On Palm Sunday, the crowds became extremely excited when they saw Jesus riding toward Jerusalem on the foal of a donkey, for this was a sign of kingship!  They, of course, were thinking of the restoration of David’s kingdom here on earth.  Imagine their disappointment when this earthly kingdom did not materialize! 

How disappointed are you when someone says and acts like they’re going to do something and they don’t do it?  Are you disappointed because you misunderstood what they meant, circumstances prevented them from being able to accomplish the task, or you believe that the person never intended to do it in the first place? 

Our own selfish motives can get in the way in such circumstances as we become hardened and unforgiving of the one who has disappointed us.  How often do we do this with God when we think that He hasn’t answered our prayers? 

In Isaiah, we’re told that God’s ways are not our ways.  If we honestly look at this concept, we have to realize that we can’t possibly know the outcomes of the situations for which we are praying, only God does!  It’s the same as parents being asked by their children for something that they know their children can’t handle.  God does the same for us.  He won’t give us something we can’t handle even though we think we can.  Then, of course, we’re disappointed because we really do want what we’re asking for. 

True maturity is realizing that simply wanting something and getting it is not the end all of life.  Otherwise, we become mundane collectors, and we’re never satisfied because we can never collect enough.  Once we’ve obtained one object of our desire, we begin craving another in a never-ending series or until we become bored to death with it all.

We can only begin to be truly satisfied when we take our eyes off of ourselves and find usefulness in what we desire.  When our intention is to serve others, then there is a certain challenge and when we see others’ happiness because of our service to them, we receive the true satisfaction and fulfillment that cannot be achieved by any other means.

So, the next time you’re complaining to God that He did not answer your prayers, pause, take a deep breath, and think about why you want what you’re asking for.  How will it be useful to others?  When you answer that question, you’ll clarify your true motivation for your prayers, and the rest is up to God.

Blessings,
Chaplain Bob

Readings – Psalm 36:5-12; 37:1-24

Our perception of life is that about 90% of what happens to us is caused by uncontrollable external factors and that we are only in control of about 10% of our life’s circumstances. We are however, 100% in charge of how we will react to life’s circumstances and thereby we can actually control about 90% of our life’s circumstances simply by our attitude. We’ve all noticed the person who goes through life seemingly unscathed by any of the bad things going on around him. Seemingly nothing fazes him and everything seems to fall into place for him. What’s his secret?  Then there’s the guy who’s always running into life headlong, like he’s the hammer and every problem is a nail that needs to be pounded in.

How we view life’s happenings and let them affect us is 100% on us. We can accept what is happening to us as a life challenge from God for the sake of our personal spiritual growth and excitedly look forward to accomplishing the task for which we’ve been chosen, or we can look at it from the selfish point of view as something that’s been put in our way to block us from accomplishing our end without any thought at all about God’s end.

When we face life’s challenges we should focus on the anticipation of a good outcome, rather than with anxiety and trepidation that it will be detrimental to us. After all, as we have read in the Psalms, God only wants what is best for us. We can allow our selfish desires to get in the way of God’s good outcome for us. Sometimes He wants us to burn the midnight oil and work extra hard to achieve the goal, but usually when this happens we are willing participants because it involves our life purpose, and we readily put in the long hours because it is something we love doing and we don’t even notice the time that it’s taking up.

We can better accomplish God’s goals for us if we keep the dwelling place of our mind clear and free of rubbish, and not cluttered with the mundane interests of this world. Instead, we need to furnish it with love for the neighbor and the ways of doing good to all. In this way we show respect for all of God’s creation and, from these resources of the Divine Being, we glean inner strength and peace in a world that can appear to be chaotic.

From our inmost dwelling place and by means of this inner strength, we can listen to the still small voice from within and receive the necessary guidance that will direct us on our personal spiritual pathway of God’s will for us–His plan for our complete joy and satisfaction. He knows that our way of thinking needs to be changed to accomplish His plan, and to this end He brings the necessary challenges into our lives with which we must contend in order to turn our way of thinking around so that we see that 90% of what we feel and think controls our circumstances, and only about 10% of the things of this world can affect our life’s purpose. This last 10% we need to give over to God for “His ways are not Our ways”.

To live a life that is free from contention and anxiety, we must have faith in God’s purposes and His universal plan for what is good.

By Nancy Byrd Turner
This is the birthday of our land;
May all her days be in God’s hand.

May all her ways between the seas
Be ways of quietness and peace.

May her good flag shine high and bright,
And all the nations trust its light.

For peace and blessing may she stand,
America our Land!

Blessings on this Independence Day of the United States of America!

The Rev. Chaplain Bob

Monday, June 21, 2010

7:30 am

behind Butterflies Healthy Food
4019 Skippack Pike
Skippack, PA 19474

(No charge; free will donations accepted)

The summer solstice is the longest day of the year. On this day, we have more hours of sunlight than on any other. Join us on the morning of this year’s Summer Solstice as we celebrate the light and ask God for a good growing season and a bountiful harvest.

Celebrants: The Rev. Robert C. (Chaplain Bob) Kern, Director of First Light Chapel
and other interfaith ministers from Circle of Miracles

Suggested Readings:

Exodus 24:9-11; 33:7-9, 11

Isaiah 6:1-3

Daniel 10:4-6

Revelation 1:12-16

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How do you picture your God?

How do you relate with your God?

What does your God mean to you?

The suggested readings include several depictions of God in the Bible. Each vision is highly symbolic and an entire essay could be written on just the symbolism of each vision.

But what is your personal vision of God? How do you picture the Deity? The ancient civilizations depicted the many aspects of the one God in many forms both male and female, for after all, God encompasses both the feminine and masculine.

We read in the Gospel of John: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1)

This is God’s masculine nature, the Divine Truth. And we beheld Him as the only begotten from the Father in the form of Jesus the Christ, God’s masculine form.

But what about God’s feminine form? In Genesis, we read: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void. And darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was brooding over the faces of the waters.” (Genesis 1:1-2) The Hebrew wording here has in it the idea of a mother hen brooding over her eggs, the feminine aspect of God the creative, sustaining and nurturing aspect which we find pictured in mythology as a goddess. In our modern day American society, we’ve completely forsaken this aspect of our God.

God’s revelation, the masculine aspect of God, is complete. If you are looking for God, you can find the True Source in the written and spoken word of all of the world’s great religions and mythologies.

The visions we read about in the Old Testament Christian Bible are of a stern masculine God judging the nation of Israel by which is symbolized all people who follow God’s Laws.

The masculine God rules over us as a king when we obey His laws. We feel the feminine aspect of God loving us as a mother when we are serving one another in love and goodwill.

The fundamental issue here is God’s love for us and our reception of it. How we receive this Love is how we picture God in our minds and relate to God in our hearts.

God looks at us from our life’s potential, which the Divine intimately knows. This is our inmost desire that drives us and this is what God focuses on in us. From this aspect, God is like a parent who knows what is good for his child and is willing to deny the child a toy that will not further what the parent knows is in the child’s best interest. This demonstrates true love for the child. The child pleads for and even demands that the parent should give her the desire of her heart but the wise parent denies her it. So the child is disappointed and even angry at what she perceives in her mind to be a bad parent. So you see, it is the part of a wise compassionate God to deny us those things that will get in the way of our eternal well-being and blessedness.

How we picture our God when we pray reveals how we truly view the deity. In the Bible and in myth, the names used signify the essential quality of the characters depicted. God’s name in Hebrew is “Yehovah”. It means “I will be who I will be” or “I am He who is”. Jeshua, the older form of the Hebrew name “Joshua” and in the Greek “Yesus”, means “Yehovah rescues”. In Parsee, Ahura Mazda means “All Wise Father”. In Lakota Sioux, Gitohe Manito means Great Spirit.

How do you picture God and by what name do you call upon your deity?

The fact that merely using the Lord’s Name is of no avail, such as uttering it as though it had some magical quality, is clearly stated by the Christ in Matthew: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, didn’t we prophecy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Get away from me you evildoers!’” (Matt. 7:21-23) So when we hear one of God’s names – Jesus, Immanuel, El Shaddai, Alah, Christ, Ahura Mazda, Ancient of Days, Great Spirit, Jehovah – it has little effect on us unless we thereby think of the deity’s essential nature, aspect, or quality and strive to allow our God to assimilate that quality into our lives. It is in this way that we show that honor and gratitude that a creature ought to show to one’s Creator.

Let us pray:

Heavenly Father, Giver of all good gifts and graces, Who has promised that where two or three are gathered together in Your Name, You will be in the midst of them. In Your Name, we assemble and meet together most humbly beseeching You to guide us in Your paths of Righteousness for Your Name’s sake that we may know and serve You aright, and that all our doings may tend toward Your Glory and the salvation of our souls. In Your Most Holy Name, we pray. Amen.

Blessings,

The Reverend “Chaplain” Bob

A covenant is an agreement or contract between one or more people. It is one’s word or promise to do something. We read in the Bible of several important contracts that God has made with us. The first one I want to discuss is found in the ninth chapter of Genesis where God establishes the sign of the rainbow as His promise with us that never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.

Water symbolizes purity and what is true. But destroying water, such as a flood, symbolizes what is evil and false. So when we look deeper into the symbolic meaning of this story we see that God is saying never again will He allow people to fall to such a point that the evil can overpower the good. This is the reason He later came to earth in the form of Jesus the Christ.

Next let’s look at the Ten Commandments, which are called the Covenant. The concept of a covenant here is that God’s commands are contracts between Him and His people. His people are those who obey His commands. By obeying His commands, a covenant is kept between us and God. This is verified in Exodus, chapter 34, where the Lord says, “I am making a covenant with you. Before all your people I will do wonders never before done in any nation in all the world. The people you live among will see how awesome is the work that I, YeHoVaH, will do for you. Obey what I command you to do today.” (Exodus 34:10) God’s side of the contract is to show us how we are to live our lives by showing us His Laws. Our side of the contract is to obey and live by those commands that He shows us.

Lastly, I want to cover what Christ, Who is God incarnate, commanded and what His covenant is with us, as stated in the New Testament Gospels. The Father is Christ’s soul and His inmost being. This is why Jesus is able to say that He and the Father are one and that He who has seen him has also seen the Father (John 14:6-7). In John, chapter 15, He says, “My command is this, love each other as I have loved you. No one can have any greater love than this: that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, because everything that I learned from my Father I have also made known to you. You did not choose me, however, I have chosen you and assigned you to go and bring forth fruit – fruit that will last forever. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask for in my name. This is my command to you: love each other.” (John 15:12-17) Christ’s, God Incarnate’s, covenant with us is to love each other.

In Matthew chapter 7, He also gives us the Golden Rule; “…do unto others as you would have them do to you…” to which is added that “this is the Law and the Prophets”. (Matt. 7:12) This is repeated in Matthew chapter 22: “then one of them, a lawyer, tested him asking, ‘Teacher, which command in the Law is the greatest?’ Jesus answered, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and soul. This is the first and greatest command and the second is like it: love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commands hang all the Law and the Prophets.’” (Matt.22:35-40)

What is the Law and the Prophets? They are the entire Word of God wherein He tells us to love each other as God loves us.

So these are the important points I want you to take away from this:

· God’s covenant is a contract between Himself and those who choose to obey His commands. His part of the contract is to show us the laws He wants us to live by and our part of the contract is to live by those commands He has shown us.

· His yoke is easy and His burden is light because His Covenant with us is simply to live by the Golden Rule, practicing charity to one’s neighbor, for this, boiled down, is the entire Word of God!

Blessings,
Chaplain Bob

A young man from a wealthy family was about to graduate from high school. It was the custom in that affluent neighborhood for the parents to give the graduate an automobile. Bill and his father had spent months looking at cars, and the week before graduation, they found the perfect car. On the eve of his graduation, his father handed him a gift-wrapped Bible. Bill was so angry that he threw the Bible down and stormed out of the house. He and his father never saw each other again.

It was the news of his father’s death that brought Bill home again decades later. As he sat one night going through his father’s possessions that he was to inherit, he come across the Bible his father had given him. He brushed away the dust and opened it to find a cashier’s check, dated the day of his graduation – in the exact amount of the car they had chosen together.

This is a true story that was in the “Dear Abbey” column of the newspaper.

How many people in this world have done the same thing to God? Literally tossed aside a wonderful promise because they didn’t understand it, or they didn’t believe that it was possible. In our world, we are taught that, “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” So many of us have been taken in by “empty promises,” that we are wary of anything that the crowd around us tells us is too good to be true.

But, you know what? That’s exactly what God does! He makes a promise to us that sounds too good to be true and tells us to have faith and believe it! God has never made a promise that was too good to be true. The truth of the matter is that the world is full of empty promises. We watch TV, and the advertisements tell us that we can be happy, sexy, rich, or famous, if we only purchase a certain product. It doesn’t take long before we have been fooled enough to know that the world’s promises are full of emptiness. But God is different. Instead of promises full of emptiness, on Easter He gave us an emptiness that is full of promise.

This morning, I would like us to think about the promises of Easter, such as an empty tomb and empty grave clothes. It is the very fact that these things were empty that assures us that God’s promises are real. The Son of God couldn’t be contained by the tomb or burial clothes. Because of this we can be sure of the fullness of His promises in our lives.

Let’s go back, if we can, to that first Easter morning. It is early morning – dawn – but the sun has not risen yet. Two of Jesus’ followers – women – are on their way to a tomb. It is the tomb where Jesus was buried.

The tomb has a large stone placed in front of it. It is a very large boulder – probably weighing upwards of two tons. Not only that, the Romans have sealed it, so no one was allowed to move it without their permission.

As they approach the burial site, they are still wondering about what had happened, when they come upon something even more remarkable:

· The soldiers are all unconscious.

· The stone has been moved.

· An angel – glowing like lightning – is sitting on it.

Jesus had risen – He was live – the tomb was empty. And what a tremendous promise that holds.

For, in the fact of the empty tomb is the truth of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the promise to every one of us that we, too, will be raised to eternal life.

Death is not something to be feared. It is a rite of passage into a wonderful existence free of sickness, pain and suffering.

Jesus, the son of God, God Incarnate, lives, the Angel Said; “He is risen.” And the promise to us is that we also continue to live even though the body dies. This is the promise of Easter.

Blessings,

Chaplain Bob

Reading: Matthew 5:3-12

What is it to be blessed by God?  What are God’s true blessings? Is it an easy life with no challenges, easy money with lots of cash flow and lots of worldly possessions?  Or is it peace of mind and soul, with innermost peace enveloping body and spirit?

Christ asks us in Mark, What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, but lose his soul? (Mark 8:36).  So what exactly is it to be blessed by the Lord?  The following passages from the Psalms give us some insight into this matter and echo some of the statements made in today’s reading. 

From Psalm 1, Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, or stand in the way of sinners, or sit in the seat of mockers.  But his delight is in the law of the Lord and on His law he meditates day and night.  He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields fruit in its season and whose leaf does not wither.  Whatever he does prospers. (Psalm 1:1-3).

Psalm 40, Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, who does not look to the proud, or to those who turn aside to false gods. (Psalm 40:4).

Psalm 62, One thing God has spoken, two things I have heard: that You, O God, are strong and loving.  Surely You will reward each person according to what he has done. (Psalm 62:11,12).

Psalm 119, Blessed are they whose ways are blameless, who walk according to the Law of the Lord. Blessed are they who keep His statutes and seek Him with all their heart. They do nothing wrong, they walk in His ways. (Psalm 119:1-3).

Psalm 133, Behold how good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity; for there the Lord bestows His blessing, even life forevermore. (Psalm 133:1,3). 

All of these passages are basically telling us what we already know in our heart of hearts.  They are stating plainly how we are to live lives of good will and concern for our neighbor’s welfare as well as acknowledging God as the Creator of all and our personal Savior.

Blessings,

Chaplain Bob

God’s Divine Providence brings things into our lives to confront us that we may hone ourselves spiritually if we so desire. Because of our free will, we attract to us either positive or negative thought processes that influence the way we react to our life circumstances. God only allows those circumstances into our lives that will not overpower us spiritually. He is constantly striving to keep us from descending to the depths of our most vile being. If we concentrate on our own egocentric universe, the things we attract in life tend to be self indulgent and mundane. However, if we keep our thoughts focused on the genuine God-centric universe, we see how God allows life to challenge us in order to strengthen our resolve toward our spiritual advancement.

In an egocentric universe, we tend toward allowing life circumstances to effect us inordinately. We give worldly events much more weight and meaning than they truly deserve. This tends to make us nothing more than pawns reacting to our circumstances instead of being in control by letting God guide us through them. Our false ego would have us believe and gives us the feeling that we cannot be truly satisfied unless we obtain the object of our desire. However, if we keep our thoughts focused on the fact that God is in control, we might be able to take our eyes off of the perceived importance we’ve given to our own strivings toward accomplishing our over inflated goals and let go, especially if our strivings seem to be getting us nowhere. At times such as these, when we are feeling completely deflated and frustrated, we need to take a deep breath, step back and reconsider our situation and the importance we’ve placed upon it.

When we experience such times as these in our lives, we need to remember that God sees all pathways leading to every possible outcome. We do not have this ability, nor are we even in the least way capable of approaching the threshold of comprehending how the One True Being can know all of the billions of possible outcomes based on our free will choices. Yet He ensures that all things work toward good ends and that evil will not overpower the good. 

We need to remember these things, as did the psalmist did in psalms 37 and 39, when we feel that things are not going our way. During these times, we need to have faith in our God and let go of our short-sighted strivings and listen and watch for God’s Will to be done. He alone knows what will truly make us happy and give us full satisfaction.

Blessings,

Chaplain Bob

He was born into darkness because this was the spiritual state of the people at that time. He came to give Light to the world, which is why He is called “The Dayspring from on High.” It was the fulfillment of a long foretold prophecy of a miraculous birth depicted in myth and legend as well as sacred scripture throughout the world – the birth of a baby born to a virgin in the still of the night and laid in an animals’ feeding trough. Then a vision of angels appeared to shepherds in the nearby fields terrifying them. The message they received was so startling and at the same time of such earth shaking joy that they left their flocks and went into the small town of Bethlehem to search for the proof of this long foretold event.

In the far off land of Babylon, Magi of a certain religious order, who were well-versed in reading the signs of the heavens, suddenly saw a star appear announcing the birth of a Savior. Several weeks later, they embarked on an arduous journey arriving in Jerusalem many months later. It was such a special event to these Wise Men that they brought expensive gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, symbolic of the change in humanity’s spirituality that was about to take place. Others were so fearful of the event that they ordered all of the male children two years of age and younger to be slain to try to avoid losing their worldly power.

Strange happenings indeed! This event so changed the world that 2,000 years later we are still celebrating these happenings. During this season when we celebrate such unique events, let us reflect on these things that we may, as did Mary, ponder them in our heart of hearts and glorify God in the highest as the angels did on that still dark night so long ago.

Blessings,
Chaplain Bob