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By Rev. K. Sharath Bhushan, INDIA
For three generations my family has been Christian. The course of our family history was changed after we embraced Christianity.
We originally came from the downtrodden classes of Hindu society in India. Our people were deprived of many things. Fifty or sixty years ago, they were not allowed to walk or spit on the streets or roads where the high caste people lived. If they walked there, they had to erase their footprints. They tied palm branches behind them so as they walked their footprints were erased. To avoid spitting on the ground, they hung mud cups around their necks so they could spit in them.
When the gospel came to our area, our people were the first to accept it. Because 90% of the downtrodden people embraced Christianity, it is identified as the religion of the low caste people.
My grandfather was the first man in the family to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. He served all his life as a minister of God. His son, my father, became a professor. Father held a master’s and a professor’s degree and taught English in a college. He later entered the ministry and served the Lord. He established a large orphanage and many churches in India . That is how the life history of these downtrodden people changed after they embraced the gospel of Jesus Christ.
My parents brought me up in strict Christian discipline during my childhood. The first words I learned from my grandmother were a prayer. When I was three years old I asked my grandmother if God would give me a piece of chalk if I asked Him. (I was fond of writing with chalk.) She assured me that God would definitely give it to me. One night I prayed to God for chalk and went to bed. When I woke up the next morning I went into the living room and there was a piece of chalk on the table. I don’t know how it came to be there, but I was delighted. I praise God for that experience early in life; I have never forgotten it.
As a child I longed to serve the Lord. I began by bringing children to the Sunday School. I loved the Word of God and memorized a lot of Scripture. When I was about 10 years of age, I wrote out verses from the Bible in red ink and pasted them on the streets and on the trees. I wanted people to see them, read them and be blessed. Though I was doing all these good things, I did not yet have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
During my high school years I was influenced by the world and I was away from the things of the Lord. I went along with my friends and did not seriously think about God. It was at this time that I became friends with a pastor and he introduced me to the salvation experience.
I was still in my teens when I attended a gospel crusade and listened to the preaching of the Word of God. Some of the verses I had memorized now took on a new meaning. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him” (John 3:16-17). “If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved”(Rom. 10:9). The Word convicted my heart and I realized that I needed to confess Jesus Christ as my Lord.
When the preacher asked those who wanted to take Christ as Lord to come forward, I stood up and went to the altar. I prayed to God asking Him to forgive my sin and to cleanse me by His blood. I invited Him to come into my life and be my Savior and my Lord. Nothing dramatic happened but I had the confirmation in my heart that I was now a child of God. I could sense the presence of the Lord with me. I immediately started preaching the Word of God. When the people saw me, a small teenage boy, preaching, they were astonished.
I began my college studies soon after. While in college, I kept a Scripture book in my pocket and I used to read it and meditate on the Word. I began to see God’s blessing and prosperity in my life and my education just as He promised. (The Lord told Joshua to meditate on His Word and do all it commands, then he would prosper and be successful. See Josh. 1:8.)
When I was studying for my master’s degree, I told the people that I would be the first in my class at the university that year.
“No Christian has ever been first in this subject before,” they replied. I was first that year! That was the blessing of the Lord because I meditated on His Word.
My professors asked me to do a doctorate in History, but I felt I should go into the ministry as my father had passed away rather early in life. I, the eldest, was just 16 years of age when he died. I chose to attend Union Biblical Seminary where I got my Bachelor of Divinity degree.
My widowed mother was entrusted with the ministry in the orphanage that my father had started. She is still doing that work. Even though we were orphaned, my six brothers and sisters and I never lacked anything. Through the kindness of the organization that my father worked with, all seven of us received a good education and work in our respective professions. We are very thankful to the Lord; He is faithful. He fulfilled the promise, “I have never seen the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging bread” (Psa. 37:25).
After Bible College I took my father’s church, but when it was cared for by another organization, I started my own ministry. My burden is to reach out to people who are in spiritual darkness. My motto is: “Piercing the darkness with the light of the gospel.” The Bible says, “The entrance of your words gives light” (Psa. 119:130). This is what I preach to the people: “Jesus is the only way to enter into eternal life. So your righteousnesses are not anything. They do not count. Just believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.”
I am the founder and president of Gospel Fellowship of India and its 25 associated churches. Our outreach includes a Bible college, a children’s home, a literature ministry and crusades and seminars.
God has blessed me with a wonderful wife, who is a teacher in a government school, and three young sons. A surprise blessing has been overseas travel. God has opened the way for me to preach in America and in the Arabian Gulf countries. Coming from a poor village in India, it is a big thing for me to go to other countries. But we serve a great God and everything is possible with Him. He surely does bless the righteous!
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