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/.
