My regards to all of Glory family especially to the viewers of this program ‘Roz Ki Roti’. May Jesus’s blessing be always with you. Amen. Let’s start this program with a small prayer. Dear my beloved God, My beloved God in heaven, I thank you deeply for giving me this life and for everything you have given me. You give me new reason to be happy every day. You give me satisfaction and hope every day and for that I thank you. God bless me so that I can overcome the hard times. Please bless us so that we can understand and learn from the holy Bible during this program, and get 100% success. Wherever your book is read, whoever reads it, it never goes to waste. Please bless us so that whatever we learn in this program bring happiness to our lives, let us understand life better and we can learn more. I pray to you now for all those people how are facing difficulties please help all. If any of our viewers are going through any financial crisis or if they are unemployed, homeless or ill please help them all to overcome their difficulties. Please bless us all. Once again I ask you for your blessing for the success of the program, whatever I say during this program may that be in the name of your son Jesus. Amen.
I am once here in front of you to present the program ‘Roz Ki Roti’. As always through this program I am going to share with you what I learnt and understood by studying the holy book. We can see the Bible is a living book, the book has never been changed, but the book keeps changing lives of those who wants to understand the book even in the present times. This book changes you heart change your way of thinking. The characters in this book, the stories of the book were written in 4000 AD by more than 40 people and everything written in this book is true. The characters we see in the ‘Old Testament’ are prophets and 12 followers of the ‘New Testament’ were all living people like us who had their strength and weaknesses just like us. Both their failures and successes are documented in the Bible.
Today we are going to study about all these characters. We are going to learn from the Bible about the strengths and shortcoming about their successes and failures. We are going to see how these character’s relationship with God helps us in our daily life. In Corinthians it was said ‘Be like me like I have become like Jesus’, the Bible says to have the same thinking like the Jesus. ‘Be like me, like I have become like the Jesus’. The meaning of this is he has told us, to learn from the characters, the prophets the apostles of the Bible. So today we are going to learn from these characters. First we are going to study characters of ‘The Old Testament’. ‘The Old Testament’ has more diverse characters, If look at the glossary you can find all the prophets names, starting from Ruth to Malachi they are all major or minor prophets of the Lord. Minor prophets doesn’t mean their contributions is less compared to others, they are called minor prophets because their books are smaller is size as compared to major prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel and Ezekiel. The contribution of all prophets in spreading the Gods words are same.
Everybody has their favorite characters. Let’s first study the characters God himself created, Adam and Eve, we are outcome of humans but Adam and Eve were God’s creation. What appeals to me most in these two characters is their disobedience. When God said you can eat fruits of one tree and can’t eat fruits from the other tree, they ate the forbidden fruit they disobeyed the God. What I learn from this story is it’s a crime to disobey the Lord. Because Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit they were punished, they had to leave Heaven, their heavenly life ended. Same way when we disobey the Lord, disregard his teachings our life also ends. So from this story we learned that at all times we have to be obedient and follow the Holy Book.
Next we will study the character of Abraham. Abraham was the first person whom God called. God told him Abraham he will make him a ‘country’ only if he can count the stars and count the sand grains, you will have that many children. Here I want to point out that he was named ‘father of the faithful’. Today those of us who believe in God, those who are faithful to God is because of Abraham. It is said the promises God made to Abraham were fulfilled through Jesus. We learn from Abraham’s life that he was God’s friend. You can see in the second verse of Jacob’s letter and in the ‘Book of James Chapter 2 verse 23’ ‘Abrahim was faithful to god……….’ That means if you are faith to God you can also become like Abraham. Whenever God called him or told him to do anything he listened, he never doubted God or disregarded God’s words. When God ordered him to leave his country and can go to him and he will give Ibrahim his own country, Abraham followed the orders. When God told Ibrahim he will bless him with a son at his age even then Ibrahim didn’t doubt God. When God ordered him to sacrifice his only son Isaac even at that time he didn’t lose faith on God, and proceeded to sacrifice his only son. What I learn from Abraham’s story is how he was faithful to God, whatever God told him to do he did without ever doubting God. Whenever we act upon only our will it never works out, but when we walk on the path God has shown us we are always successful. When Abraham was going to sacrifice Isaac he could have doubted God’s words he could have said no, but he didn’t, as a result what happened is when he was about to sacrifice his son angels came and stopped him told him to sacrifice goats grazing in the nearby shrubs. When we follow God’s willing his intentions are not always clear to us but if we keep doing it will be beneficial for us, God never turns away from his believers.
Next we are going to study Noah’s character. If we look at Noah’s life in the 6th chapter 9th verse clarifies to us that Noah was man of righteousness and was sinless. The people of that time were sinful and wayward and God was about to smite them. At that time only Noah followed the path of God. In this era, we are approaching the end of times and should also be like Noah. When God told Noah that he should build a boat, he listened to message from God and accepted without questioning. When he started building the boat the people used to make fun of him. Similarly, in this day when you follow the teachings of many God people will make fun of you but we will be blessed for listening to God like he blessed Noah. So what do we learn from the life of Noah, that he was a righteous man and he followed the Lord’s will. We should also become ambassadors of God him. We don’t need a big platform for this, just spread the glory of God in your workplace and social circle. Spread the name of Jesus as far and wide as possible.
Genesis chapter 5 verse 22 and 24 says that Hanuk also obedient to God. He followed the path of God for 300 years and was blessed with sons and daughters. Then God lifted him and brought him closer to himself. Samwell was a servant of God and at the age of 4 years when his mother gave him up at the temple to serve in God’s name. In 1st Samwell chapter 15 verse 22 – he asked if is God pleased by sacrifices as much as with the gesture of accepting his word? Listen, obedience and sacrifice is more important than the fat of lambs. We learn from this that obedience is more important that sacrifices. His obedience to God annoyed the kings of his time and only listened to the message of God. It doesn’t matter how much sacrifices we give – monetary of through self-negation, accepting and acting on the commandments of God is more important.
Another beautiful character is Joseph. First son of Jacob’s wife. Because he remained loyal to God despite treachery from his brothers, God was with him. Wherever he went God blessed him. So whatever hardship we go through if we stay with God, then he won’t let us down. He even forgave his brothers when they later returned to Egypt during the drought. He even resisted temptation of the body when was in the house of Fotifar and his wife made an advance on him. But since he was pious he did not waver. When you walk with God he gives you strength to overcome any problem.
Another character is Prophet Daniel. We learn that he was very devoted to God. He prayed to God 3 times a day. Even when he was captured as a slave he still faced Jerusalem and continued praying for 21 days. Similarly, in our lives when we ask for something from God we must remain steadfast in our prayers. Sometimes the answer we get might not be what we were hoping but God never fails to answer. He was also very dear to God.
All these are characters of the Old Testament, like Solomon who asked for knowledge from God. We’ve read about all these characters from the texts and we can learn something valuable from them all.
In the New Testament we learn of John the Baptist who was Jesus’ first cousin as Elizabeth and Mary were cousins. We learn from his life is that he spread the word of God. He lived in the jungle and ate honey. We should also follow him and spread the word of God far and wide. We are all Christians today because they spread the word of God throughout the world – so we must follow their example.
We also learn a lot from St. Paul who wrote so many letters that we use to change our lives. We can learn how to treat each other. We also see that God chose not only pure and sinless people to receive his message but also those who were sinful and were turned to the right path. Today if we have some weakness we must ask for forgiveness and God will lift us from our lives of sin and purify us.
Another character from the Old Testament is Ayub whose patience is a lesson for us all. He went through so many hardships but God rewarded him 10 times over. If we are in some hardship in our lives, we must keep praying to God and he show us a way out our problems. Ayub could have cursed God when he faced so many problems but he stayed loyal.
Our time is over for today and I hope we all learned a lot about the characters in the Bible and received a useful message on how to conduct our lives. Amen.