Mighty Wall!
1 Peter 2:5 “you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”
I would like to share an illustration I read somewhere: “There’s a story about a king of Sparta in ancient Greece who boasted to a visiting monarch about the mighty walls of Sparta. But the guest looked around and didn’t see any walls, and finally he said to his host, "I’d like to see those walls. Show them to me!" The Spartan ruler pointed with great satisfaction to some disciplined and well-trained troops, part of Sparta’s mighty army, and exclaimed, "There they are! Those are the walls of Sparta!" Just as each Spartan soldier was viewed by the king as a brick in his mighty wall, so we are viewed by God as "living stones... built up a spiritual house."
God looks at us as ‘living stones’ but not many of us live up to the expectation of God, do we? We are fragile, weak and vulnerable and we get easily tossed by every kind of wrong doctrines. If someone prophesizes and predicts certain things, we have a huge junk of people to follow them crazily. We do not stop to analyze the fact. I come across many servants of God, who dramatically weave false prophesies during their preaching. They create false excitement, expectations among the poor, innocent villagers, people who are at their lowest ebb in life and also people who are in pain and at loss are vulnerable to such deceptions. Beware! When I visit the churches, I strongly preach the Word and open their eyes to identify such people and stay away from them. I never fail to warn them about holiness and the second coming of Jesus. There are many youngsters who had given up on worldly pleasures that lead them to destruction - movies and bars to name a few – through my strong teachings; media has been the main cause for sins to corrode the lives of youngsters. Media gives the world a smorgasbord of entertainment: sex, crime, thrill and violence; the audience will lap it all up, like spring water in the Sahara. Lately the phenomenon is internet. Through file sharing, besides good ones that are few; a lot of trash is being shared through the face book, You Tube as well. The intelligent evil people, have found out every loop hole to trap the young; alas, my warnings go to deaf ears. The upshot is that virtually most of the people are trapped in some sort of sin; if I may call endless chatting and posting of notes and photos on face book sin as well. Someone said: A man who dares waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life. You can read few portions of the Bible during that time you give to the devil. Oh, young people be careful! I write this portion with tears and pain in my heart.
We’ve got to be strong people and resist sin and that is possible only through Jesus. How can I be pure and holy in the midst of this crooked generation? We wonder! I just do not remember precisely the exact date but one fine day, I just snapped all unhealthy connections with the world. I worked in a bank of foreign culture and glamorous atmosphere for many years and still managed to stay away from them all. I used to have my lunch alone in the staircase because of the ‘hazardous pollution’ that was outside: movies were screened with monitors in every nook and corner of the canteen, corridors were filled with obscenities, rest rooms had the store of gossip – all I could do was run. Please, I am no snob or religious fanatic; I had to save myself. Click My Testimony to read my salvation experience. It is lonely up the holy hill; but with God we can stay there. It just happened like lightning; I went about with unbridled aggression, severing all evil connections – small or big. I stopped watching secular movies, broke all audio and video tapes, mark it, I broke them. I gently advised my children to follow suit as well, my entire family were stunned by my aggressive approach. Even during family gatherings, I stayed away, though I was mocked then, today people are watching the harvest of blessings in my life because of my wholehearted love for God. I cut every form of evil away from my life. I have ground my teeth and said ‘no’ to many things in my life. I still do so.
We are the living stones!
