Bitterness Diagnosis

Unforgiveness and bitterness imprisons you from the inside. You may have heard of arteriosclerosis--"the hardening of the arteries"--which involves the hardening, thickening and the loss of elasticity in the walls of blood vessels. The disease develops over many years and results chiefly from the accumulation of fatty materials like cholesterol in the walls of the arteries. The smooth lining of the arteries become hard, narrow, and/or rough decreasing the flow of blood to the brain, the heart and limbs.


Unfortunately, ladies and gentlemen, it is possible to suffer a non-physical arteriosclerosis--a spiritual hardening of the arteries--where obstruction comes gradually. Resentment rises up and bitterness builds up--eventuating in a spiritual stroke. You become weak, paralyzed, immobile. The flow of friendship and the links of love are blocked. Both your head and heart are affected.

You need nothing short of a surgeon's knife--a spiritual by-pass surgery--to control the problem. And major surgery is always radical, but the divine doctor can make it a success.

Bitterness

One of the major causes of human pain is the pain of not forgiving.

"It has been three years, and I have not forgiven my brother. I never will," she burst out in anger. "If I ever get a chance, I will repay him for what he has done. And nobody will ever stop me" remarked another bitter man about his previous employer. "How many time can I taker her/him back?" She says she is sorry; and then comes back and does the same thing to me.


Bitterness is a problem of life, for we humans have an incredible capacity to wound others in the human species. I don't need to prove that we use this capacity to the fullest extent. In the human community, it does not take long to injure another. No human interaction is possible without the accompanying possibilities of pain, suffering, injury and alienation.

Let me ask you, who is at the other end of your resentment?

Meaning

If you want purpose in life, you must have a destination in mind.

The Air Show is a useful feature in international travel. It used to be that only the pilot would give you a quick verbal chart of the trip. Now, a world map on the monitors tracks your journey--from start to finish. The monitors give the following information:

Distance to destination
Time to Destination
Local time at Destination
Ground Speed
Altitude
Outside Temperature

Without a destination in mind, the first three features would be impossible--there would no distance left, time left, or local time to destination. The next three would be meaningless. It really doesn't matter at what speed, what height you travel, what the outside temperature is, if you are not going any place.

Yet your life seems to be a saga of all dressed up and no place to go. You know your ground speed, your altitude, and the outside temperature, but how long can you keep the plane flying?

Despair

We have talked about many prisons in which mankind feels caught, which engulf human beings, and sequester us. Perhaps, there is no human bondage which so overwhelms us that we feel in it in our bones as despair.
Despair is when we give up hope in life. When we don't see tomorrow as even plausibly better than today, when a motivation to live ceases.

I am not speaking here about depression. I am not speaking about anxiety. I speak about despair. When death seems more inviting than life, you are despairing.

Human despair arises in the lack of pattern, coherence, or meaning in life. Human despair also arises in the lack of guidance and hope. When there is nothing to ultimately look forward to except what is predictable, observable, and inevitable, there is despair. Left to ourselves, all we can look toward is aging, sickness, and death.

Well, the good news is you don’t have to be left to yourself.

Your Father

The story is told in Spain of a father and his teenage son who had a relationship that had become strained. So the son ran away from home.


His father, however, began a journey in search of his rebellious son. Finally, in Madrid, in a last desperate effort to find him, the father put an ad in the newspaper. The ad read. "Dear Paco, meet me in front of the newspaper office at noon. All is forgiven. I love you.” It was simply signed, “your father."

The next day at noon in from of the newspaper office 800 "Pacos" showed up. "Paco" is a common name, a term of endearment, that fathers use for their kids. All these Pacos seeking forgiveness and love from their fathers.

The great hunger for God's forgiveness is similar. Forgiveness from God is freely available by God's invitation.

Are you willing to receive forgiveness of sin from God? Please contact me and we’ll continue this discussion.

Forgiveness Found

A famous illustration comes from Corrie Ten Boom, the grand dame of the Christian faith who lived through the Holocaust years in Germany.

She says, "It was 1947... I had come from Holland to defeated Germany with the message that God forgives. It was the truth they needed most to hear in that bitter, bombed-out land and I gave them my favorite mental picture. Maybe because the sea is never far from a Hollander's mind, I like to think that's where forgiven sins are thrown. "When we confess our sins God casts them into the deepest ocean, gone forever...Then God places a sign out there that says No Fishing Allowed!"

My friend, do you want to be released from the prison of sin and guilt? Do you want your sins to be thrown away like a javelin? Well the Bible says, "God is no longer interested in them. Your sins become of no account.


How does one receive God's forgiveness? Go to my website and we’ll explore the answer together.

God's Forgiveness

You are grateful that not everyone knows all the things you have done. You are very thankful that even the ones closest to you are unaware of your history. If they only knew, you would be finished as a public servant. You are afraid as to who will emerge one of these days to excavate your past and wash and dry your dirty linen in public. You are grateful that you have not been found out by men. But you wonder, "will God every forgive me?"

You can be forgiven. The Bible says, "Forgiveness is possible." No other book of religion will tell you the glorious thought that God can and will forgive you justly and completely.

Forgiveness! Oh how much we need it! Can and will God forgive?

Here’s some good news: God can and will forgive you because forgiveness is God's character.

Second, God can and will forgive because He has provided for the penalty of your sin.

Is There Forgiveness?

Perhaps it was a wrongful relationship, premarital or extramarital, which you entered. You gave yourself without reserve to this person who violated the sanctity of your body and devastated your spiritual life. Oh! By the way, you were not only victim, you were also perpetrator; you caused the other person to sin. Now you wonder if God will ever forgive.

Perhaps, it is a wrongful habit which enslaves you. You know full well that it is wrong--spiritually, mentally, and monetarily. The habit is not beneficial to you--it could be cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, glamor, greed, shopping, acquisitiveness, sleeping around, and autoeroticism. But you are unwilling to give it up. And even if you are, you wonder, "Will God accept me? And forgive me?"

Or maybe it is an evil mind that you possess. Thoughts of anger, lust, pride, restlessness, anxiety, or hate fills your mind often. And you are wondering--our God who knows all, can He ever forgive you?

I invite you to check out my website for the answer, www.rameshrichard.com.

Seeking Forgiveness

The penitentiary is a dungeon, a hole, where human beings are held hostage to their own past. A spiritual penal institution envelopes you in when you don't sense forgiveness in your life.

"Forgiveness," someone said, "is man's deepest need and highest achievement." I have found this to be true all over the world. Indeed in some parts of the world, they only want to hear a word of forgiveness because forgiveness is not taught in their religion, not experienced in their life, though they are penalized by past sin and wrong doings.

We need forgiveness because no one is innocent. We all know that somehow we have not come up to God's expectations of us. We have disappointed his wishes; let him down in his desires for us; broken his prescriptions; have not met all of God's demands of human beings. We have fallen short of that which brings him glory?


Do you think you have possibly done something in your life that is beyond forgiveness?

The True Master

Ted Turner, of CNN, once said, "Who would want to go to heaven? Heaven will be boring; there will be nothing to improve in heaven. Hell would be better for him because he could improve things down there."

The poor man, though he is rich in this earth, doesn’t know about heaven or hell.

Hell can't be improved; and heaven will allow us to exercise all our creativity and savvy which was given to us at creation which we lost. Mr. Turner's riches are blinding him from accepting God's solution to his life.

"No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth." In fact, the only way you can keep from serving wealth is by serving God. Would you like to be released from the prison of money?

Go to my website (www.rameshrichard.com) and we can continue this discussion.

Freedom from Money

Just like prison quenches normal life--marital life, family life, work life, business life, so does money.

How does one get out of this prison system of money?

First, take the right attitude towards money. Money is not evil; the love of money is evil. Money is not a prison; the love of money makes it a prison.

Second, treat money rightly. Money is a wonderful servant but a horrible master.

Third, remember you can't take it with you forever. When the world's richest man, John D. Rockefeller died, his accountant was asked, "how much did he leave behind?" He paused a moment and said, "everything; and all of it." You can't take it with you.

Fourth, look to God to provide for your needs. God can give you joy, peace, stability or hope; God can restore relationships to health; God can guarantee the future--your future forever. God can give you forgiveness. God can release you from money.

False Security

Money wants to be the focus of your life. It lays down its own rules. When your convictions conflict with it, it reminds you that you are in prison, and who the jail keeper is. Therefore, you must obey it; not the other way around. After all, prison wardens never yield to prisoners.
The human being is so resilient that he will adjust to any situation--good or bad; and even try to make the bad good. This too happens in prison. Prisoners attempt to start enjoying prison as their way of handling the difficulties of prison. That says much about the prisoner's characteristics, but not much about the prison.

It’s the same way with money, the jail keeper. Since you are willing to adjust to its rule and role, you will eventually start making peace with it and liking your prison status.

Money gives a false-sense of well-being--illusion, of self-sufficiency in prison. I can introduce you to the only one who can set you free.

The Master

Most prison walls have a negative connotation. Money's walls have a positive connotation on the surface, at the beginning, but have negative effect eventually.


Anything that is addictive has this kind of an effect. When we start out with an addictive entity, we think we are completely in control--we'll talk about the prison of bad habits later--but then it ends up controlling us. Money is an addictive prison master. We end up liking our own prison master. That's even more dangerous than not believing that there are no prison walls.

Now, money itself is not bad. But the pursuit of money as the answer to your situation is evil. The love of money is evil. To give money the character of god is evil.

Did you know that money asks to be "loved?" It takes on personal qualities. We ought to love people and use money. Instead, we start loving money and using people.

To give money a personality is to make it a prison master.

Money Prison

Benjamin Franklin was known to have said, "He that is of the opinion money will do everything may well be suspected of doing everything for money."

Think through that statement. It is the fundamentalist belief of money religion. I would like to make that statement stronger. "He who thinks money can do anything, will do anything for money!" If you are willing to do anything for money, you are in the prison of money.

This is one prison we like. Because it is the only prison, in which we think we have power inside the prison.

The prison walls of money are not a sham. They are invisible, but they really are there. We start believing there are no such walls, and behaving like there are no such walls, only to find ourselves so deeply entrenched in the money-prison. The rest of your life is simply spent, generating and spending money. You wake up one morning to justify the day, having won the whole world but having lost your own soul.

Tempted by Success

Success; it’s a temptation, it’s an intoxicant, it is a trap. It is a sedative, it is a palliative, it is addictive. It is seductive, it is confusing, it is appealing.

Success is the all pervasive assumption and ability of contemporary modern men and women. We believe we have a right to it, whatever it is, at whatever cost. We never question its validity, because it gives us vitality. Success equals life. What is a life without success?


If you ask a man on the street to define success. He would define it in terms of prestige, power, and possessions or in some combination of them. You would notice that prestige; power and possessions connect to each other coherently, consistently. Those who carry prestige, also own power and possessions. Those who hold power hold prestige and possessions. And those who have access to possessions gain power and prestige from them.

But can success bring you salvation?

Rescued

A British sailor became trapped in the mud of the Thames Estuary in London. He suddenly remembered that he had a mobile phone to overcome his immobility. He dialed for help and summoned a rescuer. He was rescued just as the high tide was lapping around his neck.

Trying to live by good laws is like trying to swim in high tide with the water lapping around your neck.



You try every maneuver they teach you in the swimming classes that you ought to use, but you are about to be drowned. All you need to do is call for help to the one who has beaten the law problem, the tide problem.

You too have become immobile and imprisoned by the law. You can't get out of this entrapment. You want out. But you can dial God’s Son for help. He is known as the rescuer, the redeemer, the releaser. Just as high tide is lapping around your neck, you can be rescued.

In Need of Mercy

A lady, after receiving the proofs of her portrait, became very angry with the photographer. She walked back to he photographer, threw his picture on his table and said: "This picture does not do me justice!" The photographer replied, "Madam, with a face like yours, you don't need justice, you need mercy!"

The point is clear. With a record like yours against a perfect law, you don't need justice. You need mercy. The law is merciless. It will only dispense justice. But God’s Son has intervened on your behalf. Because he has met the criteria of the law, he has redeemed you.

"A fish is free in the water, but leave him on the sand, and he perishes."



You were made to live in spiritual water, not stay on the desert sand. God places you in the spiritual environments that were made for your spirit, so you can please Him rather than be imprisoned by law. He can release you from the law.

Honor Code

At one of the world's finest military academies, which graduated several leading military generals of the world, the Honor Code reads, "A cadet does not lie, cheat, or steal, nor tolerate anyone who does."



This Honor Code is so stringent that even one violation at any time during the four years of study, requires the automatic expulsion of the guilty party.”

Laws don't have the power to make you perform; they only have the power to show your failure, to show how needy and sick you are.

Where can you find freedom from the laws which you cannot meet, often break, which oppress you? Perhaps, you are saying, "I want out." I am in the wrong environment.

If you have been reading these blogs, you know that I have a single comprehensive answer to the feelings and facts of spiritual imprisonment that you face and feel.

It is God’s Son.

The Law and Bondage

Let us take the world famous, Ten Commandments. They ask you to love the true God with all your heart, soul and strength. Not to make images of the true God; not to take his name in vain; not to steal, or covet or commit adultery etc. Like in other religions, these laws have certain characteristics about them.

One, religious laws are a Unit. "If you attempt to keep the whole law and yet stumble in one point, you become guilty of all.”

Two, religious laws could sustain you together, but not individually. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.


So, if you break one of the commandments, you are just as bad off, as having broken all of them.

Third, laws constrict you as long as you are in their jurisdiction. Unless you get out of their jurisdiction you have no hope but to stay under them.

There is a key to getting out of bondage.

Freedom and Responsibility

Freedom is not the license to do whatever you want to do, it is the always the ability to have chosen otherwise. So, if you chose to do right, you could have chosen to do wrong. Of course, if you have chosen to do wrong, you could have chosen to do right. Entire justice systems are built upon the principle that you are a responsible, moral creature.

The problem however, is that we have taken what is moral responsibility, and assumed a moral responsibility for our own happiness and salvation. We want to be our own saviors. So, we begin to dictate ways in which we or other humans can achieve satisfaction in life and eternal salvation.

The whole religion enterprise of human beings is an attempt to find salvation on human terms. And since you can never achieve true perfection, this kind of self imposed salvation can only lead to eternal bondage.


But there is Someone who can set you free.

I Want Freedom

At a nearby University, they have been teaching a 15 year-old female chimpanzee named Washoe to talk using sign language with simple recognition. Since 1966, this chimpanzee has learned 140 signs. Recently, the project directors decided that Washoe was prepared now to "conceptualize." In plain language, instead of imitating some human's words, the chimp would express thoughts of her own.



Now, understand, Washoe is a pampered animal in the University's laboratory--well fed, physically comfortable, safe from harm. She had security. And yet when she was able to put words together on her own into a phrase, these were the first three. She has said them again and again repeatedly--mimicking us humans. "I want out!" "I want out." "I want out."

The human spirit longs for freedom. It doesn't like constraint and restriction. Only it feels constrained by obligation--obligation to others, to God, to ourselves, to our religions, cultures, and morals. When you feel obligated you will never be free.

The Penalty and the Payment

The parable is told of a just and benevolent king who noticed that money was missing from his treasury. He called for the culprit to confess and receive his punishment of 50 lashes with a whip.

The person caught was the king's mother. He was a just king, so he wouldn't change the sentence. His men brought his mother before him. She was guilty. He announced the sentence. The crowd gasped--because a woman, the king's mother would be lashed.



It was just then that the king did the unmentionable thing. He disrobed, took of his royal clothes, stepped to the punishment chamber and took the 50 lashes as the crowd moaned.

The standards could not be changed. Because he was loving, he took the punishment on himself.

The Bible says that God’s Son was the One who took what you deserved. You need to accept his provision for your penalty. And then you shall be set free from the law prison.

Trying to be Good

Living by good laws is like living in an internal prison--sentenced for life. When you are sentenced for life without chance for a parole, your sentence cannot be revoked. You can't even be released for good behavior. All your good behavior can't make up to pay for your sentence.


A prisoner simply has to keep the regiment and rules of the prison. He just has to obey. In desperation on occasion, he breaks the law. But keeping the law or breaking the law is not going to help his sentence or hurt his sentence any. It will hurt the quality of his life inside the prison. But the ultimate question of release is not on the table. You are sentenced to life.

In the same way, all your good behavior is not going to make up for the life sentence. The only way you can get out of the sentence is if someone meets the sentence for you.

Wrong Motivation

KEEPLAWS are as bad as SCOFFLAWS because both views are externally oriented. KEEPLAWS are convinced that they can keep the external laws. They work through their list. They go to enormous lengths to prove their ability.

--They go to their temple, church, or mosque regularly


--They say their prayers at home and in public
--They give to charity. They never turn away the poor
--They tolerate those who do evil against them

All these laws are external and are put into practice externally. Those of us who watch these near-perfect creatures are simply aghast at what they are able to do. But their inner motivation is not evident.

Inner motivation of Keeplaws could be pride based or manipulative.

Keeping external laws are checkmated and canceled by your internal position as one inclined to do evil, as one who has done wrong, as one facing a death sentence. You see laws not only relate to external actions, but to internal motivations.

Keeplaws

KEEPLAWS are just as bad as SCOFFLAWS because they are not mindful of the same standard in different ways. At least scofflaws recognize that they are breaking the standard of perfection and keep on breaking laws.

The one who thinks he keeps the law is really using the wrong standard by which he measures himself. He uses the standard of his neighbor rather than the law itself. If I only break the speed limit 50% of the time, I am better than the person who breaks the speed limit 90% of the time.



But the law does not want me to break the law ever! Only the perfect are worthy. And I am a law breaker when measured against perfection? Who made your neighbor your standard?

KEEPLAWS are as bad as SCOFFLAWS because of their focus--themselves as the source and sustainer. Instead, when it comes to God's salvation, the focus must be on God to make salvation happen.

Scofflaws

The best way to become worthy before God is to follow His laws -- or so we think.
Now this is much better than people who don't care at all for God's laws or any one else's laws. They are called SCOFFLAWS.

Recently, the police caught up with such a man in New York City--he had several hundred parking tickets and traffic citations that he had not paid. They stopped him for using a card-board license plate.


He said the car belonged to a friend and that he had borrowed it. Asked for his name, he gave them his real name. Took him to the police station and they printed out all his faults and it took almost two hours of printing!

SCOFFLAWS break the law many times--they scoff at the law--that's why they are called scoff laws. They believe they are in authority. They have pushed the self-destruct button.

They’ve said a farewell to God and God simply lets them be, to be themselves.

Self Made Salvation

Whenever man gropes at and for salvation, he attempts to do it on his own terms. Salvation, we think, is best gotten when it is earned. Now, how can we earn salvation?

Some views of salvation ask us to be good to ourselves--usually the self-focused salvation theories present this thesis. Be nice to your Self and your Self will be nice to you. Materialism is the classic case of this. Nowadays, people are wondering how else to be nice to themselves. They have bought all the things money can buy--the best clothes, the best cars, the best computers, the best conquests. They think they are being saved by their possessions



Some salvation theories ask us to treat people like they treat us --good to neighbors, and friends. Be nice to others and others will be nice to you. And if they are evil to you, return the favor. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Someone said that an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth has left the world without sight and without teeth, sightless and toothless!

Three men were talking about how each of them gives money to charity, and therefore to God. The first said, when he gets paid, he draws a line, throws his money up, and whatever falls on the far side is for God and charity, and whatever falls near him is for himself.



The second man said, "when I get paid, I draw a circle. I throw my money up. Whatever falls inside the circle is for God and charity; whatever falls outside is for myself. I can also vary the size of the circle as necessary.”

The third man said, "when I get paid. I simply throw my money up. Whatever stays up, God keeps as my donation to charity; whatever falls down comes for me."

Doing everything on our own terms is so convenient isn't it? The real problem is that even when it comes to salvation, that which God must give to us, we still want to do it on our own terms.

Freedom From the Law

Let's say you are swimming in a lake late at night and are drowning. You come up for air and shout for help.


The person on the shore reads the law to you, "Code B, Section 1, says, "Swimming is prohibited in this area after 6:00p.m." He might make you feel guilty, but that is all. The law cannot save you from drowning.

When we don't have the power to meet the laws of God that are written on our hearts, we only feel guilty. Any religion, person, society and culture can make laws. The question is how those who are living under the law can meet the law.

They can't, unless they die! i.e., when they are no longer under its jurisdiction.

What does it mean to die? Well, you have to die to your own ways of meeting the expectations of God. You have to give up any ambition that you can please God by meeting His law with your own power.

Then He will give you the power to follow His laws.

Accountability and the Law

There is a major problem when we can't know the laws we are living under and are held responsible for it. There is a difference between "don't know the law," and "can’t know the law."

God says you do know his laws. You can't use the excuse that you didn't know his laws, any more than you can use that excuse with the tax authorities in your country. They will say, "Ignorance of the law is no excuse," because it was your responsibility to find out what the law was and keep it!



How do you know God's law? Even if you have not heard his commandments you have God's law written in your hearts. Intuitively and innately, your heart and conscience already carry the basics of God's expectations of you. That is why when you do wrong, your heart accuses you. When you do right, it defends you. It is the law written in your heart. You already know God's laws in broad outline.

But you also need to know the God of the laws to find the power to keep them, and His forgiveness when you fail.

Laws Reveal

Laws are good, especially when made by good law-givers rather than arbitrary ones. Laws help any society to function more smoothly.

Laws also reveal authority and power. The entity which writes the laws carries authority and power. The legislator has power over the subject.

And while laws demonstrate authority and power, "laws" don't have the power to make you obey them.


More importantly, "Laws reveal the presence of a good law rather than the presence of a good in you."

Most importantly, "laws accent your failure even though they are not bad and don't cause failure." They are like an X-ray machine which tells you that you are diseased. The machine is good, it didn't cause your disease, but it shows your disease clearly. Laws show how weak you are to meet the laws. That is, while laws are good they also accent failure.

But there is One who can who can free you from your failures.

Most laws in most countries, are good. They were created and legislated so that they will be of maximum good or of best use to the people in a place.

Take traffic laws for instance. In England, you must drive on the left side of the road; in America, you must drive on the right side of the road. In India, of course, you may drive on any side of the road--as long as there is room.

Culture has laws. In the Far East, you eat with chop sticks. In other countries, they eat with forks and knifes. Of course, in yet other cultures they eat the original way--with hands!

Religions too have laws. "Thou shalt not kill; thou shalt no covet; thou shalt not commit adultery; thou shalt not steal."--these are laws that are found in every major religion of the world.



However, the same laws that are meant to protect you can also imprison you. I have good news; you don’t have to stay in prison.

Open Doors

I read how several people had survived being imprisoned in vehicles for days. One man was trapped in his car in snowdrifts as high as 10 feet and was found by a road crew after 41 hours. A woman was imprisoned in her car for 60 hours after a one-car wreck on an isolated road. Yet another was imprisoned in his smashed car in water under a bridge for 72 hours



Did you know that you are like each of these imprisoned people? Imprisoned, doing everything you can to get out.

We have talked about how imprisonment can come from your own choices, your parents choices, and humanity's choices. Just by being born, you are born unfree.. But there is another prison -- the prison of morality as meritorious, keeping the Law to find rescue.

Well the truth is God’s Son became the great rescuer from the prison of the Law. He clears out the snow, finds you and opens the prison doors.

Contact me and we can discuss this further.

Dealing with Bitterness

Let me ask you, who is at the other end of your resentment? It may be your spouse or a former spouse. Resentment against parents or children; against in laws; against colleague or friends --even a one time best friend.

Unforgiveness and bitterness imprisons you from the inside.

You may have heard of arteriosclerosis--"the hardening of the arteries"--which involves the hardening, thickening and the loss of elasticity in the walls of blood vessels. Unfortunately, it is possible to suffer a non-physical arteriosclerosis--a spiritual hardening of the arteries--where obstruction comes gradually.

Resentment rises up and bitterness builds up--eventuating in a spiritual stroke. You become weak, paralyzed, and immobile.

The flow of friendship and the links of love are blocked. Both your head and heart are affected. You may find that you need nothing short of a surgeon's knife--a spiritual by-pass surgery--to control the problem.




And major surgery is always radical, but the divine doctor can make it a success. Of course, you must follow the doctor's instructions for speedy recuperation and future prevention.

Bitterness

One of the major causes of human pain is the pain of not forgiving.

"It has been three years, and I have not forgiven my brother. I never will," she burst out in anger.

"If I ever get a chance, I will repay him for what he has done. And nobody will ever stop me" remarked another bitter man about his previous employer.

"How many time can I taker her back? She says she is sorry; and then comes back and does the same thing to me."




Bitterness is a problem of life, for we humans have an incredible capacity to wound others in the human species. I don't need to prove that we use this capacity to the fullest extent. In the human community, it does not take long to injure another. No human interaction is possible without the accompanying possibilities of pain, suffering, injury and alienation.

Unforgiveness and bitterness imprisons you from the inside.

I know someone who has the very key you need to gain your freedom from this prison.

Swine Flu: Is There Divine Meaning in Natural Disaster?

On one rainy day in Costa Rica, I was overwhelmed as CNN scrolled news about natural disasters on several fronts:

• The earthquake in South Asia taking at least 3000 lives
• Hurricane Katrina’s death toll passing the 1000 mark
• Mudslides washing away an entire village in Guatemala, followed by an earthquake
• The fear of bird flu mutating and invading the human race

Right now, authorities are hoping that the swine flu will not turn into an international pandemic.

This is not the first time we have been met with this type of disaster. In 2005 we awaited the avian influenza, while remembering the 1918–19 Spanish flu which killed 50 million people in 18 months. And “scientists have long forecast the appearance of an influenza virus capable of infecting 40 percent of the world’s human population and killing unimaginable numbers” (“The Next Pandemic?” by Laurie Garrett, Foreign Affairs, July/August 2005, 84:4:3). As death tolls rise, the questions gnaw at my soul. Why all of this apparent mindless, meaningless madness? Is God telling us, our country, our world something specific? Is this the beginning of the end?

On the one hand, I wish I knew final and definite answers. But that requires me to be God Himself. Having been relieved of that privilege and responsibility, my next best option is to seek answers in His final and definite revelation in His Word.

One of the unquestionable causes is original human sin. Sin is rebellion against God. The most radical event in early earth history was humankind’s Fall away from God, when the original humans chose to rebel against Him. That mother-of-all disasters put the earth under God’s curse. Thankfully, God didn’t turn away from his providential care for the human race (or else we wouldn’t be here at all). Sadly, humanity lost immediate, existential relationship to Him. This earth is not heaven, and often feels like hell, for it is groaning, grunting, and growling in futility. Our planet is still paying for mankind’s original departure from the Creator.

We also factor in Satan’s role in random human suffering and death. Satan defied God’s sovereignty —he cannot ever overthrow it—and was cast out of heaven to earth. Our earth began to shudder and continues to tremble.

There is hope, however. Because of the triumph of the Lord Jesus over sin, death, and Satan, we can know that one day God will pull His people out of the suffering, and this quaking earth will destruct. The Sovereign Savior will one day return to rule this earth and to guide the nations with righteousness. In that day, those who have trusted in Him will not have to deal with such terrors as the swine flue and economic uncertainties.


Today, in the face of uncertainties, we have the choice to realize our inability to predict and control and repent before God or to resist Him. People are small, weak, and at the mercy of the elements. Natural disaster calls for humility before God and reminds people to find their permanent security in God alone. Our only hope is to repent and pursue a right relationship with God.

Our planet is quaking, rocking, shaking, and will one day be destroyed. Are you ready to secure your destiny? Even things you may sincerely consider spiritual aids to personal health will only harm in the fires of judgment if you do not have a relationship with the Lord Jesus. If you are not assured of your salvation standing with God, will you contact me about the possibility of personal and eternal hope for you, regardless of your earthly circumstance?

Write to me by going to www.rameshrichard.com and clicking "Ask a Question."

The Purpose Giver

The purpose-giver is your Creator. He made you with a purpose in mind. He didn't make you to be wondering and wandering in this world without moorings and rootedness. He made you with a distinct purpose to accomplish, with a purpose in mind.

So, you must relate to your Creator in order to discover your purpose and be liberated from the prison of purposelessness.

How can you relate to your Creator?



Normally, you can't. Because you have distanced yourself from him in so many ways, he is hidden from your sight. Because you have not followed his purposes, he is not accessible to you. Because you have attempted to fulfill your own purposes, you have left him out of your life.

I have good news for you, my friend. Since you want to find purpose, and since you are convinced you must relate to the purpose giver, the news is "he is reachable; he is findable; he is approachable."

The purpose-giver has reached you, found you, and approached you. The purpose-giver is also the Savior.

Limited Intellect

I don't know all there is to know. By the time I catch up on one thing, even becoming a specialist, in one area, the discipline develops, the science leaves me behind. If knowledge is doubling every 4 years or faster, then we cannot keep up with what we are supposed to know.



We don't even know all that is important to know. Let's take health for example. How do I keep myself completely well all the days of my life? There are are so many viruses and diseases that we can't handle them. Just when we discover the anti-body a new virus begins.

Or let's take the future. More than anything, people want to know what the future has for them. It would help us to plan accordingly. But our minds are limited.

It takes God to know all there is to know. But it also takes God, for us to know all we need to know and all that is right to know.

Heart Prison

To those who are brokenhearted, forlorn, lonely, and forsaken, God gives love, forgiveness and hope. He loves you as though there was no one else in the whole world. If you were the only one who ever lived, he would have loved you the same way, he loves you now.

To those who are hardhearted and hard headed, God says he is gentle and humble in heart. He can soften your heart and free you from the constraints of your own prison. You can't forgive your brother, well God gives you the resources to forgive your brother from your heart

To those who are fainthearted with fear, God will give you the courage and hope that you need for the future. Even as I write these notes, a former friend of mine has attempted to take his life; to him as well as to you, I say, "ask God to overcome your fear and anxiety."

To all of us who have evil hearts—and all of us do--God says he will give us a new heart. Your heart is not right before God, God can make your heart right before God. You have a troubled heart, he will calm your heart. He assures you: "Don't let your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in me." Not only did he claim to be equal to God in that statement, he claimed that he can calm your heart like only God can.

Here is an amazing teaching: you can trouble your own heart by yourself; but for your heart to be opened to God; God has to open your heart. You can't open your own prison. He has the keys. God must open your heart to respond to this message. He is willing to open the heart-prison, would you like it to be opened?



If you say, Yes! I want my heart to be opened. I am fed up of my broken, faint, hard, evil heartedness, I want you to talk to God, right now where you are.

Please let us know if you make this decision by responding here or asking a question at www.rameshrichard.com.

Freedom from Your Heart Prison

What does it take for you to be freed from the prison of the heart? Only God has the key.

Why? Because by virtue of being God, God knows all that is in your heart. You can’t hide anything from him--your grief or your evil. He knows everything. You can't escape from him. He knows you. He cares for you.

Also, out the heart comes your evil thoughts but only the pure in heart are blessed. Only the pure in heart are fortunate. Only the pure in heart can see God, that for which your heart longs.


Next, loving God takes your heart too. You must love the Lord your God with all your heart! Right now you love your self with all your heart. Instead, you ought to love the Lord your God will all your heart.

You see, there is a deep, strong relationship between head and heart. The heart won't value what the head won't believe. The heart may value, what the head doesn't know. But the heart won't value what the head doesn’t believe even though it can't know.

I want to give you Someone the head may believe and the heart may value. Only God is worth that kind of value and belief.


Finally, for you to have the salvation of your soul, the freedom of your heart, you have to believe in God with your heart.

All There Is To Know

All you need to know is the truth about yourself and about right and wrong. How can this happen unless you have access to God?

The Lord Jesus stands in front of you today and says you have access to truth and to God in Him. For God himself is truth, and truth points to God. Jesus says, "I am the truth! No one comes to the Father but by me."

On September 19, 1985 a devastating earthquake rocked Mexico City’s General Hospital sending Dr. Franciso Bucio crashing five stories down into the basement of the structure. For hours on end the young doctor bellowed in frustration hoping that someone would rescue him from the metal and timber and wires and plaster that crushed his body. Finally, after four days of crying out, dehydrated and perilously close to death, someone heard his plea. In no time at all the rescue team found Dr. Bucio and removed all of the debris that was on top of him--setting Dr. Bucio free.



You have intellectual debris all around you, about to crush you. You have been crying for help. Cultures and religions have been trying to help you, but only one person hears your plea--the Lord Jesus Christ. He will set you free.

The Fundamentals

I have a son who was always impatient with his school. He constantly asked me why we should go to school. "School is useless," he would complain. I told him he needed to go to school to get knowledge about the basics of life, things like two plus two is four. He of course replied, "But I already know that. Shall I stop going to school now?"




"NO," I said, "There are more basics to know." He asked, "if we are only studying the basics, when will get done with studying the basics?"

In one sense we will never be done, for what is basic to one discipline may be advanced for another discipline.

Jesus has given us the basics of the basics of what we need to know. He answers the fundamental, intellectual questions. All you need to know is the truth about yourself and the truth about right and wrong.

How do I find out all I need to know and that is right for me to know? Turn to Jesus for direction for this intellectual impediment. He will tell you all you should know about yourself; reveal things about you from His Word, the Bible, that gives you deep insight, as to how you have been put together; what makes you function. How you can be freed from your moral bondage. The answer is actually quite simple. Get to know Jesus.

Is Your Destiny Written?
Slum Dog Millionaire’s Reality Show

Ramesh Richard PhD Thd
www.rameshrichard.com

The phrase, “It is written,” frames both ends of Slum Dog Millionaire which claimed every worthy movie award in 2009. The story warms the hearts of young millions of India (and the world over) in karmic conviction: nothing can stop destiny.

Yet that same conviction generates frustration among the disadvantaged over being left out of the good life. A deep sense of injustice from an impersonal “it is written” causes confusion, resignation, even laziness in the present circumstance. If all circumstances of life are impersonally written, then one had better resign to the present situation. If one’s own and other’s situations are impersonally written, then nothing needs to motivate our initiative to personally succeed, or to help others who are caught in what is impersonally written and inexorably enforced. One’s best options are to try the hand of luck, for who knows, lucky breaks could have been written into one’s story.

Contrary to a fatalistic, impersonal happening of life, the Bible speaks about a personal writing of each human life. “In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed” (Psalm 139:16).

A personal sovereign God has written a book on all reality, including your life. Just like SDM’s original story was written by a creative author with a thought and a plot; and just like the movie director adapted and produced the award-winning movie, God has authored and produces your life. Just like nothing in the book or the movie happens without meaning, nothing happens to any of us by impersonal forces at work. A personal, all-loving, all-knowing and all-powerful God, has personally developed the theme and the plot of your life.

God is concerned about you, and the details of your life. He has planned for them and provided for them. You are not left to resignation nor randomness, but to discovery, and action. God’s sovereignty includes your freedom to choose as well as facing the consequences of your choice. In fact, when the Bible uses the phrase, “it is written,” it is to point to a body of writing that relates God’s story and his plan for the human race.

If we judge ourselves worthy of eternal life then we would humbly accept His provision for His personal purpose for us. God sent His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, as part of His story for humanity and to provide for your entire story, from now to eternity. He has not only written in the length of our days in his book; he has written out the way we need to live for the rest of our days. You are a part of plan that you don’t fully know, but is working itself out daily, not impersonally, but in a supervised manner. Indeed you know the Person who wrote the plan.

You can choose to believe SDM’s view of reality—a life based on an impersonal “it is written;” or one which views circumstances knowing that the creative, power of a Personal Author has woven an award-winning story around your life. Now, you can realize that your life is already filled with meaning, and you can begin to live it with purpose and initiative. I invite you to a confident, hope-filled, intentional relationship with the Sovereign God. The phrase, “it is written,” assumes a Writer. Write me at the website above.

Limitations

Different cultures have different values. In some cultures people like to eat dog; yet in other cultures they like to beef. Beef eaters don't like dog eaters. They wonder, "How can you eat a dog? They are our pets!" But other cultures wonder, "How can you eat beef?"



You have different colors of skin, speak different languages, come from different cultural backgrounds, and so you eat different foods! You can complicate the whole thing because there are monkey eaters, and pig eaters, and vegetarians. And in some cultures they even have man eaters--humans who eat humans!

So, there is major confusion. We have minds that are confused, limited, and error-prone. We lie to ourselves. We feel omniscient. We think we know everything, even though we know a minuscule amount of what really is.

We can't know all there is to know because of human limitations. But we also find it difficult to know all we need to know, all that is right to know. Where can we find the answers to these intellectual queries?

Actually, it takes God to know all there is to know. But it also takes God, for us to know all we need to know and all that is right to know.


Why? He knows our needs better than we know our needs.

All You Need

We don't know all that we need to know. Could we know all that is right to know? How can we decide and who can decides what is right, let alone knowing what is right to know?

Usually, cultures, background, training, makes us comfortable with what we think is right. We are trained by those around us. Culture is a thing of the mind. Some of us like to eat with our hands, others with spoon and forks, and yet others with chop sticks!



I can make a case that eating with the hands is the right way because that is the original way, using what is called the original or first is the right way fallacy. In this error, I would commit what someone called the chronological snobbery.

However, chronological snobbery is sometimes used by younger cultures, who say that what is newer is better because it is newer. This kind of snobbishness doesn't establish anything except the person's snobbishness. Of course, if I think my way is right because it is my way; that is the height of pride and error.

So, what is right who is right?

Actually, it takes God to know all there is to know. But it also takes God, for us to know all we need to know and all that is right to know.

Stray Dawg Millionaire

If the 2009 Oscar-hogging Slum Dog Millionaire resonates with vicarious human yearnings, recent stories of millionaires and billionaires who have strayed into suicidal selfishness resonates with any one who is on the verge of personal loss during this time of global gloom.

So before you do any thing stupid and sinful, whether you are on billionaire lists and possibly heading to prison; or merely an aspiring businessman on the way to new millions, hold on, and read on.

I’m going to call you “dawg,” not like in “slum dog,” a phrase which evoked the objections of slum-dwellers in Mumbai, but dawg. Urbandictionary.com allows any close human friend to be called dawg.

So I speak as a friend to friend, dawg to dawg, a former stray who got adopted addressing human dawgs without a spiritual home. Let me tell you where I think you went astray, and see if you agree with me.

You strayed in your heart away from home. Straying begins in the heart for from your heart flows all life’s issues, views, and practices.

1. Did you set your heart on wrong objects as ultimately worthy?
2. Did you compromise your own principles of character and integrity?
3. Did you misrepresent your deals and make them sound easier and better than
they really were?
4. Did you refuse to look at the weak links, the fatal weaknesses in your business
model?
5. Did you maintain a confident and isolated facade, a face of confidence when you
knew your deal was dying?
6. Did you take ownership of that which you were merely entrusted, flout good
processes and due diligence?
7. Did you hide information that was material to others’ welfare?
8. Did you speculate assuming you could control the future, and speculate with
what is not your own?
9. Did you get lazy morally, organizationally, and financially?
10. Did you get greedy, even unknowingly so, and the economic crisis has
highlighted our own heart of greed?

Etc. (You can add more self-probing comments to this list.)

Well then, you qualify for the “stray dawg” epithet.



You were desirable to the public as any street-running, stray-dog. You actually were a leader among stray dogs. You led others away from the right path. They shouldn’t have followed you, but they did. That’s the mentality of animal packs. You strayed, and led them. Your family, colleagues, employees, and investors followed you. Now, every one has gone astray, we have all turned every one to our own ways.

In some places, they throw stray dogs into pounds, neuter them, even get rid of them.

Now that you are caught, and before you are permanently neutered, I’ve got good news waiting on the other side of this present reality.

1. The essence of straying is the desire to live by your own definition of life and the pursuit of your own interpretation of reality. In other words, you have strayed into usurping God’s role in and for your life.
2. Since you’ve offended God, the penalty for your transgression is both immediate and ultimate.
a. Shocked, numb, and bewildered, you face social ostracism. You didn’t start out wanting to defraud any one, but greed got the better of your heart, and you had to play the role. One $50b fraudster confessed to his sons, “It’s all one big lie.” And another admitted, “It was like riding a tiger, not knowing how to get off without being eaten.” Broken billionaires have recently taken their lives and are euphemistically said to be “found dead” in their homes or on railway lines. Others face the immediate penalty of prison.
b. The penalty for sin is also ultimate. All wrong-doers are consigned to an eternal dawg pound. Many feel you too must join the ranks of the eternally lost.
3. Except the rest of us are awaiting the same eternal fate. All wrongdoers, the whole pack of dawgs (you, me and all humanity), has become vulnerable to immediate and eternal penalty.
4. The only way to alleviate, and remove the penalty of heart-straying is to have Some One adequate and appropriate, i.e., God Himself, exchange our penalty with us. Otherwise, only hopelessness awaits us.
5. That substitutionary exchange has indeed happened. God took our penalty by placing it on His Son, the Lord Jesus. Jesus was exposed to and experienced the full effects, a frontal brunt, the final experience of our penalty—death.
6. If we accept God’s strategic initiative as personally applying to us, the ultimate penalty of an eternal dawg pound will no longer threaten us.
7. What about the immediate penalty that we face for having strayed? Here too, there is good news. God is willing to adopt you into a permanent relationship of eternal sonship. Even if you have been gravely wrong, and are facing the immediate hell of legal consequence, God He becomes your dawg-shelter.

I heard of a dog adoption and welfare group (“dawg”) whose motto is a “no kill shelter,” whose mission is to “provide a safe and loving environment for dogs awaiting permanent adoption.” Whether billionaire, millionaire, or only formerly so, you can be adopted in to a safe and loving, home and family environment—into God’s heart.

In the Bible’s vocabulary, “adoption” is a technical term. God adopts “strays” into his family, who carry negative psycho-spiritual baggage; exhibit pathological behavior; and are too clever for their own and other’s good. He is willing to adopt you off the street and into His family. In an ascent down and up again, the nouveau pauvre, now literally a slum-dog heading to the pound, can actually become a spiritual millionaire. The love of money which caused the heart to stray and entrapped him has now been replaced with the only on worthy of ultimate love.

Adoption is also a legal term. Just like the law recognizes adoptees as heirs, God invites you to be His inheritance, regardless of how much you have made, and lost. He is willing to confer His name, and heap family privileges on you. House-dogs may only eat the crumbs of the master’s table, but they still eat better than stray-dogs. Indeed, stray-dawgs, become God’s house-dawgs, the family and friends of the Most High One. However, the Lord Jesus welcomes you to his home, to possess all the rights of his family. You can go from being a stray-dawg to house-dawg.
Write to me if you want to be adopted by Gawd .

The Mind

Of all the things we can know, how can we agree on what is important to know, so that we can know what there is to know. And if we disagree on what is important then we can never feel free the impediment of intellectual inadequacy.



In the city which I live, a radio news station has as it slogan, "all you need to know" listen to us. They make the decision as to what you need to know; but how do they know all I need to know. I have priorities of knowledge. For instance, I care more for international news than local news; what is happening in terms of human beings at a global scale; they broadcast who won the state lottery! It makes no difference to me whether someone else won the lottery! It will make a difference to me if I won the lottery, but I don't buy lottery tickets! Consequently, radio stations don't tell me what I need to know; and what about all I need to know!

The only person who can decide all that I need to know, should know all about me and reveal what I need to know about me.

Jesus has given us the basics of the basics of what we need to know. He answers the fundamental, intellectual questions that you will ever have.

Evil Heart

The Heart Prison features the hard heart. There is another kind of human heart which is more deadly, and more dangerous --- the Evil heart. However good you think you are, there is a evil side to all of us. A dark side, if given the opportunity, will unleash an evil the world has never seen.


Your thoughts and intentions are simply filled with evil toward yourself, others and God. You say you don’t have an evil heart. Yes, you may not be bad as your neighbor, but you are as capable of everything your neighbor does. Believe me, only you haven't exasperated yourself as much as you have exasperated your neighbor. Would you like to be freed from you evil heartedness?

Well your heart is the control-center of your being. The control center of everything you are and do, comes from the heart. Unless your heart is reformatted and restructured you will never be released out of your heart prison. You will be a prisoner for life. You will never have hope, never have comfort, never have courage, never have goodness about you.

What does it take for you to be freed from the heart? It is a single, simple, total answer to the situation. It is God who can free you from your heart-prison.