The Sacrifice

Preeti Priscilla
Electrical and Electronics Engineering, 3rd year
SRM University

He was up there, high above everything
Clothed in splendour, majestic in visage
All of heaven worshipped Him, lifted Him up
Every knee was bent, every head was bowed
Incomprehensible glory, Unfathomable riches,
Irrepressible adoration and hearts full of praise
To all of this, the fulcrum He was


I was down here, well below everything
Clothed in rags was a soul - starving, craving
My sin and my shame had buried me eight feet under
Pretension was my cloak during the day
And sorrow was my pillow in the night
Wallowing in guilt, with my soul wasting away
I waited, waited for something to pierce through the darkness


Love saw my plight, Hope descended from heaven
The Son of God came down, forsaking riches and glory
Did He come to be worshipped and adored?
No! He came to be mocked, scourged and crucified
He hung on Calvary's mount - blameless, guileless
"Why?", you might wonder, just like I used to
He bore all of it so that Light could pierce through my darkness


Oh what a beautiful day it was!
When I understood the Love that died to give me hope
Incomprehensible glory, unfathomable riches, irrepressible adoration and a heart full of praise
All of this was mine to name, to boast of
Because now I was up there with Him
Clothed in splendour and radiant in visage
But all of it was bought with the sacrifice of the Lord of Creation

It's Him

Devki Desai

Computer Science Engineering

SRM University

Recently, I've been thinking a lot about what I've been saying all this time.

"It’s never been about me, it’s always been about Him."

I have been asking God to show me what this really means and God kept taking me back to John the Baptist.

It's not about me. 

For a long time now, I have struggled to remember this truth because honestly, it feels good when it is about me. It feels good when I am with people and they say I am a blessing. It feels good when the people around me respect, support and encourage me. But because it feels so good, I can easily start making this all about ME - wanting everybody to love ME, trying to make ME look good, doing this for ME. This is dangerous, though because when there's a problem, then it's all about me. Then I start feeling sorry for myself, wondering what I am doing wrong, wondering why people are doing this to me.

So I'm really thankful that ultimately, it is not about me. I am no one's savior. My job is simply to be a messenger, a spotlight, focusing everyone's attention on our Savior, Jesus. This isn't about me and it's not about you also. Church isn't about you. It isn't about making you feel good or comfortable or appreciated. It isn't about all the good things you do at your church or whether or not anyone notices what you do. Church isn't about you.

In fact, even our lives aren't about us. We aren't the reason we exist. Our purpose here on Earth is not about us. 

It's all about Jesus. It's about how our God loved us so much that He suffered the punishment for all the times you and I have made it about us. In His great selflessness, He suffered the punishment of our selfishness so that we could live with Him forever in the happiness of heaven.

He is our Savior. He is our God. He is the reason we live and breathe and exist. All of this - our church, our life, our existence - is about thanking Him for what He has done for us.

It's a hard lesson to learn and accept. But when we do learn and accept it, when we keep our focus on our Savior and all he has done for us in his love, then we find true peace. Then we find our true purpose.

This is what it means to me when I say, it's not me, it's Him.

GOD BLESS YOU!!

CHRIST IS HOPE

Kapil Natesan
Mechanical Engineering, 4th Year
SRM University


He knew me even when I was born,

Even as my sinews were knit by the will of the Most High;

Not one step back he takes, unswerving he moves

Until his purpose is fulfilled.

I caught glimpses of him when mourning someone dear

But I always thought,” Not today, not for me, nothing to fear”.

The young, the old, the righteous, the wicked

No one escapes him.

Riches and knowledge he laughs at,

The fool and the worldly wise,

Everyone conceived of a mother’s womb,

He is their demise.

When at last my dreams started to give way to reality

And youthful strength started to fade

I understood that he was already in my vicinity.

As I began to close the windows to the cold truths

And draw the drapes to keep my present warm

A chill crawled up my spine

To see him walking by the gate.

He entered, at ease,

As if it were his own home

Callous was his stride across the green

That I had strived so long to grow.

My prized flowers that human eyes esteemed

He passed by, seemingly blind to all beauty.

When at last he reached my porch,

I heard a blood curdling cry

As of a soul so long starved and turned from a feast.

I staggered, confused to inspect the cause of this;

And I found the reason why,

Lo behold! There was Another, already, at my door!

Gently knocking, meek and humble of heart,

Yet strong to keep the intruder away.

To the thief’s delight, I wouldn’t let my undeserved Protector in.

As I retreated to the familiar comfort of home,

Leaving the unknown to deal with the unknown,

There upon the pillar of my house did I find to my confusion

A great crack right from the foundation,

So wide and irreparable it looked,

“Enough for today” I cried, “I am retiring for the night”.

Come new Morning, when the dark appeared to have passed

I walked with a song on my lips, the past seemingly in memoriam

Suddenly I let out a silent cry; the song faded, sounding like a requiem.

For the great creak now extended greater than before.

“No! No time now, must get on with life”, I said turning away.

Days passed by and the crack grew,

No precipitation from the heavens it kept away.

One sundown I found my house door ajar,

Crying out I ran in, to see all treasured possession stolen,

Bitter in heart and counting the losses;

Then to my amazement I found some treasure left behind!

“Oh cruel soul!” I cried, “Why did you leave these ?”

For they were half eaten, consumed by moth and vermin.

Now when there seemed no end to woes, again did I find,

At the porch, the enemy mentioned afore.

No need to enter by the door now,

The house itself would come down with a great crash

Under the weight of it’s leaky, soggy walls.

Then did I hear the gentle voice whisper from my doorstep again,

“Come to me my child, the Way, I am”.

With wisdom and understanding calling,

And fear of righteous wrath sweeping my whole being

I finally cried out, “O Sir, come in soon, don’t stand there!”

“I lay down my burden at your feet….”

Oh! That I should see such a thing!

To my astonishment I found those feet, pierced!

Lo! His hands too and even His side!

Looking up I saw, an assuring face and He told me, “this is for thee my child, it is finished!”

Then upon His words I built a new house on a high Rock

And there He supped with me every night.

Comfort and counsel He provided, a path lit in the dark, He is the Light.

Then one day my Savior said, “come with me, I have prepared a new home”.

I gladly went with Him, knowing where He belonged.

Now, Death searched all the worlds looking for my face,

Never will he find me, for now and forever, the Lord is my Hiding place.

A Heart With A Burden

Allen Joseph

Instrumentation and Control Engineering, 2nd Year

SRM University

Praise the Lord!

Reading from the Gospel of Luke, chapter 7, verses 11-16.

¹¹Soon afterward, Jesus went to a town called Nain, and His disciples and a large crowd went along with Him. 

¹²As He approached the town gate, a dead person was being carried out – the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a large crowd from the town was with her. 

¹³When the Lord saw her, His heart went out to her and He said, “Don’t cry.” 

¹⁴Then he went up and touched the coffin, and those carrying it stood still. He said, “Young man, I say to you, get up!” 

¹⁵The dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his mother. 

¹⁶They were all filled with awe and praised God. “A great prophet has appeared among us,” they said. “God has come to help his people.” 

¹⁷This news about Jesus spread throughout Judea and the surrounding country.

In this passage that we read, the first verse speaks about Jesus going to a town called Nain, and His disciples and a large crowd were following Him. Let’s turn our eyes upon Jesus. Firstly, Jesus lived on this earth for thirty three and a half years and this incident takes place in the life of Jesus during His time of ministry - the last three and a half years. I would like to call Jesus, ‘a young man’. This young man, Jesus, is going into a town called Nain. Secondly, let us read from the Gospel of John, chapter 14, verse 6, 

Jesus says “I am the way, the truth and the life”.

Here I would like to take the part in which Jesus says “I am the life”. He is the source of eternal life. Therefore, a young man named Jesus who is the Life went to a town called Nain. I would like you to remember this, Jesus was a young man and He was the Life. There is a large crowd following Jesus, that is, a large crowd was following Life.

On the contrary, the second verse in the passage speaks of a dead person. This person doesn’t have life. He is life-less and dead. And do not neglect the fact that this person is also a young man (verse 14). This man is being brought out from the town called Nain. He is a young man and he is dead. We read in verse 12 that there is another large crowd following this dead young man.

I would like to draw a comparison between the verses. We see a young man named Jesus who is the Life and there is a large crowd following Him. We see another young man who is dead and there is a large crowd following Him. We read in Romans, chapter 8, verse 6 

“To be carnally minded is sin and death”.

There is a large crowd following the carnal mind, that is the death.

As we read further, we read in verse 13, 

When the Lord saw the mother, His heart went out to her and He said, “Don’t cry.” 

This verse tells us about the mother who was crying. The mother couldn’t be silent. Her heart was broken. She was weeping. She was in agony for her dead son. She would have cried, ‘Won’t he come back to life again?’ Her anguish for her son was deep. We also see that there is a crowd along with the mother. As Jesus approached the town gate, He sees a company of people accompanying the corpse and the mother. But it was the mother who caught Jesus' attention. The Bible does not say that He saw the crowd but  the Bible says that Jesus saw the mother, who was weeping for her dead son. We read in Psalm, chapter 34, verse 18, 

“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”

Lord Jesus heard the cries of the mother and He could no longer be silent but His heart went out to her. He said to her, “Don’t cry!”

Who is this mother? Contextually, it’s obvious that she is the mother of the dead son. But I would like to make an allusion here. In Galatians, chapter 4, verse 26, it says: 

“But the Jerusalem that is above is free and she is our mother”. 

My brothers and sisters, we, the believers, we are the people who belong to the Jerusalem. We are the mother.

And Jesus goes up to the young man and He says, “Young man, I say to you, get up!” The dead man sat up. Praise the Lord! Jesus, the Life met death and death could no more hold its reins over the young man but gave him up to Life, so that Life could reign in him. Now, the man had received the Life and he couldn’t be silent. He spoke. He became a living testimony. Jesus gave Him back to his mother, Jerusalem. People praised God and they glorified Him!

My brother, my sister, this is what that happens when we, the mother pray for the dead people, people who are carnally minded. If you are a believer, then don’t you forget that there was a mother crying out for you every day that you might receive Life and the Lord beheld her tears and gave you Life.

My dear brothers and sisters, you have to cry out for the people who are dead in spirit and for those who follow death.

In Romans chapter 5, verse 5, it says: 

“And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.”

The love of God has been poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. As you read this, my dear brothers and sisters, listen to the voice of the Holy Ghost, surrender to His voice and allow Him to fill your hearts with His love.

Now, when you look at your friend or your neighbor who is dead you will cry out for him. Your obligation to weep for the dead comes from the love of God, given to us through His Holy Spirit. Surrender to the Spirit now as you hear His voice. Cry out for the dead. Cry out for your unsaved friends. Let Life meet the dead and make them a living testimony. 

Praised and glorified be the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! 

Looking Through My Father's Eyes

Neha Anna Thomas

M.Tech, Food Processing

Batch of 2012 

I have heard this particular quote, a number of times in my Christian life. I myself have used it at times to encourage my friends and family. But let me tell you, the most difficult thing in a Christian's life is, looking at life through God's eyes. Sometimes, we refuse to look through His eyes because we enjoy living in self pity. YES!! We humans enjoy dwelling in self pity. We relish pulling out past experiences, mixing it up and adding some masala by thinking of the future situations that life can bring. We love to think that we are the only ones going through all these hard core problems and add more self pity to it. In reality, it's PATHETIC that we actually do this. I don't know what we gain by doing this.

Then we look at life and say "Life is not fair!". Well people, let me get you the fact - Life is never fair, not now, not even when Jesus was on earth. But that's the whole beauty of life. I really cannot imagine living a monotonous life with no ups and downs. I love having surprises along my way - good ones that make me feel happy and not so good ones that make me feel challenged, hopeful, determined and a conqueror in Christ. Jesus was beaten, despised and crucified for doing absolutely nothing but good things. He had to leave his heavenly glory to come to earth, and well, I don't see any fairness in what happened to Him. But Jesus went through it and WON!!! Because when He looked at it, what He saw was not His death or the torture that he had to go through. Instead, He saw OUR SALVATION. So don't let the not so good situations fool you, there is a purpose and a miracle waiting for you at the end of it.

How can we make the not so good times look special? Well, you got to look at it correctly. See, if I want, I can examine it from all angles and see nothing good coming out of it. But I have learned to look at it differently. I look through my special spiritual eyes, that is, my Fathers eyes. When I look at it through His eyes, I see only hope for hopelessness, acceptance for rejection, happiness for sadness, love for hatred, dead situations coming to life and so on. I also believe that problems come our way to make us stronger, to make us trust in the supernatural, to make our faith grow deeper and to make us place our trust in him and not in worldly people.

Today, I challenge you guys to look at life through His eyes. Your lives will never be the same. When you are faced with a situation, tell the problem, " I am going to beat you and win this challenge. I am going to climb this mountain and face you like David faced Goliath because I believe in a living God who does not have the word impossible in his dictionary but only VICTORY!!"
 

GOD BLESS!!

Giving Up Is Not An Option

Preeti Priscilla

Electrical and Electronics Engineering, 2^nd year

SRM University

“Giving up is not an option.” I’ve heard these words many, many times and I’m pretty sure, so have you, but it is not until recently that I started to take these words to heart. You might ask, “What changed?” and that is precisely why I’m writing this-to tell you what changed.

You know that phase in your life when things are easy, you can sit around and relax, do the bare minimum and get through life easily? Well, I had all of that till my 10^th grade, everything came easily to me - marks, appreciation, attention. I never really gave it much thought nor did I consider as God’s favour and suddenly, in 11^th grade it all vanished. I was among new people and my marks went really low. Basically, it was a complete 180° shift from my earlier life. This is when my dry spell started. I developed low self-esteem, lost my interest in studies and lost whatever little interest I had in God but then, God never lost interest in me. Despite everything, He brought me to SRM University and my life changed again.

Here I realised that God’s love for me does not depend on what I do. He loves me just because He wants to, no ulterior motives. His love does not come with an asterix saying, “Terms and Conditions Apply”. His love is free flowing. It consumes everything - broken hearts, broken dreams, broken people - and makes them whole with no scars to show for the brokenness. Everything’s made new. Now you might think, “Yes, she got to know about God’s love and that changed her. Let’s get back to our work. Show’s over!” But, I’ll have to ask you to stop and read on.

 Yes, God’s love is everything it said it is and so much more. Yes, it has the power to change everything. Yes, it makes everything new. But all this is possible only if you allow it. Now you might be wondering “Why would I not let God’s love make everything new? Why would I stop it?” Yes people. We do stop it. We stop it when we continue to hold on to our failures and let them define us. We stop it when we find our identity in the world and not in Jesus. We stop it when we let the fear of our future control our present. We stop it when we don’t trust Him completely. That is when all the doubts start to crop up, when everything seems to be crashing down, when we feel nothing good can come out of our lives and that is when we feel like GIVING UP!!

The human mind believes a lie so much more easily than it would the truth. If someone tells you that you don’t look very good or that you don’t sing very well, you immediately believe it and spend the rest of your life, trying to match upto that person’s standards. We choose to ignore or should I say we choose to forfeit God’s glory upon our lives. God has been shouting, “You are beautiful and amazing! I have created you in My image.” Do we believe this most of the time? Nope. We consider the words of a human superior to the promises of our Almighty God. We fall right into the devil’s well laid trap.

The devil’s sole aim is to bring us down to a position where God cannot use us. So, we need to decide who defines our identity - Jesus or the world. If Jesus is our identity then what do we need be afraid of? We can declare just like Paul did-If God is for us then who can stand against us? We need to stop letting our failures or our past define us. We need to BELIEVE that we are made new in Christ. I’m not saying that this battle is easy or short. It’s a long battle that we will be fighting till the day Jesus comes back but are we alone in this battle? Absolutely not! Jesus is here. We might not see him or feel Him at times but He is always there, watching, ready to pull us out when we can’t take it anymore. He’ll never give us more than we can handle.

Lastly, I just want to quote a few lines from a song that I heard recently. It’s by Holly Starr.

He changed my life by changing my mind

He healed all that was broken inside

I’m loving what I can see with

His Spirit alive in me

I’m finding beauty for the first time

Looking through my Father’s eyes

You want to know what changed? Here it is - I started looking at my life through my Father’s eyes and realised that giving up is not an option.

GOD BLESS YOU!!

WORSHIP DELIGHTFULLY IN GOD’S EYE

Binju E Mathew
Architecture, 5th Year
SRM University

Okay, so what is worship?                                   

It is surrendering ourselves and our lives completely to God, so then it’s our life. Well, then I will simply define WORSHIP as “OUR WALK WITH GOD”.

Now the question comes; “Is my walk with God delightful before His eyes?”

Psalm 104:34 says “May my meditation be pleasing to him, as I rejoice in the Lord”

Psalm 147:11 says “The Lord delights in those who fear Him, who put their hope in His unfailing love”

BUT we see in Isaiah 29:13-
“The Lord says;
 These people come to me with their mouth and honour Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me…”

NOW if you think that this doesn’t hurt our God, you are wrong!

In Genesis 6:5,6 we see “The Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on earth had become and the inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The Lord was grieved that He had made man on earth and His heart was filled with pain”

 

So here are 5 help lines that will make sure we are a delight to God.

Let’s ask God to :

1.  HELP US TO BE FAITHFUL TO HIM ALWAYS:

Galatians2:20 says “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”

So let our prayer simply be, Mark 9:24 “…I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief.”

2. HELP US TO BE FILLED WITH PRAISES AND THANKSGIVING TO HIM AT ALL TIMES:

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 says “Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus”

Psalm 147:1 says “Praise the Lord, how good it is to sing praises to our God, how pleasant and fitting to praise Him”

3. HELP US TO SEEK GOD ALONE IN EVERYTHING, WITH A HUMBLE HEART:

Psalm 105:4 says “Look at the Lord and His strength, seek His face always”

John 4:24 says “…God is spirit and His worshippers must worship in spirit and in truth”

James 4:2,3 says “…when you ask you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives…your pleasures.”

4. HELP US TO USE ALL THAT WE HAVE TO GLORIFY JESUS’S NAME:

All our abilities; music, dancing, literary skills, art, wisdom, wealth, hospitality…and everything!

5. HELP US TO WALK ACCORDING TO GOD’S PLAN:

Praying and following the word of God constantly will transform us to fit into the plan God has for us.

Colossians 4:2 says “Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful”

1 Thessalonians 4:7 says “For God did not call us to be impure but to live a holy life.”

Proverbs 3:5,6 says “… in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will straighten your path.”

 

SO, let’s ask God everyday, “AM I A DELIGHTFUL WORSHIPPER ?”

If  NOT, let’s then make sure from right now that we bring that smile on God’s face.      

 

 

 

GOD BLESS YOU!!