Paulson Post

Jesus showed the "full extent of his love" by becoming a servant for his disciples. Sometimes out of false humility we refuse to be loved by Jesus. Life could be full of small and big things where Jesus shows his love for us. To love Jesus is one thing, but it is equally important to accept Jesus' love showed on the cross and also the love he shows everyday in our life. It is wonderful to have a loving relationship with Jesus. The act of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples is considered as part of his teaching on serving each other. I would not contend on that. however, there is still another side that we ignore in that incident. The Gospel of John chapter 13 verse 1 says, "having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love" (NIV). This sentence is the introduction to the feetwashing that follows. The act of washing the feet of his disciples was act of his love. If we go by the NIV translation "the full extent o...

For a believer in Christ the relationship with God is a living relationship because it is a relationship with a living God. This living relationship is possible because God and the worshipper are always in talking terms. The worshipper talks to God in worship, prayer and meditation. And God responds in various ways: sometimes by giving them great joy in his presence, sometimes by answering prayers and sometimes by endowing them with the "peace that transcends all understanding" (Phil 4:4) in order to pass through difficult patches in their life. NOW READ ON... God's word creates! That's what we learn from the first chapter of Genesis. Peter summarized the whole thing in just one verse: "But they deliberately forget that long ago by God's word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water" (2 Peter 3:5). God speaks because he is the living God. He speaks to guide his people, to tell that what is going to happen, etc. False God...

"For a brief moment I abandoned you, but with deep compassion I will bring you back. In a surge of anger I hid my face from you for a moment, but with everlasting kindness I will have compassion on you," says the LORD your Redeemer" (Isa 54:7-8) God is a holy God. The earlier chapters of the Book of Isaiah present the awesome holiness of God (chapter 6). Since God is a God of wrath and justice he punishes sin and wickedness. God sometimes may use ungodly people to punish his own people who are disobedient. That was the role of Assyria, Israel's political enemy who brought the Northern Kingdom of Israel to destruction. God described Assyria as the rod of His anger (Isa 10:5). That's only one side of God. The other side is that of a merciful God. Years later, after he inflicted punishment upon his people at the hands of the pagans, he raised up another pagan emperor to show kindness to them. That is Cyrus the Persian Emperor whom God describes as His anointe...

To be led by God, first of all we must be willing to follow, or let God take the lead in our lives. Christian life is trekking on the wildest side, the thickest wood and scorching desert. God is willing to take the risk of being the leader in all such situations and making the way for us through the most difficult conditions and we just need to follow him. It is our hurry and impatience that gets us into trouble. Let 's wait for God and his time. The two accounts of David's victory over the Philistines found in 2 Samuel 5:22-25 and 1 Chron. 14:13-17 describe a decisive event in his life. This was his first victory over the Philistine as the King of Israel. The Philistines had come to battle determined to overthrow the newly elected king of Israel. Thus it was a battle that was decisive not only for David as an individual but for Israel as a nation. A defeat in this battle would mean a different course of history for the people of God. However, the day was David's and he re...

Let the wicked prosper but instead of getting frustrated at their prosperity let us leave it to God to deal with them. Let the righteous conserve their energies to do what is right and not expend it on dealing with the wickedness of the wicked! The presence of the wicked person in the society is destructive. The psalmist in Psalm 37 knows well that these are people who borrow but never pay back (Verse 21). The wicked are those who oppress the weak and the innocent (Verse 14). For reasons that we may never know it is true that the wicked has outnumbered the righteous in every generation. To expect to create a world where there is no wickedness could be a mere Utopia. The wickedness is there to stay. One wicked man goes but two will come in his place and the wickedness will always continue. By nature the righteous person cannot tolerate wrong. They burn with righteous anger. Especially when we see the wicked persons succeed in their wicked ways we become frustrated and sometimes may ques...

Jesus is available to be explored. A Christian's life of faith with Jesus involves this constant exploration of Jesus, getting to know him closer, and enriching ourselves with that knowledge of him. The Hymn writer is right is saying THE LONGER I SERVE HIM, THE SWEETER HE GROWS! We celebrate Easter because two thousand years ago, on the third morning of Jesus' crucifixion the tomb in which he was buried was found open. It was Mary who first found that the tomb was open (John 20:1). She was not sure if she will find someone to help her to roll the stone away so that she can visit the tomb of her dear Lord. To her relief she finds that the tomb was already open.* The stone was not rolled away so that the body can escape from the tomb. The resurrected body did not need an open door to pass through. John 20:19 tells us that the resurrected body could enter through closed doors. Jesus appeared to his scared disciples behind the closed doors. John 20.6ff also tells us that the resurr...

In contrast to his own vulnerability and the nothingness of his enemies, stands the tall, strong, stable rock: God himself. That vision of God, the source of our strength should be what keeps us moving forward. Life can be sometimes very cruel. The psalmists who penned the 150 psalms of the Old Testament expressed their pain and anguish in metaphorical language. How does one express the vulnerability and instability of ones life in times of opposition? The psalmist who composed Psalm 62 compares it with a leaning wall and a tottering fence. His life is like a wall that is about to collapse or a fence that is about to fall (Ps 62:3). He is unable to stand the winds and currents that are against his life. To add to his misery he has enemies who are trying to take advantage of his vulnerability. These are people who are trying to usurp him. Probably, the psalmist could be a ruler who is loosing popular support among his own people. His position is too vulnerable. The people close to him ...