And what about other traditions? Can we not respect our elders by touching their feet?
This is again a subjective question and above principle can explain this. However, to answer it specifically, I would recommend that we must ask wisdom from God to differentiate between culture and religious rituals. In general, you may touch the feet of elders, but we ought to understand that it is ensured that we would not compromise with the glory of God in anyway. Continue Reading
May be, but to me the probability looks very less.
We must understand that it could be a deception of devil to take us away from God than our genuine effort to save the soul. God wants to save souls, this is His agenda but he would not compromise on the way it should be done. When He asks not to be unequally yoked with unbeliever, He means it.
If you are unable to witness the love of Jesus to this person before marriage, there is hardly a chance that you would be able to do it after it. Especially for girls in Indian society, it could be even harder to persuade her spouse to believe in what she believes. This may rather affect her own spiritual growth and draw her away from fellowship and eventually from God Himself. Think! Are you not bringing obstacles in your own spiritual growth? Decision is all yours.
Hah! This statement is not true.
The only mention in this context is the statement of Jesus spoken to His disciples regarding His own body and blood.
“I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him.”
[John 6:51-56]
Jesus in the above verses was talking something deeper than mere flesh and blood, he was talking about His suffering, death, life and resurrection through which He was about to pay the price of sins so that putting faith in His sacrifice we could be saved by His grace (and no works attached).
Apart from this, there is no mention of eating human flesh or drinking human blood. Rather, Bible in Old Testament asked to abstain from certain kind of meats and any kind of allowed meat with blood.
My wife Prerna is vegetarian and she has not eaten even any kind of meat in last 7 years of her devoted faith life in following Jesus Christ.
I know the plans that I have for you, declares the LORD. They are plans for peace and not disaster, plans to give you a future filled with hope.
My Name is Aarti Naik, I am 23 years old, and I come from a Maharastrian Brahmin Family.
When I was 8 years old I was diagnosed with Schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is a chronic condition, and the individual afflicted with this disease constantly experience hallucinations or other symptoms of the mental disorder.
I used to behave very strangely – for instance I used to talk and meet with people who did not exist in this world. My parents sought medical help but the doctors were unable to diagnose any illness and suggest the correct treatment for it. Continue Reading
Praise the Lord!
First of all, I want to give thanks to Lord Jesus who gave me this wonderful opportunity to glorify his name through my testimony.
I want to introduce myself. I am Shivshankar Tiwari, born in an orthodox Hindu-Brahmin’s priest family on 29 February 1984. My grandfather Late Pandit Rohini Prasad Tiwari was a famous and renowned priest (Pandit/Purohit) of Jabalpur and also head priest of Gaurishankar Temple situated in Adhartal area of Jabalpur (Madhya Pradesh). This is the reason why my whole family is an orthodox and hardcore believer of Hinduism & their gods & goddess.
I believe God has his own plans for everyone which he only knows and if you are the chosen one then eventually he would catch you for sure; no power of this whole universe can stop him. He has decided everything in advance that how and in what circumstances will you come to faith, who will share the word of true and living Lord to you, at what age, in which year, date & time his Divine light has to come upon & you have to surrender to him and accept him as personal savior.
Continue Reading
Praise the Lord!
I praise and thank God that he has kept me among the living beings in this world. I belong to Pakistan. I was born in a traditional Christian family. My parents were very strict with
My name is Aarti Modi (was known as Aarti Sharma before marriage). I was born in a small village in Rajasthan in 1985 in a Brahman family. Our family was devoted to all Hindu gods and goddesses and would religiously do idol worship in the temple. As part of this belief, we would also believe in associated superstitions. I was a very religious girl and would follow the example of my dadiji in performing religious duty. Dadiji used to tell Hindu mythological stories to other ladies in the village, go to temple every day – morning and evening, go for teerthyatra etc. I would follow her example and right from the young age, I started going to temple, teerthyatra etc.
My dadiji did a lot of temple service and yet peace was far from her. This lack of peace would reflect in her day to day life. I would get upset quite often by her behavior. I could not understand why there was no change in her life, what the truth was and who is God. I was too young to understand all such complex things, I guess.
I saw my mother always sad and unhappy, struggling with life. Papa used to stay in Delhi for his profession and yet he would also struggle for some sort of better work. Some of his own close relative(s) ditched him. This family who deceived us would still consider themselves part of Gayatri family and do yagya etc.
Papa did not have good work (sometimes no work); therefore everybody would consider us inferior and would treat us badly. Mummy used to suffer a lot. After finishing household chores, she would come back to room and weep for long times. She would hug me and bhaiya (my elder brother) and cry profusely. She would go for all Hindu saints etc in search of peace and prosperity in our house. Her main objective was to get Papa a stable work, but she would always come back miserable and with failures. She would cry before idols for hours together, longing for everything to just become alright by the grace of the gods she was worshipping. Nothing happened. I would wonder whether someone is really listening. Continue Reading
I have found God who is the source of true peace, love, joy, happiness, success and all heavenly blessings. I am enjoying my life much more than I did earlier. I have confidence and trust in God that HE LOVES ME.
I was born in India of Hindu parents in February, 1977. I was educated in Jaipur till my graduation and did my post graduation from IIT-Roorkee, India in Earth Sciences in Applied Geology.
While I was in the college, I met a Hindu girl, who was a born again believer (Yeshu Bhakt). She shared the good news of God’s love through his Son Jesus Christ with me and gifted me a Gideon Bible. I did not read this book immediately but after a thorough analysis of various religious books and concluding that Bible is the only true word of God, I began to pray to this stranger God and study the Bible deeply.
I experienced a life-transforming encounter with the God.
Out of my early research of the religions and further study of the religious scriptures and eventually Bible, I formed few conclusions:
Bertrand Russell, British philosopher, historian and logician who was a prolific writer of many philosophic writings and known for atheism, said - Unless you assume a God, the question of life's purpose
