Called By Name

“I have called you by your name; You are Mine.” Isaiah 43:1 

In the terrifying record of his memories of a time that testifies to the depths of depravity  of mankind, Elie Wiesel in his book, Night, writes of the time when he arrived at the Auschwitz camp.  “In the afternoon they made us line up.  Three prisoners brought a table and some medical instruments.  We were told to roll up our left sleeves and file past the table.  The three “veteran” prisoners, needles in hand, tattooed numbers on our left arms.  I became A-7713.  From then on, I had no other name. At dusk, a roll call.  The work commandos had returned.”    I imagine the roll call now consisted of numbers instead of names.  What, at one time was a name, signifying a person, a relationship, a part of a social order, had now become merely a number – easy to exterminate.  There is something about our names.  It encompasses a personal history, and establishes a personal identity.  It hides in it all that I am, and hope to be.  It may be the closest way to reference my essence outside of me. And therefore the words of God through Isaiah, “I have called you by name” must have sounded like a cordial to the Israelites in the midst of an uncertain future and Babylonian captivity.   When someone calls you by name, they are declaring they recognize you, and they are validating your identity.  When God calls you by name, He is not only declaring recognition, and validating identity, He is also assuring protection and securing destiny.  Look at the words that follow God’s declaration. He promises safety from flood and fire, and ultimately a destiny – a gathering of His people.  “I have called you by name, you are mine.  When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow you, when you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned… Fear not, for I am with you, I will bring your descendants from the east, and gather you from the west, I will say to the north ‘give them up”, and to the south, ‘do not keep them back, bring my sons from afar (Isaiah 43:2-7)   As the Israelites “wept by the rivers in Babylon”, and perhaps wrestled with their alienation from God because of their sin, the words, “I have called you by name, you are mine” were most cheering.  In this God was saying that though through sin you have been alienated, you have not been voided personally. You have not simply become a number.  If this was true then, it is more true after the cross. John reminds us that “as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name” 

Friend, may I remind you today that if you have repented of your sin, and surrendered your heart to the Lord Jesus Christ, then God promises that you are His child, and he calls you by your name – recognition, identity, safety and destiny!   

Danesh Manik

Why are you fearful?

But He said to them, “Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?” Then He arose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm.  Matthew 8:26

The question may have struck the disciples as a little unfair.  We are told that a tempest arose and the boat was covered with waves.  Who would not be fearful in the midst of the danger of sinking?     The situation was not of their making.  To add to their feeling of helplessness Jesus was fast asleep in the boat.  Mark, in his gospel, captures their frustration, as they wake Him asking, “Do you not care that we are perishing?”  Jesus chides them for being fearful, pins their fear as lack of faith, and rising up, He calms the winds and the sea, and they marvel and ask, “who can this be that even the wind and the sea obey Him?”    By calming the winds and the sea Jesus demonstrated that He was sovereign, and He did care.  The lack of faith of the disciples was precisely their inability to fully grasp the sovereignty of the Son of God on one hand, and His love on the other.  In the first question “Do you not care we are perishing?” they showed that they had not quite grasped the love of God.  In the later, they showed that they had not understood His sovereignty.   The sovereignty of God and the love of God is the basis of all genuine confidence in God, and the sure antidote to all fear.  I am convinced that real faith is directly proportional to how much we grasp this doctrine of sovereignty, and how much we understand God’s love for us.  Of all the prophets, I believe, Isaiah, uses the term, “fear not” more times than any other, and most times what forms the backdrop for these comforting words is the ultimate sovereignty of God, and His love for His people.  For instance in Isaiah 43,  God establishes the comforting thought, “Fear not”, in the first verse, and then follows it with the reason why.  “I have redeemed you, I have called you by your name” – this is His testimony to His love.  Then He adds, “rivers shall not overflow you, fire shall not burn you” – a promise that cannot be true unless He was sovereign.   God is saying, fear not because I love you, and I am sovereign. Faith is often misconstrued as believing in the “promises” that God makes.  I think that is a consequence of faith.  Real faith is simply believing in the ultimate sovereignty of God, and the infinite love of God.   Friend, are you fearful?  Are you dismayed at the turn of events?  Circumstances that were not your doing?  Then may I urge you to meditate on this wonderful doctrine of the sovereignty of God, and deliberate on the love of God.  And if these words are not enough, may I point you to two days in history.  On the first day, Good Friday, with Jesus on the cross, God displayed His love for all who would believe.  On that other day, Easter Sunday, with an empty tomb, God displayed His sovereignty.  The One who could love a rebellious humanity to die for it, and the One whom the grave could not hold is the sovereign God who loves you! Why are you fearful? O ye of little faith! Danesh Manik 

==========================================================

Comments? Click here! And go to the bottom of the page to enter your comments!

Recent Posts

The MoonlightHating LoveDo Not Pray!In Earth as it is in HeavenMore..

“A Soul’s Anchor” is a daily inspirational message prepared to challenge your mind, inspire your heart, and motivate you to anchor your soul in the person of  Jesus Christ.

If you know a friend who would enjoy receiving “A Soul’s Anchor” in their email box each day, tell them they can sign up by emailing us at subscribe@asoulsanchor.org .  The messages may also be read at our website, http://www.asoulsanchor.org.  To unsubscribe, please email, unsubscribe@asoulsanchor.org with your email in the subject line. To change to a weekly instead of a daily subscription, email weekly@asoulsanchor.org  with your email in the subject line. For receiving messages by mail, please write to us at A Soul’s
Anchor, India International Church,

3654 Okemos Rd., Okemos, MI
48864

Hating Love

“Love never fails..” 1 Corinthians 13:8

Kelli Congelli, writing in MSN music column gives this tongue-in-cheek advice in an aptly titled article, “Anti-Valentine”, just in time for those to whom Valentine’s Day is a nothing but a painful reminder of the failure of love. She writes, “You can simply choose to hate love. I mean, really despise the sucker. Wear black. Spit on flowers. Fill your ears not with the sweet nothings of others but with the wails, moans and cries of musicians who have the decency to remind us of love’s disastrous qualities.”  Though it is probably a humorous attempt to introduce the top “I hate love” songs of all times that follow, I suspect that the idea resonates with a universal appeal, for love is a universal quest, and in one way or another, at one time or another, we all find solidarity in a failure of this ideal. 
 
In the midst of this, St. Paul’s unequivocal declaration, “Love never fails”, sounds like an outlandish claim for this “many-splendored thing”.  Either Paul was being sappy, and using sentimental exaggeration as a pep-talk to the Corinthians, or he was talking of a different kind of love.  I think Paul was the last person you would expect to get maudlin.  I suggest Paul is talking about a different kind of love, a love that really never fails.  
 
Incidentally Paul was writing to the Corinthians who boasted of that infamous temple of Aphrodite, the goddess of love.   And to a culture to which love was some sort of euphoric sensation, Paul writes about a love that was a deliberate decision,  even in times when that decision seemed burdensome.   Just listen to how he begins by extolling the virtues of this love that never fails: “Love is patient, love is kind”.  He is immediately implying that there are times when all of natural inclinations justify being impatient, and unkind, but love chooses to be patient and kind.  And all of the rest of the virtues of love that follow imply the same – a decision to love against natural inclinations.  And this decisive love, Paul says, never fails. 
 
Yet what does it mean that “love never fails”.  In an age where at least in a certain sense failed love is as common as the evening news, in what way exactly does this decisive love never fail?  I suggest that there are at least three senses in which this love never fails. 
 
First, it does not fail as in “love is changeless.”  That is, this love is timeless, and eternal.  It will never fade.  The rest of the virtues and gifts have a limited usefulness, but love transcends time. 
 
Second it does not fail as in “love is consistent.”  This decisive sort of love is reliable – you can count on it.  Circumstances do not alter its motivations.  It does not fail to come through. 

But there is another way in which love never fails and it is the crowning glory of this love.   Love never fails as in “love is triumphant”.  It never fails to bring about its desired effect.  Elsewhere, Paul uses the same Greek word for “fail”, and it is translated, “has no effect”.  In other words, this love that Paul is talking about never fails to take effect.  It is always victorious.  Where strength and might fail, this decisive, unconditional love comes back victorious.  It is guaranteed to accomplish its purpose.  Is there a barrier to a relationship?  You have tried everything, and it has only alienated you more?  This sort of love is guaranteed to triumph in overcoming that barrier.  Is there a heart that you simply cannot seem to reach?  You have tried threats, emotion, manipulation?  This love is guaranteed to reach that unresponsive heart.  It is a love that never fails.
 
Yes, there is indeed a love that is selfish.  It is indulged in because of how it makes one feel, and sometime or another that love fails, and as one of the popular songs of the day says  “It’ll make you hear a symphony, And you’ll just want the world to see, But like a drunk that makes you blind, It’ll fool you every time”.  It is a love that when done, it makes you hate love.
 
But there is a love, a love that God displays, and allows us to emulate.  It is the love that allowed God to love a humanity in sinful rebellion, that allowed the very Son of God to suffer on the Cross, and the love that is extended to each one of us.  It is the love of God, and God never fails.  Therefore, this love never fails!
 
Danesh Manik

Do Not Pray!

“Therefore do not pray for this people, nor lift up a cry or prayer for them, nor make intercession to Me; for I will not hear you.”  Jeremiah 7:16

It is a shocking request to the prophet to refrain from intercession, especially from the One who had said to another prophet, “I sought for a man to stand in the gap”.  God was instructing Jeremiah to not pray.  God was not only not going to hear the prayers of a spiritually destitute, and flagrantly disobedient people, but he was preventing even the weeping prophet to pray for them.  And this command is repeated three times in later chapters. 

When I read this I have to ask myself, is it possible for me, to so vex God that He not only cannot hear my prayers, but it becomes impossible for another to make intercession for me.  If the hope of turning to God is taken away, if His longsuffering is squandered, His mercy exhausted, what can a man do?  If I have bankrupted myself of money or fame or even health, I may have hope, but what does one do when God bids farewell?  More specifically, what is this posture of a heart that can makes God say goodbye, and make prayer ineffective? 

It is interesting to note the times and the general culture of the people when these words were spoken. 
Judah was in midst of peace and prosperity under the reformer King Josiah.  The Book of the Law had been found, and the favorite book of the people was Deuteronomy.  The people had an eclectic worship experience combining much of the ceremonial law and ignoring its moral aspect, added with other forms of worship influenced by the nations around them.  Assyria was a power that was waning in significance as Babylon grew as a vigorous rival, and they saw in that the first steps to the fulfillment of Nahum’s prophecy of the destruction of
Assyria.   The preachers preached “Peace!”  and smugly they attributed all of this to the blessings of God promised in Deuteronomy.  What could be more evident of God’s blessing than unprecedented prosperity?  And in the midst of this, Jeremiah stood as a lone voice with a gloomy outlook.  Literally the words, “Do not pray”, stand in the midst of God asking Jeremiah to go stand outside their worship place and as people go in, to say these gloomy words to them.  And reading the complete context of the passage, one sees a people who believed in God’s promises without evaluating their own actions.  They were a people who rejoiced in God’s promises of blessings, but glossed over the warnings. 

I think the most dangerous place for a person is when they seem to easily believe in God’s promises, but hardly consider His warnings.  When one is convinced of their own righteousness, even God cannot convince them otherwise.  It is this posture where prayer becomes powerless, and intercession is ineffective.  We live in comparative peace and prosperity.  We have many blessings, and have seen God’s provision.  Is it possible that we can become so smug about our righteousness, delight over His promises, and forget to evaluate our actions?  Are our thoughts and actions in obedience to God’s word?  As we rejoice over His blessings, are we also fully cognizant of His warnings.  I suspect a good test of genuine trust in God’s Word is if we believe the judgments of the Lord with the same intensity as the promises.   I have often found more genuine piety trembling over the judgments of the Lord rather than smugly claiming the blessing of the Lord. 

Perhaps someday someone will compile a “Warnings of the Bible” as a companion volume to the “Promises of the Bible” to keep us of a balanced mind. 

It is interesting that even in God’s instruction to Jeremiah not to pray, God is working to bring the people to Himself.  In a later chapter (14), He says not to pray for their own good, and then after the captivity, we hear these words that have been a keystone of hope for God’s people through the ages.  “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.”  God told Jeremiah not to pray, so that he could get them in a place where they could genuinely pray and be drawn back to Him. 

Danesh Manik

In Earth As It Is In Heaven

Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven Matthew 6:10

It was a fortunate occasion when the disciples asked Jesus to “teach them to pray”.  That request has yielded to us one of the most beautiful passages in Scripture that is as poetic as it is insightful.  It is what we know as the Lord’s Prayer.  “Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.”  -  In that very first sentence is packed the essential theology of prayer.  

First, the statement, “Thy will be done in earth as it is in Heaven” implies confession.  We recognize that Heaven and Earth are essentially in disharmony.  Heaven is where God’s will is done always and done perfectly.  Earth, marred by the sinful condition of man, is where God’s perfect will is not always done.  Man, even a godly man, with a free will can do what is not God’s will, and we are confessing that we need God’s will to be done. 

Second, it is a statement of dependence.  By saying, “Thy will be done on earth” we are acknowledging that God’s will is perfect, and better than our will, and we depend on His intervention to cause His will to be done on earth. 

But the most radical thing that is implied in this statement, “Thy will be done” is the possibility that God’s perfect will can actually be done on earth as it is in heaven!  It implies that heaven and earth are very unlike, yet can be made to be very like, if God’s people depend on God and pray.  Charles Spurgeon asked in one of his addresses, “This earth is subject to vanity, dimmed with ignorance, defiled with sin, furrowed with sorrow; can holiness dwell in it as in heaven?”  And then he answers it with equal force, “Our Divine Instructor would never teach us to pray for impossibilities.” 

In practical terms, Jesus implied that you and I can discern and do God’s perfect will, and in doing so, earth can, in some way, be more like heaven!   What Heaven so habitually does, Earth can do, enabled by prayer.  

Often, we miss the real motivation for prayer.  We pray not simply to encourage God to do something special for us, but we pray first of all because we recognize that something has gone wrong.  We recognize that dissonance between Heaven and Earth, not just generally, but acutely, in ourselves first, and our hearts earnestly want to petition God to allow us to do God’s will, and then we with faith depend that God will actually enable us to do so. 

Do you see injustice, chaos, and disregard for godliness?   Do you feel things are hopeless?  Jesus tells us that we can pray for “thy will be done in earth as in heaven.”  Queen Mary of
Scotland was resonating the message of the power of prayer when she said, “I fear John Knox’s prayers more than an army of ten thousand men.”  Genuine prayer not only transforms us, but will transform the earth. 

Do you want to change your world?  Maybe the earth?  Then let’s begin by praying.

Danesh Manik

Hardened By Sorrow

“He rebuked their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they did not believe those who had seen Him after He had risen” – Mark 16:14
 
The joy of the first encounter of the disciples with the resurrected Jesus was dampened by a rebuke of their unbelief and the hardness of their heart. 
 
Two sets of witnesses had testified that Jesus is resurrected, but the disciples refused to believe them, and now He Himself appears, and rebukes them for the hardness of their heart.  
 
A hard heart is simply a heart that refuses to consider anything that does not fit its current set of beliefs.   We tend to associate the hardness of heart with a stubborn or a prideful heart.  Images of a Pharaoh-like character, unmoved by all that God is doing, stubbornly refusing Moses, float in our heads when we think of “hardness of heart”.   There is a hardness that sinful man suffers from – a heart that is deceitful, and refuses to believe, but that is not the hardness of heart that the disciples suffered from.  Indeed they loved Jesus and had gathered in mourning for their Master.  There is another very powerful emotion that clouds the heart and will not allow it to trust in any good news, and it is sorrow.  It is a hardness formed by a grief-stricken heart that has had its deepest desires, its fondest hopes, and its godliest goals just crushed.  It is a heart with a weight of bad news that finds itself simply unable to believe in any good news. 
 
The disciples were with Jesus for over three years, and they left all to follow Him.  They saw the miracles, they heard the words that stirred their hearts, and they confessed Him as the Messiah!  They hung all their theology, their present life, and their future redemption on this one Person.  But in a matter of one Friday, all their ideas are shattered as one of their own is revealed as a betrayer, and their Messiah is unjustly tried and hung on the cross.  They have hung their whole world view on this Christ, the Messiah, and He has seemingly ended as just another martyr.  We can all understand their sorrow.  A grief so pungent that it has calloused the heart, and a halo of skepticism surrounds it.  All good news seems to be too good to be true, and even the testimony from reliable sources is unbelievable.   
 
It is quite possible in our life to have our heart hardened because of failed expectations, and unpredicted circumstances.   It is possible to become a skeptic when someone brings us good news simply because past good news went sour.  Perhaps it is a child who has brought you great sorrow, or perhaps it is a soured marriage, or a failed career or business.  Perhaps it is simply the reality of life that not all hopes and dreams always work out the way we want them to.  Whatever it is, I think it is a good exercise to see Jesus’ response.  Jesus is not very accommodating of this.  He is quick to rebuke, what we may even call reasonable, hardness of heart.  It is because a hard heart is the mother of unbelief.  It may be birthed in sorrow, but ultimately it will grow up to be a bitter heart.  And a bitter heart is a heart that God cannot reach.  So Jesus rebukes them.  He excises this hard heart before it turns bitter.  I may note though that the two sets of witnesses whom the disciples did not believe did not rebuke the disciples, it was the Lord Himself. 
 
May we be careful rebuking someone in sorrow, but I pray that the Lord will today, in His gentle way, rebuke a heart that may be becoming hardened. 
 
Danesh Manik

A Sad Encounter

“he went away sorrowful…”   Matthew 19:22
 
“He went away sorrowful.” I think there is no other event more grim, and words more dismal than these in the Bible.  It is the familiar event of the rich young ruler.  It is remarkable that he had great possessions, yet recognized a greater need for his soul.  He had a good sense of morality, he asked the right question, and he could not have approached a better Person for an answer to his soul quest.  Yet, the end of the story reads these pathetic words, “he went away sorrowful.”  Some like the Pharisees with a prideful disposition went away angry after an encounter with Jesus, but here is a man with an amiable disposition to Jesus, who leaves sorrowful after an encounter with the Lord.  He goes expectantly to the Savior, and returns empty-handed.  There were some like Zachaeus and the Samaritan woman at the well who without planning for it received the message of eternal life simply because of an encounter with Jesus.  And here is one who goes seeking the message of eternal life from Jesus and does not find it! 
 
What kind of a person encounters Jesus, the Savior, who gave His very life as ransom, and return sorrowful?  I think it is the one who goes to Jesus with an agenda.  The rich young ruler had an agenda.  He just wanted Jesus to clear his conscience about salvation.  He wanted Jesus to second his opinion.  He wanted salvation without wanting to give up his possessions.  God simply cannot help a man who approaches him with an agenda, no matter how right the question, how correct the understanding of morality, and how sincere the desire.  God cannot save a man who wants God and something else.  Jesus can only save us when we are trusting nothing else.  As long as we are depending on anything else, our good works, our moral accomplishments, or even our superior relationship with God, God cannot save us.  In the words of Augstine Tolpady’s hymn,

Not the labor of my hands
Can fulfill thy law’s demands
Could my zeal no respite know,
Could my tears for ever flow
All for sin could not atone
Thou must save, and thou alone”
 
The genuine seeking of God must be the willingness to come to God without reservation.  That is why Jesus used such severe words, “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.”  
 
There is another story in the book of Acts, that of the Ethiopian eunuch who found Jesus through the ministry of Philip.  Of him it is written that “he went on his way rejoicing”. 
May those be the words that describe your encounter!
 
Danesh Manik