By Sidharth Mohandas

Imagine a great big tank full of water…the tank is full to the brim and there is a small tap at the bottom to let the water out. If you were to open the tap, the water would be released to its surrounding and at the same time, if the tap remained closed, the water would be of no use to you or others. Like wise, when you accepted the Lord Jesus Christ, He poured into your spirit His rich and dynamite life that snuffed out death from your spirit. But in spite of this supernatural event that took place- most of us have faced dead, dry and empty periods in our life, where we had very less or no reality of the God of eternal life. May I suggest that your problem is that a tap is closed? 

In this article, I will show you the tap, but it’s up to you to open it or to close it.

Pay close attention to this Scripture:

“So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord that you must no longer lives as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts” [Ephesians 4: 17-18]

Let me ask you a question: Is it possible to be a Christian and be alienated from the life of God? Absolutely yes! For this Scripture was written to believers in Christ. So then, what could cut off the life of God in our daily life? Notice the wordings Paul uses: futility of their thinking, darkened in their understanding, ignorance that is in them…What is the tap that the Holy Spirit is showing us? It’s the realm of the mind. Beloved, wrong thinking can cut off the life of God from being practical in your life.

In modern churches today we hear an “only believe” message being preached with no call to repentance. Evangelists who preach such a message is robbing people of God’s life. When Jesus came to earth, He didn’t preach an “only believe” message, instead He came saying, “Repent and believe!” [Mark 1:15]. This is the Gospel message. Even when Paul speaks of the foundational doctrines in Hebrews 6:1, 2, the first doctrine he mentions is “repentance from dead works” and then “faith towards God”. Now you may wonder why I brought repentance here. Well, repentance has to do with the realm of the mind. In fact, the Greek word for “repent” is “metanos” which means “to change your mind”. The Church of Jesus Christ needs to repent and believe today!

I exhort you today with the same exhortation that Paul gave the believers at Ephesus: “Be renewed in the attitude of your minds” [Ephesians 4:23]. The Holy Spirit again tells us in Romans 12:2 that we can be transformed by the renewal of our minds. But how do we do this? It’s very simple: replace negative thoughts with thoughts from the Word of God- not just “positive thoughts” but with His thoughts. I had lived nine years under the dominion of darkness before I came to know the Lord, in those nine years my mind had accumulated a lot of information and thoughts from this world and the devil- a lot of unfruitful and wrong thoughts. After I met with Jesus my spirit was made alive, however, all those accumulated thoughts were not taken away- I was to train my mind and feed it with the right thoughts- God’s thoughts. This is why God tells us to repent first when we approach Him, because in repentance we say our way of thinking is wrong, and bow down to God’s way of thinking.

Remember, friends, Thoughts beget actions, and so if you want God in action in your personal life, think His thoughts and you will see transformations in your life, because there is life in the Word.

Will you open your tap today and allow God’s life to be released into your circumstances?

BACK FROM THE BRINK

Benny Prasad’s story is almost tailor-made for Bollywood.

Born on 6 August 1975, in Bangalore, India, he was the first of his generation in the family and his birth was celebrated with the highest of hopes for his future. He would be the proverbial shining example to the brothers and sisters who followed.

He was not blessed with the most promising start – he suffered from severe asthma which led him to having to take cortisone steroids through which he inherited Rheumatoid Athritis, 60% lung damage and an immune system regularly failing him, which threatens his life to this day.

His parents believed that these terrible early difficulties would only make his success all the more blessed and honourable. He was expected to excel in his studies, to set the standard for his brothers and sisters. Although he struggled to keep faith and pace with such pressures (his father was a highly regarded scientist at National Aerospace Laboratories, who spent lot of time trying to drill into our hero mathematics and science – starting studies at 4:30 in the morning was not the inducement it was believed to be!) reaction set in quickly. Still only a child, his most successful learning was in acquiring a fiery and quick temper from which he graduated with flying colours to gang-fights, forgery and expertise in the art of lying, With these qualifications his family suffered shame and the deepest disappointment.

Curiously, Benny did not revel in this negative side of fame and celebrity. He was enveloped in depression and, as his behaviour grew worse, so hopelessness clutched at him and led him, at the ripe old age of 16, to attempt suicide in order to escape what he felt was an inescapable spiral to nothingness.

By this stage he was almost beyond caring where he went or what he did, so it was not so difficult for his mother to “persuade” him to attend a youth retreat as she had expected.

This proved to be Benny’s Moment of Truth. At that bleakest of moments, with nowhere to turn, no person to whom he felt he could go for support, advice or safety and nothing left to offer one ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ reason to live, something happened. Bollywood could only have manufactured something in fantasy but not in reality.

In reality, Benny Prasad had an encounter with God. It came to him unasked and unlooked for. You could say, it came when he was not on cynical and negative guard against the goodness he had always seemed to despise but, whatever, it came. Benny heard God speak to him. God said, “Benny, even though you have been useless all your life I need you now and I can make you a new creation.” A fresh start! A new birth!

That was all it took to bring about a transformation in this dissolute but hurting young man. For the first time, he heeded a positive call, leapt at it, and began life with what we would all love to have – a clean sheet. God gave him new dreams, new goals, a positive desire. This time, Benny graduated from uselessness to worth. He walked with dignity and resonated with the Joy of the Lord taking His strength from him.

From his family’s shame they were proud to call him their first-born. God’s power brought the most powerful change in Benny’s life. Before his transition he had displayed no interest or ability in music. Since that moment down to the present time, he has performed to Presidents and Parliaments, before the crowds of the 2004 Olympic Games and the 2006 FIFA World Cup. He has travelled to more than 113 countries performing music, earning him the accolade of the most travelled Indian musician (Limca Book of Records). Where he had once been the destroyer of creativity, he has won renown by designing two guitars (the World’s first Bongo guitar and a 54-string guitar, the BENTAR!). Today, through his music, Benny brings the Truth of God to thousands of people, travelling to between 40 and 50 countries every year.

Benny says “If I could be made useful, any one in this world can, if my dreams can come true, yours can too. My sin and shame have been exchanged for righteousness and new life by the Almighty God who died to set me free. For those with no hope, there is more to life than what today holds. I thank God that I did not end my life but rather chose to live through shame and failure so that today I’m able to be a blessing to the World. Remember you are never too bad or sinful for God to redeem and transform”.