Bloom where you are planted. (Talk 1)

[Rev. Joe Joseph]

There are 3 people in the bible who bloomed where they were planted.

• Abraham
• Jonah
• Joseph

We can bloom and grow in our lives by using the following 3 'p's.

1. Personality: The part and parcel of a person (his talent and his capability). Each one of us is created in the image of God. Hence we should love our personality.
2. Purpose: The objective of ones life on Earth. Pray for understanding this purpose, and not misinterpret it.
3. Potentials: God has given each one of us potential to bloom and to grow. Every person is given a unique potential. We should not ape the person next to us.

To bloom to our full capacity, we should dissect our past, to direct our future. Some of the emotional turmoils that we face are:

• lack of confidence.
• unsatisfying relationship.
• chaos and turmoil.
• sob stories.
• unwilling to take risks.

We need to overcome the negative messages that have prevented getting the best out of our lives. For example, a drunkard's son can

1. deconstruct his childhood by deciding not to drink.
2. reconstruct his life by doing the same thing as his father.

Joseph was victimised by his brothers. But when he meets them he reassures them that he is not going to hurt them, cos all that had happened, was God's purpose. (Genesis 50). He could've reconstructed his childhood agony by crying over all the things that happened to him. Instead he chose to deconstruct and understand God's purpose in his life.

A couple of women.

1. Hannah [1 Samuel 1:1-28]: (A woman who believed in prayer)
   
   She opened her heart to God in prayer, because she believed that only God can understand her pain.
   
   Sometimes a person is tested to the very roots of his being. It is like some power which is trying to extinguish his very life. This is exactly what Hannah must've gone through. Her reaction to this was to turn to God for help. She believed that God is capable of miracles.
   
   She was the first person to address God as "O Lord Almighty". Her prayer wasn't a general prayer of kindness to me and all around me. It was definite prayer. She promised to use her wish (a son) for glorifying God (she agreed to give him back to God for His work).
   
   Her grief was to the extent that her tongue failed to move. Eli who saw her move her mouth without hearing anything, called her a drunk. But when he gets to know what she was going on through, he blesses her.
   
   The result of her prayers is "Samuel" (heard of God). He grew up as a man of prayer too and got back a lot of people to God.
   
   Four highlights from the life of Hannah are
   
   1. She realised the greatness of her God.
   2. She wanted to glorify God.
   3. She understood she was nothing in front of God.
   4. She put forth her needs completely in the presence of God.
   
   


2. Mary Magdalene:
   
   Jesus meets her in the place of Magdalene and frees her of the demons that possessed her. She follows Him with gratitude.
   
   In Mark and Luke, we see that she followed Jesus from the time she met him, till the time of his resurrection. She sat by his tomb. She left the tomb only to come back with perfumes to adorn Him. As a result of her following Jesus closely, He appeared to her first, over Peter or John.
   
   She gave herself to Jesus with complete gratitude. Jesus gave back the blessing of being the first person to see Him after ressurection.

The second coming.

Revelation 21: 1-7 and Matthew 24:13

In the nicene creed, there are two instances that talk about the future.

1. We believe in Jesus, the God who is going to come back.
2. We believe in eternal life when God comes back.

Who is the person who is coming again? The Lord, the Messiah and the Son of Man.The old testament talks about the Messiah. We believe that Jesus is the Messiah, butthe Jews didn't believe in the same. Hence it lead to the crucification of Jesus.
Romans 11:26 talks about the Messiah.Mark 13 talks about the second coming.Matthew 24 says that the time when God comes again is unexpected. He is asking us tobe prepared.

The second coming will have the follow results.

1. Releasing the bounded: Earth is a bounded place and the sky is a boundlessplace. When He comes again, the earth and sky will cease to exist. This means thatthe bounded and the boundless will unite. This could also mean that our boundedthoughts will be unbound and we will all be freed from temptations.
2. No pain: It will be a time when tears will cease to exist. Tears aremostly associated with pain. No tears implies no pain.
3. Eternal life: Life and death will cease to exist. Only eternal lifewill exists. Time wont be held back, i.e., there will be no days and nights.

We will see the full glory of God. Since the creation of the world, people have moved away from God. Jesus came downto prevent the people from destroying themselves.

• The fight today should not be against fellow people. It should be against the evilforces.
• We should not step down on a man already in the well of sin. Instead we should standrooted on the ground and provide a hand to pull the man out of the well of sin.
• It is not the time when suffering ceases to exist. Instead, it is the time whensuffering will be transformed into joy.

A person who prays continuously for the second coming of Jesus, but doesn't follow His wish,will be punished. Our duty is to fulfil the work given to us. Instead we go into thefantasy world of tomorrow.
Always remember, our resurrected God was surely capable of coming back without the nailmarks. But He came to make us understand the reality and pain of the crucification.

Boundaries Jesus crossed.

[Rev. Sham P Thomas]

Jesus is an eternal boundary breaker. First by his incarnation and then by his ministry of preference for sinners rather than for the righteous.The boundaries that Jesus broken are (in John 4)

1. Geographical: (John 4:3-4) He always used to the less traveled path. Samaria was not a short cut. But he just had to go. (This is mentioned in the following verses from John: 3:14, 9:4, 10:16, 12:34, 20:9 and 4:20,24.) He came not only for the people of Israel but also to the people marginalised and despised. (Mark 7:24-30)
2. Racial: (John 4:4-6) Jews didn't come in contact with Samaritans, whereas Jesus came to a Samaritan woman for water.
3. Social: Jesus gave alternative narrations. He crossed boundaries through stories. He gave a story about Samaritans as models of faith and carriers of faith. Jesus brought out alternative actions. He touched and ate with the untouchables. Finally Jesus made himself vulnerable in front of an untouchable by allowing an untouchable to touch him. He lived with the untouchables for two days.
4. Gender: (John 4:27) The disciples were surprised to see Jesus talking to an woman. She was an exploited woman. She was married 5 times (may be divorced each time) and a man is now imposing himself on her without a named relationship. This Samaritan woman became a successful apostle. She brought the entire village to Jesus. She is placed above the Jew (Nicodemus) who came to Jesus in the dark.
5. Religious: (John 4:20-26) The Samaritan woman wanted to know the right place for worship. Jesus tells her that there is no such place. (In Rev 21-22, we see that there is no temple in Heaven.)

Jesus was not a rebel, He was a revolutionary. Our society tolerates a rebel, but not a revolutionary. His revolution was to move from religion to spirituality.

There were risk involved for Jesus by crossing these boundaries. He was called a Samaritan (John 8:48). The irony being "The one who crossed the boundaries was crucified outside the boundary".

Crossing boundaries.

[Rev. Valsan Tambu]

1. Rootedness is a pre-requisite for crossing boundaries. This is a lot different from the drifting of wood. Crossing boundaries doesn't mean geographical displacement. A mustard seed takes root and grows. It then throws its seeds to all four corners of the world. *This* is crossing boundaries. This is possible only because it maintains its roots.
2. Our personality matters to God. He knows each one of us by name. The fundamental need for knowing a person is Love. This is the reason why God knows us. Since God wants to know us, he is ready to cross all boundaries.
3. Jesus came into this world to help us know God and to love Him. Knowledge is love (not power). Power says "understanding others in my terms, even if it means misunderstanding them". Crossing boundaries because of love results in understanding and knowing others. This doesn't occur without love.
4. Crossing boundaries is not recklessness, rebelliousness or non-conformity.

Boundaries can prevent us from being with people or things. Jesus crossed a lot of boundaries in His life in this world.

• One of them is when He touches the leper to heal him. The leper was able to cross the boundary because Jesus decided to cross it first.
• Just before Jesus is arrested, He takes his disciples to Caesarea Phillipi to ask them a couple of questions. He took them outside the boundary of their comfort zone. As long as a person is in his comfort zone, he wont seek. As long as you stay put, you wont find answers.
• Jesus cross from one side of the river to another during a storm. We need to cross over to others in a similar way. The others may be known or unknown.
  In both cases we will face turbulences.

In the parable of the prodigal son, the prodigal son crosses boundary twice.

1. He leaves home and goes out into the country (journey of rebelliousness).
2. He leaves the country and gets back home (journey of reconcile).

One of the earliest examples of crossing the boundaries is by the eating of the forbidden fruit. Eve gave up the whole to get a part.

The hardest boundary to cross is hard-heartedness. The pharaoh in the book of Exodus can be considered as both a person and a symbol. In the physical sense, the Israelites are the slaves. But in the spiritual sense, pharaoh is the slave. A slave of his hard-heartedness and is a slave of himself.

Some points mentioned by achen during the message

• You can touch nothing without changing it. Even if you touch a glass, you will leave behind a fingerprint.
• Stereotypes are the most formidable barriers we have to overcome.
• Misunderstanding may not always be created out of wickedness. It can rise out of very good intentions. These misunderstanding are the problem.
• Everything is life is a complete, there is no half. There is no such thing as a half breath. It can be a shallow or deep breath. There is no such thing as a half leap. All leaps are full. They are either short or long. Spiritual blindness makes you consider the part as a whole. Jesus says healing is a state of fullness. This implies that disease is an entrapment of partness.
• By saying "I am the way", Jesus implied that spirituality is a journey that needs to be traveled.
• God says "Behold I send you as sheep among wolves". Here "sheep" indicates sacrificial love while "wolves" indicate power.
• "If I had lived 2000 years ago, I'd have washed the feet of the Nazareth, not with tears, but with the blood of my heart". - Swami Vivekananda
• There are two kinds of people in this world. One who work for peace and second who destroy peace. The only two people who worked for peace are Jesus and Buddha. The only difference between them being that Buddha didn't have to pay for his work for peace.
• When you fail to understand the worth of others, it indicates that you suffer from low self worth. This is the worst epidemic in this world.
• If any one uses you, you should understand that they don't know your worth.
• Any one who uses fear as his weapon, has no other intention but to exploit you.

The prophet Jonah.

I am not a very spiritual person. I believe in my God Lord Jesus Christ, pray to Him and talk (:)) to Him constantly. That's where my spirituality ends. I've been pushed into the church's youth league related activities lately. This has taken me to a lot of camps :) and I've met quite a few spiritual people and youngsters who know the Bible much better than me.

In one of the camps (SouthZone held in ECC during May 2006), the speakers (Rev. Dr. Sham P Thomas and Rev. Dr. Valsan Thambu) spoke about the prophet Jonah and I felt, here is one man in the Bible I can relate to as a person. :)

I'd like to make a record of what I took home from those two talks. So here goes.

******

The specialty of the book of Jonah is that, it is not an account of the prophecies of Jonah. Instead it is his story.

Some of his characters that stand out are

• Disobedience: God asked him to go to Nineveh. He instead buys a ticket on a ship to Spain, which lies in the exactly opposite direction of Nineveh.
• Insensitive: A man who is running away from God, ends up on a ship in turbulent weather. Instead of praying to his God (or all possible gods), he sleeps. While the sailors are praying to their respective Gods.
• Stone-hearted: When Jonah asks the sailors to throw him into the sea, they think of reasons to not do such a thing to a fellow human. But, when God decides to not destroy Nineveh, Jonah is angry with God for going back on His decision to punish Nineveh.
• No confession: He prays and thanks God from inside the whale's belly, but he doesn't once say "I'm sorry for not obeying you.". Come to think of it, I don't know if he ever repented.
• Attitude: God gets him safely out of the storm and the whale. He finally agrees to go and warn Nineveh. But the message he gives them is "You'll perish in 40 days". Why is this going to happen? What do they have to do to prevent this from happening? He mentions nothing in this regard. Also, it'd require atleast a couple of days to traverse the city of Nineveh, but Jonah completes it in just 1 day.
• Anger: Jonah is furious because God forgave the people of Nineveh when they repented. The only explanation for this behavior of his is EGO. He prophesised their destruction which was rendered false.
• Suicidal: His one solution to all problems. Caught in the storm - Throw me overboard. God forgives Nineveh - he is upset and wants to die. God tries to teach him a lesson using a vine - he is angry enough to die when the vine withers.

A couple of positive characters in Jonah are

• Conviction: Jonah is swallowed by the whale. He prays to God from the whale's belly and thanks God for saving him, much before God shows any signs of delivering him.
• Knows his God: He knows that his God is a merciful God. The very reason why he refused to go to Nineveh when God first asks him to go, is because he knows that God will forgive them if they repent.

God's characters that are highlighted are

• Omnipotent: He controls the wind, sea, whale and plants.
• Forgiving: He forgave Jonah and Nineveh. He gave both of them a second chance.
• Answers prayers: He answered the prayers of the sailors, Jonah and the people of Nineveh.

Jonah can be compared to the elder son in the prodigal son.

• Elder son resents the party thrown by the father for his brother who returns. Similarly, Jonah is resentful of the fact that God forgave Nineveh.
• Story of Prodigal son does not tell us what the elder son did. Did he join the feast? Did he choose to stay out? Similarly, the book of Jonah leaves the story open. Did Jonah repent? Did he continue to run away from God?

Irony: The prophet who was sent out to preach repentance, refuses to repent.

Bottom Line: God forgave the people of Nineveh inspite of the prophet, not because him.