Laying Foundation for a Chapel

On Sunday, November 16, 2009, the members of the city church went to the village to lay the foundation for a chapel for the village congregation.

Movies

Grace Times November 2009

from the pastor

Dear People,

Sometimes people take over from God and pronounce judgment on others. One notion that has been around for centuries is that when a person’s line is not carried forward, it’s due to God’s curse. Even our Lord was judged to have been cut off without an heir (Isa.53:8).

Though Jess and Ishaaq (2001) and Elishba and Joe (2002) were married so long ago, we have had no grandkids all these years. One nagging thought was that all opposed to my having started Grace Bible Church, must feel triumphant about it. “In my distress I cried to the Lord, and He heard me” (Ps.120:1).

Jessica’s will have her baby in March 2010, and Elishba in May. The Lord has blessed abundantly. His grace always overflows our capacity. Grace is not measured according to our needs, but His immense glory (Phil.4:19). I’ve found that no matter what I’ve given up for/to God, He always out-gives me.

By the way, 2010 will be the 13th year since Grace Bible Church began. Who says that “bad luck” (or good luck) is in the numbers (or in the stars, or the stones…). We don’t need luck. If God is for, nothing can be against us (Rom. 8:31). God works for our good when we are His (v.s. 28)

In Christ’s love,

Kuru

Benjamin Mall bereaved by his wife’s death.

Manju Ramachandran’s brother-in-law Rev J W Adams passed away.

Cindy and Ethan went back with Ashish Khan to their home at the children’s home in Banbasa.

Manohar Antin had his op for gall stones.

Triza Joseph still under treatment, but has improved.

Pushpa Singh’s husband experiencing a lot of pain, and is undergoing treatment at SGPGI as an outpatient.

Sujeet Sarwan, Smita, Sukriti and Sucehta were all down with fevers and colds one by one.

Jeba and Rev J T Raja recovered from the flu, but Jeba is suffering from cervical spondylitis.

Esther Eisenberg recovering from an upset stomach.

Sukriti attending Confirmation Classes.

Riya Jacob finishing her Church History studies and has an exam coming up. Riya is directing the Sunday School play which will be staged at the La Martiniere Girls’ auditorium.

Suseela has gone to China for a conference and will get to visit Geetu and Gary in their home.

Pastor Kuru preached at the Thanksgiving/Harvest Service of the English congregation meeting in the North India Theological Seminary in Bareilly, and afterwards Roshini and Kuru visited kids at the Warne Baby Fold.

 

I pray you enough

I pray you enough sun to keep your attitude bright no matter how gray the day may appear. 
I pray you enough rain to appreciate the sun even more. 
I pray you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive and everlasting.
I pray you enough pain so that even the smallest of joys in life may appear bigger. 
I pray you enough gain to satisfy your wanting. 
I pray you enough loss to appreciate all that you possess. 
I pray you enough hellos to get you through the final good-bye. —Author Unknown

Grace Times October 2009

from the pastor

Dear People,

While leaving earth, our Lord said, “Go into the world and proclaim the gospel...You shall be my witnesses…” and on the next Day of Pentecost after that, the Holy Spirit took hold of His disciples and broke all language barriers.

Grace Bible Church stands in line with what the Lord said and what the Early Church allowed the Holy Spirit to accomplish through it. That is why we are going bilingual. This is going to be an all-new experience for all of us. And it’s going to be hard.

As your pastor I will need help—lots of it, because I’m definitely no linguist. I will need some of you to exercise the gift of translation. We will need folks who can lead us in singing Hindustani songs. All of us will need to be patient and supportive of one another if this venture is to work. It’s an adventure. I promise you it will be scary. That’s what is exciting about it.

Let’s do this together. Let’s learn together.

In Christ’s love,

Kuru

Shwetha had a normal delivery and Supriya now has a baby brother.

Prabha and Shobha’s pregnant niece Poonam has to be careful but is doing well.

Cindy has problems with her wrists and is in a lot of pain. Worst is, that she is not able to hold baby Ethan.

Jess gets tired easily but is otherwise doing well. Her high BP is being treated.

Triza Joseph has improved in health but has to continue with long term treatment.

Pushpa Singh’s husband has been rather unwell and experiencing a lot of pain, and is undergoing treatment at SGPGI as an outpatient.

Bunny has recovered from back pain and flu.

Amrit Modwell was down with viral flu in Delhi.

Pastor Kuru apologizes for not having sent cards and greetings to members because the peon Ram Kishore keeps absenting himself without any warnings. In September he worked only for two hours on Saturdays and four hours on Sundays.

CONSIDERING THE ALTERNATIVE

A fellow had a very heavy load of worries, cares and duties. The road was rough and seemed to get rougher with each step and the pack got heavier. Finally, he just sat down and said, “I give up. I’m ready to die!” Suddenly the Angel of Death appeared and said, “Did you call me?” The man got up quickly and said, “Oh yes, would you please help me lift this load back up onto my shoulders so I can carry on?” Considering the alternative often helps one’s perspective.

—Author Unknown

GOD’S KIDS

Message preached on Sunday, October 4, 2009

In our world today there is a lot of discussion about children at risk. Actually, they’ve always been at risk. For instance, in Old Testament times some people worshipped Molech, described as a “detestable god” (1 Ki.11:5, 7: 2 Ki. 23:13). The sacrifices offered to this god were a person’s own son or daughter. Down through the ages children have been sacrificed with a view to gaining the favour of gods or for the appeasement of demons. In modern times, Tantric rituals have claimed children as sacrifices, and perverts have abused children sacrificing them to lust, and have got away with little or no punishment.

The Bible reveals God to be One Who proclaims the worth of children. They have an ordained place in God’s plan for the created world. God did ask Abraham to sacrifice his only son Isaac, but that was only to test him, to see whether he would God before his son, and whether he would trust God to keep His promise that Isaac would indeed be his heir. Having seen Abraham’s heart, God didn’t let him go through with the test. He stopped Abraham from sacrificing his son to gain God’s favour, and in a way when God stopped him from sacrificing his son it was in the end an object lesson for all God’s people that God didn’t approve of human sacrifices to gain His blessing.

The Bible reveals God to be the God who proclaimed the worth of children. For God children are not consumables or expendables. Children don’t have to wait until they grow up to be adults before they are included in God’s plans and programmes. Children are included by God because God is Who He is.

The God Family

The biblical revelation of God was in three stages. First, God revealed His transcendence─ that He is God above all, that God is Creator, Sustainer, and Protector. In the second stage of the divine revelation, God’s presence was experienced by people among whom God was incarnate in the person of Jesus. God was God with us, taking part in all our experiences and feeling for us. God cares enough to be our Saviour. In the final stage, God revealed His immanence. He came into human lives as the Holy Spirit, the Sanctifier, who indwells those who received Jesus as Lord. The Creator, the Saviour and the Sanctifier are three distinct persons, but are completely one, each living in the others (see Jn.10: 31, 38).

The Bible reveals that God is one being in three persons. God is triune. The notion of Trinity is one that is totally incomprehensible to the human mind. Humans are able to comprehend the concepts of singularity or multiplicity and therefore human speculation can come up with doctrines of God being just one person or of the multiplicity of gods. That God is triune is pure revelation. If God hadn’t revealed this truth, we would have just remained with our speculations.

But God has shown us these things through the Spirit.

The Spirit searches out all things, even the deep secrets of God. Who knows the thoughts that another person has? Only a person’s spirit that lives within him knows his thoughts. It is the same with God. No one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God (1 Cor.2:10-11, New Century Version).

The best known definition of God is that “God is love” (1 Jn.4:8). Most people don’t know that it is from the Bible. Many reverse the order of the words and think that when they say “love is God” it has the same meaning as the original statement. It doesn’t. Love can be false or true, selfish or unselfish and selfless, possessive or committed but liberating, manipulative or redemptive. The love of God is so true and so redemptive that God is definable as being love in essence. The definition that God is love fits in with the revelation that God is triune.

Love is a word about relationships. If God Who is one, was singular in His oneness, and all alone before He created anything, how could He be love? Such a majestically lonely God could not be love—no more than a hermit living in total isolation and refusing any human interaction could declare that he was in love. For God to be love there has to be someone to love and have a relationship with. That is why it is possible to believe that God is a trinity even though we cannot understand how three persons can be one God or how one God could be three persons. The notion is incomprehensible to the human mind. But it is believable because God is love.

God is the surname of the family, and there are three persons in the God family: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Because God is a family, God calls families into His fellowship. When the world was being destroyed in the Flood, Noah’s family was saved. When humankind continued to alienate itself from God, He chose Abraham and his family. In the Exodus from the slavery in Egypt God liberated all the families of the people of Israel. (The Passover was not inaugurated as a national observance, but it was observed in homes according to their families). Prior to their settlement in the Promised Land, God gave Israel laws that recognized and safeguarded people by their families.

In a family, children are important. In a sense, families are about children. Procreation, nurture of children, and aiming for the settling of children is the agenda of any/every family. When a baby is born, the whole family is centred on that baby.

God recognized the importance of little children and ordained that when Israel observed its most important festival, in every family the littlest one would have a significant role to play in the continuing education of people (Ex.13:26).

God is Father

Before Jesus people knew only about the Creator. They knew Him to be all powerful. Though there were songsters and prophets who talked of God’s loving kindness, people regarded God only as the Almighty Lord. Certainly no one had ever taught that God is Father.

Jesus was the first to tell people that God is Abba (Father). The word “father” is too formal. The word abba is more like “papa”. The idea was totally revolutionary. It still is. Today Muslims in India use the word abba when addressing their fathers, but they would never think of referring to God as Abba.

Paul was so wonder struck and impressed with this usage of the word, that he felt the need to preserve the original Aramaic word Abba within the Greek text of what he wrote (Rom.8:15; Gal.4:6) to stress the significance of Jesus Christ’s teaching that God is Father.

The Jews were expecting that when the Messiah would come, he would restore Davidic kingship and establish an earthly kingdom. But Jesus talked of God’s kingdom as a kingdom not of this world. He said that one did not fight for God’s kingdom in the way that people fought for an earthly one (Jn.18:36). To gain entry into God’s kingdom one must be born again/born from above (3:3, 5). Jesus said that we have to become children to enter God’s kingdom (Matt.18:3). When God is Father, it makes sense that we have to become children in His kingdom.

Churches today don’t regard children as full members. Kids are treated as those in preparation for membership, just like they say that children are the future citizens of a nation. But in God’s kingdom they are the owners of the kingdom. Adults have to become children to enter the kingdom. As children they’re already in. The kingdom belongs to them. They belong to the kingdom. According to Jesus, they have their angels looking at God face to face (18:10). That’s a mysterious statement. But Jesus said it.

Obviously Jesus wanted children to be encouraged and affirmed.

• Whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me (v.5, NCV).
• Whoever in the name of a disciple gives to one of these little ones even a cup of cold water to drink, truly I say to you, he shall not lose his reward (10:42, NASU)

They are not to be treated as outsiders. That’s what the disciples did to children who were brought to Jesus for His blessing (19:13). The disciples thought that children were not important enough for the Master to bother with. They never tried to stop any adult from meeting Jesus—even if they were social outcasts like leprosy sufferers or known prostitutes. But Jesus went against that typical attitude and said that God’s kingdom belongs to children (19:14). Imagine that! But we don’t and that is why we still try to keep kids out saying that they are not ready to be regarded as followers of Jesus.

Children may not be rational about why they accept Jesus when brought up in the circle of faith. They’re just simple followers. They imitate. That is how they learn. If you lead, they will follow. Lead them to Jesus.

God is Faithful

The Bible reveals God to be one who initiates covenants with people. He makes covenants and keeps them.

Covenants are the formalisation of relationships. A relationship is given official or public recognition. One goes on record that the relationship exists. For instance, a wedding proclaims that a man and a woman have entered into a covenant to be faithful to each other, and that no one is permitted to come between them or do anything to undermine their relationship.

Tokens or symbols accompany covenant-making. Tokens give a covenant a real world presence. They are proof that it happened and is not something that we imagined in a dream state.

When God instituted His covenant with Abraham, God made circumcision the sign that all Abraham‘s descendants were to bear. Circumcision was done when a baby was just eight days old (Gen.17:12; 21:4; Phil. 3:5). The ritual clearly declared that God’s plan included children from their very infancy.

Whole households were baptized in the Early Church (Acts 16:15, 33; 1 Cor.1:16). In that ancient world, a household was not a nuclear family, nor just an extended (joint) family of brothers and their families. A household included even the slaves and their families. There were bound to be some kids in such large groups.

Paul wrote that even if only one partner in a marriage is a believer, the children of that marriage are “holy” (1 Cor. 7:14). Scripture says some strange things, doesn’t it? Who would have thought that kids born in a home where one is from another faith are holy?

The end of the matter is, God loves children. Jesus loved kids and drew them into His circle and proclaimed them owners of God’s kingdom. Adult believers, if they are indeed believers, must believe what Jesus said and not try to dispossess the children of the King.