The Corruption Within

In school, every morning I along with some hundreds of other students used to take a pledge. I am sure you remember yours. I do not remember it all but here is what I remember:

'India is my country and all Indians are my brothers and sisters. I love my country and I am proud of its rich and varied heritage...I will strive to be worthy of it....I will treat everyone with courtesy. To my country and my people, I pledge my devotion. In their well-being and prosperity alone, lies my happiness. Jai Hind.

I believe, every Indian takes that pledge during their lifetime, in one way or the other.

But today, as we look around, we find the roads broken, potholed, load shedding, grid failure, transformer blasts, acute shortage of drinking water, near absence of sanitation, gutters overflowing, total collapse of transportation system, pollution, both mass under and un-employment, poverty, corruption, scams, and law and order failure.

We are hopeless as well as helpless.

And we blame our politicians, government, police, those in authority and in control. But we are one of them. They are our representatives. They are what we are. We chose them in a state of complete sanity in a democratic India.

Also, we blame our history, the Britishers, and western culture. We blame every one but ourselves.

Are they the only ones to be blamed? Are we not the ones who cheat in the payment of taxes, travel fares, pricing of products and services? Are we not the ones who are immoral and who don't care about India? Are we not the ones to be blamed, too? Can we say with honesty in our hearts that we are innocent, blameless and loyal?

We are the ones who steal, rob, cheat, betray, fraud, murder and rape. We are the ones who are liars, corrupt, and dishonest. We take what does not belongs to us. We bribe and accept bribes. We are so selfish that we consume resources, people, public property and every thing for our own gain.

We all have corrupted our ways. Our hearts are wicked.

The Bible say, "The heart is deceitful of all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it?"

Jesus said, "For out of the heart proceeds evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornication, thefts, false witness (lies) and blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man/woman."

The Bible says, "There is none who is upright, no, not one. There is none who seeks after God. They have all gone out of the way. There is none who does good, no, not one."

"All have sinned." God sees us as sinners. Yes, man is totally depraved.

His heart has to change for him to do any good. But God is a loving, gracious, merciful God who wants to forgive sinners. He does not takes pleasure in the death of any wicked.

But we can not change ourselves. We have to be born from above (born again).

So, God became man. He was called Jesus who paid the penalty of our sins through his death on the cross. Jesus became guilty of all the sins that you and I ever committed. He died and rose again to give you the power, the strength and grace to live a new life, if you'll trust Him.

Jesus is ALIVE.

To make your pledge true, come to Christ. Jesus said, "Apart from me, you can do nothing.'

Do you want to trust Jesus Christ as your Lord? Pray this prayer:

Lord Jesus, I am a sinner. I am sorry. I am willing to turn away from my sins. I openly receive and acknowledge you as my savior. I confess you as my Lord. From now on, I will live for you and serve you. Amen.

I would be pleased to help you. Email me at isaacmani2006@gmail.com.

Written in 2000.