#64 Åґ☂ ◎ḟ ʟ☤√ḯη❡ :
I was born as a preacher’s kid in a evangelical Church in India. My Father is a pioneer who trusted God and came to a mission station to establish a evangelical church and reach out to all the souls that God wanted to be saved and build them up in the way of the Lord.
Since my childhood I have learned what it means to be in want and still be content through it all, and also what it means to live in the abundance of heaven when God would open his hand of blessings abundantly season after season to satisfy me and yet because of lack of thankfulness live in want.
One thing I have always desired is to live a life pleasing to God, so naturally I grew up learning the laws of God and was taught by my Sunday school teachers to keep it all and therefore live pleasing to God. So I would go to Bible camps, will repent and become joyful and peaceful to get rid of my old sins, then would come back to normal life full of zeal for the Lord and keep the law of the Lord in order to be pleasing to Him.
But lo and behold I would live with this new found zeal for some days and even for a month or more, but would return to the old lifestyle which would again pull me down to where I was and even lower. Bible camp after Bible camp, revival meetings after revival meetings would pass and this became a habit that recurred again and again that I finally as a young boy with all the fleshly desires of lust increasing in me, had come to decide that it is useless to try to live a Christian life pleasing to God.
Little did I know that it is not just hard to live by the law and please God, but rather it is impossible to live a Christian life without depending on the help of the Holy Spirit who has been sent as a helper to usher to us His infinite grace through which only we can expect help from God to live a life fully pleasing to Him.
One of the reason I was very skeptical about the gift of the Holy Spirit since my childhood is because of the lack of knowledge and abuse of this gift in Christian Pentecostal and Charismatic circles which made evangelical denominations like ours to come to the conclusion that anything supernatural that we cannot understand with our finite mind should be rejected as it does have the potential to deceive us through demonic counterfeits.
So the deeper way to live spiritual life for me from my childhood is to repent to God and get promises regarding salvation from the Bible, and after that straightaway live a life fully pleasing to God in surrender without entertaining conscious sins.
I became such a hypocrite as I moved in to my teen years that I would consider lustful things I like to be something that God would overlook as I was keeping all others laws of His everyday. The holier-than-thou attitude became the lifeline to soulish death and self-justification. As I grew up, sinning became a habit and sin-repent-sin became a cycle as usual.
All the joy, peace and righteousness which are the eco-system of heaven to experience on earth became more polluted through sin and less appealing to me day by day and year after year as I became more miserable in life. One side I loved the world and the other side I loved God, a divided heart began to increase in me.
During this time, I became more and more involved in fleshy lust like pornography and masturbation which began to control me and sucked out the heavenly life that God had previously given which I had taken for granted.
During this time I finished my tenth standard and pursued my Diploma in Electrical Engineering for three years. Then by the grace of God He gave me a chance through His favor for me to join in the Bachelor of Engineering degree course in the same Electrical and Electronics engineering course. As I moved on in the same spiritual cycle of keeping the law to please God, God moved me in to a Father-Son realm of chastisement through His love where He wanted to make me a useful vessel for His Glory.
I used to be physically very very strong as I would regularly exercise in the gymnasium for an hour or two each day right from the age of fifteen. So toward the end of the final year of my Engineering, suddenly without any know reason I became so weak in my body that my hands would tremble so much that I would try to anxiously cover it up before others as though nothing unusual was happening, yet I would try to reason myself to believe that I do not have anything bad or serious health issues as I was still exercising regularly.
I lost nearly 15 kilograms in more than a couple of months time which took me from nearly 90 to 75 kilogram body weight. As I was a six footer, people would ask me how I have lost so much weight in a short period of time and I would tell them that exercise and right diet would help achieve weight loss easily. But little did I reveal how weak I had become that my hands were trembling and that I had been psychologically affected within.
Through it all I failed in one of the easiest subject where I scored 35 out of 40 for a pass mark, and immediately I applied for revaluation. After that when I met my tuition master and he felt pity enough to tell me that if I could give him 5000 bucks, he would try to trace my paper to make me clear the paper to get the degree with first class. And I tried bribing through this very good influential math teacher who tried his best to trace my paper, as he was part of the the correction team of our University. But he failed to reach my paper as he was not able to trace it, as I now believe God had kept it out of reach so that I would fully come to place of surrender to his will in my life and would not try illegal way to achieve in life.
So with my weakness I studied the same Numerical Methods paper and in the next six months passed it with a above average marks to get my second class degree in Engineering. Next immediately I pursued a training in software Engineering field which was booming before the 911 tower crash. I nearly was about to be placed in a good firm before which the 911 towers of New York crashed and the whole world came to a stand still in the New Millennium. The whole industry took a downside after that and my health condition too was extremely bad that I had to tell my CEO that I am not able to continue with the work. He was not willing to let me go, but I had to leave them promising them that I will return back once I will regain my health back.
Little did I know what was in store for me back home in Erode which was nearly 400 kilometers from Chennai which is the capital of Tamil Nadu my home state. There was immediately in that same week a revival meeting arranged in our Church. In that meeting by God’s providence I met a apostle of God whom God used mightily, I said to him how empty I feel within and how weak I felt in my body. I also told him how I have a burden to reach out to souls. He told me personally to kneel down and prayed over me saying, ‘Lord if possible, use him more than me.’
Nearly those three wonderful days of revival meeting got over and thousands of people were touched by the good tidings of great joy through the power of God and the Word of God which the Man of God brought to town. But over night as I was weary I slept, and in the morning when I tried getting up I was not able to get up even to go to rest room. I felt so depressed in my life, because just when all the young people of my age were getting in to good high paying work, here I was entering in to a dark phase of my life where the future seemed hopeless.
But as I looked upon the wall, there the Word of God from the calendar suddenly was quickened by God within my heart while I saw it. In it were written, “Trust in the Lord at all times.” (Psalm 62:8). This was the first time I felt God speak in my spirit so clearly. Then as I asked why should such a shameful thing should happen to me, God told me within my spirit clearly, “Whatever shame you go through is not greater than the shame I went through for you on the Cross!” This really got me thinking deeply and comforted my heart greatly as I received God’s grace to face the greatest hardship of my life till that time of my life which I faced that day.
I was taken by an Ambulance to the Hospital, and there doctors diagnosed that I had Hyper Thyroid three times more than the normal limit which caused potassium deficiency in my body and it made the muscles of my body to become hardened to cramp me down to become immobilized temporally. Doctors prescribed regular medicine and rest for me after nearly three or four days of treatment. I thanked God to return back home, but due to high fatigue and weakness, I could only eat a little bit and sleep after that, and again I was taking medicine and doing the same for weeks together hopelessly.
During this time, I would take the Bible to read it for sometime and I would have joy and peace. Then I would sleep thinking about those verses I have read. This happened over a period of time. In other words, the word of God became my spiritual medicine for my soul while I was also taking medicine for the healing of my body.
One of those days, as my parents were praying as usual on a Wednesday afternoon in a nearby room, which they have always done since my childhood, I was half asleep due to weakness. But then to my amazement, suddenly the Presence of God filled the place and I felt a reverential fear within after which I heard behind me a voice that was like a noise of many waters, He then told me saying, “You do my work, I will bless you, your family and all those who come in to contact with you…”
Thus from that day onwards my journey of faith started as I began to fight the fight of faith to fulfill God’s destiny and purpose for my life and the world around me. I also used to watch regularly the programs of dear Pastor Benny Hinn called ‘This is your day,’ it was on this particular day I was challenged by a elderly man of God in a talk show with Benny. He told me that whoever he would pray for would get filled with the Holy Spirit with the external evidence of speaking in tongues. But then one woman was not able to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit even after he prayed, but then she told him that many men of God have prayed for her before just like him, but in spite she was never filled with the Holy Spirit. Sensing the spirit of religious pride working within her, then this man of God it seems have rebuked that woman and told that her pride and tradition has not allowed her to get filled with the Spirit of God. So she went to kneel immediately before God and humbled herself of her pride. Soon after that she was gloriously filled with the Spirit of God and began to speak in tongues.
As I was desperate for more of God to again walk with Him in power, that evening I went to the terrace alone and started to pray with faith for God to fill me with His Spirit. Then as told by the man of God in that talk show, the first time I felt a single syllable word come to my mind, I began to speak out in faith. Then more and more words of the Spirit in tongues started to flow through me and a joy that is unspeakable and peace that passed my understanding filled me to the brim and began to overflow through me.
Thus I began to understand the ART OF LIVING with God and for God is only through faith and faith alone in what Christ has done for me personally which can only please God immensely. If ever we want to achieve anything in our spiritual lives, it is not by our might or power, but by His Spirit alone who has been given to us personally to help us pray in the will of God so that we will be empowered to fulfill God's will for our lives. And the power to fulfill the purpose of God for our lives is not within us but with God who gives us the Holy Spirit to walk in His will and way. All we need to do is to surrender our lives through His Spirit and let God live His life through us day after day for His Glory!
THUS MY RESEARCH FROM THE WORD OF GOD STARTED THAT DAY, WHICH NOT ONLY HELPED ME TO UNDERSTAND THE WORD OF GOD IN A DEEPER REVELATORY WAY, BUT ALSO BE A BLESSING TO OTHERS THROUGH MY SHARING WITH THEM ABOUT THE LIMITLESS POSSIBILITIES OF BEING BLESSED AND FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT THROUGH FAITH.
mUcH bLeSsIngS...
