Alive

The rain after a long dry season has a sweet refreshing fragrance that brings memories especially of home and beckons us home. Even childhood photos have this effect that takes us back to the past and make us hope to relive those days again in future. Our senses that take us through time signify that we are alive. But what does it mean to be alive in Christ? It must be when all our senses are tuned to God: we see God’s hand in His creations, hear His still voice, feel His touch, sense the sweet scent of His presence and taste His goodness. This possibility of being alive in Christ was made available for everyone through the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus two millennia ago.

We are more alive in Christ for we know the reason we were created and our purpose in this world and we have the assurance that He is always near to carry us through into the unknown future.

The Uniting Factor

Summer is always the busiest and the liveliest season of the year. This year’s summer was particularly lively (noisy too) especially with the FIFA World Cup 2010 which captivated the world in many ways. It not only made most of us celebrate with others the victories of the team we supported but it made us share the disappointments and the pain of defeats and most importantly this event brought different people together to discuss a world event and enjoy each others’ company.

For Christians, an event that brings people together is not something new; the event when “the Son of God became a man to enable us to become sons and daughters of God” and gave us the redemption by giving His own life on the cross is the most significant event on this earth and this event has brought us together as a family today. Through Christ, people from different countries, races, languages, ethnic background and culture can now share the same Spirit, the same values and the same Savior. When we join our hearts in Jesus’ name there is a strong bonding and we share the most mysterious relationship we can know on earth; a personal relation so beautiful, inexpressible and transformational. And the best thing is that it is not just an event that has occurred but it is an event that offered us a chance to become a friend with the Creator Himself.

Therefore, let us encourage one another to strengthen our relationships with God and to look forward with hope and faith in Him. Together let us build a deeper relationship with God everyday so that there will be no nights when the dark clouds hide away the shining Star in the horizon.

Faith and Reason

Autumn, a “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, a season that fills all fruit with ripeness to the core,” in the words of John Keats, has arrived. Like the summer which had seen its share of activities; from the busy bees in the blooming flowers to the culminating fruits, our Church too had a summer full of fruitful activities. And now in this season it is time for the fruits to ripen; the time to swell and fill our hearts and minds with the knowledge and wisdom of God.

The world is advancing technologically everyday and with the conglomeration of advancements, technology has certainly changed the way we live and made our life more comfortable. When we think about technology there is an inevitable reference to Science, and Science, as we all know, is a product of a God given gift - the “Mind” which has the ability to think and reason. Reason has played a major role in shaping the world to what it is today but there is another factor which has played a monumental role in shaping humanity – Faith, the Christian faith.

The difference is that Science transforms the way a person live but Christianity transforms the person itself. The English writer, G.K. Chesterton used the analogy of a painter painting the portrait of a sitter.

“It would not matter if he tore up twenty portraits. But it would matter if he looked up twenty times, and each time saw a new person sitting placidly for his portrait.”

The Christian’s ideal - Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and will be the same forever hence we can depend and put our faith in Him in every season. We have failed in our attempts to understand Him and to be like Him but in a way our old failures are fruitful for our ideal is still the same. On the contrary the failures of all the attempts to imitate an ever changing ideal are fruitless.

Lets make a conscious effort to learn how faith and reason can be reconciled and also be warned of the dangers in the misuse of both. Lets spark an interest in ourselves and help one another towards believing through the mind with all our heart and reasoning through the heart with their mind and explore the endless wonders of God’s world.