God is polishing me and taking me through the fire that refines me. You know it is hard to go through the refining fire though we know that we will become a cleansed weapon in God's hand. Believe me, I recently thought of even quitting from Christian ministry. I have been going through a financial crisis which is the worst time I ever had. I thought of doing a secular job and doing God's ministry. You could be a witness everywhere you work but it is hard for those who are called to be fulltime workers. I hardly get time to do ministry if I do another job. At the end of the day, I am sure that the Lord is faithful and He knows all about our needs.

These past few months, the world we live in has faced challenges that governments, institutions, families and individuals have found difficult to cope with – agflation [agricultural inflation], soaring prices of good and services, shakening of stable and trusted financial institutions, change of governments and political institutions, societal transformation in family and marriage, rise in new infectious diseases, increased persecution of Christians, shakening of religious institutions, talk of a global recession and many more changes. "What On Earth Is Happening To The World Today?”In this article, we will allow the powerful Word of God to speak and breathe life for itself.

How can we find true friendship in this often phony, temporary world? Friendship involves recognition or familiarity with another's personality. Friends often share likes and dislikes, interests, pursuits, and passion. Genuine friendship involves a shared sense of caring and concern, a desire to see one another grow and develop, and a hope for each other to succeed in all aspects of life. True friendship involves action: doing something for someone else while expecting nothing in return; sharing thoughts and feelings without fear of judgment or negative criticism.

I would like you to do a private search of your memory—the memory of your life. Google your heart. I want you to type the following into the search engine of your mind: [your name] = guilty. In my case, it’s “Ramesh = guilty.” Of course, my find is extremely private. I don’t want you to be probing my pages, and I’ve password-protected it with a strong, alphanumeric password. Go ahead and type in that equation, your name = guilty. Count the number of pages that come up in your memory. A dozen pages? Thousands of results? Hundreds of thousands of results of guilty actions, guilty attitudes, guilty behaviors? Now take a peak at these private pages. Notice that some of them are relevant, even recent. You’ve become self-entrapped in your sin and guilt. You need to be rescued from your self-entrapment before you become a permanent casualty.

Just as there were many who were appalled at him, his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man and his form marred beyond human likenes, so will he sprinkle many nations, and kings will shut their mouths because of him. He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men,  a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.

This article is approached from the perspective of how a physician would assess the injuries of Jesus if he were there to see the actual physical trauma Jesus experienced. Dr. Keith Maxwell speaks plainly, with as little medical jargon as possible. His development of this topic began to evolve one night when Dr. Maxwell, in the emergency room, thought to himself, "If they brought the Lord in here, exactly what would his physical injuries be like?" He hopes through this article to reveal some things that will make us meditate on the actual suffering Jesus experienced in the last hours of his life. In the notes that follow are his conclusions about the death of Jesus based on his research, experience as a trauma physician and his understanding of scripture.

Every Good Friday, in most churches around the world, the people of God would meditate on the seven verses spoken by Jesus from the Cross. First verse: Jesus said, "Father, forgive them: for they do not know what they are doing." And they parted His garments, and cast lots (Luke 23:34). Second verse:  One of the malefactors said to Jesus, "Lord, remember me when You come into your kingdom".  Jesus said to him, "I tell you the Truth, today you will be with Me in paradise" (Luke 23:42-43) Third verse: When Jesus saw His mother, and the disciple standing by, whom He loved, Jesus said to His mother, "Dear woman, here is your son!"  Then He said to the disciple, "Here is your mother!" (John 19:27).

In this story of different kinds of faith, I want to give us the opportunity of examining our levels of faith. The author of Hebrews tells us that it is impossible to please God without faith. Faith is an action word. It does something. It moves forward. It is responding to a Person. Indeed, faith is to believe what we do not see and the end reward of this faith is to see what we believe. The woman with the issue of blood touched the heart of the Father when she fanned into flame the faith that was inside her. Today, are you asking God, “If only I could touch the hem of your garment”. He is here to heal. He is here to touch and make you whole. The same Jesus that we read about in the gospels is right here. Come and respond to Jesus. Only He can touch you. Only He can heal you. Only Jesus can make you whole.

"No, brother. I cannot go to Nuremberg. It is too late for me. Look! Look what four years in the mines have done to my hands! The bones in every finger have been smashed at least once, and lately I have been suffering from arthritis so badly in my right hand that I cannot even hold a glass to return your toast, much less make delicate lines on parchment or canvas with a pen or a brush. No, brother for me it is too late." . . . . One day, to pay homage to Albert for all that he had sacrificed, Albrecht Durer painstakingly drew his brother's abused hands with palms together and thin fingers stretched skyward. He called his powerful drawing simply "Hands," but the entire world almost immediately opened their hearts to his great masterpiece and renamed his tribute of love "The Praying Hands."

Anyone aged 26 or less on 15 January 2008 can enter the competition by writing a story of up to 1,000 words based on the characters of the best-selling fantasy novel, Conspiracy of Calaspia, by the Guptara twins. The Guptara twins are 18, were born to an Indian father and English mother, and live in Switzerland.  They completed the first draft of their highly-acclaimed novel when they were only eleven.  Several complete re-writes later, Conspiracy of Calaspia is a 600 page blockbuster. Jyoti, the younger twin, became probably the world's youngest full-time writer at the age of 15, shortly after becoming the youngest-ever writer to be published by The Wall Street Journal.  Suresh, the elder twin, has just finished (summer 2007) the British School-Leaving Exams ("A" Levels) and is spending a year as a full-time writer too, before he decides about his future. Their fantasy novel, Conspiracy of Calaspia, rose to number 2 on the Indian best seller list, second only to Kiran Desai's Man Booker Prize Winning Novel, The Inheritance of Loss.