We, from the Gospel Partners Movement, greet every one of you in the most precious name of our Lord who crowns the year with His bounty ( Ps 65 : 11. NIV) and gives strength to His people and blesses His people with peace( Ps 29 : 11. NIV )
At the dawn of another year, what do we expect to happen in our lives? Better would be that we should consider what our Lord Jesus Christ expects to happen in our lives. One among many other things that our Lord expects from us is that we bring forth fruit. In our lives we are expected to bring much fruit. (St John 15 : 1 – 16 NIV)
Life of a fruit begins with the seed. A person plants a seed when he eats a good and tasty fruit. When the seed is planted, it changes or loses its shape and roots go down and a plant comes up. The person who planted it looks after the plant, it grows into a tree, bears forth flowers and produces many fruits and then the person enjoys good fruits for many years.
Our lives are the seeds our God has planted in this world in a particular place at a particular time and for a particular purpose. That purpose is to bear fruit for him. This means that :-
We are called by Christ to bear fruit for Him. (Jn 15 : 16 NIV) “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit – fruit that will last.” Every Christian is called by God to live in such a way that through his thoughts, words and action he / she bears fruit and brings many to the knowledge of our God. We are called to make His divine presence felt in our daily situations.
By being fruitful, we glorify our God. “This is to my Father's glory that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.” (Jn 15 : 8 NIV) We should be careful that activities do not and should not bring glory to ourselves but to bring glory and honour to our God. Discipleship and fruit bearing are closely related. We put ourselves into the discipline of Christ to bring glory to our Lord.
Being fruitful pleases God. “We pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please Him in every way; bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God”. (Col 1 : 10 NIV) Our lives become the fruit by which we bring about a renewal in the lives of other people. This event will have to go on from generation to generation. This is what has happened in our lives through the effect of the missionary work of the former years. This is what we do through GPM Ministry.
So as we enter another year may we all strive hard to bring much fruit for the expansion of the kingdom of our God through all our activities. May we inspire and encourage one another to grow in the experience of bearing much fruit in our ministry.
Every year during December, we think of Christmas Festival and the celebrations. We make various preparations. Carol Services, New dresses. Greeting cards and what not. Thus we have got used to concentrate on the festivities of Christmas.
In the midst of it, we look at how the Shepherds celebrated the First Christmas. We find this in Lk 2 : 8 – 20. They were in the fields watching their sheep. v 8. They were told of Christ's birth. v 9-11. They were given a sign v 12. They heard the angels' song. v 13. They came and saw all that was told them. v 15 – 16. They proclaimed to others what they had known. v 17. People were surprised v 18. Mary also thought about all these. v 19. They went back praising God. v 20.
To put all these simply, they transformed the event into their experience . Today, like them, we receive the Christmas message in the midst of our daily ordinary events. All the gospel messages that we hear, sermons, our daily reading of the scriptures, devotions – all these are preparations for the Christmas event and they speak of the transformation that has come into the human life because of Christmas. The Missionaries, inspired by the birth of Christ, came from abroad, and through our forefathers they have given this message to us. We who are touched by the Christmas message are called to bring about a great change in the lives of other people.
As the shepherds proclaimed the birth of Christ, we are also called to propagate the Christmas message. Message of the (God's) kingdom should be preached to all people. Preach the gospel to all nations is the command of our Lord to us. We must actively fulfil this. We must zealously proceed. Today and now let us vigorously and actively get involved in the ministry of Gospel Partners Movement. Through that only we could see great things happening through us, during our days, in our Land. When we wholeheartedly involve ourselves in the on going ministry of GPM, then we will also be transformed from being a festival Christian to a daily Christian.
“ May the Lord our Saviour Jesus Christ bless you all.”
November month ends with the day [30 th ] when we think of St. Andrew. We consider St Paul as the great Missionary of the first century and that of the early Church after Pentecost. However, St Andrew bears a unique place as one who was a Missionary even during our Lord's time. He belonged to the town Bethsaida . Our Lord called him when He was walking by the Sea of Galilee. Andrew and his brother Simon Peter immediately followed him. St Matthew 4 : 18, 20. St John reports this in a slightly different way in St John 1 : 40, 41-The first thing that Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, ‘we have found the Messiah'. Thus he deserves to be called the first Missionary. He was ever ready to help those who needed it. Eg. In the feeding of the five thousand, and of bringing the Greeks who wanted to see Jesus [ Jn 6 : 8,9; 12:21, 22.]
His ministry was later centred around Jerusalem. It is said that he was martyred on a X shaped cross because he did not want to be nailed on a cross similar to the one our Lord was crucified upon. This cross is therefore named as St Andrew's cross.
We learn from the life of St Andrew that true discipleship means brining our own people to our Lord. This is a challenge that we face today. Bringing our own people to our Lord is a daily task that we are called to fulfil it day in and day out.
Secondly, we may not always get opportunities to carry out conspicuous good deeds, but we have plenty of opportunities to help people daily in many small ways.
Thirdly we are called to identify our own abilities and those of others and pool them together for common good. [feeding of the 5000 people & bringing the Greeks to Jesus]
Finally when we belong to Christ, we will always bring others to Christ with our daily activities.
Over the past ten years, the Gospel Partners Movement has been working with the concern which St Andrew showed. The 11000 people baptized, the churches that have been built, the care we show for the children in our 4 Homes, they all point to the fact that our motivation is from people like St Andrew who have pioneered into the unknown territories and brought people to Christ.
May we act in the same spirit and fulfil the command of our Lord to go and preach the Good news to all people of our Land.
“ May the Lord our Saviour Jesus Christ bless you all.”
Lord, you have made me glad with your doings – Ps 92 : 4
In our daily lives, we carry out many activities, and it is a clear sign that we are alive. A dead person, a corpse cannot do any thing and the only thing that we can do is to dispose that body off.
The Holy Bible begins with the words, in Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” which means that our God has been active right from the beginning and the creation of the universe. That is why we proclaim that our God has life and that he does His works among the human beings. We have seen this in the Old and New Testament History and in the human history till now. The conviction that our God is active is helps us to carry on the activities of our God throughout our lives for the welfare of the people today.
The Psalmist, a person like us, says these words in Psalm 92:4, “You make me glad by your deeds, O God, I sing for joy at the works of your hands”. Every experience in his life, with its ups and downs, successes and failures, achieve ments and disappointments reminds him that God has been ever active in his life.
To us today, the greatest act of our God is the coming of Jesus as a Man. This act is revealed through the message in St. Luke 2:10b-11, “good news of great joy to all people . . . . Christ is born”. It means that the only way our God could express this limitless love is by sending His only begotten Son to be the Saviour for all people of all times
The Gospel Partners Movement, established on 03.10.1999 has been proclaiming that our God is ever active in the lives of the people for their betterment. During the past 10 years, our workers have given expression to this great act of our God. More than 10,000 people have become witnesses to this mighty act of God. The Goodnews Ministry that we are involved in, enables the people of our time to experience the blessings of the great acts of our God.
When you make your offerings to God through the Gospel Partners Movement for sharing the great acts of God among the people of our Land, you are uniting yourselves with us in our vision to make people experience the great acts of our God. St Paul speaks about this in 2 Corinthians 9:11-12. “You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous in every occasion and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God. This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of God's people, but also is overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God”.
So it is our prayer that the acts of our God which make us happy should abound in your lives.
“ May the Lord our Saviour Jesus Christ bless you all.”
There was much joy . . . . . . . in that city (Acts 8 : 8 )
From the early days preaching the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ was linked with persecutions. We see this clearly in the history of the Missions too. From the days of the Apostles, the disciples of our Lord have preached the Gospel amidst persecutions, oppositions and obstacles.
In the Early Church, the disciples were persecuted. Missionary Work has been carried out among this type of Anti-Missionary situations. Even today do we not see the same?
We find that there was persecution against the Church. [ Acts 8 : 1 ] As a result, the Christians got scattered everywhere. [ Acts 8 : 4 ] Those who were scattered, preached Christ in their new situations. The disciples, on first Easter evening had closed the doors and stayed inside when they were frightened. Those who had heard the gospel through these disciples became proclaimers in times of persecution. What is our choice ? When we are persecuted are we seeking self protection or do we proclaim the Gospel with more zeal ? We should examine ourselves. We should transform our situations of oppressions to one of opportunities for the Gospel.
Our Lord, who confirms the Word with miracles, delivered others through these scattered people.
People received deliverance from all disturbing situations. [verse 7] They experienced the power of the Gospel by the blessings they had received. Through this experience of deliverance, they experienced great joy [verse 8]. For the past 10 years, the Gospel Partners Movement has been presenting the message which gives this joy to the people in Punjab, Haryana, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Dadra Haveli Union Territory. All the people who live in this area should enjoy this experience. People of our Land should be filled with people who have the real knowledge about our Lord.
“May we pray fervently, try earnestly, work intensely and win the victory”
We live in a world where people count more on what they can get than what they can give. Most people want to get more and more for themselves than what they can share with others. The early Church taught and practiced much giving to meet the needs of the people. [ Acts 2 : 44 ]
We find that after Pentecost and the early persecutions, the early Christians were scattered everywhere. [ Acts 8 : 1, 4 ] These people went as far as Macedonia and wherever they went, they preached the Gospel of Christ. Thus persecution became an opportunity for preaching the Gospel.
St Paul took this situation and taught rich people in Macedonia to give to the poor in Jerusalem. In doing so, he drew an equation, that material blessings are transformed into spiritual blessings by giving to those who needed the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He spoke clearly to those who had received the greatest gift of God, namely, the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, [Spiritual blessing] that they were duty bound to donate their money to meet the needs of the poor in Jerusalem. Then he says that by doing so, they are converting the temporal money to eternal blessings. [Rom 15 : 27]
This is a thought that all of us today should ponder about and act. As our nation faces another Independence Day on 15th, we should remind ourselves as to how the Gospel of our Lord has transformed the lives of Indians over the centuries. We Indians have been blessed by the Gospel of Christ in many ways. It is true that every development and progress that we have had and are experiencing is rooted in the coming of the Missionaries who brought the Gospel of Christ to our forefathers.
While we look around us and think of the people of today, we still see many needy people, not only in need of money but also of transforming experiences from poverty, superstitions, ignorance and other evil practices. The powerful life changing Gospel of Christ should reach them all. They should also enjoy the peace and happiness that we have received in and through Christ.
We appeal to you to join hands with us to transform your material blessings to spiritual blessings so that the Land we live in – our Mother Land will be one about which our Lord would say, “The people I have formed for myself will sing my praises” [Isa 43 : 21] . Your prayers and support will help us much to achieve this.
“ May the Lord our Saviour Jesus Christ bless you all.”
In Him (In Jesus) was life and that life was the light of men – Jn 1:4
John the Evangelist wrote these words about our Lord Jesus Christ in the latter part of the first Century. These words are relevant for the 21st Century too. Think of the two words, life and light. Life symbolizes activity. The very first sentence in the Bible reads, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen 1:1) and the first gift of God to man is light (Gen 1:4) Thus the two words are inter related and is good to think of them.
First of all, think what the world would be like without life and light. People without life are called dead people and people who do not have the light are said to be in darkness. These two conditions are not liked by anyone and for that matter, mankind needs both life and light for good and healthy living. Man constitutes of body, mind and spirit and these conditions of life and life apply not only to the body but also to the mind and spirit. People who are dead in mind and spirit are more dangerous than people who are dead in body. People dead in body are called corpses and they can be disposed off in a set manner. People who are dead in mind and spirit are more dangerous to deal with and could not be got rid off that easily.
Secondly, it is because of this that we think of the life in and light from Jesus Christ, entering the human personality. Prophet Isaiah foretold that, “the people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the shadow of death, a light has dawned. (Isa 9:2 – NIV)” Thus the life that Jesus gives and the light with which He leads us, enables us to differentiate from death and life and darkness and light. In Him (In Jesus) was life and that life was the light of men (Jn 1:4). Mankind still struggles to overcome the powers of death and darkness and those who have known and experienced our Lord Jesus Christ in their lives, enjoy the true blessedness of this life and light.
Thirdly, the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ alone can liberate us from the powers of darkness and death. Today man struggles to overcome the evil effects of death and darkness by his own effort. Being unconcerned about the feelings and needs of other people, he has become selfish and cruel and aims to destroy the other person. Man today is controlled by spiritual darkness and practices many evil acts like superstition and witchcraft. Jesus the Risen Saviour who is the real life and true light of the world alone could remove the adverse effects of death and darkness.
This is what Evangelism means – to proclaim the life and light in and through Jesus Christ to every person in our Land today. It is for this that Gospel Partners Movement was formed ten years ago and the people involved in the ministry of GPM are striving hard to liberate the people of our Land from the powers of death and darkness through the Good News of Jesus Christ. Our active participation in the activities of GPM will help people in the backward areas of our Land, to enjoy and experience the fullness of life and light that comes from our Lord Jesus Christ who said, I have come that they may have life and have it abundantly. (Jn 10:10)
“May we pray for this, work and support this ministry”
Risen Jesus Christ, before His Ascension encouraged His disciples to wait in Jerusalem (Acts 1:5 ) The disciples were ordinary humans with human weaknesses. They needed to be empowered by the Holy Spirit of God to lead a witnessing life and to reach others with the Good News.
The word Pentecost in Greek means “fiftieth” It also means the first fruits of the Harvest (Lev 23:16) On this special day, the Holy Spirit was poured on the believers gathered in the upper room. This is the birthday of the Church. And Holy Spirit is the one who builds His Church (Eph 2:21)
When people hear and accept the Gospel of Salvation, the Holy Spirit of God seals them (Eph 1:13) Because He indwells in us, we are His own people (Rom 8:14 – 17) We are members of one body. (1cor 12:13)
It is this Holy Spirit of God who gives us the divine strength and enables us to lead a new life. He transforms us into His likeness. Christian is not trying to imitate Jesus but this Holy Spirit indwells and transforms him. He also unites them into one body (Acts 4:31 – 35, Eph 2;19 – 22)
My dear fellow believers, I urge you to receive the filling of the Holy Spirit and be strengthened in yore inner person, that you may help people to come out of darkness and walk in the light. The second coming of the Lord is near. Let us act fast.
Yours in the Mission of Jesus - Rev Sam Devanesam,
President, GPM
We have passed from Easter Day and are on our way toward the Ascension event on 21st [40 days after Eater] and toward the Festival of Pentecost [50 days after Easter] on 31st May One of the great gifts that the Early Church got after Pentecost was St Paul the great Apostle. We do well to think and meditate on the secrets of his life and make it our own. We who are interested and involved in the Gospel Partners Movement would benefit much by thinking of the secrets of the success of St Paul as a Missionary. So in the next few messages I wish to share with you, the “Certainties of St Paul” – the things that St Paul was certain about which kept his ministry going. The first certainty that St Paul had was, “Jesus had found him to be faithful” (1 Timothy 1:12.) Because Jesus had found him faithful, he appointed him to be an Apostle. Who was this Paul? He was one who had a part in the stoning of Stephen. (Acts 7:58b, 8:1) He persecuted the Church. He went all over the place to arrest the Christians and bring them to Jerusalem to be killed. (Acts 9: 1, 2) Much more could be said of him on all that he did against the early Church. The turning point was the journey to Damascus as recorded for us in Acts 9:3 – 6. The Risen Lord met him and commissioned him with the command – Go into the city and you will be told what you have to do. (Acts 9:6. ) Then he refers to his past, and the present 1 Tim 1:13 ff. The transforming power of Jesus which made the simple fishermen to stand up boldly to the power of the Gospel of the Risen Savior as we find in the 2dn, 3rd, 4th Chapters of the Acts of the Apostles, made Saul, turned Paul into a powerful Evangelist and Apostle. How many of us have had this experience. We are chosen to be Christ's servants in His vine-yard, not by our merits or qualifications or experiences. The history of the Church over the past centuries has ample evidence to the transforming power of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Along with our Missionaries and Evangelists and other servants of God in the Mission Field, we all, in our time and age, would say, “I thank my God, because He has found me faithful in His service, in spite of my own shortcomings and inadequacies, failures and unfaithfulness.” Let me end with two quotations – “God not only calls the Qualified, He qualifies whom He has called.”
“ God's faithfulness is much more than our faithfulness to Him”
He (Jesus) showed himself alive with many convincing proofs – Acts 1:3. Many years ago, a couple of days after Easter I asked a member of my congregation as to why he was absent at service on Easterday. He promptly replied, “Pastor, the Easter has come and gone – so what” and then he told me that he had gone to his children for the Easter week-end. “Easter has come and gone – so what”. That is my meditation today. Easter, is it only an annual event for Christians? What are the effects of Easter? St Luke gives us the answer in the first few verses of the Acts of the Apostles. During the 40 days after Easter – the ‘great 40 days', till Jesus ascended into heaven on the Ascension Day, He showed himself alive with many undisputable proofs. The post-resurrection appearances were real appearances, relating to normal human lives. He spoke to them, he walked with them, he had meals with them, he encouraged them, he commissioned them, and he assured his continued presence to them. [Refer Mt 28:18 – 20; Mk 16:9 – 20; Lk 24:1-49; Jn 20:1 – 21:25.] This is something really wonderful – is it not? We have celebrated Easter along with Christians all over the world. The experience of Easter has to be a daily event. Many would accept Easter as an annual event like any other religious festival. Some would even say Christ is alive today in the minds of the people and we see that in their sacred and saintly lives. What is most important is that Christ living in the lives of every Christian should be a daily experience of every Christian. That is what the world is looking forward to today and that is the challenge that each one faces today ! ! ! This adds a new dimension to the daily life of every believer in Christ.
He lives! He lives! Christ Jesus lives today
He walks with me and talks with me along life's narrow way
During this month, we pass through major part of the Holy Season of Lent. Lent Season began on Ash Wednesday – 25th February, 2009 and will end on Easterday - 12th April, 2009.
During Lent, we focus our attention on the Temptations of our Lord. Mt 4:1-11. These three temptations are typical of every temptation we face in our day to day life. So we look at those temptations and derive strength from our Lord to overcome these temptations. These temptations lure us to question the divinity and humanity of our Lord [If you are the son of God] and by that make us to be insensitive to our real needs and that of our neighbour. History of the past and the experience in the present gives us a future hope just because Jesus is God and won victory over the temptations.
First temptation: Turn stones into bread: Man needs daily food – give him that and he will be happy. Many people seek Jesus only for their material needs. Jesus knows our needs and all our needs are always before Him. He gives us what we need for each day and he taught us to pray – give us.... this day.... our daily bread. We are taught to seek His Kingdom and its righteousness. This leads to man receiving not only spiritual blessings and wholeness of body, mind and spirit, but also the material blessings that people seek after.
Second temptation: Do some eye-catching stunt and make people to follow Jesus. People always get attracted by stunts. The second temptation is against all the natural laws given by God and govern our human lives. Law of gravity is one of these natural laws. So we cannot violate that law wilfully and expect God to prevent us from physical harm and danger. God can and does work beyond the natural laws – like walking on the water or even miracles that Jesus performed then and the miracles of today.
Third temptation: Worship the creation and not the Creator. This leads to idolatry and image worship; putting our trust on what we can grasp with our limited human mind. However, what we see as images made of metals alone are not the images that we are tempted to worship. We worship other mental images like – power, money, popularity etc. That is why it is said that mental images are more damaging than metal images.
It is up to us during this Lent to examine and review our lives against the yardsticks that our Lord has given us in His word. We could use the Ten Commandments – [Exodus 20 : 1-17], the Beautitudes [St Matthew 5 : 1 – 10] , the Fruit of the Spirit [Galatians 5 : 16 – 22] for our Self-examination . Knowing that our God is all sufficient to sustain us through all the events and circumstances of life, will make us to conquer over our sins and lead a victorious like in and through Jesus our Lord.
At the dawn of another year, our thoughts go back to year 2008 which we have completed and the year 2009 which we have begun. We are called to look back with thanks giving to God and look forward with trust in Him.
The Psalmist in Psalm 29:11 assures us that our Lord gives 3 gifts to us, the verses 3-10 (Psalm 29:3-10) tell us how powerful and mighty voice of the Lord is such a mighty and powerful God is willing to give us such wonderful gifts.
Firstly, He gives us His strength. Many of us are weak in so many things and we long for some one to help us receive that strength. In Isaiah 40:29 we read “ He giveth power to the faint and to them that have no might he increases strength ” Thus the power of God enables us to achieve great things for the Glory of his name and for the extension of His Kingdom.
Secondly, he gives us His blessings. Blessings make our life better than what we are today and prepares us for a better tomorrow. Today we ask God for more material blessings than spiritual blessings. St. Paul says “ He has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ ”(Ephesians 1:3b) and “ we are called to transform our material blessings into spiritual blessings ” (Romans 15:27).
Thirdly, he gives us His peace in the midst of all the crisis and the chaos we face every day He gives us His peace “ which the world cannot give nor take it away ” (John 14:27) On the first Easter evening our Lord came and stood among the disciples who were behind closed doors and told them “peace be unto you” (John 20:19b) and the disciples were happy that they saw the Lord (John 20:20). Jesus told His disciples to put their troubled minds at rest and that he needed them to carry on the Good news to the world. (John 20:21) and that he could still trust them to do His work. He never mentioned anything about what happened on Maundy Thursday night or on Good Friday.
May this same living Lord prepare each one of us to receive these 3 gifts and make us channels of His abundant blessings to those who need Him in our land.
January'10 Message by Rev. R. C. J. Samraj 