HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY

31 STATES,
1618 LANGUAGES,
6400 CASTES,
6 RELIGION,
6 ETHNICE GROUPS,
...29 MAJOR FESTIVALS,
& 1 COUNTRY.
BE PROUD TO BE AN INDIAN.
HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY

                                                PRAY FOR INCREDIBLE INDIA !!

A Lenten Reflection

Give up complaining                               focus on gratitude.

Give up pessimism                                become an optimist.

Give up harsh judgments                       think kindly thoughts.

Give up worry                                         trust Divine Providence.

Give up discouragement                        be full of hope.

Give up bitterness                                  turn to forgiveness.

Give up hatred                                        return good for evil.

Give up negativism                                 be positive.

Give up anger                                         be more patient.

Give up pettiness                                   become mature.

Give up jealousy                                     pray for trust.

Give up gossiping                                   control your tongue.

Give up sin                                              turn to virtue.

Give up giving up                                    hang in there!

Observing Lent – Observe Christ’s attributes

After the celebration of Christmas and New Year, now time of spring also time to observe lent. We can keep Lent best by denying ourselves not “things” but negative thoughts and feelings. Only through the prayer and study, we can contemplate the victorious Christ and attempt to be more like Him.

The word LENT comes from the Anglo-Saxon word for spring, which is derived from a verb meaning to lengthen. Lent comes in the spring when the days become noticeably longer.

This annual season of fasting, prayer, and penitence have been observed by the Western Church since the first century after Christ, although it has not always been forty days long. In more recent times it has been kept forty days, after the example of Moses and Elijah, and to commemorate the forty days of fasting and prayer that Jesus spent in the wilderness.

The first day of Lent is called Ash Wednesday from the custom that prevailed in the early Church of sprinkling ashes on the heads of penitents on the first day of Lent, in token of repentance for sin.

Ash Wednesday comes forty-six days before Easter. There are six Sundays in Lent, and they are not considered part of Lent, because in the Western Church Sunday is always a feast day. The forty weekdays beginning with Ash Wednesday constitute Lent. Sundays belong to the season of Easter all year long and every Sunday is the celebration of Easter.

The fifth Sunday in Lent is known as Passion Sunday, because it marks the beginning of Passion-tide, the last two weeks of Lent. These two weeks specifically commemorate the Passion of Jesus, or His experiences following the Last Supper.

The last week of Lent is called Holy Week. It includes Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, and Good Friday.

Palm Sunday, the Sunday before Easter, commemorates Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem when the people strewed palms in His way.

Maundy Thursday, the Thursday before Easter, is a corruption of the Latin word mandati meaning “of the commandment,” and refers to the command “This do in remembrance of me” spoken by Jesus in regard to His breaking of the bread and drinking of the wine at the Last Supper. Maundy Thursday commemorates the event of the Last Supper.

Good Friday, the Friday before Easter, probably known originally as God’s Friday, commemorates the crucifixion of Jesus.

Easter Day, of course, commemorates the Resurrection. The word Easter comes from the Anglo-Saxon word Eastre, the name of the Goddess of spring, in whose honour a festival was celebrated each April. Easter Day always comes on the first Sunday after the full moon that occurs on or after March 21. If the full moon falls on a Sunday, Easter is the next Sunday. Easter can never fall earlier than March 22 nor later than April 25.

Lent is a season of spiritual growth, when we can blend and merge our mind with God-Mind; the way is open for the Lord to glorify us and to lift us into a higher, purer, more spiritual state.

Fasting means abstaining from; it is abstinence. The place of overcoming is in the consciousness of man. The forty-day fast is an all-round denial of sense demands. In fasting, we as metaphysicians abstain from error thinking and meditate on spiritual Truth until we incorporate it into the consciousness of oneness with the Father.

The desire to excel is in all men and women. It is the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, which ever urges us on through the earth toward heaven. It should be encouraged and cultivated in the right direction.

Let us observe Lent

FAILURE MAKES MAN FINEST

Dear Friends in Christ,

Greetings!!

We are all in the beginning of 2011 with the grand expectations, what is going to happen in our life spiritually also financially. Many of us might have come across different kind of failures in our life. Many of us might have got annoyed even tried to give an end to life because of our shame of failures. Our neighbors and kindred might have showed their faces by pinpointing our failures. Now we are in 2011 with a question what would be next in my life?

When God created First Adam, he deceived his purpose of creation it was a great failure for God’s creation but God did not felt bad for it he gave another chance to Adam to live and bear fruit. When Jesus came to the earth as a second Adam it was a great victory for God’s creation, Jesus won the human kind.

Many of us asking the same question during our failures; why did it happen to me? I walk in the path of righteous then why did God let me down by giving this failure before my enemies. Even me I have walk through the same sorrows and dry wilders. Yes my friend God’s word says that “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways”- (Isaiah 55:8). God’s ways are unique and which has no sorrows. Always believe that we may have darkness today but there is a dawn waiting for us.  Psalm 30:5 says "weeping may endure for a night but joy comes in the morning." have not ever seen, there is a silver line of light around the darkness?

One day I visited my friend in his home who is a guitar player, after a long chat i told him to play a song for me. While taking his guitar he said that even he did not touch his guitar for a long time. While he played a guitar it gave wrong note it did not sound good. He said that the guitar was tuned; he started tuning the guitar by tightening the strings. The strings were rolled and tightened then he played it was awesome. When we confined with problem just think that you are getting refined.

Here is an Answer for you with my experience that “Failure makes you Finest”. Yes! God makes a man as a Finest through failures. We might have come through with the bitter experience which separated us from God and our dear ones. But the truth is Failure is the supreme instrument that one can have to revive and rebuild.

For I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope-(Jeremiah 29:11)

I challenge you that our God will change your entire test as testimonies. Walk in his plan because he has a master plan for us and we are the master piece in God’s hand. God created this universe out of nothing and he can also create new things out of nothing. Here I remember song lyrics

"God will make a way
Where there seems to be no way
He works in ways we cannot see
He will make a way for me
He will be my guide
Hold me closely to His side
With love and strength
For each new day"

Many of us mourning in our daily life that I live as per scriptures, even though I am facing failures, I am falling again and again into shame, My enemies are laugh when I fall and fail.

Here is an encouraging truth for you “A righteous man falls seven times, and rises again” – Proverb 24:16.

One fine evening I was sitting in the park, I saw a 2 years old baby boy trying to walk around out of delight but he was falling in the ground several times. He wishes to go wherever his vision goes but he is not strengthened enough to go alone. Finally, his mother took his hand and walking around the park he was safe and his heart filled with joy. Oh yes, here we are. When God holds our hands, the failure vanishes like a snow in the sun. Always hold the hand of the lord of the successful life.

May God bless us.