Murali’s visit to Grace Community Church

Murali writes:

I was able to visit Grace Community Church. During the visit to LA, I met an Indian friend who attends this church, so I made a small study on the church with his help.

Counterfeit churches Bending Circumstances

(GB Message)

Glad to note that you have two visitors in your congregation today. I am quite aware of the fact that my sermons are often hard and cutting as against encouraging sermons based on texts like, “If God be with us, who can be against us?” Honestly I feel that only a hireling or an agent of the devil can keep preaching comforting sermons like that.

I enjoy fairly good health. This is because medical specialists constantly take particular care of the areas of my body that are sick, giving me timely medicines; I too have to meet them periodically for routine medical checkups. I prefer to have a physician care for my physical well being than people who may want to encourage me by commenting on how well I look, how strong my limbs are, and how well I digest my food.

Evangelist Note

(GB Message)

It has been quite a long time since my previous note to you all. In biblical language it is a small time duration; why, even 2000 years is considered a small period of time. However, I wish to convey that I really feel that I should have written earlier. The usual human tendency is to give excuses for failures. But what is important is to get up and proceed without becoming either discouraged or finding a scapegoat and giving excuses.

I derive some consolation from the fact that the cause for this delay is not lethargy but debility, not laziness but exhaustion, and, above all, the distinct increase of work load. One more cause that could be attributed to the delay is that several events took place in quick succession. We are nevertheless grateful to God because the needed ministry has taken place systematically; only the publication was handicapped.

All equal before God

(GB Message)

Each of us is born in this world under circumstances that are different from those of the next person. Some of us are born into good families, some in very unfortunate families, some in affluent families, and some in families that are extremely poor. Some families had a good educational background while others were more backward. Some of us hail from families with a Christian background, and some of us hail from religious backgrounds that are alien to Christianity.

Because such is the case, do we consider that some are in advantageous positions and some in very disadvantageous positions? We may imagine so. But strangely the conditions to be in heaven are in no way connected to the categorization that we have just mentioned.

Introspection

(GB Message)

Last time I pointed out:
• Satan taking over most of the visible churches
• Need for introspection to see whither we are going
• Meaning of phrases I use: emotional understanding Vs intellectual understandings, and the difference between them.

Genuine believers who are caught up in Satan-controlled visible churches are rushing out of them in despair. I am myself a typical example. People respected, loved, and admired me in whichever church I was; but unmindful of such respectful treatment, I came out of them after realizing that they were inadequate for my spiritual growth. I rushed out of them. In one of the churches, they admired me so much that I was the first Indian from that Church to be admitted in a Theological College in USA. But I came out of all these churches. Even before that, in two churches, I was given the rank of a church council secretary but I fled from there also. I was searching for God’s church but found none. There may have been some, but they were invisible to me. God gives people a few chances to escape from a wrong church but not too many. This should be a warning to you all.