Paulson Post

'You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.' Matthew 5:14-16 (ESV). Jesus said, 'you are the light of the world.' He did not ask his disciples to be the light of the world or to become one. By default, every disciple of Jesus is the light of the world. The only option is where the lights are placed. It could be covered by a basket so that its light is not visible and useful in any way or it could be mounted on a lampstand. If mounted on the lampstand it will give light to all those who are in the room. In short, the option is to be useful or to be useless. The light ought to shine before others. Being a lamp and being the light are also different. A lamp can choose not to be lighted and not to give out light. However, disciples are not just lamps, they are lighted lamps. Jesus also added that they shine ...

The literature on anxiety is aplenty. YouTube has a lot of advice from experts and non-experts on how to cope with anxiety. I don't want to add to these. What I offer here is a personal insight into the spiritual aspects of anxiety. Anxiety is a type of eclipse, like the lunar or solar eclipse. A lunar eclipse happens when the shadow of earth falls on the moon making the moon invisible to those on earth. But the moon is still there. It is still visible to the Martians! Anxiety works similarly. It casts our own shadow on God so that he becomes invisible to us. God is not in hiding but is hidden to our eyes because our own anxious self is casting the shadow on him. Then we blame God for hiding from us as the Psalmists often do in their prayers. God is not hiding, but we have made God vanish from our consciousness. That is why the Bible says 'Do not be anxious about anything!' This is very much in line with what Jesus taught: ' Therefore I tell you, do not...

Jesus invited the crowd that followed him: ' Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. ' (Matthew 11:29-30). The modern mind may be puzzled when a religious guru invites people to come under a yoke. First, most of us living in the age of cars, planes and metros, may not have even a yoke. Those of us who might have seen one know that it is something that joins either a pair of burden-carrying animals to each other to pull a cart. So, we usually attach ideas like subjugation and suffering to this symbol. However, that is not what Jesus meant or his hearers might have understood. For the pious Jews who were Jesus' audience that day yoke carried meanings more than subjugation. In their religious writings 'coming under the yoke' was a metaphor for being obedient to someone, especially the Law of Moses which guided the life and faith every Jew. When som...