Ravi Zacharias The Answer to a question That Broke The Internet Best of Ravi Zacharias.You can reflect on Ravi’s life as well by leaving your tributes at RZIM.org where you can also make a donation to advance their ongoing work. #TRENDING #RaviZacharias
Ravi Zacharias has left this world for his heavenly home. Yet his powerful influence will remain with us, and he will long be remembered by believers around the world who have followed his teaching and ministry over many years. Most well-known as a wise and godly Christian apologist, Zacharias was also the author of more than 30 books, founder of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, an international evangelist, and host of radio programs, all focused on sharing the light and love of Jesus Christ with a broken world.
Born in India on March 26, 1946, Ravi grew up as an atheist until age 17 when he attempted suicide. After that event, while at a hospital, a Christian worker shared a Bible with his mother and encouraged her to read to him from John 14. Zacharias said later that the verse John 14:19 touched him deeply, "Because I live, you also will live.” He shared, "This may be my only hope: A new way of living. Life as defined by the Author of Life." He committed his life to Christ praying, "Jesus if You are the one who gives life as it is meant to be, I want it. Please get me out of this hospital bed well, and I promise I will leave no stone unturned in my pursuit of truth.” And for 48 years, Reverend Zacharias did just that, sharing the hope of Christ wherever he went.
In March 2020, he announced he’d been diagnosed with a rare and aggressive cancer. Though he pursued treatment and chemotherapy, his condition progressively, and sadly, worsened. Ravi returned home to Atlanta, GA where he was surrounded by his loving family in his final days. Zacharias Davis, shared these words about her Dad’s powerful life, love, and ministry, “It was his Savior, Jesus Christ, that my dad always wanted most to talk about. Even in his final days, until he lacked the energy and breath to speak, he turned every conversation to Jesus and what the Lord had done. He perpetually marveled that God took a seventeen-year-old skeptic, defeated in hopelessness and unbelief, and called him into a life of glorious hope and belief in the truth of Scripture—a message he would carry across the globe for 48 years… Today my beautiful father is more alive than he has even been. We thank God for him and recommit our lives to sharing this truth with all who will hear, until He calls us to our eternal home.”
RZIM honors Ravi’s influential life with these thoughts, “Ravi’s heart was people. His passion and life’s work centered on helping people understand the beauty of the gospel message of salvation. Our prayer is that, at his passing, more people will come to know the saving grace found in Jesus through Ravi’s legacy and the global team at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.”
1. “Love is a commitment that will be tested in the most vulnerable areas of spirituality, a commitment that will force you to make some very difficult choices. It is a commitment that demands that you deal with your lust, your greed, your pride, your power, your desire to control, your temper, your patience, and every area of temptation that the Bible clearly talks about. It demands the quality of commitment that Jesus demonstrates in His relationship to us.”
–I, Isaac, Take Thee, Rebekah: Moving from Romance to Lasting Love
2. “Yes, if truth is not undergirded by love, it makes the possessor of that truth obnoxious and the truth repulsive.”
3. “Love is hard work. It is the hardest work I know of, work from which you are never entitled to take a vacation.”
On God’s Purpose and Calling
4. “But the greatest dream of all is to know God and to know what he has intended for your life.”
–The Grand Weaver: How God Shapes Us Through the Events of Our Lives
5. “The world was made for the body. The body was made for the soul. And the soul was made for God.”
–Why Jesus?: Rediscovering His Truth in an Age of Mass Marketed Spirituality
7. “A calling is simply God’s shaping of your burden and beckoning you to your service to him in the place and pursuit of his choosing.” 6. “There is no greater discovery than seeing God as the author of your destiny.”
– The Grand Weaver: How God Shapes Us Through the Events of Our Lives
On Truth and Seeking Christ
8. “We have a right to believe whatever we want, but not everything we believe is right."
9. “Often we are not aware of how close we are to that which we need but we think we do not have. In His grace, God has placed some hidden gold somewhere in all of us that meets our need at a desperate moment.”
– Walking from East to West: God in the Shadows
10. “Truth by definition excludes.”
11. “Respect for the right of another to be wrong does not mean that the wrong is right.”
12. “My goal is to satisfy the hunger and longing for those who are seeking the truth.”
13. “The truth is that whenever a fence is removed, it’s wise to ask why it was put there in the first place.”
– Sense and Sensuality: Jesus Talks to Oscar Wilde on the Pursuit of Pleasure
14. “When you come to religion, you come to a place. When you come to Jesus Christ, you come to a person.”
On Prayer and Christianity
15. “I think the reason we sometimes have the false sense that God is so far away is because that is where we have put him. We have kept him at a distance, and then when we are in need and call on him in prayer, we wonder where he is. He is exactly where we left him.”
- Has Christianity Failed You?
16. “It is important to understand that it is a prayer life that builds character that honors God,”
– I, Isaac, Take Thee, Rebekah: Moving from Romance to Lasting Love
17. “Only through repentance and faith in Christ can anyone be saved. No religious activity will be sufficient, only true faith in Jesus Christ alone.”
On Struggles and Pain
18. “So do not fear the struggle; rather, embrace it. Embrace it in the knowledge that the Grand Weaver will take all of your struggles, questions, disappointments, and fears and use them to build your faith and increasingly make you into a man or woman who looks like Jesus Christ.”
- The Grand Weaver: How God Shapes Us Through the Events of Our Lives
19. “I thank the Lord that, even though things were so wrong in my life here, I finally was brought to the realization of what all those struggles were about. There are some wonderful things from your painful past, things with a beauty you may not have realized at the time.”
- Walking from East to West: God in the Shadows
20. “You'll never get to a person's soul until you understand their hurts.”
21. “The world is larger and more beautiful than my little struggle.”
– Recapture the Wonder
Quotes On Faith
22. “What I believe in my heart must make sense in my mind.”
23. “Faith is a thing of the mind. If you do not believe that God is in control and has formed you for a purpose, then you will flounder on the high seas of purposelessness, drowning in the currents and drifting further into nothingness.”
- The Grand Weaver: How God Shapes Us Through the Events of Our Lives
24. “The Christian faith, simply stated, reminds us that our fundamental problem is not moral; rather, our fundamental problem is spiritual. It is not just that we are immoral, but that a moral life alone cannot bridge what separates us from God. Herein lies the cardinal difference between the moralizing religions and Jesus' offer to us. Jesus does not offer to make bad people good but to make dead people alive.”
Quotes On Life
25. “I am absolutely convinced that meaninglessness does not come from being weary of pain; meaninglessness comes from being weary of pleasure. And that is why we find ourselves emptied of meaning with our pantries still full.”
27. “I remember the time an older man asked me when I was young, "Do you know what you are doing now?" I thought it was some kind of trick question. "Tell me," I said. "You are building your memories," he replied, "so make them good ones.”
28. “You can only learn so much from books. You can only learn so much from education. Ultimately, it is the wisdom of God that will carry you through in the toughest situations of life.”
29. “God trained Moses in a palace to use him in a desert. He trained Joseph in a desert to use him in a palace.”
– The Grand Weaver: How God Shapes Us Through the Events of Our Lives
30. “Goodness can endure a few moments; holiness is life-defining.”
31. “Beginning well is a momentary thing; finishing well is a lifelong thing.”
Ever wondered what exactly it means or how exactly you would go about spending time with God?
I came across this article from
the River Church of the South Bay that gives one of the best blueprints
for spending time with God. What better time than with the START of a
NEW YEAR to commit to prayer and study of God’s word. HERE is a great
aid that helps just about anyone accomplish this task. Even Jesus had
quiet time in prayer with God- “Very
early in the morning, while it was till dark, Jesus got up, left the
house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed” Mark 1:35 and how much more do we – “Man cannot live on bread alone but on every word that God speaks” Matthew 4:4
Topics addressed (with biblical references) are-
Why we need quiet time with God-
We need nourishment from God’s word to grow.
We need to hear from God daily.
We need to draw close to God.
We need the Word which is our best defense against sin.
We need to be corrected when we sin.
We need encouragement and comfort.
What is involved in quiet time?
Bible reading
Prayer time
Journaling and bible note-taking
Then there are some great tips for a meaningful quiet time and then the steps to actually facilitate this quiet time.
Other articles (that can be extemely helpful to new believers too) on the same website include
How to Pray
Types of Prayer
There are many kinds of prayer,
but all of them can be classified into one or more of the following
categories. The popular ACTS formula (Adoration, Confession,
Thanksgiving, Supplication) for praying, continues to be effective for
people of all ages and levels of spirituality.
Adoration and Praise
God is to be praised before we
present our next list of wants. And far too many of us have forgotten
how to praise God – if we ever really knew how. The lack of praise in
prayer is to be pitied. We must learn to praise God if we intend to
pray to God. For starters, study the Psalms and take notes on how much
David and the other writers praised God. Pray these sections of Psalms yourself. Begin with Psalm 19. (See also Psalm 25:1-15; 27:1-6; 31:1-8; 33:12-22; 34:1-10; 42:1-11, 44:1-8; 46:1-11; 50:1-23, etc.) As David said, “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord” (Psalm 150:6). Also, many of God’s statements of what He has done can be restated into a praise offering.
Confession
Unconfessed sin builds barriers between us and God (Psalm 66:18). It rots our spirits and dries up our hearts (Psalm 32:3). We need to confess everything to God and confess to others only what is appropriate and helpful (James 5:16). We do not need to confess every sin specifically to every person. But we must learn to confess our sins.ThanksgivingAs you remember, Paul’s advice for Christians was, “Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thessalonians 5:17).
This was not a multiple choice test. We cannot pick just one of these
three areas for the week. We are to live joyfully, prayerfully,
thankfully daily. How long will God continue to answer our prayers if
we never thank Him for the ones He has already granted? Don’t be afraid
of giving God the “big-head”. He is not some ethereal ego who craves
our verbal affirmation. He wants us to be thankful people. We need to
be thankful people more than He needs to be a thanked God.Supplication and PetitionThis
is usually the favorite and most fully developed part of our prayers.
God is not offended by our petitions when we have balanced them with
other ingredients. He wants to answer our requests. He also wants us
to pray for the needs of others through intercessory prayer, more than
we do. When we pray, we must get on our knees for the needs of others.
Our requests must go beyond “God bless me and my mate, and our two children, us four and no more.” Most importantly, God wants us to see prayer as a means of building a relationship with Him not just getting things from Him.
Conditions for Effective PrayerGod has promised repeatedly to answer our prayers (Matthew 7:7,8). He is willing; His word is on the line. He is also capable of granting our requests. He knows what we need (Matthew 6;7,8) and He knows how to give good gifts (Matthew 79-11). But God is not a“cosmic cellboy”
or a “heavenly vending machine,” as Malcolm Nygren said, “A God who
filled the prayer orders of people whose wills were not His won would be
no God at all.” James reminded his readers that they had often asked
and received not (James 4:3). What are some of the conditions God has given us?
BELIEVE
If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.” (Matthew 21:22)But
what are we to believe? That we have needs? That we need help? We
must truly believe in God – His authenticity and authority. We must
also believe God is able to answer our prayers. (Mark 11:24; James 1:6,7).
RIGHT MOTIVES
“When you ask, you
do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend
what you get on your own pleasures.” (James 4:3)We
can ask for the right things and still be refused if we have the wrong
motives or purposes in mind. Before we pray, we must pause to check our
purposes. Are we living for self or others?
IN JESUS’ NAME
“You may ask for anything in my name and I will do it.” (John 14:13,14)This concept has been greatly misunderstood. We are to do more than tack on the phrase, “In Jesus’ name,”
on the end of our prayers. We are to approach God with the conscious
realization that we do so by the authority and power of Jesus Christ.
In Christ and as a result of our faith in Christ, and Christ alone, we
approach God with “freedom and confidence” (Ephesians 3:12; Colossians 1:19,20).ACCORDING TO HIS WILL“If we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.” (1John 5:14)We
can tell God our deepest personal needs and feelings and finally ask
Him for specific requests. But we must always pray that His will be
done, as did Jesus (Matthew 26:39, 42, 44).
God is pleased to grant us His will. We need to be just as pleased
when He does. We should pray for what Jesus would pray for if we could
hear Him pray.
WHAT SHOULD I PRAY FOR?
Daily Needs – Matthew 6:11
Forgiveness – Matthew 6:12
For Help in Temptation – Matthew 6:13;26;41; II Peter 2:9
For Our Enemies – Matthew 5:44
For Worker in the Kingdom – Matthew 9:38
For God’s will to be done – Matthew 6:10; 26:39
The Praise of God – Matthew 6:9
For Spiritual Leaders – II Thessalonians 3:1
For Earthly Rulers – I Timothy 2:1,2
For Wisdom – James 1:5
For the Sick – James 5:14
For God to Protect His Name and Honor – Daniel 9:19
For Strength in Crises – Hebrews 4:16
For Spiritual Maturity – Ephesians 1:16-20; 3:14-21
Philippians 1:9-11; Colossians 1:9-1
Another list by Nancy Guthrie posted online at the Gospel Coalition:
To put God’s glory on display (John 9:3)
To make the life of Jesus evident (2 Cor. 4:10-11)
To live out genuine faith (1 Peter 1:6-7)
To cause us to depend on him more fully (2 Cor. 1:8-9)
To reveal hidden sin or keep us from sin (2 Cor. 12:7)
To experience that Christ is enough (2 Cor. 12:9)
To discipline us for holiness (Hebrews 12:10-11)
To equip us to comfort others (1 Cor. 1:3)
To make us spiritually mature (James 1:2-5)
To make us fruitful (John 15:2)
To shape us into Christ’s likeness (Romans 8:29)
To share in the suffering of Christ (Philippians 3:10)
English:
Ravi Zacharias signing books at the Future of Truth conference (2004)
at Moody Memorial Church in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
p
John Piper (theologian) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
English: Ravi Zacharias signing books at the Future of Truth conference (2004) at Moody Memorial Church in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Cover of E.M. Bounds (Men of Faith)
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