28th February 2020: Fasting - Reflection by Bro. Lalith Perera (CRL)

First Reading (Isaiah 58: 1-9)

“For day after day they seek me out; they seem eager to know my ways, as if they were a nation that does what is right and has not forsaken the commands of its God.”

God is saying, it seems like your religious acts are really good, and that you are actually seeking me.  When in fact, you are only focused on yourselves.  

For generations we seek God because of our own self-centered needs.  God is saying that all our religious acts are about us and not about God.  There is a blindness that we need to examine our hearts and see if our spirituality is focused only on ourselves.  

As we begin Lent, we are called to examine our spirituality.

“Why have we fasted,” they say, “and you have not seen it? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you have not noticed? 
'Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please and exploit all your workers.  Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife, and in striking each other with wicked fists.”

God says you are doing external acts, but your heart remains unchanged.  Your spirituality must involve others.  

“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to lose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter - when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?”

This is the additional dimension to fasting and prayer; be concerned about other people.  Today, focus on your own family.  We are most brutal, callous and neglectful to the people in our own families.  We take them for granted.  We are kind and nice to those we work with, but brutal to those we live with.  Fast of your words and your needs, to care and listen to others in your family.  Often older people become irrelevant, lose value or worth.  Many don’t want to hear the old people.  Loving them is to hear as they repeat their stories as though you are hearing them for the 1st time.  

“Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard”.

When you are right with God you will have a breakthrough.  Everything will fall into place.  When you are not right with God, you have to run after things.  Things come together when you become right with Him.

Gospel (Matthew 9:14-15)

“How is it that we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?'  Jesus answered, 'How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast.”

When we go through a crisis, naturally we seek God.  In the heart of the crisis when we have an encounter with God, that crisis becomes a blessing from God.  Jesus says, if you find the Bridegroom as a result of seeking Him in the crisis that crisis becomes a wedding feast, a reason for celebration.  Every crisis is a waiting opportunity to meet the Bridegroom.

Sometimes the very people who helped us in our spiritual journey could be the very people who hurt us, abandon us, cause injustice to us.  That is part of community life.  But when that happens, we withdraw.  We fail to see it is an invitation to encounter the Bridegroom.  Unfortunately, many educated people don’t see this.

In John 16:32 Jesus says all of you will abandon me, but I will not be alone because my Father is with me.  When Jesus went to Gethsemane, he was restless.  He took His 3 best friends to be with Him, and to support Him.  Jesus prayed, worked out His inner struggle with the Father, came to His friends to find them asleep.  He fell from within.  He went back into prayer, worked it out with the Father, came back to the friends and fell again within Himself when He saw them asleep.  The third time He had broken into the heart of God, and He was ready.  He told the disciples “the hour has come”.

Today we are given three challenges;
1. Fast
2. Focus on family members
3. Meet the Bridegroom in the struggles and challenges

27th February 2020: Choice and Human Freedom – Reflection by Bro. Lalith Perera (CRL)

The Law of the Farm teaches us that success comes in daily effort and in discipline.  You nurture and wait for the growing process to complete.  Today we use shortcuts: we use chemicals to quicken the growth process, so that the investment is returned quick.  As a result, we pay the price with our health.

Spirituality has also been facing the same problem.  When look for ways to get favors from God without sacrifice  or having to face the challenges of walking with God.  The Law of the Farm applies to spirituality as well.  Pain-free, sacrifice-free spirituality in the end will have a price to pay.

Lent begins with choice and human freedom.  God has a faculty that He has only shared with human beings  It is called the freedom of choice.  Using the freedom of choice, we can either soar and develop into God’s image or go down to the level of animals.

Fist reading (Deuteronomy 30: 15-20) 

“Choose life and prosperity or death and destruction”

Anyone in the right mind would say we would choose life and prosperity.  The Law of the Farm applies here as well; there are no shortcuts to choose life and prosperity. 

“Love the Lord your God, walk in obedience to Him and keep His commands, decrees and laws.  Then you will increase, and the Lord your God will bless you in the Land you enter to possess”.

It looks very logical; obey God and He will bless you.  The question is, why don’t we do it?  That is the complicated problem of our lives.

 “But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, bow down to other Gods and worship them, you will CERTAINLY be destroyed”.

Other Gods are like the God of money, before whose alter people sacrifice all their values.  If you worship at the alters of Other Gods, you will certainly be destroyed. 

“This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live”.

Choose Life so that you and your children will live.  Sounds logical.  No shortcuts.  It’s the Law of the Farm.  

Building a regular spiritual life is the Law of the Farm.  You have to do it daily.  Praying, reading the scriptures, sitting at the feet of the Lord on a daily basis is building the foundation to a beautiful, blessed life.  If you cut this short, “I love God loves me” and live as you please, while God is loving you, you will live in a hell that you have created.  Bitter, angry, quarrelling, because the foundation has not been built.

Gospel (Luke 9:22-25)

“The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life”. 

We want to short circuit this and come to the third day straight.  There were two days before that; the Son of man must suffer, go through rejection and must die.  The Law of the Farm.  The seed has to be planted in the soil and die.  You have to do fruitless things; you sacrifice without any fruit.  Its called discipline, living the right way.  But you do it.  If you don’t have such a depth, your spirituality wont last. 

“If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross DAILY and follow me”.

Go against your nature on a daily basis.  If you do that you open yourself to a mighty blessing from God.  Many people don’t like this dimension of Christianity.  We like the blessing, but we don’t like to pay the price.  We want someone else to pay the price.  That’s what we do with the Saints; they have paid the price and we ask for blessings.  Every Saint is a model for us of how to pay the price.

 “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.”

If you go against your broken nature, if you fight your flesh, it is a death experience.  It is so hard.  But if you die there, you will find this beautiful life off God.  If you last the time that the breaking is harder, you will find peace, freedom, joy and you feel good.  Your inner-being develops. 

What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self?

In the end you will die and loose everything.  If you loose your morality doing what you like, you will pay even after death.  There is life after death.  Where you go after death depends on the choices you make now. 

Psalm 1

“Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take     or sit in the company of mockers,  but whose delight is in the law of the Lord , and who meditates on his law day and night”.

Every morning sit at the feet of the Lord.  Allow His words to get into your heart.  Before you go to sleep in the night plant that word of God in your heart.  It will grow unseen in your heart.  You can’t have a spiritual experience without a daily journey with God.

“That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither— whatever they do prospers”.

Build a life of God, planted on the side of the river and the blessings will follow.

The Call of Abraham that continues into our lives...

God told Abraham to leave his country, his people and go to the land He shows and that God will make him into a great nation.  

Why a great nation?  Why not wealth or long life or prosperity?   The great nation that God must have planned was a nation that would be set apart for Him, a nation that that will know Him intimately and live on earth as it is in heaven.  

The Call of Abraham continues even today, to anyone who stops to listen to the voice of God. He calls us to go to the place that He shows us where He will make us a great nation. 

When God told Abraham that He will make Abraham a great nation, I wonder if He stopped to take a good look at Abraham and Sarah; he was old, she was barren.  Either children for Abraham and Sarah were not part of God's plan, or He may have waited to bless them with children once they started the journey.  

When God says He will make us a great nation, it could be through our children or through a people He will trust us with.  The ministry He has called us to serve, is the land that He has sent us to.  The people who He trusts us with are the nation He plans to make a great nation, a people set apart for Him.

Abraham obeyed and went to the land God showed.  Next thing he knew they were facing a great famine. Abraham sees Egypt as the solution to the famine.  Yet, as they come close to Egypt an insecurity messes up Abraham's mind.  He fears for his life, that the Egyptians will kill him to take his wife, the beautiful Sarah.  Before long, he finds a solution; pretend Sarah is his sister... now, not only will his life be spared, but a possibility of a good life in Egypt!  Just as he expected, Sarah ends up in the palace of the Pharaoh!  

A man / woman chosen by God, a person on a mission for God has an advantage; the favour of God that rests upon his/her life.  The household of the greatest superpower was powerless against the favour of God upon the life of Abraham.  Soon, Sarah was returned to Abraham with an apology from the Pharaoh and peace offerings. 

The favour of God is available to us even when we mess up and lost what is most precious to us. The favour of God fights to protect what is our's.  Favour of God comes to our rescue from the point of no-return, brings us to safety and restores to us more than what we have lost. The favour of God is upon us to make us a great nation, a nation that is set apart for Him.  The favour of God will rest upon us as we walk to the land He shows us, keep us holy and pure to be the nation who worships, obeys and live our lives on earth as it is in heaven.

My Cup Overflows

King David teaches us the formula to handle any crisis; listen to the voice of the shepherd and wait for His leading. 

The Lord Jesus said; “I am the good shepherd.  My sheep hear my voice, and they follow me; they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand'.

When my world is threatened, my eyes can deceive me.  My understanding can mislead me.  My past can taint my outlook and my future can frighten me.  The Lord Jesus says if I hear His voice and follow Him I will not be destroyed.  

King David says when my Shepard is around, no matter what goes around me I will be able to rest.  He will lead me to green pastures through the crisis and He will restore my soul.  I may walk through the valley of death, but I will walk in security because He is walking beside me.

Lord, give me the grace to find rest in hearing your voice and following your leading.  Give me the wisdom to trust you more than I trust my circumstances, my weaknesses and my enemies. When I am too caught-up with myself may I hear voice clearly so that I may not perish.  Awaken my spirit Lord, so that I may see and understand your truths; that if you have a say about my life and family, my cup will ALWAYS overflow.

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures.

He leads me beside still waters.

He restores my soul.

He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil, for you are with me;

your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;

you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,

and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

"Adam, where are you?"

'Adam, where are you?' This question is charged with all the sorrow of a Father who has lost his child.

The Father knew the risk of freedom; he knew that his children could be lost… yet perhaps not even the Father could imagine so great a fall, so profound an abyss! Here, before the boundless tragedy of the Holocaust, that cries – “Where are you?” – echoes like a faint voice in an unfathomable abyss…

'Adam, who are you? I no longer recognise you.'

Who are you, o man? What have you become? Of what horror have you been capable? What made you fall to such depths? Certainly it is not the dust of the earth from which you were made. The dust of the earth is something good, the work of my hands. Certainly it is not the breath of life which I breathed into you. That breath comes from me, and it is something good.

“No, this abyss is not merely the work of your own hands, your own heart… Who corrupted you? Who disfigured you? Who led you to presume that you are the master of good and evil? Who convinced you that you were god? Not only did you torture and kill your brothers and sisters, but you sacrificed them to yourself, because you made yourself a god.

“Today, in this place, we hear once more the voice of God: “Adam, where are you?”

“From the ground there rises up a soft cry: 'Have mercy on us, O Lord!' To you, O Lord our God, belongs righteousness; but to us confusion of face and shame.

“A great evil has befallen us, such as never happened under the heavens. Now, Lord, hear our prayer, hear our plea, save us in your mercy. Save us from this horror.

“Almighty Lord, a soul in anguish cries out to you. Hear, Lord, and have mercy! We have sinned against you. You reign forever. Remember us in your mercy. Grant us the grace to be ashamed of what we men have done, to be ashamed of this massive idolatry, of having despised and destroyed our own flesh which you formed from the earth, to which you gave life with your own breath of life. Never again, Lord, never again!

“'Adam, where are you?' Here we are, Lord, shamed by what man, created in your own image and likeness, was capable of doing. Remember us in your mercy”.

(Pope Francis' reflections at the Jerusalem Memorial for victims of Holocaust)

The Eternal Flame at Yad Vashem

During his visit, the Pope signed the Yad Vashem Guest Book in Spanish.  English translation of his message:

"With shame for what man, who was created in the image of God, was able to do; with shame for the fact that man made himself the owner of evil; with shame that man made himself into God and sacrificed his brothers.

Never again!! Never again!!

Francis

5.26.2014"

My Son, The Officer, The Gentleman and The Man of God

Nine months ago when you entered OCS as an Officer Cadet, we all knew the challenges ahead of you would be greater than what they would be for others.  Over and over again, we saw you reaching out to the one who is above all when things got humanly impossible.  Over and over again we saw you rising above your circumstances in the power of God.  To me, you are the perfect example of the Eagle Christian, who rides on the wind of the Holy Spirit and reaches the peaks no one could ever reach by themselves.  The lyrics of “Up where we belong” from An Officer and a Gentleman speaks exactly of your journey through OCS, and the presence of God seeing you through it all, to this day;

Love lifts us up where we belong

Where the eagles cry

On a mountain high

Love lifts us up where we belong

Far from the world below

Up where the clear winds blow…

You know what really fills my heart?  It is your inner journey with the Lord during the last nine months, which got stronger with every passing day… listening to your JCC experience was like witnessing the Exodus of the Israelites  through the desert; when He parted the red sea, fed them with manna from heaven and quenched their thirst with water from the rock.   HE made sure you were in the company of men of God during the nine months in OCS and during JCC…  What you experienced is too good to be coincidences!!! 

I thought when you enlisted it would be my job to support you spiritually, but guess what?  You nourished me spiritually instead!!!  I watched you putting HIM first in your life, even when you came home for the weekends.  Pleasing the Lord comes naturally to you, and how I wish I was more like you.  You inspire me more than you would ever know…   Yes, we do celebrate your commissioning as an Officer of the SAF, but my real reason for celebration today is you not losing your identity as a Man of God.  I strongly believe it is because of soldiers like you that God’s hand would be upon this nation.  As I look to the future, I can only be excited about what HE has in store for you. 

So what do I say to a real man of God on a day like this?  Nothing much, except that you have taught me more than I could ever teach you…  that your faith, your trust in God really challenges me every day, that the fire in your heart for God makes me hunger to have the same fire in my heart as well… That reminds me, I do have something to say to you… please don’t change, ever… you are perfect the way you are. 

Super proud of you 2LT Subodha Perera.  Love you loads.  Stay Blessed and a Blessing.

Then I said to you, “Do not be terrified; do not be afraid of them.

The Lord your God, who is going before you, will fight for you,

as he did for you in Egypt, before your very eyes, and in the wilderness.

There you saw how the Lord your God carried you, as a father carries his son,

all the way you went until you reached this place.

(Deuteronomy 1:29 -31)

Ruth

Ruth’s family was certain, Ruth had lost her mind! There was no other explanation for her taking over that dead-end job.  No amount of reasoning, arguing could change her mind… 

She was going to leave her family, her friends, her country and move to a foreign land... to take care of her mother-in-law? Her dead husband’s mother?  A woman who has nothing to offer in return?  It is confirmed, Ruth had lost her mind!!!

Ruth knows what this is going to cost her… Naomi knows the sacrifice Ruth is about to make and discourages her, but Ruth is determined.  Ruth begs her mother-in-law; “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.”  In the midst of a thousand protests Ruth begins her journey with Naomi to Bethlehem. 

The foreign woman's story slowly reaches the ears of Boaz, a wealthy relative of Naomi.  When he offers to help, Ruth can't believe her “luck”.  Boaz explains; "I've been told all about what you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband—how you left your father and mother and your homeland and came to live with a people you did not know before.  May the Lord repay you for what you have done. May you be richly rewarded by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.”

Ruth’s life gets better when Boaz asks her hand in marriage.  They live happily ever after, but it's not THE END!!!   Ruth and Boaz have a son who they named Obed, who happens to be the Grandfather of King David. 

The young widow who put her security and comfort on the line to take care of her mother-in-law has entered the line of Jesus Himself!  She has been rewarded by the God of Israel under whose wings she had taken refuge, and her name has made it to the Holy Scriptures!!!

As I reflect more on the life of Ruth I begin to realize how self-centered and self-obsessed I am.  If I am in Ruth’s position, I am certain I would do the exact opposite…  I do not think I am capable of such a sacrifice... I do not think I will ever put my comfort and security on the line for another person... and I realise how weak, how small I am before Ruth.  As I started to look at myself in disgust, the Lord put a song into my heart and I realise I have hope... 

No not by might, nor even power

But by your Spirit O Lord

Healer of hearts, Binder of wounds

Lives that are lost restored…