Paulson Post

Nowadays, we don't talk about  'conquerors' nor 'conquering'. Those words belong to the by-gone days when military victory was the by-word of human success. Roman military heroes were nominated to the Senate, were promoted or even became emperors on the basis of their conquest of foreign lands. The language has changed with the times. In our days, we talk about achievers, nothing much is left to conquer. However, the language of conquest still should prevail in some aspects of our life, particularly in the area of our spiritual relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ. I prefer the language of 'conquering' over 'achieving' since it has the nuance of defeating something that opposes. However, though achieve also involve some effort from the part of the achiever, there may not be resistance from the other side. Spiritual relationship with Christ is one of love. He lavished his love upon us on the cross, and we respond to that love. We love because he fi...

I have developed a new habit. That is not to roll out of my bed as soon as I wake up, but to lie-in until I hear something from God for that day. God has been gracious. Most of the days when I wait in bed to hear his voice for the day, I do hear him as he puts a thought, a phrase or a prayer in my heart. On one morning last week as I was waiting he put this sentence in to my mind: 'I will never forsake you or leave you.' I looked up this verse in my Bible App; I was astonished. That sentence comes in slightly different forms in four places in the Bible! So, I decided to study all its occurrences. So, here is what I found. The first occurrence I found was in Deuteronomy 31:6. Moses encourages the people who are about to enter the promised land that their God 'will not leave you or forsake you.' In verses 1-5 he has narrated the story of God's leading of them and the victory he has given them in the past. Then comes this aphorism: 'He will not leave you or forsake...

' Who touched my garments? ' Jesus asked. The answer of his disciples was rather sarcastic: 'You see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say, "Who touched me? "' They are right, there is a big crowd; there are so many people who rub against him, and he cannot move around without touching anyone. It is senseless to ask who touched me in such a crowd. However, for Jesus, it was a special touch. It is not like the touch of the hundreds of people around him. He felt the healing power going out of him at the moment of that touch. That touch is thus different from all other touch. When Jesus insisted on identifying that person who touched him, a woman came forward from the crowd trembling. She had touched him from behind the crowd so that she will not be identified. She had many reasons for remaining anonymous: shame, being woman in a majority male crowd, more than that with that annoying constant bleeding she is defiled. Whatever she touches and whoever touc...

'By day the Lord commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life' (Psalm 42:8, ESV). Living fully immersed in the presence of God is the greatest of all experiences. The psalmist says that the whole day he experienced the love of God. Quiet hours of the night is his time to respond to the love that God has showered upon him in songs of prayer. His songs are prayers to God whom he calls 'the God of his life.' The expression 'God of my life' means, the God to whom I owe my life. God is the master of my life, who directs it every day by his steadfast love. Most of us who have to slog eight to twelve hours a day doesn't have much time to experience God. We hop from one task to another without any time to think about God who is the owner of our lives. Though each moment is filled with his acts of love towards us, we seldom recognize that. The Psalmist is different in his attitude. In every task and in every achievem...

'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...