I recently had the privilege of going to Honduras for a mission trip. My sister is a missionary and works at a school as a fifth grade teacher. The school is Rancho Ebenezer and is run through World Gospel Outreach. It has always been a dream of hers to do missionary work and she was at a point in her life where her dream came true. I went there with her son (my nephew) and my 14-year-old son. I wanted my son to go and see how spoiled he really is. (Well, that was my dream).

I went thinking I was going to help them work on their facility and be a blessing to them. God has a funny way of always turning things around in my life. We did have a chance to help and do some repairs at their facility. We did some electrical work and replaced some old light fixtures with new ones in the houses where the staff and the children live. We also were able to do some plumbing repairs and replace old leaky faucets, fix toilets and repair leaking drains. We even had time to repair five or six bikes for the children who live on the ranch.

MATTHEW 28:19-20

19 “Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.”

20 “Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

NLT

When we got there, and began to walk around and meet everyone and see what they do there at their facility, I got thoroughly blessed by what I observed. I saw people who serve others selflessly because of the faith that they have in their God. When our faith is in God, and not in other people or in things we own, great things will happen in our lives. God will never let us down, even though other people will. I saw people working together because they believed in what they were doing and they also knew why they were doing it. I saw people working together to accomplish a mission with no personal agenda in mind. The school and the facility there in Honduras is run on donations, so they really need to trust God for all their needs.

I was encouraged by the faith I saw and it reminded me that we all can have great faith. I want to encourage you not to just have faith, but I want to encourage you to have faith in God. We need to trust God and know that the Bible is truth. Every promise we find in His Word is true and every promise is ours for the asking. We are so spoiled here in America. We need to stay strong and trust that God will do great things in our lives, but they will be on His terms, not ours.

Pastor Tony Guadagnino is a pastor at Christian Love Fellowship Church.

It is not always easy to find time for things, unless, of course, it is something that is really important to you. This Sunday, time will be on our minds as we will be moving our clocks forward one hour. I don’t know about you, but sometimes I wonder if such a move doesn’t take an hour off my life.

I know that might sound rather depressing for those of you who read my column regularly, because, you know, I try to write about the positives and the blessings in our lives. But the thought of having one less hour can serve as a positive motivating force. Think about it, what are you able to accomplish in just one hour? What loving and holy acts can you perform in such a short span of time?

The great Sage Hillel reminded us of the importance of time by saying, “If not now, when?” And he was so right because if we don’t do what we are able to now, we might never get the chance again because we never really know how many days we have left on this earth.

I have seen people who were told that they only had days left to live. I have heard families told that, once their loved one’s ventilator is removed, they will only have minutes left. And many of those very same people are still with us. They have been allotted more time and they are taking that extra time they have been given as a blessing.

We are not G-d. We might be able to come up with a probable amount of time someone has left, but G-d may well have other plans. In fact, there is an old adage that says, “The greatest of doctors is time.”

The Chofetz Chaim taught, “People say ‘time is money’ but I say ‘money is time,’ for every luxury costs so many precious hours of your life.”

What have you done with your time lately? A woman walking down the street in a city in the midwest a few weeks back saw a beggar in the street. Looking at the poor homeless soul, she might have thought, “He doesn’t look like he has much time. Let me see if I can make his day.” So she put some money into his hat.

She headed down the street and, after she and her husband had gone a few blocks, they heard the beggar shouting at them to stop. How frightening it must have been to have a homeless man chasing them down.

But they stopped, and that poor soul with not even a watch to wear, caught up to her and told her that when she put money in his hat, her ring had slipped off her finger and fallen into the hat as well. That’s right, when called upon to do a holy deed, the beggar forgot about his own needs and took the time and energy to rush to make someone else’s day.

And talk about “Paying It Forward.” The woman and her husband gave the man whatever cash they had on them as a “thank you.” And, it didn’t end there. She put the story on the Internet and, in no time, a fund was set up to get this Holy Child of G-d, this homeless man, a place of his own.

So next time you get a chance to make a difference in someone’s life, take the time and that good deed might just keep growing and growing.

Shalom my friends,

Rabbi Craig H. Ezring

Rabbi Ezring is a member of the National Association of Jewish Chaplains and of the Association of Professional Chaplains, He works professionally in this capacity with a number of healthcare facilities in the area, and with hospice. He is the Spiritual Leader of Temple Beth Israel of Deerfield Beach.

Our son, still a very young man, takes a well-deserved early retirement from the army this week. He returned from Iraq last year with more injuries than desires to explain them. But he is among the ranks of our more fortunate veterans who physically, mentally and emotionally survive the call to duty. Like most Americans, we are grateful. Like most parents, we are proud.

I remember our son as a young boy playing on the floor with those little green rubber soldiers. He would, as a child with pretense and make-believe, make sounds and crashing noises he would hear for real as a young man. I suspect he prays to forget those noises now …

It was a great privilege to see him carry the flag for his graduating class. A few years later, it was an even greater privilege for his mother and me to join a few thousand family members in the wee hours before sunrise to welcome home a few hundred of our soldiers.

It was joyful when the troops marched in formation to meet families straining to see and have that first glimpse of their soldier. All around us, we heard families when they saw their soldier excitedly call out, “There he is! There he is!”

It was somber when the troops once assembled were held in formation. There was a respectful silence that set upon this jubilant crowd when the troops were addressed by their commanding officer.

He gave thanks for each soldier being safely reunited with families and he gave thanks for the honored few who had already returned home, soldiers deployed with these troops the preceding year, but returned earlier, after having been seriously injured or after having given the ultimate sacrifice for our nation.

Billy Graham once wrote on the topic of duty that “every generation is strategic. God will hold us responsible as to how well we fulfill our responsibilities to this age and how well or how poorly we take advantage of the opportunities we have.”

If you believe as I do that answering the call to duty for our nation is important then faint not at the idea, it is even more important that we answer the call to duty in the church Christ leads.

When Jesus says, “Come, you that are blessed” he challenges the very people who say we are his disciples to chose a path that is neither pretense nor make-believe.

It is the Christian’s uncomplicated call to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, visit the sick and imprisoned. And we will be held to account as to how well or how poorly we take advantage of our abundant opportunities to do these things.

MATTHEW 25

The Truth is we serve a Lord even greater than the greatest nation in the history of the world, who makes it possible for even fallen soldiers to reunite one day with loved ones.

JOHN 12:27

Jesus says, “For now my soul is troubled and what should I say — ‘Father, save me from this hour?’ No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour.”

Friends, these are among the reasons we are blessed to answer our call to duty!

Join us Saturday @ Six and Sunday morning at 8:30 or 11 a.m. The Sunday Message “Call to Duty” is based on Matthew 25: 31 – 40.

Reverend Andrews is Minister at Community Presbyterian Church of Deerfield Beach (Steeple on the Beach) located five blocks south of Hillsboro on AIA. See more @ www.communitych.org or on Facebook.

I was talking to a prospective bride and groom the other day. The bride happens to be a doctor. And she let me know that she has opted to keep her own name.

She told me that she does not want to have to go through “the burden” of all the red tape it would take to change the name of her medical practice, her medical degrees and all the other certifications she has.

The future groom wanted to know if I had ever heard of such a thing and I told him about a verse in the Torah where we read, “I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.”(Exodus 6.6)

What were the burdens that we faced under the Egyptians? Sure, we know we were slaves, but what specific burdens did we have? Back breaking work, no days off, meager food to eat — those are givens. But how many of you remember the miniseries Roots? In the process of taking away a slaves freedom, what was one of the first things that the masters did?

They took away their given names, their African names and forced them to accept a new one at the master’s whim. Our people who were herded into the Concentration Camps … they weren’t even entitled to a name; they were given a number.

In the Torah, we read about two midwives, but according to many, Shiphrah and Puah had those names forced upon them. Their real names were Jewish names. And, when the Egyptians were not around, they made sure to use their Jewish names.

During our lifetimes, we will each be known by many different names … in our younger years, perhaps a nickname. Our parents probably had special names for us and some of us have titles that have become like names to us.

Being able to create a new name for ourselves by the way we live our life is a great freedom that we have been blessed with. In fact, the Torah even uses several names for the Holy One and, according to Biblical Scholars, each name of G-d can denote a particular period or a particular attribute of Gd. The same can be said for the names we are known by.

Rabbi Marci Bellows reminded me of a poem printed in Mishkah T’filah that teaches us a lesson about names with these words:

“We each have a name given by G-d and given by our father and mother.

We each have a name given by our stature and smile and given by our attire….

We each have a name given by the stars and given by our friends.

We each have a name given by our sins and given by our yearnings.

We each have a name given by celebrations and given by our work …

We each have a name given by the sea and given by our death.”

Let us have the wisdom to behave in such a way that we create a good name for ourselves and for others. There is an ancient Japanese proverb. My Japanese is more than a wee bit rusty, but let me try to translate it. It says, “Tigers die and leave their skins: People die and leave their names.”

Let us have the wisdom to behave in such a way that we create a good name for ourselves as a lasting legacy to our children, to our children’s children and to the world.

Shalom my friends,

Rabbi Craig H. Ezring

JAMES 4:7-10 Humility Cures Worldliness

7 Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.

8 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you doubleminded. 9 Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.

10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up. NKJV

• SUBMIT

Submit: to give over or yield to the power or authority of another like clay to the potter.

Submit: to relinquish or concede; to cease opposition; give up complete possession of and claim to.

When we truly submit to God and the Godly things in our lives, we get blessed in all areas of our lives. Want your wife and family to be more submissive? Then you had better make sure that you are submissive in all areas of your own personal life. You can’t just decide to be submissive when you need God to move in your life; it must be a condition of the heart. The same Biblical principle applies to reaping and sowing. You just can’t sow when you want to reap something. You must continually sow in order to continually reap. Don’t stop sowing when you begin to reap.

GENESIS 26:4-5

4 And I will make your descendants multiply as the stars of heaven; I will give to your descendants all these lands; and in your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed; (Why, God, are you going to do this?)

5 because Abraham obeyed My voice and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws.” NKJV

HEBREWS 12:9

9 Since we respect our earthly fathers who disciplined us, should we not all the more cheerfully submit to the discipline of our heavenly Father and live forever? NLT

• RESIST

EPHESIANS 6:11-13

11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.

12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

13 Therefore, take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. NKJV

1 PETER 5:8-9

8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.

9 Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world. NKJV

MATTHEW 4:3-10

When Jesus fasted for 40 days, the devil came to tempt him. Jesus quoted scripture and he resisted the devil. It’s easy to resist when you submit your life to God

• FLEE

MATTHEW 4:11

11 Then the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and ministered to Him. NKJV

LUKE 4:13

13 When the devil had finished tempting Jesus, he left him until the next opportunity came. NLT

Pastor Tony Guadagnino ministers at Christian Love Fellowship Church

I want to share a poem with you today. It was written by a woman by the name of Lilyan Davidson. (Lil’s daughter gave me the okay to use her mother’s poem). It was written back in June of 2010.

Now, before you read the poem, let me tell you that, in my years as a Professional Health Care Chaplain, I have had the blessing of working with some of the most angelic therapists in the world right down here in Sunny Florida.

I am a Chaplain at St. Anthony’s Rehab Hospital and the therapists there are incredible. I work with the therapists at Sunrise Health and Rehab Center and, again, the therapists there are simply amazing. Lil was a patient at Park Summit in Coral Springs, a sister facility of The Forum in our own Deerfield Beach … and, yes, you had better believe that the therapists who work there are also a pure joy to watch.

The therapist spends a full hour at a time with their patient and, during that time, they not only get them doing things they never thought they would ever be able to do again, but they also prove to be the greatest of motivators.

So often, I see people looking at therapy as a waste of time, but let me tell you something, I have seen people go into therapy feeling so low in spirit that it would seem that nothing would be able to lift them up. But then, the therapist gets a hold of them (whether they like it or not) and, before long, I see a whole new attitude in a large number of those very same patients.

Lil was one such patient. She would do anything to avoid having to go to the therapy room. But, while Lil may have given up on herself, the therapists had not given up on Lil. And after struggling to avoid therapy with every excuse she could think of (including, “The dog ate my wheelchair,”) she finally saw what the therapists had known and had been trying to tell her for a couple of weeks already, that she was on her way to being more independent than she ever thought she would be again.

So please read Lil’s poem. It just might move you or a loved one to rise again:

Love your therapist – By Lil Davidson

(In Thanks to the Therapists at Park Summit, June 30, 2010)

To love your therapy person is not easy.

Sometimes, they make you feel a little bit queasy.

The therapy people are relentless, that much is true.

No matter where you hide, they’ll find you.

So don’t think about going to your room and closing the door.

They have ways to get in, even under the floor.

You can run, but, you can’t hide.

Correction: You can’t run … yet.

You may as well give up, and meet your fate,

for the therapy people who lie in wait.

They are dedicated to restore your health.

That much is true. They only want what is best for you.

They want to make you well, though you protest.

When you recover, it will be best. Though you protested, LOOK, you’re walking! Now, was it worth all of that squawking?

I hope and pray you will take Lil’s words into your heart, and into your arms and legs as well. Now, get moving.

Shalom my friends,

Rabbi Craig H. Ezring

Rabbi Ezring is a member of the National Association of Jewish Chaplains and of the Association of Professional Chaplains, He works professionally in this capacity with a number of healthcare facilities in the area, and with hospice. He is the Spiritual Leader of Temple Beth Israel of Deerfield Beach.

Have you ever heard about the man who was quizzing his wife during half-time of the Super Bowl to find out if she had ever before been in love with another man?

The man’s wife finally answered, but only after reflecting on the question far too long.

“Absolutely not,” she said. “When I was in high school, I really liked one boy for his impressive intellect. Then, there was that spectacular athlete in college I admired because of his humor, courage and character.”

Then she paused, smiled and wistfully said, “And after college, oh my, there was that one young man I was attracted to because of his amazing good looks and charm. But surely you understand that, with you dear, the only explanation is love!” We can argue whether the man’s question or the woman’s answer is worse, but we can agree that we get more than a little confused about love and we trivialize that which we need the most.

Some people claim to love the Super Bowl, but have no idea who won the game last year. Other people say they love the Super Bowl commercials, but, the day after seeing them, have no remembrance of what they promote.

And, sometimes, perhaps like the woman responding to her husband’s prodding, we label something as love if we don’t know what else to call it or how else to explain it.

The truth is what the world needs most is love – genuine love, unending love, the kind of love Paul describes in the 13th chapter of his letter to the Corinthians. Read it, re-read it, and try your best to apply it to your life, especially to the people you love!

Some of you will remember Hal David’s song lyrics “What the World Needs Now Is Love Sweet Love” put to music by Burt Bacharach and popularized by singer Dionne Warwick. The song was thought to draw special meaning out of the context of the turbulent 1960s and early ‘70s.

But, behind the simple lyrics and the catchy tune is a Biblical truth and a basic human need that passes like time from one generation to the next. Our need for love is really our need for God. The Ten Commandments and the holiness code of the Torah are based on God’s steadfast love that runs deeper and lasts longer than mere admiration, attraction, amusement or even personal enjoyment, even though we often seem to value these other things more.

God’s love flows much like the Jordan penetrates the wilderness. The heaven opens and the Spirit of Love descends like a dove, but somehow the song’s lyrics still ring true to me and you.

Love still is the only thing there’s just too little of, not just for some, but for everyone. Lord, we don’t need another mountain or another meadow. There are mountains and hillsides enough to climb. There are oceans and rivers enough to cross, enough to last ‘til the end of time. What the world needs now is love, sweet love!

The Good News is this.

God is love and the Holy Word of God made flesh reveals God’s unending love to the world in Christ. God comes to the world to save the world. And, in Christ, finally and forever, we have the love we need, all the instruction, all the encouragement and the foundation for a song that never ends.

What the world needs now is not a new Super Bowl champion. What the world needs now is for us to share the love we already have.

Join us this weekend Saturday @ Six or Sunday morning at 8:30 or 11 a.m. The Message “What the World Needs Now” is based on 1 Corinthians 13.

Rev. Andrews is a minister at Community Presbyterian Church of Deerfield Beach (Steeple on the Beach) located five blocks south of Hillsboro on AIA. See more @ www.communitych.org or on Facebook.

I have no problem letting anyone know that I am a fan of (and please don’t get offended by the term) “chick-flicks.” Give me a good comedy-romance that has lots of laughs, few tears and a full gamut of emotions in between and you can pretty much guarantee that I will love the film.

But the movie I saw at FAU was no “chick flick.” In fact, it was a foreign film, with French, Hebrew and Arabic. Don’t worry though; there are English subtitles that are quite easy to follow. The movie was called “The Other Son.” Now, don’t worry, I will not give away too much of the story; although, I will tell you that the butler did it. Just kidding, there is no butler in this movie. But, this is a movie that makes you think as much as and maybe even more than any great mystery film. It is the tale of two babies switched at birth. One of the babies is born to a Palestinian Muslim family and the other to an Israeli Jewish family.

That’s right; the Muslim is raised as a Jew and the Jew as a Muslim. At one point in the movie, one of the boys, now a young man, asks what one does when you find out that you are your own worst enemy.

That line really called out to me. You see, the Sages teach us that, if you have something you dislike about someone, you would do well to look at your own actions because what you are seeing in them may be like looking into a mirror … not a carnival mirror that distorts our image, but a mirror that is clean, clear and streak free … a mirror that shows our true self, rather than the image we like to picture ourselves as being.

The other day a woman was waving her hands frantically as she told me how she could not stand her neighbor. Do you know why? It was because her neighbor could not talk without waving her hands all over the place. In other words, she hated the other woman for something of which she herself was guilty. She simply refused to look at the fact that she was guilty of the very same behavior.

This brings me to another movie I had the joy of seeing. It was called “This is 40.” I have to warn you, while the movie is quite funny, it is also filled with a lot of curse words. And there is a scene in this film where the parents wonder where their child learned to use such foul language, but all you have to do is listen to the parents throughout the show and you know exactly where their child picked the choice of words.

Sometimes, we are indeed our own worst enemy. But remember, G-d is watching us. I know this because Bette Midler told me so. But let me tell you who else is watching; our children are watching. If you want to see a mirror image, well, it’s not just the hair color, the eyes or the cheekbones; it’s not just their looks. Your child is watching your actions, listening to your word, soaking up everything you say and do, and learning every step of the way.

Shalom my friends,

Rabbi Craig H. Ezring

Rabbi Ezring is a member of the National Association of Jewish Chaplains and of the Association of Professional Chaplains, He works professionally in this capacity with a number of healthcare facilities in the area, and with hospice. He is the Spiritual Leader of Temple Beth Israel of Deerfield Beach.

Wow! Another year has passed so quickly yet again. I don’t know about you but when the New Year rolls around, I will begin to think about preparing my taxes and collecting all the information that I am going to need. Every year, you have to do the same things and collect the same information over and over again. It is one of those things in life that we just have to do and there is no way around it. Every year, we have to take the task of evaluating our finances and give an account to the IRS so they make sure that they get their share. It seems like a constant evaluation process that we must do no matter what, or face the consequences of fees and fines.

This is, of course, the time of year when we evaluate our lives and make our New Year’s resolutions. I do not like New Year’s resolutions because we just do not keep them and follow through. Statistics show that of the ones who actually make a New Year resolution, only 3 percent will keep it … so chances are that you are one of the 97 percent. Let’s face it, if you did not want to do something all year long, what makes you think you will do it now? When we make a New Year’s resolution, we tend to look at the negative things in our lives that we do not like, and we want to change to make them better. I believe that there are things in our lives that we should change and make better. What if you tried something different and, instead of looking at the negative things in your life from last year, you focused on the positive things that happened to you, your friends and your family? We focus too much on the negative things in life all the time when the good things really outweigh the bad. When we focus too much on the bad things, they will appear to be larger than they really are. We can focus more on the good and positive things, and make the bad and negative things seem smaller instead.

PHILIPPIANS 4:8

8: “And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.” NLT

Why is it easier for us to repeat the negative things in our lives than it is for us to repeat and tell everyone about the positive things that happen? We need to make an effort to let the bad things go and to forgive and be grateful for the good things that happen to us. If you can change your attitude about your life, then maybe your life will be a whole lot better. It is too easy to be negative and bitter; lots of people do that already. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Thank God for what you have, and do not focus on what you do not. Be blessed and be positive.

Pastor Tony Guadagnino is a pastor at Christian Love Fellowship Church.

The woman had just been through an unexpected emergency heart procedure. The doctor was able to do what needed to be done but her blood pressure was now going back and forth from being dangerously low to dangerously high and back again.

I was called by the family, one of whom I know quite well. They were in need of some spiritual support, of a listening presence. After being greeted by the family in the surgical waiting room and giving hugs all around, I went in to see the matriarch of the family.

I had never met her before, but she had heard about me from one of her children. She was in some obvious discomfort, perhaps more from the fact that she could not sit up for several hours or, perhaps from actual pain, although the morphine she was getting had probably taken a good deal of the edge off of that. And, of course, there was the emotional and spiritual pain she was dealing with.

During my relatively short time with her she opened up about many things and, yes, we kibitzed a bit because laughter is good medicine.

Our visit was coming to an end and I usually save the recitation of a healing prayer for the end of such visits. Now that I knew some of what this woman had been through, I could personalize the prayer, I could create a prayer that would have more meaning to her. But, I also wanted to add her to my mishaberach list, the list of people to include in the prayer for healing that we recite at temple. And so I asked for her Hebrew name, which she gave me.

I held her hand for a moment and gave her a soft and gentle kiss on the keppe (the head). As I was washing up (per Universal Precautions), she asked if I could also make a mishaberach for her granddaughter. I asked her what was wrong and she told me that her grandchild was just diagnosed with cancer and would be starting chemo.

I added her Hebrew name to the list for prayer and again bid the woman adieu. But she had another request. “Rabbi, could you also say a mishaberach for my son?” It winds up that her son lives up north and his house had been destroyed in the hurricane; on top of that, he had lost his job. Oy! And, believe it or not, she quickly added, “Oh Rabbi, one more thing” and I said, “You’re kidding me right?” But she wasn’t kidding; she needed her husband added to the list as he was dealing with prostate issues.

She asked me if she was being a pain, and I said, “Not at all” and I added, “In fact, I’m going to make it real easy, when I am at temple and we come to the healing prayer, I am just going to use your last name and say one for your entire family all at once and the same time.” This gave her a good laugh in the midst of her concern.

This woman is outer- focused. She is more concerned with her family’s issues then she is with her own; yet, she is bright enough to know that, in order to be there for them, she will need to take better care of herself.

May we all be blessed with such wisdom!

Shalom my friends,

Rabbi Craig H. Ezring

Rabbi Ezring is a member of the National Association of Jewish Chaplains and of the Association of Professional Chaplains, He works professionally in this capacity with a number of healthcare facilities in the area, and with hospice. He is the Spiritual Leader of Temple Beth Israel of Deerfield Beach.