Shalom Aleichem...
Reflections is a weekly Christian Teaching Ministry. Each week we will talk about the Bible and lessons we can put to use in our daily life. We will try to, on a weekly basis, provide to you stories, thoughts, and just easy ways to live your life on a straight path.
THIS WEEK'S TEACHING....November 9, 2020
God is meant to be the source of our comfort, the source of our strength in adversity or trouble. Is God your comforter in all things or have you built yourself your own comfort zone? Hope in God The Source of all comfort
We continue in our series on Hope Found Here and this week, our focus is on Hope in the Comforter.
Read the words of 2 Corinthians 1:3-7...
All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort. He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us. For the more we suffer for Christ, the more God will shower us with His comfort through Christ. Even when we are weighed down with troubles, it is for your comfort and salvation! For when we ourselves are comforted, we will certainly comfort you. Then you can patiently endure the same things we suffer. We are confident that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in the comfort God gives us.
God is meant to be the source of our comfort, the source of our strength in adversity or trouble. Is God your comforter in all things or have you built yourself your own comfort zone?
A comfort zone, an invisible barrier that make you feel safe and secure. All of us have our comfort zones. Some of us surround ourselves with them. Some of us live in them. Some of us visit them. And some of us have learned to ignore our comfort zones and trust God to be our comforter, our strength, our refuge in every circumstance.
When we get used to something, or when we have done something in a particular way for a while, or when we just don’t want something to change, those are times when we can find ourselves in a comfort zone of our own design.
We develop comfort zones to help us feel secure, we develop comfort zones when we do not want the way we do things to change. Sometimes we are so scared of what might, we retreat further into our own comfort zone.
Someone once said that the only people who like change are babies with dirty diapers!!
If we are honest with ourselves, it’s easier for us to keep doing the same things - over and over and over again - than it is for us to allow change in our lives!
Even when it is God’s will that change should happen in our lives - or when it is God’s will that change what should happen in the life of our church, we choose the comfortable option, the safe option. Have you ever done that?
Have you ever chosen the “safe” option? The option that says, I know God is bigger than this, I know God has said that all things are possible to those who believe, I know God is a God of miracles, BUT...
just in case this situation is bigger than God,
just in case I don’t have enough faith,
just in case God has stopped working miracles, I am going to stay in my comfort zone and take the option that seems to be the safest.
Do you ever find yourself settling for second best? Do you ever find yourself choosing the easy option?
What is it that stops you living and serving as God want you to live? I struggled many years ago when God put it on my heart to go into ministry full time. And when He additionally called me into Chaplancy. I fought God but He won...as He always does:)
So often we settle for something easy and routine instead of striving for the best of what God wants to give us.
We have been called to trust God, we have been called to follow Him, we have been told that He has promised in whatever circumstance we find ourselves that He will never leave us or forsake us, yet we find ourselves fenced in by our own boundaries, we hide ourselves, we trap ourselves, we convince ourselves that we feel safe in our comfort zone.
In our comfort zone, we can choose to ignore God, we can hide ourselves so deep we ignore His voice, or worse we get to the point where we believe that we are trapped in our comfort zone and that there is no escape from a prison we have created.
Have you put walls around your comfort zone? Have you put a fence around the wall, so even if you try to escape your comfort zone there are additional barriers which prevent you from heading in the direction God is calling you to take?
Has your comfort zone become a prison? Is it the fear of the unknown that keeps you trapped inside your comfort zone? To be free from what has imprisoned you, you need to trust God and open the door.
Then you can escape from your comfort zone and allow the God of Comfort to work fully in your life, to bring you into a place of freedom and release.
God has a perfect plan and purpose for your life, but you need to choose to step out of your comfort zone, to leave the prison you have created, to leave behind the things that bind you and cage you, to come into the place where you allow the Holy Spirit to fully work in you and through you.
Folks, we need to leave behind the prisons of fear, failure, responsibility, routine, assumptions and guilt. We need to leave our comfort zones and step into the life of Hope, of blessed assurance, that God has called us to live.
Where is your comfort zone? Where are you this day?
I want you to look at your own spiritual life and where you are in your spiritual walk right now.
Are you stuck in your comfort zone or are you stepping out in faith? Are you missing out on the blessings and the abundant life that Jesus promised because you refuse to leave your comfort zone?
Throughout history God has taken people out of their comfort zones. God has proven time after time that He is able and that He is willing. God has guided people on the paths He has made for them. God has guided and enabled people to do what He has called them to do. All it has taken is a step of faith.
A step of faith that has led to blessing.
A step of faith that has led to changed lives.
A step of faith that has made the impossible possible.
A step of faith that has brought glory to God.
A step of faith that leaves the comfort zone behind.
Do you ever take things for granted? So often we can take things for granted.
If you can remember back to April or May of this year and you would come into C4 on Saturday or Sunday and sit down. You probably took for granted that the chairs would be there. You probably never think about who puts the chairs out - you just take for granted that it will happen.
When you stand up to sing, you took for granted that your voice would work.
What I am saying is....We take things for granted.
Things like the earth orbiting the sun.God placed our planet in just the right position so that life can continue, we do not freeze and we do not burn. Every second of the day God keeps the orbit of our planet JUST right! We take it for granted. How often do we even think about it?
Or Gravity. Do you ever go to bed at night worried that gravity will stop working?
Do you strap yourself into your bed just in case when you wake up your ceiling has become the floor?
Of course not, we take it for granted each and every day. So let me ask this question, “Why is it that that we can trust God to take care of these HUGE things in our universe, but we cannot seem to trust God in the little things within our lives?
So often we take for granted the wonderful and exciting things in our lives. God is at work - yet we ignore the fact that God is at work. God is operating right in front of our faces! God is doing things vital to our lives. God is at work in us, in our families, in our church, in our community.
Family, some of us are so busy in our comfort zones, we do not see what He is doing. Some of us are so happy in our comfort zones,we do not want to see what He is doing. Why? Because we know He wants us to be part of what He is doing but we do not want to be interrupted in our comfort zones.
When are you going to leave your comfort zone?
Is God calling you to step out of your comfort zone?
Is God asking you to do greater things for Him?
Are you allowing the Holy Spirit to work in your life?
Are you hiding and complaining that you aren’t qualified or that you are NOT the man or woman for the job?
What reason or excuse have you come up with in the hope that God will give up and leave you in your comfort zone?
Here is a theological definition of a spiritual comfort zone:
A spiritual comfort zone is a state of spiritual behavior within which a believer seeks to live out their Christian life without the presence of any spiritual anxiety or conflict. They adopt a spiritually neutral condition by limiting their spiritual behavior to deliver a nondescript level of performance, usually without any sense of spiritual adventure!
A sad description isn’t it. A sad description, but true of many Christians and many churches in the twenty-first century.
Comfort Zone Christianity. Spiritual mediocrity that wallows in self. Going through the motions of serving God without any risk or sense of purpose or adventure!
‘Comfort zone’ Christians never experience the abundant life that Christ has promised. ‘Comfort zone’ Christians never fulfill what Jesus promised in John 14 - the promise of doing great things as believers!.
“I tell you the truth, anyone who believes in me will do the same works I have done, and even greater works, because I am going to be with the Father. You can ask for anything in my name, and I will do it, so that the Son can bring glory to the Father. Yes, ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it!"
“If you love me, obey my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you. He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth. The world cannot receive him, because it isn’t looking for him and doesn’t recognize him. But you know him, because he lives with you now and later will be in you.
Far too often we overlook these verses and don’t take it to heart. Jesus is saying what is expected of believers that follow Him. Maybe you have read this part of the Bible many times, maybe you have asked yourself the question “How can I do greater things than Jesus?” The simple answer is, you need to get out of your comfort zone.
Does doing ‘greater’ things than Jesus sound dangerous? Does it sound scary? Does it sound like something you are willing to do?
Jesus cleared the temple. Jesus held the religious leaders of His day accountable for their actions. Jesus looked beyond boundaries and reached out to those who society rejected. Jesus was willing to touch and be touched by those with terrible diseases. Jesus reached out to all that society had said were unworthy of God’s love.
When all hope was gone Jesus worked miracles. Jesus had courage in the face of adversity. Jesus was able to influence those around Him. Are you willing to have a “Jesus Like” influence on the world around you?
Are you willing to step out of your comfort zone so that through Him,through the empowerment of the Spirit, you are able to do great things for His kingdom?
Jesus knew that those who would trust Him, would spread the Gospel further into the world. That there would be others who would be used to speak the words of truth and life around the whole world.
There is hope found here. In His own words, Jesus says to those who trust Him, to those who follow Him, to those who obey God, to those who allow the Advocate, the comforter, the Holy Spirit, to work in them and through them, great things are going to happen!
As I close, let me ask you, this week, will you step out of your comfort zone?
Step out in faith and serve our almighty, all powerful, all knowing God whose boundaries are limitless.
Don’t let your Christian life, your life as a disciple of Jesus, be limited by your comfort zone. Allow the presence and influence of the Holy Spirit in your life to help you live by faith. Step out of your comfort zone and allow the Holy Spirit to lead you in the will of God. Submit to the leadership of the Holy Spirit in your daily life.
We are called by God out of darkness into the light and life of His salvation for a purpose, that purpose is to seek and do the will of God. Step out of your comfort zone and walk by faith and not by sight Take a step of faith, step out of your Comfort Zone.
Let God be your Comforter and The Source of all your hope and your comfort. I love you all:)
DID YOU EVER WONDER???
Eternal Springs
By FAITH T. FITZGERALD, MD
This is a tale of presumption, which I tell so the young can hear what older doctors know: that the human spirit will always find a way to astonish. It is, for the most part, a true story.
He was a retired union leader, tough and blunt and charming. She was bright, small, agile. Both were golfers, and when he retired he built his wife her dream home in a golfing community near Sacramento. She was 80 and he was 84 when my story starts.
They'd been married over 60 years and were one person: they moved together with practiced grace, sharing dozens of small physical gestures of endearment. He called her "the Boss." She called him "He," as if there were no other men. I learned early in our 15 years together to see them both at once, no matter who had the appointment, for they answered for each other better than they did for themselves.
"How are you doing?" I'd ask her. "She's getting clumsy," he'd say. "Any problems with you?" I'd ask him. "He's going deaf," she'd reply.
If I called their home, they'd both be on the speakerphone, each telling me their concerns about the other. He'd had a childhood osteomyelitis that left him with a limp; he also had asthma and had had a coronary bypass at age 76. She'd had some arthritis. But they were mostly robust, golfing every day.
Then her game got worse—and worse. Her left hand grew weak, her speech soft and slurred. She began to fall. Her animated face stilled, became masklike— except for her frightened eyes. Within a year of her first symptoms, she was in a wheelchair. Her body stiffened and was racked by cramps, which he would try to massage away through endless painful nights. Swallowing became deranged, and she was repeatedly hospitalized for pneumonias.
Her neurologist was not sure but guessed she had an odd form of Parkinson disease. Multiple therapies gave no pause to her inexorable decline, and we finally resorted to botulinum toxin injections when she ripped her hip from its socket in one great spasmodic contraction of the muscles of her upper leg.
Each time she was admitted, her husband came in with her. He sat and slept in a big chair by her bed, never leaving her side. He fed her, bathed her, turned her, talked to her. The busy nurses loved him for his love of her and nonintrusive helpfulness to them. When I told him how much the staff admired him, he was nonplussed: "Isn't this what husbands are supposed to do?" he asked.
He modified their house for her: ramps, grab bars, stair lift, bed sling. And when even this was not enough, he reluctantly persuaded her to leave the home they had built together ("Just until you're better," he told her—and she, seeing his despair, pretended to believe him). They moved into a single story house near their granddaughter, who checked on them each day. Home nurses visited, did what they could. Yet he still himself would lift her, bathe her, help her to the toilet. Often now they fell together, each taking the other down. His arthritis worsened, and his heart began to fail. Over his prideful protest that he could take care of his own wife, the family hired a full-time live-in helper, a strong Tongan woman.
She was deeply sympathetic, as sometimes is the gift of those themselves oppressed. She was the sole parent of a 6-year-old girl, and finding a job that allowed them to stay together had been hard. However, the old couple welcomed the active child, who brought joy to them both with her radiant vivacity and affection. Still, the old man continued to lift and turn his wife at night, though the live-in helper slept near them. "The helper needed her sleep," he said. He refused hospice when the nurse told him that he'd have to promise not to rush his wife to the hospital in an emergency, but call the hospice nurse instead. Neither he nor his wife wanted to be in the ICU or to have CPR, but he'd too often seen her pulled back from the brink by intravenous antibiotics and pulmonary toilet in hospital to surrender these options yet.
The call finally came as I knew it must: She looked bad, he said. Should we get the paramedics? "If you want to," I told him, "or you can wait for me; I'll come now."
"It's hard to know what's right," he said.
"Yes, it is. Call your family. I'll be right there."
"It's really bad this time," he said, and hung up. I drove like a fury, but when I arrived, the ambulance, siren screaming, was pulling away. He and his granddaughter were in the driveway.
"She had trouble breathing," he said, "so I called 911. I thought maybe they could just give her some oxygen here, but they said they couldn't do that, that they had to take her to the nearest hospital." He and his granddaughter got into her car to follow the ambulance.
I had no privileges at the hospital to which she'd been taken, but the triage nurse knew me from a lecture I had given and let me into the emergency room to see my patient. She'd had massive aspiration, was febrile, pale, and obtunded. The pulmonologist was an older man who—once he'd heard the story and spoken to the family—readily agreed to palliative care and antibiotics only.
She died 3 days later, her husband holding her hand. Although there were many family with him in that hospital room, at that moment he was truly alone: it was in his face as he stroked her hair. I knew then that he would die soon, and that it would not be his heart but his aloneness that would kill him. Half of him—her—was already dead. For 60 years the other half had been, above all other things, her husband, her protector. It was his role in life, and it lay dead with her. What was left?
A week after the funeral I phoned him. "How are you?" I asked, and was unexpectedly startled to hear his voice reply—not hers, as had always been the case before.
"Okay," he said.
"Just okay?" I asked.
"Well . . . my arthritis is better." No surprise. He no longer lifted her.
"Good."
"And the swelling in my ankles is gone."
"Fine."
"My breathing's better, too." His heart was being less stressed by exertion now.
"Doctor?" he said.
"Yes?"
"Do you think I could try that Viagra that everybody's talking about?" I was stunned.
"Viagra?"
"Yeah. Will my heart take it?" I thought perhaps he was confusing Viagra with some new anti-inflammatory.
"Viagra—you want it for . . . ?"
"What else? Performance! You know . . . it's been a long time, what with the Boss so sick and all. Now a lady's asked me out to dinner, and I don't want to embarrass myself." "Do I know this lady?"
"Don't think you ever met her. She came up to me at the Boss's funeral. The Boss and I used to play golf with her and her husband a long time ago. She told me she'd decided way back then that if her David died—he keeled over last year—and the Boss died, that she'd come after me." He laughed. "Isn't that something?"
"That's something!" I said. Then I just had to ask, "How old is this lady?"
"About my age," he said.
I prescribed the Viagra. A week later, I called again. He answered.
"How are you doing?" I asked.
An unfamiliar female voice came loudly over the speakerphone: "Great!" she said. "He's doing great!"
BOOKS OF THE BIBLE...A TEACHING
We continue this week with our look at the religions of the world...Hinduism: Beliefs and Practices
As mentioned last week, Hindu practice involves the worship of a vast multitude of deities. Worship consists primarily of prayers (usually chanted) and praise songs, plus offerings of food, milk, or money placed in front of a statue or idol of the god being worshiped. Worship, both corporate and individual, may take place in a temple. Some temples are dedicated to one god while others contain statues representing a number of gods. Most Hindu homes have shrines as well, with pictures or smaller statues to represent the gods chosen for worship by that family. No one attempts to worship all 330 million gods; people choose a few that are important to a person’s family, caste, occupation, or circumstances.
Hinduism has an elaborate hierarchical structure for both gods and humans. At the top are Brahma, the Creator (different from Brahman, ultimate reality); Shiva, the Destroyer (also the god of fertility); and Vishnu, the Preserver. These three together are called the Trimurti, which some Hindus believe represents three facets of Brahman and thus sometimes mistakenly equate with the Christian Trinity.
The statues that represent these and the other gods and goddesses are usually in somewhat human form, but there are exceptions. The popular Ganesh, god of business and prosperity, is depicted as having the head of an elephant on a human body. Hanuman has the body and face of a monkey. Most gods have wives or consorts, and some of these goddesses have become popular enough to have their own temples and devotees. Lakshmi, goddess of wealth and good fortune, is the spouse of Vishnu. Kali, consort of Shiva, is usually depicted wearing a necklace of human skulls. The city of Calcutta (literally, Kali khat) is named after her.
Vishnu is a god of benevolence and love, who is believed to sometimes appear on earth to help people. Since long before video games, the cyber world, and the cinema made it a household word, avatar was the term used for these appearances in various forms. Krishna, mentioned in the Bhagavad Gita, is believed to be one of Vishnu’s avatars. Among Hindus, Gautama, who became the Buddha, also is thought to be an avatar of Vishnu. According to Hindu legend, Vishnu has appeared nine times already and will appear once more, riding on a white horse, when he comes to judge the world.
For humans, the hierarchy is called caste. Everyone is born into a family that belongs to one, and they remain in this caste their entire lives. It is believed that karma (from deeds done in the previous life) determines one’s caste in the present life. There are several thousand castes based on occupation, but they are grouped into four major categories. The Brahmins, the priests, are the highest and smallest caste.
Kshatriyas are rulers and warriors. The Vaishyas are merchants and landowner farmers. The Shudras are laborers, subdivided into many categories of work. And, at the very bottom, below the four main categories, are the Dalits, traditionally called Untouchables for being so ritually unclean that even their shadow falling on a high-caste person causes defilement. Dalits are often physically unclean as well, since they have to do the dirtiest jobs and usually are denied access to community wells. Marrying someone from a different caste is still quite rare in India.
In theory, the Hindu goal is to achieve moksha and escape reincarnation, but most Hindus, except some Brahmins, have no hope of that and think more in terms of how to be reborn into a higher caste. One does this by reducing or eliminating karma by following the dharma for one’s caste. Dharma, often translated as “duty,” defines what is expected of each caste. A common statement is “It is a king’s dharma to rule and it is a stone’s dharma to be hard.” Central to the dharma for lower castes is that they serve the upper castes without envy. Trying to improve one’s position in life is denying dharma and results in amassing even more bad karma. Plainly this system is a major barrier to social change and improvement and is very controversial in contemporary India.
Although most Hindus only pray to their gods about daily needs and desires, some practice prayer devotedly and work hard to progress toward moksha. Hinduism offers multiple paths by which this progress may be obtained. By far the most common is devotion to a particular god; the most popular gods are Shiva and Krishna. Those who devote themselves to one deity believe that particular god encompasses all facets of Brahman, and through sincere worship this god may be inclined to help the worshiper achieve release from reincarnation. Another path is asceticism, an attempt at detachment from all worldly desires. In India, it’s still common to see sadhus, or holy men, wandering the streets and roads, clothed in a simple cloth, carrying only a begging bowl for food. A third path is meditation. This is more often associated with Buddhism, yet some Hindus focus on the inner self to find oneness with Brahman. The fourth path, quite rare today, is animal sacrifice. This method is a remnant holdover from the ancient religion of the Aryan invaders.
One Hindu doctrine is ahimsa, meaning “non-injury to life.” This is the reason most Hindus are vegetarian. In the animal hierarchy, the cow is at the top, so even those who don’t keep a strict vegetarian diet usually avoid beef. For the higher castes, even touching leather brings defilement; the handling of animal carcasses is left to the Dalits.
A Hindu man owns a number of the Burger King franchises in Minnesota. When asked how he could run businesses that consume beef, he replied, “Religion has its dharma, and business has its dharma.”
HAVE A SAFE AND BLESSED WEEK:)
Ho'omaikaʻi ka Pua iā kākou