Short Break!

I won't be posting for two weeks as I will be traveling, will start as soon as I get back! Please do keep me in prayers!God Bless to all!

Doing unto the Lord (Recipe: Chicken Tikka Sandwiches)

We are constantly disappointed by people in our lives. Most of the time when we do something for others, we expect them to reciprocate in some likeness. Even when we love our family, our husbands, children, when we do things for them, take care of them, cook for them, even if this is our responsibility, we expect them to be grateful and appreciate us, to value us for what we do. And when we don’t feel this appreciation, we feel sad and disappointed. Even with friends or any person in general who probably took gladly from you but never really bothered to reciprocate your gestures, it is quite natural that we end up feeling used. These situations sometimes tend to make us cautious and careful in our dealings with people, we become less ready to help or give because of how we were treated by others. But this is not what we are called to do as children of the Lord.

Colossians 3: 23-24: Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.

If we are able to do whatever we do with the notion that we are doing for Jesus, we are less likely to be disappointed by people. No matter how unappreciated or under-appreciated we are by the people we do things for, when we keep in mind that God will be rewarding us for our works, we can stop expecting to receive from people. Imagine your father asked you to give your brother some money. Your father assures you that if you give your brother the money, your father himself will repay you. And you know that your father is financially capable of repaying you, so there is no doubt in your heart. You can easily give your brother the money. Now your brother when he takes the money can throw a fit and say he will not return the money to you, but this is not going to rattle you because you know your father promised to return it to you, and you are certain your father will do as he says.

This is the same principle by which we do things. We may work hard but our bosses or colleagues don’t appreciate it, we may slog at home, but our family takes us for granted, we may be generous in our giving, but the people who receive from us don’t seem that grateful. In all these things, remember that God promised to reward us and it is from him and only him we should expect to reap the benefits of what we do.

Ephesians 6: 6-8: not by the way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man, knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a slave or free.

Let us ask the Lord to heal the hurts that people have caused to our hearts, and to help us believe in the reward he has promised us in doing good and right service to others.


Today I’d like to share with you a special sandwich spread recipe.
Chicken Tikka Sandwiches


Ingredients:

Chicken breast Tikka pieces – 300gms (Recipe for Tikka has been provided in earlier post)
Mayonnaise – 2 Tablespoons
Sugar – ½ Teaspoon
Salt – as required
Pepper – ½ Teaspoon
Chopped Coriander leaves – 4 Tablespoons
Chilly sauce (Optional) – 2 Tablespoons
Bread slices for sandwich

Instructions:

1.Dice the chicken tikka pieces and put into a bowl.

2.Add mayonnaise, sugar, salt, pepper, coriander leaves and chilly sauce. If the spread is too thick in consistency, add more mayonnaise and adjust salt accordingly.

3.Spread evenly on bread slices to make sandwiches. The spread can be refrigerated, and chicken tikka sandwiches are usually served as cold sandwiches.

Working out your Salvation (Recipe : Semiya Payasam / Vermicelli Kheer)

I used to be really confused with the whole business of salvation! I mean in one verse you have

Romans 10: 9: because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Another verse says in

Philippians 2: 12-13: Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

So how does this really work? One verse says that if you just confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that Jesus is Lord, that he arose from the dead, then you will be saved! Another verse says that we need to fearfully work out our own salvation. So which is it? Why are there two contradicting statements here about our salvation?

The truth really lies in Romans 10: 9, you see, if you truly ‘believe in your heart’ then you would be automatically fearful about how you handle your salvation. Salvation is not a free pass to do anything we like and be forgiven, salvation is our chance to have a personal relationship with God, to be filled and guided by his Holy Spirit, and because of which, we live in love, awe and fear of offending him. So unless you are afraid of offending or hurting God with your actions, words or thoughts, unless you are constantly and consistently mindful of the price Jesus paid because of your earlier sinful ways, you really have not been saved.

Romans 8: 13-15: For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry,"Abba! Father!

Wow! So even if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord but continue to live according to the desires of your flesh, you are taking a u-turn from your salvation and heading back. And this means that our salvation does not come without our true transformation or true change of heart. When we listen to the Holy Spirit and walk according to the word of the Lord, then we know that we are truly believing in Jesus as our Lord, but if we continue to lie, gossip, be jealous, selfish, greedy, immoral, assuming that at the end of the day we can confess our sins and God’s just sitting there to forgive, we will be sadly mistaken! Salvation is a state that we are working towards in our daily walk, not an automatic pass for sinning. If we fail on occasion in our walk, we are of course forgiven, but that does not apply to willfully living in sin and claiming to be believers.

Let us pray to the Lord to forgive our shortcomings, our ignorance of the truth and our sinful nature, and ask him to grant us the grace to overcome our flesh by the power of his Holy Spirit.



A sweet recipe for today, Vermicelli Kheer (Semiya Payasam).

Ingredients:

BrokenVermicelli - 1 ½ cups
Thin Coconut milk – 1 litre
Thick Coconut milk – ½ litre
Condensed milk – 1 can
Sago (Chowiri) – ¼ cup
Cashew nuts – ¼ cup
Raisins – 2 Tablespoons
Powdered Cardamom – 1 teaspoon
Sugar – as and if required
Salt – ¼ teaspoon
Ghee – 6 Tablespoons
Water – ½ cup

Instructions:

1.Boil ½ cup water and pour into the cup of Sago, stir well and keep it aside.

2.In a non-stick cooking dish, heat 4 tablespoons of ghee, add the broken vermicelli and stir fry in the ghee till golden brown.

3.Turn down the flame and add the thin coconut milk, turn the flame to medium and stir intermittently for 10 minutes, then pour in condensed milk.

4.Allow the milk to simmer and boil while stirring every few minutes to be sure that the milk does not stick to the bottom of the dish.

5.Now add the soaked sago along with the water and allow it to continue boiling for 10-15 minutes, all the while stirring in between. Add salt.

6.Once the consistency of the milk appears thick, turn down the flame to minimum and add the thick coconut milk, stir well and bring to boil. Then turn off flame.

7.Check for sweetness and add more sugar if you need. Then add the powdered cardamom.

8.In a kadai, heat 2 tablespoons of ghee, fry the cashews and raisins, then pour it into the kheer along with the ghee. Stir well and serve hot.

My Easter Sermon - Ressurection - The Price of True Worship (Recipe : Beef cutlets)

Every year, as we approach Good Friday and Easter, we are reminded of how Jesus died for our sins, how he rose again on the third day and defeated death once and for all. We now no longer need to fear death and we know that he paid the price of our sins, so we are forgiven. All of these things are about us, what we are receiving as a result of Jesus death and resurrection. However, Jesus death also created for us the opportunity to finally give to God, something acceptable to Him. True Worship!

According to the word of God, all things including man, were created for God’s pleasure.

Rev. 4:11: Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.

And what gives God pleasure? If we look into the book of Haggai, to the chapter that mentions the rebuilding of the temple, we will see that God says in
Chapter 1: 8: Go up to the mountain, and bring wood, and build the house; and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, saith the LORD
What was the house for? The Temple was for worship. And God clearly says here that he will take pleasure in the Temple, that he will be glorified.

God takes pleasure in the worship offered by his people. And as we were created for God’s pleasure, one of the main purposes of our lives is to worship God.

But before Jesus died and rose again for us, we could not offer God true worship. God had to make do with what was offered to him as worship, because there was no alternative means by which man could give him true worship till Jesus came and did what he did.
You see, Jesus says in

John 4: 23-24: But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him.

God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

So what God considers true worship, and according to Jesus, the only way to offer this true worship, is in spirit and truth.

But when Adam sinned in the Garden of Eden, his spirit died…and he was considered dead by God because he could no longer fulfill the purpose for which he was made.

It’s like a car, the purpose of a car is to move from one place to another. If the battery is dead, the car cannot fulfill this purpose and we call the car itself dead. We can sleep in the car, eat in the car, live in the car, we can pour in as much fuel as we like into the car, but without a charged battery, that car is not going to fulfill its purpose of actually moving.

Adam was like this, he could eat, sleep and do everything that was normal by human standards. But for God, this creation was dead because it could not fulfill its purpose.

But when Jesus rose again from the dead, he changed this as we see in

Romans 8: 10-11: But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.

So when Jesus comes into our lives, the Holy Spirit now dwells in us and brings life to our spirit. We now have spirit.

We can now worship God in spirit and in truth, which according to Jesus is the way God must be worshipped.

We see that Jesus paid a heavy price to obtain this opportunity for us, the opportunity to worship God in spirit and in truth, for once, to give God something he wants. How often can we give anything back to God? But is that how we worship?


No one who has had an encounter with God walks away from it the same as before. Psalm 22:3 says that God inhabits the praises of his people, that means God dwells where the praises of his people are!

If you worship God sincerely, truthfully in your spirit, then you will bring with your praise the presence of God. You will experience the presence and the touch of God.

And what comes with God’s presence?

Psalm 16: 11: Thou wilt show me the path of life: in thy presence is fullness of joy;

And what does the joy of the Lord do? According to Nehemiah 8:10, the joy of the Lord is our strength!

So when we worship God in spirit and in truth, we bring down his presence, experience his joy and derive strength from it.

We all close our eyes automatically when it’s time to pray so that we can shut out all the other distractions around us. We do this willingly because in prayer we are asking God for things we need, worship on the other hand is giving something to him, so we don’t usually give it the same importance. When you offer worship to God, shut out all other distractions, close your eyes if you need to and let the words come from your heart. When you do this you are trying to reach God’s heart, drawing close to him and he will come to you. The Bible says in

James 4:8: Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.

Are you worshiping God in spirit and in truth and experiencing his presence and his touch? If you want to experience the presence of God, and if you want to please God with your worship, then you have to make the conscious decision to change the way you worship! Jesus paid a heavy price to bring to life your spirit and allow you the chance to worship God in spirit and in truth, and in doing so experiencing his presence, joy and strength. Let us not make his sacrifice be in vain.


How about beef cutlet recipe today?


Beef Cutlets

Ingredients:

Mince beef - 500 gms
Diced onion - 1
Diced ginger-garlic - 4 Tablespons
Diced coriander leaves - 2 Tablespoons
Diced mint leaves - 2 Tablespoons
Diced curry leaves - 1 Tablespoon
Diced green chilly - 2 or 3
Garam masala - 1 teaspoon
Salt - as required
Pepper - as required
Boiled and mashed potato - 2 medium sized
Egg - 1
Bread crumbs - as required
Oil for frying - as required

Instructions:

1. In a frying pan, add 2 tablespoons of oil, fry curry leaves, ginger-garlic and green chilly. When the raw smell subsides, add onions and brown.

2. Then add the mince beef and cook till browned, add salt, pepper, garam masala,coriander leaves and mint leaves.

3. Let the mixture cool and add mashed potatoes to this. Check salt and add more if required.

4. Roll the mixture into small lime sized balls, then flatten in the palm of your hands, smooth the edges.

5. In a bowl, beat the egg well, dip each cutlet in the egg and coat well. Then dip in a plate of breadcrumbs till the cutlet is completely coated. Repeat with all the moulded cutlets.

6. Heat oil in a kadai or frying pan,enough to deep fry the cutlets, and drop cutlets in when oil is very hot. Drain them as soon as they brown. Serve hot.

Sorry for not posting!

I'd like to apologize for not posting so far this week, I was preparing to deliver my very first sermon, which I gave for the Easter morning service at our church. This took up a lot of my thoughts and so could not focus on the blog. God willing, I will resume posting tomorrow. God Bless!