stephen-on-bible

Last month, a wonderful brother in the Lord gifted me a book Radical by David Platt . It is one of the few books in my life that I read in its entirety with great earnestness, even planning to read again.  As I read through the pages, I was deeply convicted and challenged to live a different life as a disciple of Christ Jesus. O, how I wished in my heart to buy as many copies of this book and give to as many Christians as possible, so that they would read and learn to live a crucified Christian life in this self-indulgent world! Well, when we look at the contemporary Christianity, don’t you suppose many of us who claim to be disciples of Christ seem to live a self-elevated rather than self-denial life, comfort zone rather than crucified life, earthly-minded rather than heavenly-focused life, world-like rather than Christ-like life and religious rather than radical Christian life? The aim of many who claim to believe in Christ appears to be this—earn a nice educational d...

One of the fascinating and thriving teachings in the contemporary Christendom, towards which multitudes are drawn, is “prosperity.” Never before in the history of the church has there been a greater emphasis on this topic as it is in the present age. There are many prosperity preachers emerging in our time, most of them found on television. Regretfully, many are excitingly receiving this teaching without careful examination. Preachers of Prosperity Basically, there are two piteous elements found in prosperity teaching: a) One of the famous clichés of prosperity is this – sow a seed (money). Prosperity teachers motivate people to sow a seed (money), thereby reaping a great harvest (material blessings) from the Lord. Even if someone doesn’t have sufficient money or living in debts, they can still sow a seed of faith (whatever little money they have) and reap abundant financial prosperity. Obviously, there is an immense emphasis on giving in their teachings. Of course, the Holy Bible to...

“Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours” - C.S. Lewis Recently, I read in the newspaper that with a net of worth of $29 billion (more than Rs. 1,32,000 crore), industrialist Mukesh Ambani remains the richest Indian. He is the world’s fourth richest, according to Forbes . But, is he the fourth richest or the fourth poorest person in the sight of the Living God? People generally think those who possess abundant wealth and gain everything that is in the world are really the blessed ones. This may be true in a sense. However, God judges things quite different from people. The rich and poor on earth are not viewed by God in the same way as we do. In the parable of the rich fool, Jesus said, “This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God ” (Luke 12:21). Take a note here - those who store up things for themselves are not rich toward God. They are not the blessed ones in His sight. They are, in actual fact, impoverishe...