Spiritual Journey Insights

I would like to add a post here about something I thought will be beneficial for everyone who reads my blog. In our church discussion group, someone brought these points and questions. I wrote a response to that. I thought of sharing it here so that it can be beneficial for many others. I was greatly blessed by reading it, thinking about it and by responding to it. So just thought of sharing it here. May be someone else can throw some more light in to it. So the points or questions :- 1. Worship & Music - These days most Christians are confused between worship and music. For most of them worship=music. They can not even comprehend any other form of worship. As for me, being in the presence of the Lord, meditating in His goodness, mercy, love and grace is worship. For that, music is not necessary. When we sing a song, which is very familiar to us, there is a good chance of singing it without meditating upon its meaning. 2. Are we created to worship? - I hear this statement very ofte...

December 21, 2012 is a widely discussed subject. There are people who believe that world will come to an end or something will happen. Way back on July 6th 2007, I wrote a blog on it when this subject was not that popular. This blog was read by many people and even listed on a website on this subject. You can find it here http://tinkuthompson.blogspot.com/2007/07/biblical-response-dec-21-2012.html You can see it on december122012.com at http://www.december212012.com/articles/religion/Biblical-Response.htm Mark Hitchcock has written a book on it. He gave a talk about it at Credo House@ Reclaiming the Mind ministry. If you are interested in knowing more about this subject then go to this link and watch the video. http://vimeo.com/6990852

Few years ago I came to know about CyberMissions. I was greatly impressed with it. I tried doing lot of things and tried to encourage people. Keeping motivation level high has always been a challenge since you never know what's the impact its making. You keep doing it and you never know. Especially I have noticed that people whom I was targeting are less expressive and don't think of appreciating someone very fast. But from time to time I do get odd emails or responses from people who say that they are blessed. So it's a challenge for anyone who is trying to do any kind of Cybermission. Podcast hits on gospel-link.com shows a good response but I don't hear that much from people. So I don't update new episodes thinking that not many people are listening to it. But Stats gives a different figure. Sometimes I think that if we didn't have stats then I would have stopped doing most of the things I do long time ago. When you do things without expecting anything back, ...

We are living in the information age. People have so many ways to get connected to each other. With the wide spread use of Internet came the popularity of services like email, chat, social networking etc. In many cases, privacy of people is compromised as most of the information about a person can be found out with the click of a button. Sometime ago I was reading an article in a leading Journal as how people check social networking sites to find information about a boy or girl when some marriage proposals come. The downside of all this is that people have access to so much information and materials again at just the click of a button. Most of the things we get at the click of a biutton though is not beneficial. Many times it can becomes dangerous. A common issue expressed by many young people is their addiction to Internet and especially to the filth which is available free of cost. It's free of cost at times but people forget that they are paying a heavy price in regard to destr...

My grandfather passed away last Tuesday and I was in Boston for the funeral. I have mentioned about him earlier also. It was a good time even in sorrow as our whole family got together. I couldn't attend the funeral of my grandparents from my father's side. So it was different and as far as I can remember this was the first funeral service of a close family member which I was attending. In this post I just thought of adding what I spoke during my grandfathers wake service being the eldest grandson. Here is what I spoke:- Greetings to all in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I am the eldest grandson among the nine grandchildren and I want to say a few words in memory of my grandfather. My grandfather lived a remarkable life, one that inspired me greatly. When I think of him, first my thoughts go back to my childhood days back in India when during the summer vacations I used to go to my grandparents house along with my sister and 2 other cousins. Everyone who knows m...

When faced with a crisis in life, everything seems to take backseat and you seem to move forward with crisis issue. Then life takes another turn and you get used to things and then what was once a crisis moves down your priority list. Sometimes I feel that the ups and downs in our life make it interesting. Last week I had to rush to Boston as my grandfather was admitted in ICU. It was tough to be there realizing the fact that someone who did so much for your life may be gone forever. But by God's grace I could get some time when he was taken out of ventilator for first time when I could talk to him. Those moments I will remember as some of my best moments with him. He is still in ICU. Keep him in your prayers. I was back in MN this week and we are having some good time of fasting and prayer. It is true that " better is one day in the courts of God than thousands elsewhere " (Ps 84:10). The sons of Korah were absolutely right. The title of this post is when your calculat...

We are living in a time when wickedness has become a sort of style or fashion of the day. If we notice the news and keep track of the things happening all around us then we know that with each day wickedness is not only increasing but getting popular and accepted. What was in the list of wickedness few years ago is no longer there and has become accepted things. Its true with Christians also. Many things which are forbidden in the word of God is slowly creeping in and is becoming part of normal life. Tolerance is a good things but sometimes it can become dangerous in the sense that slowly it can make us cold. Last days I was meditating on a verse. Let me share it with you. Mathew 24:10-13:- "At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold , but he who stands firm to the end will be saved." In these verses when...

About 1.5 yrs ago I started the Gospel Link Podcast. It was mostly in English. This month God helped us to start the Gospel Link Hindi Podcast. Already 2 Episodes are out. First message is about Disappointments and 2nd updated today is about transformation. If you like to listen to Hindi messages then visit http://www.gospel-link.com/Podcast_Hindi.aspx Also today we added some Hindi Songs by Pr.Renny Thomas from Rajasthan, India. Thanks to Brother Finny Thomas for sending it so that we could add it. Another important update was the Gospel Link Media Hindi Video message about Dissapointments. I haven't got the final copy which will be released in the first week of May 2009. Some brothers are putting lot of effort behind it. But I have just added the message in the site. I will update it once I get the final copy. But you can still see the message in the site. Visit http://www.gospel-link.com/videos/Messages/Hindi/Dissapointments.aspx May God Bless Your Spiritual Life!

Last week there was a testimony shared by someone in the church. It encouraged me and challenged me and I thought of sharing it here. In 1983 a young women attended the church for the first time. The sermon that day was about Dustbin or Trashcan. Yes. The pastor preached from Philippians 3. This chapter first talks about the priceless value of knowing Christ. Then Paul write in verses 7&8 7 I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. 8 Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ After listening to this message she gave her life to Jesus. Its more than 25yrs since this happened. But the impact this one message left in her life is still to be seen. She has t-shirts made with photo of Dustin on it and some other things like that which will make people to ask ...

"They do not compromise with evil, and they walk only in his paths." Psalms 119:3 (NLT) We are living in times when compromise has almost become the rule of life. But its not always called as compromise. Sometimes compromise is shielded under words like tolerance, patience, endurance, love for each other, respect for one another etc. Have you ever thought about it. Most of the time we compromise something or other in our life. There are times when you don't have any other way but to compromise. But today I want to divert your attention towards things your compromise in your spiritual life. Compromise is a slow poison that ultimately destroys respect for truth . What does that mean? You start with small and end up compromising on big things. This is very much true with our beliefs and convictions about truth and doctrine. First thing we must check in our life that how strong we are in our beliefs and convictions. It will have a direct impact on the fact that how easily we...

For last few weeks I had been doing a personal study as well as preaching on a subject which I found to be very helpful and blessing in my own life. Few weeks ago as I had this privilege of studying and meditating on the work or role of Holy Spirit in the book of Acts. There is no doubt that in the book of Acts, we see Holy Spirit work in a clear way than any other book. If you do a search then Holy Spirit is mentioned almost 42 times in 28 chapters of Acts in NIV Bible. It's amazing to see the ways in which Holy Spirit worked in the first century church. Many times we read the book of Acts and get excited. I have to admit that I have got excited many times after reading few chapters from Acts. The main reason is that we see the work of Holy Spirit manifested through the church and people in a mighty and powerful way. We have to admit that it is our desire also. We also want to see sick getting healed, people coming and asking "what we should do to be saved?", evil spirit...

So 2008 is over and we are in New year 2009. This year has started in a different way than previous years. We are seeing the economic crisis and people losing jobs. Reports suggest that 1st quarter of 2009 will be tough as more stores are going to be closed and it is predicted that market conditions are going to get worse. People are living in fear of losing their jobs. But in mist of it we should also notice another crisis. Its the spiritual crisis. We are seeing moral depravity increasing and spiritual conditions going on a lukewarm way. Spiritual circles are floating with false teachings and doctrines and there is large market for such things and lot of people are being deceived. The high standards which believers used to have is being compromised for pleasures. Preachers are afraid to preach on issues which will make them unpopular and make people upset. Everyone wants to attract people and grow in number. In nutshell more focus is on quantity rather than quality. So many program...