Walking the Faith, still

Born in a Christian family with dad being a Hindu convert and both he and mom attending the same orthodox Bakht Singh Assembly, I grew up being exposed to godly men and women, who contributed to my knowledge of Jesus Christ, my mom being the chief of them. As far as I remember, way back, it was her sheer dedication to us and commitment to Christ, that in spite of her illness, she used to gather all five of us (her children) and hold a Bible class. She is the one who brought me to Christ. She is the one who through her repeated holiday trips to Hebron Hyderabad, introduced me to this young godly lady, who took the pain to help me memorize very important and precious Bible verses, like Is 9:6. The walls of Hebron were plastered with verses from the Bible which were another source for bringing beautiful verses to my knowledge, like Ps 46: 10, ‘Be still, and know that I am God.’

My dad’s persistent and consistent effort to always make it to church on every Sunday, despite acute financial crisis, has yielded its result in that all five of us have a deep love for Christ. It was due to his undying loyalty to Christ, unwavering faith in Christ that I was exposed to some of the greatest truths in the church and from ‘Daily Bread’ magazine/booklets. He used to haul all five of us to the church which was more than 30 kilometers away from Air Force facility. When the country was kept captivated and glued to television by serials like ‘Ramayana’ and ‘Mahabharata’, we were the only ones to walk the roads to church.

For as long as I remember, I have always been in love with God’s word, the Bible. There has always been a burning desire to know more and more of God’s word, to conform to His standards as espoused in His word. It was greatly fuelled by my Sunday class teacher, Mr. Robert, a very godly man, who took pain to impart to us the great biblical truths from the lives of Moses, Samson, Samuel and Jonah. These are my memories of my first five to seven years of my life. That exposure laid a strong foundation in my Christian faith.

During my early growing years, I was greatly inspired by the testimony, life and ministry of Mr. Sadhu Sundar Singh through reading a book on him. I do not remember the name of the book. It catapulted me to a different level altogether. Also, my eldest brother, Noah Mani introduced me to FEBA radio ministry and ‘Back to the Bible’ ministry of Woodrow Kroll and ‘Plain Truth’ magazine. He played a pivotal role in building a strong structure on a strong foundation laid by my parents and others. Every morning would start with tuning to Sri Lanka Radio Broadcasting Association and listening to Mr. Warren W. Wiersbe or Mr. Woodrow Kroll on ‘Back to the Bible’ radio broadcast.

My childhood was spent in the environs of giants in Christian faith. A life of learning and growing in this faith introduced me to Dr. Billy Graham and his wonderful radio ministry, evangelical videos and his books. For a considerable number of years, I was captivated by his honesty, his reach to millions, and his style of preaching. I used to borrow His evangelical videos from a church member and rent VCR and invite my college friends over to home and show them the gospel preached, in all its beauty. In the year 1999-2000, when I took to the pulpit in CSI, Tambaram Madras, the only message I preached there, I followed the preaching style of Mr. Graham. It was in this church that I worked as a Sunday school teacher for adolescent children.

Back in the school days, my eldest brother, Noah, who was very active and outgoing in participating with OM and other ministry people, would tag me along to their gospel outreach. That laid the foundation for my love for gospel outreach.

By the year 1993, I had read the whole of New Testament, excluding Revelation (which I read in 2008). It was during the summer holidays of 1993, I started and completed a deep study of Book of Acts and Romans. I studied those two books exhaustively. It was during my study of the New Testament that I came across a verse in I Jn  1: 9, 'If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.' and 2 Tim 2: 13, 'If we are faithless, He remains faithful.' Both these verses helped me to tide over my youthful lusts, sins and fall. 

During my college days, in Brethren Assembly Ratanada Jodhpur, I was given the opportunity by Pastor Cherian to preach every Sunday, short messages leading to worship. Once and only once, did I request Pastor to allow me to preach the final message, which he acceded to and I went on to deliver a strong message from my study of the book of Hosea. On the pattern laid down by our Lord before He made His great decision to select His twelve disciples, I used to spend hours praying to Lord to seek His hand in my time on the pulpit.  Though I had the complete text written, word for word yet, to enable His Spirit to work in the hearts of the hearers, I pleaded to God to bless my preaching. This was the church in which I spent years as a translator for English preachers, even for my dad. It was here that my love to disciple Christians and to enable them to grow in the faith laid its roots.

All through my college days, I was involved in gospel outreach, individually. I have shared gospel knocking on door to door, in my own locality. It is always easy to preach and share far somewhere where people do not know you personally than in the very place where people see and observe you day in and day out. I have preached to a group of women who had gathered for kirtan, a women’s gathering to worship their idols. I requested them that I have a message to preach and to allow me to preach, which they curiously and lovingly did. I then preached to them the love of Jesus and at the end walked away, feeling rather embarrassed at the situation but pleased that God had given me the boldness to speak about Him in public. God had given me the confidence and boldness to preach the Gospel to the temple priests right inside the temple. I was also involved in personally guiding a young unbeliever, a friend of mine, to come to faith, which he did, but I was not sure of his transformation. Anyway, I used to meet him to study God’s word at his home and help him in his studies. When I left Jodhpur to stay with my brother in Gorakhpur, I lost all communication with him.

It was during the college days, that I went out of the way to show God’s love to few believers from North-East, who were working and staying in abysmally worst conditions. I spent time with them in studying God’s word and even went far as to stay with them, to show my love and concern for God’s downtrodden people. It was during this phase that I used to share gospel tracts during my ride to and from college. After college, from 1998-99, while staying with my eldest brother in Gorakhpur, I actively preached the gospel with missionaries working in remote villages, for weeks after weeks.

In 1999, I moved to Madras with my parents when I started writing gospel articles and also wrote a poem titled, 'Remember', which is posted on my blog. Due to my desire to preach and teach God's word, through my girlfriend, I was invited to give a talk to a Christian youth group in Madras Christian College. In 2000, I went a level higher when I accidently heard Pastor John MacArthur of ‘Grace to You’ on the ‘Grace to India’ radio broadcast and I was instantly hooked. His devotion to Bible and exhaustive background homework he used to do for his teachings really inspired me. I would rent the tapes of his messages from their tape library. His exposition of the Bible, verse by verse, has changed my life by giving in me a desire and longing to teach and preach God’s word. It was due to him that I came to know about great biblical truths like ‘Knowing God’s will’ rather than ‘finding’ it. Although it is expressly written in the Bible yet has never been taught and still not taught today. Even today, believers struggle to ‘find’ God’s will, rather than 'do' God’s will which has already been revealed in the Bible in Paul and Peter’s teaching. In 2001-2002, I bought a book written by him titled, ‘Whose money is it anyway?’ which enabled me to be responsible with my money, how I use it and spend it.

All these exposure, people, truths and the Bible have helped me to tide through difficult situations. The deep and strong desire to hold true to my principles and belief, I never once touched alcohol, being a very strong witness for Christ, at my workplace, parties and outings. Though I smoked for a while, I quickly quit it. I have walked my life in integrity and honesty.

Every time, I was down and out and far away from God, my only way back was by listening to God’s word from Pastor John MacArthur on his website, ‘gty.org’. God has used him to bless my life in a considerable way. I also introduced his messages in my DBF Noida church but they would have nothing to do with him, even after Pastor announced it in the church of the availability of CD's and DVD's on rental basis. Due to their lack of love for a great man of God, his ministry and mockery of God's word taught with power backed by a life of integrity and consistency, I called it quits from the church.

Since my mom’s demise on May 03, 2012, I have once again found my dependence, strength and anchor in His word. From the first week of May to the middle of June 2012, I went crashing through the books of Ezekiel, Jeremiah as I had never read them. I had just completed few chapters in Isaiah, when I had a desire to complete New Testament to understand God’s call for holiness. Within two weeks of the start, I finished my reading from Jude to Galatians, backward. In the month of September 2007, when I met with an accident and was unable to walk due to injury, I used the time, divinely given to me, to study the Pentateuch, which I had never read. It was then that I realized the importance of these first five books in building faith.

To call Christians to live a holy life, pleasing to God, I had written an article titled, ‘Demand to be Holy: Bible’s Perspective, Part I and II’. To express my thoughts and to bring awareness for the falsehood practiced by false teachers and Christians in the church, I have written an article titled, ‘False Teachers Exposed’.

I have come a long way and have come a hard way. In all, I have been zealous for Christ, His word. I have zealously guarded His word and defended it. My writings are posted on my blog, http://isaacmani.blogspot.in/.