But please do check out the WordPress blog here. Or copy paste the url to your address bar: http://mymastersinsights.wordpress.com/

While there, I will appreciate your feedback about the look n' feel and also, about my writing. You can be as 'judgmental' as possible. Just on a quest to improve. Catch you there.

Regards,
In HIS Service,
Blessen Varghese

Love...

Love was betrayed. Love was denied. Love was deserted. Love was whipped. Love was beaten. Love was mocked. Love was spat on. Love was nailed. Love was pierced. Love was nailed. Love was crucified. Love bled. Love bled again. And again. Then, Love breathed HIS last & died... Not before... Not before HE uttered in pain, "FATHER, forgive them for they know not what they do!" Yes. Love died!

Not for long. Not for long. In 3 days, Love conquered death. Love rose. Love lives today and forever! Love forgave. Love erased the past! Love lives today and forever!

Feel betrayed? JESUS knows...
Feel lonely? JESUS knows...
Feel 'this is it'? This ain't it! There's more. There's more. There's more.
Feel unloved? You aren't! You've never been unloved. JESUS knew you. HE saw you from the cross. He walked out of the grave to come to you. To tell you, "MY son, my daughter," (Yea, you heard that right. HE called you son. HE called you daughter) "you've never been unloved. Never! I love you. I love you! I always did. I always will!"

Friends, if you read this post and felt a change. A never-before experienced peace. A new feeling of being loved by SOMEONE far greater than your closest friend or family. You've just experienced GOD! The true living GOD. The only ONE- JESUS CHRIST!

Pray this simple prayer to call unto HIM as your LORD and SAVIOUR:
Lord JESUS, today I experience you personally. Thank you JESUS for forgiving me. For erasing my past. For giving me a new beginning. Today, I accept YOU, JESUS, as my LORD and SAVIOUR of my life! Thank YOU for loving me. In JESUS' NAME- Amen!

New Generation Church? Or the First Generation Church?

One Malayalam fortnightly had interviewed my father, a respected servant of GOD, about a year and a half back. After all the questions about dad’s history and ministry that were asked, came what I think was the final question from the interviewer, “Pastor, what do you think about today’s new generation churches and its popularity?”

My dad’s answer was something along these lines: “I don’t agree with the term ‘New generation’ in the first place. Churches always were one. But if you give it that name that because of the worship services that you see today, I see nothing wrong. Music and dance were always a part of worship right from the Old Testament times. We cannot force our youngsters to worship in the same way we do.”

Almost two years have passed; the interview is yet to get featured. My dad, as if prophetic, said the moment they left, “They haven’t liked what I told them about their question on new generation church. I won’t be surprised if they don’t cover it!” I didn’t quite fathom what the fuss was all about. And, I still can’t! Never knew ‘New Generation Church’ would be an accusation! Here are some of the thoughts and observations that I shared with my friends about the church today. One of the striking things that came out was ‘Love’ or the absence of it in our congregations today…

• Knowledgeable and ‘wise’ believers cannot build the churches today. Lovable and Loving brethren will… (Read I Corinthians 8:1)
• It’s an age when saying, “I love you” to another brethren raises eyebrows. It’s an age where hugging another brother makes people cringe in doubt. It’s an age where walking hand-in-hand and hand-on-shoulder with another brother makes people look at us twice. What then is the remedy? Either we stop doing all of the above
  Or Do it so frequently that it becomes common and ‘normal behaviour’. Why don’t we start with or church. After all, the world is supposed to (and will?) follow us. Let the normal behaviour of GOD be replicated in our churches and lives. 
• “Greet all your brethren with a holy kiss.” – wonder when this became a ‘commandment’ to be followed strictly immediately after the LORD’s Supper… Judas betrayed the SON OF MAN with a kiss before crucification. We do it after remembering HIS death on the cross!

I guess there’s no better way to sign off than by this last part:

 

Our brethren may christen a powerful (and unusual) movement of the HOLY SPIRIT in us youngsters as a ‘New Generation church of today’s Y-generation’. It’s anything but ‘new’. It’s a ‘First generation church of a ‘Y-not generation’! Why ask ‘Why’ about a work of the Holy Spirit? Why not ask ‘Why not’?

Be drenched and spread the flood…

“For John truly baptized with water, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.” (Acts 1:5 – KJV)

In continuation with my previous post, this is another thought that my DADA gave me as I sat down for prayer.

The rain of HOLY SPIRIT never stops! The land was parched. The land was thirsty. It got its fill. But the HOLY SPIRIT ain’t satisfied with just filling us. There’s an overflow that HE’d love to give us! HE doesn’t just satisfy us, HE gives much more in abundance causing an overflow of the SPIRIT in our life.
 Being baptized in the HOLY SPIRIT essentially means getting immersed in that Sweet SPIRIT! And while we are drenched in that RAIN, there’s something else happening. We get to realise that the waters are rising. And rising! And continuing to rise! There’s flood all around us…

…and we can’t do anything about it. Honestly, we wouldn’t want to!

A flood that we’d love to get soaked in… A flood that wouldn’t drown us, but rather, would continue to cleanse us, and lead us with its wave into areas we never thought we could reach! It will just lead us with its flow into territories unknown and unexpected. Try going against the current of this flood – and we’d probably end up inside the empty tummy of a huge amphibian, only to end up where the flood actually wanted to lead you. Remember Jonah! (And if we find an amphibian blocking our way during the current, the SPIRIT will give us enough strength to make us swallow that disobedient fish!)

Soaked in the SPIRIT, we’ll be in the territory that the flood brought us. But the rain wouldn’t recede. Through the overflow in us, there are others waiting to be drenched. Those that never experienced this rain before… Those that never experienced this cleansing before…

Oh, how exciting is this drenching! It makes us wanna have more of this rain. It makes us wanna dance! It makes us wanna jump! It makes us wanna float! It makes us wanna do everything that this RAIN makes us do! It’s like the excitement of a little child left free with a bucket of water! Maybe even more… for we have the whole Heavens as our bucket waiting to pour out the HOLY SPIRIT. It’s endless and it’s limitless.

So, don’t be satisfied with just having your fill. Be hungry for an outpour and overflow… It’s available! And wait... for a flood is on its way...

Time to break ground!

It's a parched land that we live in. And clearly, there's a thirst all around. Thirst for truth. Thirst for something real. Thirst for SOMEONE real.

But hey, where are those entrusted to take care of this parched land? Where are the trees that were to be planted to provide some relief and comfort to a land, now soon to be declared 'unfit' for harvest?

The truth, although bitter to the throat, is that the fruit-bearing trees never really sprang up! Or if they did, they stopped growing. Not only did they stop growing, they shrunk down beneath the ground.

The seeds were sown. The land was ripe. But, how can we push the mud on the ground apart and spring out? That's too much of an effort! And we are not quite sure if it was well worth the risk!

The 'we' here refer to the present day church that we are in. It's the ungrown/unborn tree that was supposed to provide relief and shade to the world from the wicked heat! We don't want to break the norm and are not ready to take the risk of pushing the mud apart to break out into the parched world. Well, what more can we expect from ourselves? We couldn't even move a mole hill, let alone have faith to move a mountain! But that's exactly what GOD doesn't want us to do! Have faith in ourselves, for we never can do it ourselves. We never could and never will. The sooner we realise this, the better it is! It's precisely for this that HE has sent A HELPER among us-SOMEONE who wants to work through us and stop depending on our own efforts!

The SEED was already planted, but the church never sprang up out of that SEED, cause' we seldom prayed for GOD to send the RAIN OF THE HOLY SPIRIT on the hungry ground. It's as simple as that! No individual human effort. Ask for THAT RAIN and THE SEED will take roots. It will rip open the ground that so far was an obstacle too heavy to move. And it will do so with ease.

With the FOUNDATION that's CHRIST JESUS as the firm & solid root, and the leaders as the strong stem, there's no way that this church tree can be stopped now. With the constant rain of the HOLY SPIRIT, not only will it be a source of comfort to this weary land, but also will produce life-giving fruits to the travelers heading for doom and death!

Wake up church! Wake up from that comfort zone. It's time to receive the RAIN and break the ground and provide life through CHRIST!

Welcome...

As can be read on the intro line, this blog is just a humble attempt at trying to put into words what my Saviour Jesus Christ tells me. I wasn’t completely sure about starting a Christian blog because I am more a writer who is perhaps blessed with writing humour from real-life incidents. Starting this blog, of course, does not mean that Christian writings cannot be humorous. In fact, to quote my DADA himself, while HE was on this earth, “Do not worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow has enough things to worry about itself!” Or “…Tomorrow will take care of its own worries.” (Matthew 6:34) I smell some humour in that sentence when HE personifies ‘tomorrow’!

And of course, this doesn’t mean that you expect only humour here. As I said, expect what my DADA gives me, most of which I used to share via my morning SMSes to many of my friends… So, read and be blessed, encouraged and possibly, practice. I hope I can.

Snippet: As I was launching this blog, the word verification was ‘godstry’. I didn’t need a bigger cue than that to stop hesitating and start my Christian blogging…