Yes Anjali There is a God!

OPEN with video, “The Jesus Creed”

I was sitting the other day and reading in the Word of God and I came across a very familiar passage and I re-read it a couple of times and then took my notepad sitting beside (I would encourage you to do the same. Keep a notepad beside you when you read the word, because when you are feeding your soul and spirit from the Living Word of God, you will find many times that thoughts and questions will arise and you should write these things down.) me and jotted down a note in asterisks, that note read, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” And then upon writing this note from the passage that I had just read, I began to ask myself, how do we accomplish this. From reading this, I went on to read another completely different passage in the Old Testament and yet my mind stayed back upon the previous passage from Matthew’s gospel. So, I said to the Lord, if this is something that you want me to teach on, then let me know.

Probably within an hour or so, I had gone into the house to get ready for an appointment that I had that morning and I did something that I do so many times, I went to YouTube to listen to something while I was getting ready.

As I scanned through the list of recommended videos from where I had watched other videos (if you use YouTube, then you’ll know what I’m talking about. They make recommendations for you to watch, based upon other previous videos that you have looked at), there was one that stood to as soon as the page opened, front and center, entitled, “My failed mission to find God -- and what I found instead” by Anjali Kumar.

This particular message is one from a channel called TED Talks, which is stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design. These are short, usually no more than 18 minute videos, but informative videos done by very eloquent and inspiring speakers, both men and women who speak to inform the audience about whatever their area of expertise is. And I have watched some of these before when they have dealt with science and medical science, as you can learn from them, if you know how to objectively listen.

Anyway, this one title caught my attention and I started listening to it as I was in the bathroom getting ready. I became so locked in, that I stopped and listened to her message and was almost late to my appointment!

Now before I tell you of the bulk of her message, let me preface by telling you of something else that inspired me for today’s message title.

In September 1897, Francis Pharcellus Church, a former Civil War correspondent and editor at the New York Sun, received a letter from the then 8-year-old Virginia O’Hanlon.

In her letter, young Virginia wrote:

Dear Editor, I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, "If you see it in the Sun, it's so." Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus? Virginia O'Hanlon 115 West Ninety-Fifth Street

Church’s then anonymous editorial page reply eventually became, and remains, a perennial favorite. Translated into dozens of languages (including Latin!), Church’s testament to the spirit of Christmas has the notable distinction of being the "most reprinted newspaper editorial."

The name of his reply article in the New York Sun newspaper, was entitled, “Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus.”

SHOW SLIDE OF ARTICLE

The reason that I mention this to you and as to why it gave me my sermon title this morning, is this.

In this article from many years ago, we find a lost and confused little girl, as to the reality of whether there exists a spiritual entity called Santa Claus, St. Nicholas.

In this TED talks video, I witnessed an almost similar situation. I listened to this well educated and eloquent speaking woman, a lost “little girl” if you will, (you see, we all come before the Father as lost little children), her message was entitled, “My failed mission to find God -- and what I found instead”, which was asking about the existence of whether there was a spiritual entity called GOD within the universe and her quest to find Him.

And so, my mind ran the two stories together and thus we have today’s message, entitled, “Yes Anjali, there is a God!”

As soon as I saw this video of Anjali, I knew that the passage from , which I had just read, was to be the basis for everything said this morning!

If you will turn with me in your Bible this morning to that passage, , we can look it together. (If you don’t have a Bible, then you can simply follow along with me from the monitor screens, as we will have the passage up there as well.)

Matthew 22:34–40 NLT

But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees with his reply, they met together to question him again. One of them, an expert in religious law, tried to trap him with this question: “Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?” Jesus replied, “ ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”

So, allow me to fill you in on the video from Mrs. Anjali Kumar and then I will come back to the passage we just read.

In her video, Anjali explains to an audience of women, of how she was born and raised here in America, by Indian parents and culturally under Hinduism, but as far as actual practicing religion, her parents brought she and her sister up under a much smaller and almost unknown religion here in America, called Jainism. (This is much more recognized in India, but hardly practiced outside of India, especially somewhere like the United States.)

I looked some info on Jainism and found one thing that stood out to me and that is, in this particular religion, there are many vows that the followers can take, called “vratas”, but the devout followers have 5 main vows that they take, which are called, “ mahavratas,” and one of these vows is a vow that is called Satya.

According to the internet, “Satya is the vow to not lie, and to speak the truth.. A monk or nun must not speak the false, and either be silent or speak the truth. The great vow of satya applies to "speech, mind, and deed", and it also means discouraging and disapproving others who perpetuate a falsehood.

Interesting isn’t it, that a religion that is trying to perpetuate TRUTH, is in itself, a lie and does not know the THE TRUTH.

Without Jesus, Himself, there is NO TRUTH!

Anyway, back to Anjali’s story. Although being raised in their home practicing Jainism, her parents thought it would be good to enroll she and her sister into a catholic school and so they did.

So, now here is a young lady raised under the Hindu culture, while being taught the religion of Jainism and all the while learning from the catholic school about an all-knowing and all powerful being who is a single supreme being, called God.

You see in Jainism, they believe in INFINITE number of gods!

One of the big tenets of Jainism, is that of NON-ABSOLUTISM.

This basically means that no one single person can hold ownership or knowledge of ABSOLUTE TRUTH!

We have this same teaching today in America, but it is called “post modernism”.

This teaching has such influences behind it like that of Friedrich Nietzsche. It was Nietzsche was the man who made the statement. “God is dead!”

The post modern philosophy is that there is NO ABSOLUTE TRUTH and that reality and morality are subjective and basically up to the individual.

This is much the same mind set for the modern existentialist, who would say that individuals exist with the freedom to choose and define their own meaning in life, and try to make rational decisions despite existing in an irrational universe.

In other words, there is NO GOD who makes moral ethics by which we live by; we are our own god!

So, back to Anjali and her story in the search for God!

Basically, what happens early on in Anjali’s life, after being married, having a child and a prosperous career as an attorney, she decided that for her sake and that of her daughter, she was going to go on a quest of religion and try discover if there really is a god!

At the time she decided to do this, she said that she realized that she was part of a GROWING group in America that is called the “nones”, because when they are polled and asked which religious affiliation they belong to, they always check the box, “NONE”!

Currently in America, this group comprises about 1/4 of the entire population, or some 82 million Americans!

Now that is 82 million that flat out say they are atheists, or agnostics or simply no affiliation of anything at all!

The interesting thing about this group, according to Anjali, is that 68% of the “none” claim to be spiritual and that they believe there is some god, they just don’t know who he is yet!

So, Anjali goes all over the world, searching for God, or for a god, that she can believe in and that she can rest her spiritual trust in!

The main problem with her world wide search, was that she didn’t want to search within the known sphere of recognized religions, so she instead went searching for a god using such means as “mediums”, faith healers and shamans and other god men!

She attended a witch’s pot-luck dinner @ the LGBT center in NY city.

She drank from a 5 gallon Jerry can of volcanic “holy water” from a shaman in Peru.

She chanted for hours in a “sweat lodge” on the beaches of Mexico.

She worked with a Tequila drinking medium who conversed with the dead. (One of which was her deceased mother-in-law!)

She joined a laughing yoga group from South Africa.

She participated in a group that practices tapping into the energy of the universe.

And she had a man from India, lie on top of her and CHANT over her to tap into the energy forces of the universe.

Anjali said that part of her “world tour”, involved going to see a man in Brazil, named, John of God.

John of God is a faith healer that operates as what is called, a trans-medium. This simply means that he talks with dead people. (Or at least that is what he THINKS he is talking to!)

John of God channels very specific spirits that are supposedly deceased saints and doctors, that he channels to perform healings for those who come to see him!

Anjali said that a person goes with three things that they wish to have John of God pray over them about and petition the spirits about and he does it! (Oprah Winfrey went to to and interviewed John of God.

This man actually surgically cuts on people (even though he has no medical degree, or even a high school diploma) and asks for their healing, by channeling the spirits to heal them and all in the name of GOD!

I listened to one young man’s testimony the day after his procedure and Opera asked him what he was taking away from all of the whole experience and he said, “I think it’s for my soul to accept myself!”

Remember that phrase, because I coming back to it!

Now this is what Anjali said and it is the main point that I want to mention to you this morning. Before she went to see John of God, she mentioned to several people that she was going to be going to see him in Brazil and that if anyone would like, she would take, on their behalf, three things that they would like for John of God to pray over for them, so that these three things would be healed, or repaired or improved.

She said she never expected anyone to really take her up on this, but the email address that she gave out for anyone who wanted to submit something for her to take exploded with emails from people she has never met!

She said that as she went through the emails, with the exception of a few, there was striking similarity between all of them. They all had three things in common and those three things were:

Even though they were asked only for a photo of themselves, their name and their DOB, they all included specific physical mailing addresses for themselves, as if they believed that this could, or would work and so they wanted to make sure that Anjali, or John of God, could get a hold of them and convey the miracle!

Second, all of the people, surprisingly listed the same three things (large and in part) that they wanted to receive from John of God, as their miracle.

Those three things were: HEALTH, HAPPINESS and LOVE!

The third thing that they all included on their email, was, “please don’t tell anyone about this!”

Finish telling Anjali’s story of how she DIDN’T find God, but she did find something else; that we all have this inherent need for the same basic things, regardless of our religion, or backgrounds or beliefs.

Here is my point with this whole story and why it was on my heart so strongly as well as the point for each one of us, based upon the scripture from .

Anjali Kumar said that she left the United States looking for God, or at least “a god”, that she and her family could believe in and satisfy her “religious” longing. Because she had been exposed to the basic religions already, she said that she traveled around the globe so as to look for other ways to find Him. And in this process, she went through every gait and doorway that devil has devised to look for God. (She used psychics, mediums, shamans, witches, spiritual faith healers, etc.)

Now, I know that there all sorts of circumstances and situations that we are not privy to the answers to, but I still will ask the question that sits at the forefront of my mind about Anjali.

Why is it that someone would feel the need, or necessity, to leave this nation and travel the world afar, to look for the TRUTH and existence of God?

I mean, why, in a nation that some 60-70% of the population professes a true belief in God, wouldn’t, or shouldn’t a person be able to hear of and see the TRUTH of God, in that nation?

Or an even more specific way to ask my question this morning, “Why would someone who was born and raised and highly educated, right here in America, never see, or hear, or feel the LOVE of God, at least in some degree, shape form or fashion?”

Now, as I said, I know that there are probably many factors that lead into this one woman’s story that we don’t have access to, but still, my point that I am looking at and that I am wanting to share with each of you this morning is this: “There are millions of other “Anjalis” all over this nation and even right here in our own backyards!

When asked which was the greatest of the commandments, Jesus’ answer was not what the religious leaders were probably expecting.

They probably assumed that He would pull from the TOP TEN list and use one of those; especially since the Ten Commandments were written by the very finger of God Himself, right?

Well, not only did Jesus not do this, but He also gave, not one, but two commandments for the GREATEST COMMANDMENT!

You see, religious doctrine and liturgy and rehearsed actions, do not portray God to anyone. In fact, Jesus said this of the religious leaders, in one of His seven “woes” in , “What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are careful to tithe even the tiniest income from your herb gardens, but you ignore the more important aspects of the law—justice, mercy, and faith. You should tithe, yes, but do not neglect the more important things. Blind guides! You strain your water so you won’t accidentally swallow a gnat, but you swallow a camel!”

In other words, Jesus was condemning them because they were so hung up on keeping every “miniscule” part of the law and thus having the “appearance” of righteousness before the “common” lay people, that they were missing the real relevance of the commandments.

Jesus was saying, “You do ALL OF THIS and yet you still have missed showing the most important thing to those around you. YOU ARE NOT SHOWING THE LOVE OF GOD TO THOSE WHO ARE WATCHING YOU!”

God was clear to the nation of Israel in the Old Testament that they were chosen by Him and that they were to be the light to other nations. In other words, God chose Israel to be His image bearer to the all other nations of the world.

Jesus did the same thing with His bride, the church!

We are to be the image bearers of Jesus to the world around us, wherever we are!

And He became very specific about what we were to do and how we were to do it.

“Love the Lord your God, with all of your heart, with all of your soul and with all of your mind”

And the second thing is equal to the first, “Love your neighbor as yourself!”

Well, what does that mean and what does it have to do with Anjali or anyone else today, as far as that goes?

In a simplified answer it goes like this:

If you have been “redeemed” by the blood of Jesus and you are truly one of His children, then it should become your heart’s desire to get as close as possible to God. Your heart, your soul and your mind, all convey the idea of your entire conscious being: every thought, every idea, every emotion, every conscious thing that you and I do, should involve us growing more and more in LOVE with God!

When that happens, then AND ONLY then, can you truly see yourself the way that God sees you and the great value that He has for you. Once you see yourself that way, as a true CHILD of GOD, then you will love yourself as God intended and be able to LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF!

Jesus wasn’t calling us to SELF LOVE, as the world understands it to be, but rather, He was calling us to see ourselves through the eyes of God and in doing so, we would become aware of who and what we really are!

We are see ourselves through the lens of the Bible, as it tells us of how great a value God has placed upon each one of us.

Once we do this, then we can begin to look at our neighbors through the lens of the Bible, OUT OF LOVE, and show them God’s love!

If you and I are following those two commandments of loving God and loving others, then everything else will work.

Think about what Jesus was saying. Out of 613 laws, if you will follow these two, then you will get the whole thing!

It is like me going to take a college exam and the professor walks in and says, “The exam that I have prepared for you, has 613 questions on it. However, if you can answer just these two questions, then you will have the whole exam covered and completed!

Which one do you think I am going to go after?!!!!!

When we see ourselves through the eyes of God and how He loves us, we truly then love and value ourselves, as His children and are FREE at that point to show that same LOVE to everyone around us!

I heard a minister teach one time about counseling men and women for over 35 years and he said that in over 35 years of counseling, he had never encountered a man who truly loved himself and still beat his wife!

If a person loves themselves, they desire to take care of themselves; they see self-worth and purpose through God and if they see this, then they will see the same value in others and love them!

We are made in the IMAGE OF GOD and so every time you and I look at another person, we should see God’s image in them and not look at the natural person!

THE LOVE OF OTHERS IS TRULY GROUNDED IN THE LOVE OF GOD which is why Jesus said that commandment comes first!

Let me read these verses real quick from I John and then I am going to close out with a with a special time of prayer at the altar.

,

1 John 4:7–9 NLT

Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love. God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him.

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1 John 4:11 ESV

Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

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1 John 4:16 NLT

We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them.

Anjali Kumar wrote a book and also speaks publicly asking the question of, “Is there a God?”

I would like to say this, in the remote chance that somehow Anjali ever gets to watch this video. “THANK YOU FOR SHARING YOUR HEART. And from my heart, I would like to say to you as well as any others who may be watching this, like you, that I am sorry. I am so sorry that you have never seen or experienced the true LOVE OF GOD right here, in this nation.

But Let me assure you of this Anjali Kumar, with ONE MILLION PERCENT certainty, “YES ANJALI, THERE IS A GOD!”

And he loves you so very much! In fact, Anjali, God paid a price to buy you back, TO REDEEM you, from sin and death and that price of REDEMPTION was His own son, Jesus the Christ!

And to everyone here this morning I say the same thing, THERE IS A GOD and HE LOVES YOU MORE THAN YOU OR I CAN EVER UNDERSTAND!

If you are truly His child, then you need to be showing His love to the “Anjalis” of this world, regardless of the cost!

G.K. Chesterton said this, “The Bible tells us to love our neighbors and also to love our enemies; probably because generally they are the same people!”

At this time, we are going to close out with one of my favorite songs of the last decade, REDEEMED!

If you are here today and you know that you have redeemed by the blood of Jesus and you are willing to say before God and everyone here, “I am bought by the precious blood of Jesus and because I know He loves me so very much, I want to show His great love to those around me”, would you please come down here at this time and join in us as we sing this song as a family!

And if you are here and you have either never known the TRUE and LASTING LOVE of GOD then let me invite you to come down and step over here to this side of the sanctuary so that one of our prayer team members can pray with you. Or, if you are here and you know that you have stepped away from your personal relationship with Jesus, then let me invite you to come down here as we sing and open your heart up and repent and come back to His love, because that is what He is asking today, just as He closed out His word by saying, “Return to your first LOVE; come back to me!”