Paulson Post

If the chief goal humans is to glorify God and enjoy him forever, as the Westminster Shorter Catechism has expressed, then human beings ought to be in the look out for reasons for glorifying God. God's glory revealed in nature is indeed the most explicit stimulus for glorifying God. A second realm which impels us to praise God is what he has done in our lives. Put it another way, praise of God happens when we acknowledge what God has done in our lives.If that acknowledgement doesn't happen we will be singing praises to ourselves or to anything other than God. The Psalmists pour out praises to God because they maintained hearts of thankfulness to God. For example, the psalmist who penned Psalm 116 says, “How can I repay the LORD for all his goodness to me? I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the LORD” (Psalms 116:12-13). In the Bible, the cups are described in terms of what they are made of or what they contain. For example, a silver cup is one made of ...

The Westminster Shorter Catechism declares: “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.” That is to say that human beings exist to praise God and thus live a life that enjoys God for ever. The question that follows from this naturally is how to glorify God in such a way that we can enjoy him forever? This also means that believers ought to be always on the look out for stimuli to praise God every moment of their lives. Glorifying God is not by repetition of some mantras that has some self-hypnotic effects or the like. It is not getting into a trance or ecstatic experience that comes from psychedelic lights or sounds. Glorifying God is not subjective, but objective in its nature where the worshiper gazes the glory of God realizing how the creator is distinct from the creation. Real praise of God happens when we see the glory of God and pours forth our hearts before him. The psalmists are good examples for worshipers of God. They acknowledged God in their lives, in cr...

Click here to listen to "Christians and Civil Authority" This sermon explores the relationship of Christians to the civil authority. An exposition based on 1 Peter 2:13-17 preached at the Community of the Redeemed, Pune.

What do you do before sleep? There are various ways of going to bed. Some people will like to read in bed and finally you will find them sleeping with an open book on their chest. Some people watch TV and doze off to sleep, the remote still in their hands. Some may have their earphones plugged in and the iPod still playing. However, there a number of people who go to bed fighting thoughts that wage war in their heads. The psalmist who penned Psalm 4 talks about two such people because their thoughts while going to bed are different. While Psalm 3 is generally considered as a morning Psalm, Psalm 4 is considered as an evening Psalm. That means, a Psalm where the psalmist gathers his thought before retiring to bed. The psalmist has been facing immense opposition from his enemies. His main worry is the plot of his enemies to spoil his reputation. He seems to be a man of some standing in the society, may be a king or a person of reputation. However, the plot is to spoil his reputation in ...

There are times when we are very few in number when we gather for worship on Sundays. Our eyes scan the room to find who has come and who has missed that Sunday. Our spirits are down when we are few and up when there are many people. The preacher feels less "anointed" when there are more empty chairs than people and the spirit of the worship team depends on the number of people too. I have been pasturing an urban church for three years now where the number dwindles during the holidays. During the holiday season, most of my church members would like to travel, visit their families and only a faithful few will be left during for weeks. I have learned to cope with this and am teaching my leaders to cope with this. We are learning to keep the same level of "anointing" and the spirit whether we are few or many! The first thing that we realize is that we are not few in worship even when there are empty chairs around. Christian worship is a joint celebration with the angel...

Wikipedia defines meritocracy as "a system of a government or other organization wherein appointments are made and responsibilities assigned to individuals based upon demonstrated talent and ability (merit)" Or simply put, the leader is someone who is one notch higher than whom he leads. Then the million dollar question is what would be the quality of leadership when those who select the leader are many notches below average human abilities. The Bible has an excellent example in this regard. It is a scenario that prophet Isaiah describes if the enemy attacks the country of Judah and the city of Jerusalem. If that happens, the leaders of the nation will be killed. Commanders of the army, the king and his ministers and the cream of the society will be deported. This is what actually happened. Prophet Jeremiah who was much junior to Isaiah and started his career after Isaiah died, lived to witness what Isaiah had prophesied: "The commander of the guard took as prisoners Se...

When Jesus said, "Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:32) he was talking about himself who is the way, the truth and the life. However, it was based on a larger principle that God expects us to be seekers of truth. God expects us to be truthful as well. As the debate with his opponents progressed Jesus made a frontal attack on the devil and all those who model devil in their behaviour: "You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me! (John 8:44). What characterizes those who follow Jesus and those who follow Devil? Those who follow Jesus have a penchant for truth while the opposite camp has a penchant for lies. This is an observation I made recently while studying h...

There is an Indian saying: Silence is the glory of the wise! It means the wise person keeps quite and by implication it means the fool keeps talking (certainly all nonsense!). But silence at times could be malicious, dangerous and even a grave sin. So let us say that like tumors, silence could also be of two types: the benign ones and the malign ones. In his vision of God Isaiah confessed: "Woe to me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty" (Isa 6:5). The word "ruined" could be a mistranslation. It is equally possible to translate it as "been silent" though many modern translations still follow the KJV in this regard. The translation "silent" fits the context too. The sin of the people of Isaiah has to do with speech (unclean lips) and the cleansing that God does has to do with speech. Moreover, the commissioning that Isaiah receives is to speak! Al...

A proper perception of human beings will enhance our appreciation of God and lead us to praise him more meaningfully. In a Psalm of Praise of God (Psalm 8) the Psalmist exclaimed "what is man that you are mindful of him?" Which meant man is not anything that God should mind especially compared to the celestial bodies that God has created. However, he goes on to say that in spite of this, God still gave man a place of honor and glory since his position is just below the angels. Human beings are incomparable to God. One popular metaphor of life is that of a journey: A journey that we start at birth and end in death. In this journey we meet people of all sorts and learn many things from them. It is possible that we are drawn to some people because we see rare virtues in them. They become our role models and even idols in our lives. We adore them, we follow them because their exhibited virtues and charisma. All idols are multi-dimensional or multi-faceted. There are facets of t...

I just don't know why they call it Good Friday. It was a very bad Friday for the mother, siblings, disciples, friends and followers of Jesus. It was the day when Jesus whom they loved so much died at a very tender age at the hands of the Roman army as a criminal. Death brings an end to everything. Their sorrow was much deeper because they had no clue of what is going to happen on the third day. Though he had told them and though they have seen him bringing back dead back to life, they never imagined that he will be back to life. So with no ray of hope, their sorrow was even thicker. While the people at the foot of the cross on that fateful day were genuinely sad, the people who were observing Good Friday ever since were simply trying to pretend to be sad; because they knew rest of the story already. On Good Friday, some people walk the stations of the Cross enacting the suffering of Christ. They have processions where they enact scenes from what happened to Jesus on that day by...

The title of this article may startle the readers! Yes, there are prayers that God may not answer. It is hard to believe this in a world where there is so much of talk about miracles, deliverance and so on. We are made to believe that God answers prayers unconditionally. We are also made to believe that certain places and certain people have so much charisma that anything they pray for will be answered. So we tend to flock to these places and around this people to get our prayers answered. We are encouraged to subscribe to some prayer plans (quite similar to some saving plans) that for a small subscription our children will be prayed for from birth to their adulthood. Childhood ailments, successful education (a main worry for Indian parents), job security and marriage are all covered in these plans. All that we need to do is to subscribe, sit back and relax for the rest of your life! However, God doesn't answer prayers unconditionally. He is not a slot machine, where the machine...

Worshipping together is one of the salient features Christianity which it shares with its predecessor Judaism and is followed by its successor Islam. Most of the religions have individualized worship experience. Worshippers visit shrines on their own to pray to their deity and does not necessarily need the company of others. However, gathering together for worship in the church, synagogue or the mosque is important for the above religions besides the private time of worship. So the two terms: "Personal worship" which signifies the individual's act of worship and "corporate worship" which is the worship which individuals offer in the company of other believers. Some people are very keen on corporate worship but at the expense of the personal worship. They are regular at church services, praise and worship meetings etc but may not pour out their devotion and adoration to God when they are alone. These people find it difficult to meet God alone; they need the co...