#judedias
Crowded with God
Type & Edit byJude Dias , Photography by Yousif Malibiran
Are we just blind or what?!?!
I don’t mean to be brash but I find myself asking this question especially when I feel down and hopeless. Think about it…
In the Bible we see Jesus constantly telling His followers about God and His nature. God knows it all. He sees it all and just based on this fact, Jesus questions the disciples about their faith every time they freak out about something or have doubts cloud their mind.
“Where is your faith?”
Jesus and His Word makes it absolutely clear - God is everything and there is no escaping Him. You can run and hide and God will find you. You can bury a secret in the depths of your mind and heart but God sees and feels everything that is within you. Because this is God we are talking about.
As a Christian, I should know and be certain of the fact that Jesus is around and that I am always covered by His presence, love and grace. I’ve no room to doubt, fear or freak out. But yet I do. Because I am a weak human and I fail everyday. And here is Jesus continuing to love me despite this.
If the room is crowded, you’d notice it right? The world is crowded with Jesus. He is literally everywhere you look. And there are those days when we even fail to notice Him. There are those days when we fail to remember that He is around for us and that we are safe in His hands. We just worry and fear like blind people. So again I ask the question…. Are we blind?
Yes and no. No; We are not blind because we all as Christians know and believe that we are in need of a Savior to help us and save us. And yes; because we forget sometimes when the world and the things in it manage to overwhelm us and push us off track.
My prayer for all of us today is that we constantly have our eyes opened to the beautiful knowledge of God’s presence around us. In His presence, fear has no place in us. He crowds the world and every space and crevice in our hearts and souls. Evil will not win today or ever.
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Because God IS Love (#wtsdevo love)
Life is so chaotic and tends to be a lot more disheartening these days that I find it super crucial to me to remind myself on a daily basis that God loves me. With life and things around us trying to constantly weigh us down, it easy for us to sometimes wonder where God is in the midst of all of this. The negative thoughts and feelings that the enemy tries to pin down on us usually tend to make us feel like God has abandoned us because we aren’t all that worthy enough for Him.
Just as God constantly reminds me how good and loving He is, I want to extend that reminder to you today and share the good news that God loves you. Yes! He does. You may have had your shortcomings, your downfalls. You may have flaws and you may feel insecure and more….. But God loves you.
You may ask why “Why does God love me?”…. Well He does because He is love Himself. It is who He is and love being part of His nature and being, it is impossible for Him to not love you. What this means for you and me is that His love is always here to stay because it is based purely on who He is and not what we do or who we are.
Remember that God’s word triumphs over the world and people around you any day. You are loved and that love will never end.
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Devotional Series: Love (#wtsdevo love)
By: Jude \ Personal//Walk the Same
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The Source of Joy (#wtsdevo joy)
Life can get hard. This being a constant occurrence, it is easy for us to get tied down to the negativity that it brings- fear, anger, hurt and insecurity.
Since we are a people who want and crave things in the “now” we seek out for joy in quick and easy things. However this pursuit of easy “joy” turns and puts us into even more of a struggle, because the joy that we seek from worldly things isn’t joy at all, but simple happiness. Good comes with happiness, but it is fleeting and temporal.
Once we fall into this cycle of chasing unsatisfactory happiness, we fall into the trap of seeking joy from the world rather than the source of all joy. And what do we get? Cheap happiness simply disguised as joy. Although we may not realize it at the time, cheap happiness kills us on the inside day after day.
How different would things be if we went to the source of joy for our joy! The joy that Christ brings isn’t quick, fast and easy but rather it endures and is relentless, just like His Word and truths are eternal.
When we seek out joy from Christ Himself and fill ourselves up with the goodness and love that He has to offer, our struggles, pain and worry all drown under the immense weight of His mercy and love. The negatives in our lives go away and is replaced by pure joy and every other blessing that God brings down upon us.
When things don’t seem to be working and when joy seems to be lacking in your life, seek the source of it all. Let His presence fill you with joy that the world cannot give you. In Him may your joy be complete.
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Devotional Series: Joy (#wtsdevo joy)
By: Jude \ Personal//Walk the Same
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Ask in His Name
Type & Edit byJude Dias
Throughout the Bible, we see the recurring theme of how steadfast faith wins in the end. From the earliest days in the Old Testament to the times of Christ and after in the New Testament, we see people of God calling out to Him in faith on more than one occasion. And every time the situation, whatever it may’ve been, ended up turning for the better.
It’s also interesting to note how God never fails anyone who calls out to Him. From the perspective of our human minds, it may seem like God isn’t around but the reality of the situations says otherwise. No matter where you are or maybe, God hears you and answers your prayer.
But do keep in mind that God doesn’t work on your schedule. If you think He does and that He ought to, then you are in for a world of disappointment. God knows better and His time is the right time and therefore even when it seems like nothing is happen, after fervent prayers, do know that God is aware and knows fully where you are at and what you are dealing with.
But at the end of the day, much of this comes together when we pray to God in faith. Hoping for prayers to be answered by God without even praying to Him is us being ignorant of who God is, taking Him for granted and more so deceiving ourselves. Never mistake God to be your butler. Rather we are His servants and it is us that needs to call out to Him in constant prayer as we take on this journey with Jesus.
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Why is prayer important? (#wtsdevo prayer)
It’s amazing, beautiful and wonderful when two people get married. Both of them are happy, and things are all going well and they are all set to do life together as husband and wife. However, a problem soon pops up. They don’t communicate with each other very well. Things in their married lives soon get confusing and chaotic. This goes on for a while until they decide that they have no choice but to file for a divorce. Disaster right?
Take a similar scenario in your walk with God. Being a Christian means that now you get to do life with Jesus. Amazing, right? It is amazing- but what if you fail to communicate with God? What if you decide you want to do things your own way? I’m sure you realize that the result of that wouldn’t be an different to the example I shared above.
In both case and in most of life, communication plays and important role in order for us to thrive in the place that we are rooted in. This is most important when it comes to building relationships and maintaining community with other people around you. The alternate word for communicating with God is known to us as prayer. When we pray to God, we are essentially spilling our hearts and souls out to Him. Prayer is where we acknowledge that we aren’t all that awesome next to Him, and that we need His help throughout the way. Now some of you may argue… “Why even tell anything to God? You folks tell us that He is all present and that He knows our hearts, minds and souls? What gives man?” Fair enough. Well God may know all of us for sure but the question comes down to - do we know all of Him? You see, in relationships we get to know the other person much better when we communicate with that person. Once we do, we begin to know the likes, dislikes, etc. of this person. This isn’t any different with our relationship with God.
God has all these amazing plans for our lives. We are not just empty creations, but rather we are all created with a purpose and a mission to conquer. How would we know all this if we don’t communicate with God? What we also need to remember is that our God doesn’t sleep or chill out on us but He’s constantly present and is always right beside us. This is not Him being like that creepy ex-boyfriend or girlfriend that you know but this is Him being a Father to us…. guiding us and giving us direction in this chaotic world that you and I live in. Without Him next to us, we are sure to get lost and sucked into this mess. However none of this will come to be in our lives, if we don’t pray and communicate with Him.
Prayer is important to us because it helps us stay on track and be on check with our mission and purpose in this Gospel narrative that Jesus started. It is only when we pray that we know what to look forward to and we are given the strength to endure through the hard times in life - keeping on strong and pushing on with the fight.
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Devotional Series: Prayer (#wtsdevo prayer)
By: Jude \ Personal//Walk the Same
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I will Answer
Type & Edit byJude Dias
As human beings there’s only so much that we know. We aren’t sure what the future holds for us and we aren’t all that equipped to know every little detail our universe contains. So I believe it is safe for me to say that there are gazillion of things that you and I aren’t even aware of.
God being the Creator of you, me and all of the universe, He knows us and all of the universe inside and out. The Bible says that all the stars are named and that He even knows the number of hairs that we have on our heads. Crazy right! Crazy as it may be it is also awesome because should we ever fall short, all we need to do is call onto Him and He promises to answer us back.
Now praying to God shouldn’t just happen when things are going sour for us but rather, we should be in constant prayer with Him just so that we are able to develop an intimate relationship and thereby grow closer and closer so that we understand what God wants from us. In the process we also learn and understand more of our purpose and destiny that He has in store for us.
All this comes with just the simple act of calling out to Him. Praise God for His goodness.
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It’s a way of life (#wtsdevo prayer)
Read: 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
As a new Christian, one of the first questions that one can come across is with the whole aspect of communicating with God. Various religions have their guidelines for what you must do to communicate with their gods. With Christianity, it simply comes down to you having a conversation with God. In other words, this is known as Prayer. This being our means to communicate with God, we are given the opportunity to open our entire selves to God where we can share our joys, fears, praise and concerns.
Most people mistake prayer to be some special ritual that needs to be carried out in this special formula-styled way which isn’t the case at all. Conversations do not call for a special style when it is delivered and neither does it have a time and a place for when it can be exchanged. Similarly, Prayer does not have a designated set of location(s) not a time and neither a style. Rather prayer is just you being open with God in deepest and vulnerable of ways.
Prayer being something that allows us to be out there in the open - in full view of God, by praying we are, in our words, trusting God wholly with everything we have going on in our lives including all of ourselves. By praying, we acknowledge the fact that we are surely in need of a saviour and by doing this, we are continually depending on God to take us forward thereby allowing us to be in constant and faithful communion with Him.
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Devotional Series: Prayer (#wtsdevo prayer)
By: Jude \ Personal//Walk the Same
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Faithful Living (#wtsdevo faithfulness)
I love listening to the inspiring and life changing messages that I hear every Sunday. They make impact when it comes to how I live daily and transforms the way I think and approach situations. As Christians, we are keen to hear all that is being shared when our Pastors and teachers share them but all too often it is hard to actually apply them into our own lives faithfully. That’s because of the human condition of being too comfortable and our pride.
However there’s more to living life than sticking to what our flesh tells us to and Christ demonstrated that to us through His life. Unlike most of those that were around Him, it was clear, reading the Bible, that Christ experienced a true sense of freedom. He lived a life of peace and He was in a position to be there for others and comfort them when the need came. His life became like so because He was shaped by His faithfulness - to His Father, to His cause and mission and His purpose.
There came several times when He was tempted and when He felt like He couldn’t go any further but by His faithfulness, He understood that there was something bigger and amazing on the other side and this is the same attitude that we too must adopt as we choose to follow Christ.
Is it easy to say with our mouths that we will change but true transformation comes about when we choose to be faithful. Often times, things (and life) may come our way to disrupt our calling and all it takes to deflect these moments is faithfulness.
It can make all the difference to life beyond measure.
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Devotional Series: Faithfulness (#wtsdevo faithfulness)
By: Jude \ Personal//Walk the Same
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His Goodness Prevails (#wtsdevo goodness)
Psalm 91 happens to be one of my most favorite Psalms in the Bible because on a bad day, it reminds me that God’s goodness stands out and breaks away all negativity and replaces it with the comfort and grace of God and everything good that you can possibly imagine.
I think that with so much happening these days around in our world, it is easy to lose it and fall into the trap where you end up feeling like everything is going downhill. And in circumstances such as this it is important to journey on ahead with positivity and so much hope. The way that one can do this is by being reminded of God’s goodness and the best source of this is through His own words in the Bible.
The Bible is filled with reminders about His goodness but simply taking Psalm 91 alone and unpacking it, tells us that no matter the season, situation or circumstance, God’s goodness prevails. It comes through even in the times when you might never expect it but it surely does come.
God is our Father and He loves us more than we can ever imagine. He is always for us and is always with us even in the stormy times of life - carrying us through and allowing us to grow in our wisdom and strength. All we need to do it believe and cling onto Him.
He never fails. His goodness is here to stay.
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Devotional Series: Goodness (#wtsdevo goodness)
By: Jude \ Personal//Walk the Same
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Filling up that Empty Space (#wtsdevo kindness)
Once I heard someone saying that his inability felt like a huge gaping hole in his life that simply sat there, empty and breaking everything else good that was around him. He said that he wished that someone could fill that hole up so that he could heal.
It made me realize that most of us come across those situations in life where we feel like there’s something empty inside. And worst of all, it is eating us away slowly and steadily and we simply can’t do anything about it on our own and by our own strength. But in that situation, if someone chooses to help us and lift us up, everything changes. Our worries our gone. Our stresses no more and things feel like they are going to be okay after all. That’s because someone’s kindness filled the empty void that was in our life. It feels like we are whole again.
Kindness does more than meets the eye. It heals, it brings joy, it transforms lives and it makes us whole again. Sounds like Jesus doesn’t it? We were a wretched people, living life our own way and by our own terms. What we didn’t realize was that we were opening up wounds within ourselves and by the day, they got raw and inflamed. God didn’t have to save us but He saw our hurting hearts. He wanted us to be more. He wanted us to be the way He created us to be. And out of His sheer kindness and love for us, He sent us His Son. That chasm that once was between us and God was now filled by the incredible sacrifice that Christ made for us. His kindness saved us and here we are.
Remember that being kind to others is more than just helping someone. It is a lifestyle for us Christians and it is part of who we are and our identity. When we choose to be kind, we allow Christ to shine onto others through our lives. We may not realize it but every little act of kindness plays a part in changing the world.
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Devotional Series: Kindness (#wtsdevo kindness)
By: Jude \ Personal//Walk the Same
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Kindness Unaware (#wtsdevo kindness)
At this, the man’s ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly.
Jesus commanded them not to tell anyone. But the more he did so, the more they kept talking about it. People were overwhelmed with amazement. “He has done everything well,” they said. “He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.” - Mark 7:35-37
Commanding His followers to secrecy can be seen on more than one occasion in the Bible. It is clear that Christ wanted to make sure that His kindness towards others didn’t end up becoming a show for others to enjoy and gossip about.
And this makes me wonder as to how many times in my life has God intervened without me realizing it. I’m pretty sure it is more times than I can even imagine.
With Jesus acting and reacting the way He does around kindness, He commands us to do the same and asks us to avoid putting on a show when it comes to treating others with love, genuine concern and care.
Being kind to others is something that should come out of us by default especially with us being Christians. Being able to understand one another, help those in need and to be able to be that person who stands as a pillar of hope in times of hopelessness should be traits that shouldn’t hesitate to come out through our words, actions and interactions with others.
To be kind to expect something in return is most certainly not the way of Christ considering how sacrificial He was when it came to kindness and love. He gave up His all in order to ensure that our lives were elevated and lifted up closer to God. This should be us when it comes to our kindness towards others.
I can only image how many more smiles there would be if we realized that there was more and more of kindness coming from people around us in unexpected and secret ways. Maybe you and I can start.
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Devotional Series: Kindness (#wtsdevo kindness)
By: Jude \ Personal//Walk the Same
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