Paulson Post

None of us can promise those who are requesting prayers for them that we are praying for them constantly. In fact, people may not expect us to pray for them forever. However, the intercessory ministry of Jesus is very different. He is a priest for ever, thus he intercedes for us continually. His intercession is something that I can count on. For this I am grateful to him! In an earlier blog ( What happened to my unanswered prayers? ), we were talking about our prayers being carried to the presence of God and offered in golden bowls. God does not consider any of our prayers as spam; he has no spam filter. Even those prayers of us that do not make sense to us, God considers them valuable. In this devotion, I would like to focus another aspect of prayer: the continuing intercessory ministry of Jesus. The Book of Hebrews presents Jesus as an eternal high priest who continues his work beyond the cross in the heavenly realms. Chapter 7 verse 25 particularly focuses on the intercessory min...

Some time back, I sent an email to my friend’s Gmail account. However, for many weeks there was no response from my friend. Then I wrote another email to him to the other email ID of his that I had. He promptly replied. Later we discovered that the mail I sent was sitting in the Spam folder of his Gmail account. My mail was automatically filtered to the spam folder! This made me contemplate on the prayers. I have been praying ever since my childhood. From short bed-time prayers to long intercessory prayers, pastoral prayers, prayers for the sick, in desperate need, etc. God answered some prayers but many are yet to be answered. What is happening to those prayers of mine that are not answered? God did not get it, or are they sitting in his spam folder? I wish I could just visit heaven and see what is happening to those prayers of mine that are not ever attended to. For that, I will have to wait. However, God has specially favored John the Apostle with some special privileges. One such...

God expects us to be fully submitted to his will. Sometimes, we will have to go through difficult times. We cannot get out of this before God's time and by our own means. This is what we learn from the life of Zedekiah, the last king of Judah. Babylonians who defeated Judah in 597 BC had made him king. In fact he was their puppet king. Usually the reign of kings in the Bible mentions their achievements and failures, in the case of Zedekiah, there is no mention of anything that he did. The account in 2 Kings (Chapter 24-25) only mentions only one thing he did. "Now Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon" (2 Kings 24:20). Then there is a long description of how the Babylonians retaliated to this rebellion by their vassal kingdom, how they besieged the city of Jerusalem, Zedekiah's flight, capture, punishment, imprisonment, the destruction of the temple of Jerusalem and the city, second exile. This king could not anything for his people. Only complete the destru...

Maintaining a heart of gratitude Though they have to start their lives again from scratches they are happy that God has brought them back. Maintaining a heart of gratitude even in difficult times is important to please God. Psalm 126 illustrates the importance of maintaining a grateful heart even in difficult times. The psalmist(s) is excited about what God has done and hope that God will continue to be with them. Though what God has done for them actually has landed them in difficulties, they are still thankful; they believe that eventually everything will work out for their good. The God of Israel had done a great thing by bringing his people back to their land from where they were exiled. However, it took more than sixty-five years for the first exile to return. Leaders like Zerubabbel, Nehemiah, Ezra and others led people back in different waves of return. The man who was captured and sent to exile when he was thirty is now 95 years old at least. The baby who was just born is no...

"Power corrupts." This is a famous saying. To this we may add saying, "absolute power corrupts absolutely." David's sin with Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11) is a typical illustration from the Bible on the corrupting influence of power. David happens to see Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah, and he wants to make her his wife. But it is not easy even for the king in Israel to take the wife of another person. So, he devises a plan. He was the king and Uriah one of his employees, the best way to possess Uriah's wife is to get him killed. So the king sends Uriah to battle. David also tells his commander to position Uriah in the most vulnerable place where death is sure. And thus he manages to get him killed in the battle! And when the news of Uriah's death was brought to David the king, he makes a stoic comment: "It's Okay, the sword kills both sides." It is natural. David then sends for Bathsheba and she became his wife. The story goes on to say that her ...

The knowledge of Christ that strives to make him known as Paul did by his life is possible only when we are willing to move on beyond ourselves. In Philippians 3:10, when Paul talks about knowing Christ, he is not talking about a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. By this time (almost towards the end of ministry and life) Paul have had that knowledge. Nevertheless, he is talking about knowing Christ as a continuing process that culminates in attaining resurrection from the dead. I am even tempted to think that the expression "to know Christ" is a synonym for Christian life. Christian spirituality is a process of knowing Christ in increasing measure each day until we see him face to face in eternity. This knowing of Jesus requires rejecting everything that stands on the way of intimacy with Jesus. Raimondo Panikkar, a leading Christian theologian once remarked: "To arrive at God, we should not stop at us." That means if we are on a journey to know Christ, we should e...

I looked up Wikipedia for a definition of the word "Devotion" and was surprised to find that in Christianity "devotion" is identified with Bible Study. And that is very much true. When someone says that s/he had devotion in the morning what they mean usually is that they read their Bible. However, the meaning of the word is quite different from studying the scriptures. Devotion is being devoted to someone or something. It is ardent love or surrender in love. Many Hindu Bhaktas understand and practice devotion in that sense. However, in Christian spirituality we often tend to forget this aspect though it has a very prominent place in the Bible. For example, Jesus asking Peter if we love him more that all that he has is certainly a demand for ardent love and total surrender in love (John 21:15). Loving God is a dominant theme in both the Old and New Testaments. See for example the command in Deuteronomy 6:5: "Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with a...