Author: Steven R. Bruck

forgiveness is only for the past

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Huh? Whaddaya mean, “Forgiveness is only for the past?” Can’t I be forgiven for what I might do tomorrow? Am I s’posed to be perfect from this moment on?

The answer is “Yes” to the first, and “No” to the second.

The real question should be, “Am I forgiven automatically?” The answer to that, from what I read in the Bible, is that we are not automatically forgiven. Forgiveness is something we have to ask for in order to receive. It is available, God is always willing to give it, but it is something we must ask for in order to actually receive.

And more than that, when we ask for it the asking must be genuine- it must be a true T’shuvah (turning from sin) that comes from our heart and soul. We must be more than sorry that we sinned, we must be rueful, regretful, and so upset that we did this to God (for every sin we commit is, first and foremost, against God- read what David said in Psalm 51) that we shouldn’t just ask for forgiveness, but also ask that the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) strengthen and convict us in the future so that we can recognize, and overcome, the sinful desire before it becomes a sin.

Forgiveness, the Kingdom of God, Salvation: they are all here, now, and waiting for us. We are all pre-qualified and able to receive these wonderful gifts from God, the results of Messiah Yeshua’s (Jesus) sacrificial death: all we need to do is ask for them.

Where’s the catch? What do we have to give in order to receive? That’s a worldly view, isn’t it? The world doesn’t give without expecting something back, but God…..wait a minute! God does expect something back from us! After all, He’s made covenants with us. Each covenant (despite what you may have been taught) doesn’t annul the previous covenant, but instead is appended, adding to it, building upon it, so that every covenant God has made with us is still valid. From the rainbow of the Noahdic Covenant to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit through the New Covenant (Jeremiah 31:31): every covenant is still valid in God’s eyes, and we are expected, as with any covenant, to fulfill our side of the deal. What is our side? To fear God, honor His word (Torah), accept Messiah Yeshua as our Savior and do T’shuvah in our hearts, which should then translate to a change in our actions.

Your forgiveness is already accomplished, but you have to ask for it. Every day, every moment, when you know you have sinned and even if you don’t think you have sinned. Don’t believe for a second that just because you think you are blameless that you are- God knew our nature well enough that He even commanded there be a sacrifice for the sins we commit unintentionally (Leviticus 4.)

We all sin, we all will continue to sin, we all are born into sinfulness, we all have iniquity in our very nature, and the only humans who don’t have to worry about sinning are the dead ones. But we can overcome our nature, we can be more than just what we are; thanks be to God (and to Yeshua) for the Grace provided which will save us, and for the Holy Spirit which can guide and help us overcome who and what we are, so that we can be more of who and what God wants us to be.

We are told that if we ask, we shall receive, so, then…ask! Ask for forgiveness often, ask for yourself, ask for others, and ask with reverent thankfulness.

Is there a Salvation gene?

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If you are asking yourself, “What the heck is a ‘salvation gene?'”, I have to admit that I wonder about that, myself. And I’m the one who came up with the idea!

The other day I was thinking (yes, it hurts when I do that) about what it means to be made in God’s likeness, and how everyone has a soul. As I thought more on the matter, I wondered if the soul isn’t the only thing we get from God when He forms us in the womb: maybe being made in His image, whatever that entails, includes recognition, at the genetic level, of God. A gene that is a “salvation gene”- one designed to give us a subconscious, deep-in-the-bones knowledge of God’s existence: knowing God exists because it is something that we have built in to our physical make-up.

I thought of this when I was considering why so many people just hate to hear about God’s word. Especially those people who do not believe in God, or who constantly make up their own rules and “understanding” of God’s word (so that it fits into their lifestyle.) I wondered why they are so unwilling to even discuss it; after all, they are willing to argue, ad-infinitum, about politics, sports figures, or almost anything else, but talk about God?- the moment you start they raise shields faster than Captain Kirk seeing a Romulan war bird de-cloak in front of him!

Why? If they don’t believe in God, why be so adamant about not talking about Him? If they think that they are properly following God’s commands (mainly because they have been taught that), why be so afraid to hear a different viewpoint? The answer came to me that maybe, just maybe, it’s because we all have a little bit of God’s Ruach haKodesh (Holy Spirit) in us from birth, even from the moment of conception! When we received a soul, we received also (in God’s image) an innate understanding and recognition of God’s presence in the universe, and what He wants from us.

I once read about what geneticists call a “Hidden Gene”- a gene that might have been active at one time, maybe elongating life, that a mutation reduced to being physically present but no longer functioning. It sits dormant and inert, waiting for a matching gene to find it or some mutative event to allow it to do what it is designed to do.

That is what I am calling the salvation gene. It is there, in our very DNA, recognizing God’s existence and making us know of Him, but it is not fully active. When we accept God’s Messiah, Yeshua (Jesus), and He delivers the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) to us, that is the match, so to speak, for this gene to re-enable it. Our very DNA is changed so that the spiritual becomes more important to us than the worldly. We get more pleasure from doing what is right in God’s eyes, and we “mutate” into a better person, slowly, but surely.

Just as God told us He would do, it literally writes His Torah on our hearts.

Doesn’t that make sense? Doesn’t that explain why everyone has some sense of God, even if he or she is absolutely confident, sometimes zealous, that God doesn’t exist? It would explain why people who do not have the Holy Spirit hate to talk about God. They know, deep in their DNA, in their very essence, that God does exist and that they are in rebellion and fighting a lost battle- not a losing battle, not a battle that they have any chance of winning, but a lost battle where their loss is devastating.  I believe that everyone knows when you fight against God, you have no chance of winning. Consequently, they don’t want to hear about their sinfulness and how they are killing themselves; they don’t want to hear about a better way because they know, intrinsically, that it means they have to give up their sin; they don’t want to discuss anything that is different than what they are used to, or what they have convinced themselves is all they need to do, because it means they have to leave their comfort zone.

They are being led by blind leaders who are walking not into a hole, but directly to the edge of a high cliff over a deep ravine!

So, what do we do? Those of us who have the completed gene, we are the ones God wants to save these people. But, we can’t do it by directly telling them how much trouble they are getting themselves into because that won’t work. When I was in sales I learned that people believe no more than half of what you will say, but they believe everything they say: the trick is to get them to say what you want them to say so they will believe it. You can’t do that by telling them what they know is wrong, you do it by asking them questions that will make them doubt their own position.

In other words, ask them the questions they should be asking you, and gently and calmly point out to them that their answers make no sense. Before they will start to hear the truth of what you say, you need to get them to doubt what they are saying.

Maybe this entire lesson is baseless- maybe there isn’t any such thing as a “salvation gene”; maybe what I am thinking is wrong or just fantasy. Then again, maybe it isn’t. Does it really matter?

If you know people who have rejected God and/or Yeshua, whether Jewish or Gentile, or (even worse) people who have been raised as Christians and think they are saved (but have never really accepted Jesus on their own), then it is up to you to try to get them to realize that what they think is the truth is not the truth. You have to try because we who have heard God’s true word are obligated to spread that word. God constantly told the Prophets that if they did not spread His word to the people then the blood of the sinners would be on the Prophet’s head; but, after preaching His message, if the sinner still rejected it then their blood would be on their own head, and the Prophet would be held blameless for their death.

I don’t want to have anyone’s blood on my hands when I meet the Lord- do you?

parashah mishpatim (ordinances) Exodus 21 – 24

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The Torah serves four main purposes:

  1. It is a Ketuba (marriage certificate) between God and the world, through the Jewish people, who are the recipients of the Torah
  2. It is a national constitution, outlining all the laws and ordinances that a nation needs to survive
  3. It is a covenant between God and the world (through the Jewish people)
  4. It teaches us about sin

In this chapter, and repeatedly throughout the Torah, we are told by God how we are to treat each other. This is the the constitutional framework of the nation of Israel that God provided.

The ordinances included in this parashah talk about the rights of people: the rightful treatment of slaves and concubines, a penal code outlining the punishment for crimes of passion, crimes against another person, kidnapping, torts (people against people) and restitution of property, sexual perversions, witchcraft, and polytheism.  It also outlines the rules regarding contracts, offerings, kashrut (kosher laws regarding meat), the Sabbath Day and the three annual pilgrimages to the Temple (Passover, Shavuot and Sukkot.)

The parashah ends with the covenant being ratified by all the people, who announce, “All that the Lord has spoken, we will do.” In one accord, all the people made this solemn promise to God. And all of us who have accepted Yeshua (Jesus) as our Messiah have, by doing that, reconfirmed our own, personal adherence to God’s commandments and laws, as well.

How quickly we forget.

How sad it is that the Torah is so misunderstood, not just by the Christian world, but by the Jewish people, as well. So many of us have been taught that the Torah is “the Law”, and it does have laws, ordinances, commandments and such, but it is so much more than that! It also is the history of the Jewish people, how God took one man and built his family up to a mighty nation, through which the world was blessed in all types of ways: music, poetry, science, mathematics, art, and so much more. God also made the Torah the most humane and just set of penal laws in the world at that time. Many “experts” who live to debunk and demean the Torah will point out that these laws were not original, that Hammurabi had these laws, and many other cultures. That is true, but no other culture had them as humanly codified as within the Torah. Torts, capital crimes, and spiritual crimes are all there, outlining the punishment and the level of retribution for each type of violation.

It outlines the difference between crimes of passion and crimes that were premeditated, applying just punishment for each case. It outlines the basic rights of humans, whether free or slave, and treats all with respect. The Torah is the foundation stone upon which all laws and religious practices should be centered upon. It is God’s gift to mankind.

Please understand this: the Torah is for all mankind, not just for the Jews. As I have said, over and over, the Jewish people are not the ones the Torah was exclusively written for, they are the ones God gave the Torah to, with the obligation to demonstrate to the world how we all should worship God and treat each other.

We have all grown up in a modern society, and the “pecking order” of our laws start at the US constitution,  then the state, then municipal and (finally) religious laws. Christian religions (remember- God has no religion) do start, one way or another, with the Torah, but they all have their own set of “lesser” laws and rituals, canon, etc. that have been devised for it’s membership. Even in Judaism, which regards the Torah as absolute, we have other laws, Rabbinic laws called Halacha (the Way to Walk) for those things that are not specified in Torah. These laws are found in the Talmud, which is called The Oral Torah. For example: in the Torah we are told what animals are acceptable sacrifices and what to do with the blood of the sacrifice, but there is nothing in there telling us how the animal is to be killed. In Talmud we are given the laws regarding slaughter of animals, called Shechita. If an animal, either for sacrifice or just to be eaten, is slaughtered in any other fashion it is rendered treif, or unacceptable under Kashrut law.

The point is this: Torah gives us what we need to be acceptable to God, both in our relationship to Him and our relationship to each other. There are also subordinate regulations, dealing with areas not specifically covered by Torah, which are just like our civil legal system, where what the constitution doesn’t specify we can find in state and municipal laws. The point is that these laws must be obeyed, whether federal or municipal, and whether Torah or Talmud (Canon), in the proper order: in other words, a municipal law that overrides federal law will be considered invalid, and the canon and rituals of religions that override the laws of God (Torah) should also be considered invalid.

That means, simply, that if what Talmud or religious Canon say we should do is contrary to the Torah, we shouldn’t do it. That is what Yeshua said was wrong with the religious system during His days on earth- the laws of men took precedence over the laws of God.

Don’t let that happen in your life. Know the Torah, know your own sets of Canon, and make sure you give obedience where obedience belongs.

hating is easier than loving

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They say good always triumphs over evil, and love conquers everything. I believe that both are true, but only in a spiritual sense: in the real world, I have seen that hate can be stronger than love and evil often wins out.

Sometimes evil does get what’s coming to it in the real world, but it always reaps the whirlwind in the afterlife.

I know people who can’t let go of their anger or hatred, and I can see it eating away their kishka’s (intestines) slowly. Hatred is a wormwood that infects the heart, and since (biblically) the heart is the source of intelligence, when we hate we not only damage relationships, but we get stupid, too!

Anger from pridefulness leads to hatred, unforgiveness feeds the hatred, and jealousy is (maybe) the worst form of hatred. And I believe (disagree if you want- that’s OK) that hatred is stronger than love in most people. To me, love is like clear, fresh water that extinguishes all anger and pride, whereas hatred is an all-consuming fire that is never satisfied and feeds on itself, never getting smaller and always growing stronger.

If we hate someone, usually they hate us back, but love is very often unrequited. In the long run, many more people love someone who doesn’t love them back, yet hatred will almost always return hatred. That’s how it feeds on itself. And hating is easy- very easy! To hate you only need to love yourself more than others, be prideful and unforgiving, and want everything to go your way. You see anyone and anything that prevents your desires from coming to fruition as the enemy. That is almost a description of human nature, isn’t it? Hating is a curse- not to the other person, but to the one who hates. Yet- we don’t care! Once we are in “hate mode”, we are gone! We lose control of our senses, our emotions, and we do and say things that will hurt ourselves and everyone around us. Hatred is death.

Love, on the other hand, is gentle, takes strength of character and humility, is forgiving and accepts everyone as they are, whether or not we agree with their choices. No mater what, we still love them. We know that they are children of God and if you love God, you have to love (at least, a little) His children.  I am not speaking about “hold me-kiss me-marry me”  love, but love in the spiritual sense.

Shaul (Paul) says in 1 Corinthians 13 that without love, he is nothing.  Hatred eats us alive, from the inside out, and then grows beyond us affecting everything and everyone we come into contact with. Well, love does the same thing, only it strengthens us from the inside out, and our love for others will also affect everyone and everything around us, but instead of burning and hurting (as hate does), love makes people feel better about themselves and the world. It may only last a moment with them, but it makes an impression. Even those that are consumed by hatred will be convicted by our loving example and will (probably) feel uncomfortable around us.

Hate is easy because it it fits well with our sinful personality. Love is hard because it takes self-sacrifice, forgiveness, and compassion- the exact opposite of what we call “human nature.”

“So, Mr. Cynical Steve, if you are so certain that hate is easier than love, and hatred is the norm, why even bother with love? How can we possibly attain it?” The answer is that God is able to show you how to love. God loved us all, even while we were sinners, enough to forgive us over and over, and finally to allow His only son to die so we could be saved. Yeshua loved us enough to give up, for all eternity, His divinity and take on a mantle of flesh so that He could die in order to save us from ourselves.

“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends .” (John 15:13)

This is the example we need to live up to, and with the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) dwelling inside us, we are encouraged to love. Hatred is a fire; fire can be extinguished with water; Yeshua (Jesus) said He is the Living Water, and that is what we need so we can extinguish hatred and become free of the fire. The waters of the this world can run dry, but the Living Water is always available.

The easy way is usually not the best way, just like if something sounds too good to be true, it probably isn’t. We have to fight to be loving, we have to run the race with our eyes on the prize to keep hatred behind us, we have to be willing to sacrifice our pride, and we need to understand that even when others hurt us we have to love them back. None of these things are easy to do, and are even harder to maintain when we are in a relationship that feeds on anger and unforgiveness.

I read a book once called “The Dance of Anger” (by Harriet Lerner) which said that when two people are in a relationship that is fed by negative reinforcement and destructive, when one of the two try to change it, even when that change is beneficial and good, the other person will go out of their way to bring the relationship back into disharmony because it has become comfortable. In other words, if we argue all the time and I try to stop arguing, you will be the one who constantly tries to start an argument. Or, if you try to calm me and work with me, I will do everything I can to undermine your attempts at peace so we go back to hurting each other. I read that book in my previous life, when I was in a very bad marriage, and what the book says is true. I ate crow for months, and did everything I could to avoid arguments. I even accepted that my family, my friends, and everything I ever held dear to myself (including my morals) were wrong. Yet, whenever I tried to make the relationship better, she tried to bring it back to where it was. She wanted to vent, and the more she vented, the windier it got- there was no venting because the fire of hatred and unforgiveness is unquenchable.

The answer to hatred is that you need to just stop hating, i.e. remove the fuel: that is the only way to put out the fire. With humans it is very hard- nearly impossible, but with God, all things are possible..

Glitter Ash Wednesday- really?

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There was an article in our Florida Today newspaper the other day about churches adding purple glitter to the ashes for use on Ash Wednesday. Why? To show support for LGBT Christians.

LGBT Christians- that sounds like an oxymoron, doesn’t it? According to the word of God, homosexuality and cross-dressing is an abomination.

Now, don’t go flying off the handle at me if you are an LGBT person- I am NOT homophobic: I have family members and friends who are Lesbian and Gay, and I love them, accept what they are doing as their choice (note that I say accept what they do as their choice, not that I accept what they do) and I have nothing against anyone who has that type of sexual preference. I just agree with God that it is not right.

Actually, because God sees any and all sin as sin, homosexuality is no different than lying, murder, adultery, etc., right? So, if we are going to show support for LGBT Christians (and the Jews are no different in this- there are relatively as many LGBT synagogues as there as churches), why not support murderers, rapists, child molesters, crooks, adulterers, embezzlers, and all people who perform any one of the plethora of sinful activities that humans do to each other?

What I believe is this: churches and synagogues should not demonstrate any kind of support for any sinful activity. For me, to add glitter to ashes to show support for homosexuality is no different than throwing those ashes back in God’s face and telling Him that what He says we should do is less important to us than what the world says we should do.

The two greatest commandments are to love God and love each other- it should be in that order! When we do things to be “politically correct” instead of to follow God’s commandments, we have already taken the first step to accepting the mark of the Beast. That’s right- when you start to act in ways that honor the opinion of this fallen and sinful world instead of standing against it and acting the way God said we should, then you have bowed to the enemy of God and are rebelling against the Almighty.

If you don’t like the sound of that- tough! The truth is there is no middle of the road with God: you are with Him or against Him, there is only black or white, evil or good, with no in-between. Again, if you don’t like that, tough luck, Buddy- that’s the way it is!

So if you do Ash Wednesday and your church has added glitter to some of the ashes, I suggest you find another church because when Yeshua returns, that place is going to be in trouble. The leadership of any church or synagogue that is openly accepting of any sinful activity is leading you away from proper worship of God and will be marked for destruction.

Strong words, I know, but I am for God and not for the world. To paraphrase a godly and righteous man, “As for me, I will serve the Lord ” (Joshua 24:15), and if that means any of my friends or family members will no longer have anything to do with me because I reject some of their lifestyle choices, then so be it (although I know that won’t happen because we have been through this already, and we respect each other’s right to an opinion, and we love each other even when we disagree- that is the correct way we serve God.)

No one who worships God is perfect;  we are all sinners who continue to sin. The real issue isn’t what that sin is, but whether or not we are repentant of it and wish to overcome it. I believe that is what separates the sinners who are forgiven from the sinners who aren’t forgiven- the ones who ask for forgiveness receive it. That is the simple and direct  way God works. If you are sinning (any sin) and you repent of it, then clearly you would not want to do that sin anymore because when we sin, it hurts God. Yes, it does- when you see someone you care for doing something that is hurtful to themself, don’t you feel bad?

If not, you’ve got bigger problems than I can help you with!

So, then, when God sees us hurting ourselves by rejecting His rules and commandments (which provide immortality and eternal joy), He is hurting, too. God is a better parent than any human could ever be, so if we are hurt seeing loved ones suffer, imagine how much more painful it must be to God to see us (literally and spiritually) killing ourselves.

Let me bring this down to a simple statement: if your place of worship supports sinfulness, leave it! If you don’t then you are the blind man being led by another blind man, and you will both fall into a hole (that leads directly to Sheol.)

 

Parashah Yitro (Jethro) Exodus 18-20

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This parashah starts with the reunion of Moses to his wife and children, whom he had sent away while still in Egypt to be with her father, Jethro, the Priest of Midian. Now in the desert and with Egypt no longer a threat of any kind, Jethro brings Moses’ family back to him.

The next day, while watching Moses dispense justice all day long, Jethro suggests that Moses delegate his authority so that he, alone, doesn’t have to hear every single case. Moses accepts this advice and does as Jethro suggested.

Proverbs 12:1– “Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but whoever hates correction is stupid.”

The rest of this section of Torah takes us to the mountain of God, Sinai (also known as Horeb) and the people are told to prepare to meet the Lord, who came down to the mountain in fire and smoke and gave us the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments.

Before reading the Torah, we recite this prayer:

Blessed art thou, oh Lord, our God, king of the Universe, who has chosen us from all peoples and given to us his Torah. Blessed art thou, oh Lord, giver of the Torah. 

And after we read from the Torah, we recite this prayer:

Blessed are thou, oh Lord our God, king of the universe, who has given us the Torah of truth, and placed everlasting life in our midst. Blessed art thou, oh Lord, giver of the Torah.

Why were the Jewish people granted this wonderful election- to be given the Torah, which provides everlasting life? The answer is simple: God loved Abraham, who was a righteous and faithful servant, and since one of the 13 Attributes of God is to bless those who love him to the thousandth generation (Exodus 20:6): that is why the descendants of Abraham were chosen, and blessed with receiving and being the guardians of the Torah.

Notice I said “descendants of Abraham” and not “the Jewish people”: I did that because once someone accepts the God of Abraham as their God, that person is considered by God’s commandment to be an adopted child of Abraham (Romans 9:8 and Galatians 3:29), and as such is afforded all the rights and privileges under the Torah (as well as the obligation to obey the Torah) as any “natural born” descendant.

The Torah was given to those who are descendants of Abraham: the purpose not being for their use only, but to show the world how God wants us to worship Him and treat each other (Exodus 19:6.)

Christians are descendants of Abraham because they accept Yeshua (Jesus) as their Messiah, and so through that relationship are worshiping the same God who sent Yeshua. That means they are adopted sons and daughters of Abraham, and as such, have also been given the Torah to provide them everlasting life.

Why then do so many Christian organizations teach that the Torah is (essentially) dead, and the laws and commandments in the Torah (which God said to obey) are not binding on Christians?  It’s like they want to have their cake and eat it, too- give us the everlasting life that Torah provides, but don’t expect us to obey the Torah.

Huh? Really?

I use this analogy when teaching about the split between Christianity and Judaism:

Remember the Bugs Bunny cartoon where Elmer chases Bugs into a tree? Bugs is sitting on a branch, and Elmer is on the tree sawing the branch, laughing derisively as he knows Bugs will fall to the ground. But when the branch is cut through, it is the tree that falls to the ground while the branch remains suspended in air. That’s what Christianity thinks is possible when they teach that they can ignore the Torah.

The Torah is what God gave to the world– the Jews are nothing more than the first ones to learn the lessons. God’s commandment to the Jewish people is to follow, then teach others to follow. That is how the descendants of Abraham are to be a blessing to the world (Genesis 22:18), and why it is so important to realize that accepting Yeshua means becoming a descendant of Abraham, which carries the obligation (even the commandment) to teach the nations and the peoples of the world about the Torah, which was, and is, part of God’s plan of salvation.

To put it more succinctly: if you teach that the Torah is not necessary, you are working against God’s plan of salvation. If you think faith is all you need to be saved, you are right, but without obedience then your faith is empty; everything (EVERYTHING) Yeshua taught us to do is directly from the Torah. Everything His Talmudim (Disciples) taught the newly grafted branches onto the Tree of Life to do was directly from the Torah.

I am not saying to be a Christian you have to convert to Judaism, and because I am Born Again that doesn’t make me a Christian- I am a Jew. But everyone who accepts Yeshua (Jesus) as their Messiah and Savior becomes a descendant of Abraham and, as such, is required to obey the commandments God gave to the descendants of Abraham- the same ones we read in the Torah, starting with this parashah and the Ten Commandments.

The Ten Commandments is the “Reader’s Digest” version of the entire Tanakh, the first 5 dealing with our duties to God and the next 5 with our duties to each other. As Yeshua said, the most important commandments are to love God and love each other, and on those two commandments pivot all the writings and the Prophets (Matthew 22:36-40.) These 10 commandments teach us how to love God and each other, but neither God nor Yeshua ever meant that we should exclude all the other commandments found in the Torah. That is what Yeshua meant when He said that the writings and the Prophets pivot on, or are contained, in these two things. He wasn’t saying we can ignore the rest, He was saying that the rest will come more naturally from doing these two things.

We need to get back on line, back in the proper groove, which is to honor the Torah, which honors God, and try to obey all that God said we should do. There shouldn’t be differences in religions, in fact, there shouldn’t be different religions, at all! There should only be God and each other- that is the game plan He gave us to follow. Apparently, we didn’t like a lot of God’s rules, so we’ve made up a bunch of our own, from Talmudic laws of Halakha (Way to Walk) to Christian Canons and rites. And whom do these rules honor?  Not God, because they are man-made and their main purpose is to provide a few with power over the others.

Anything different from what God told us to do is not from God- think about that.

Salvation comes from faith, but faith without works is dead, so prove your faithfulness by your works: the works God, Himself, gave us in His Torah.

is willing to obey enough?

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Why do we obey? When we are told to do something, we always have the choice to obey or refuse. There is a middle course- obey the order but don’t do it the way we were told. That isn’t really refusing, but it’s pretty darn close to it.

In the military you obey for one of two reasons: the first reason is if you don’t, you get in trouble, which can mean anything from losing free time to losing money to going to the Brig. The second reason is that you trust the officer giving the order and do what he or she says out of respect, and knowing that what they are asking you to do is for a good reason. You don’t have to know their reason, you just have to trust that they have a good one.

At the workplace (I think) most obey in order to keep their job- obedience from desire to remain out of trouble. And yet, as above, obedience does often come from knowing the manager has a good reason, respect for the person and trust that they know things need to be done in a certain way because that is the best way to do it.

We obey traffic laws so we don’t get a ticket, but overall we recognize that when everyone drives lawfully we protect ourselves and others. This obedience comes more from a desire for self-preservation than from respect for the Department of Motor Vehicles.

However, whether in the military, at the workplace, or even within a family unit, some people will refuse to do what they have been told to do and make excuses, saying someone else told them a different way, they didn’t understand, they got bogged down with other work and will get to it soon, yadda-yadda-yadda. Nearly everyone can find an excuse for not doing what they were told that will not result in them getting into too much trouble.

If you have been agreeing with me so far, I hope we can agree that when it comes down to it, there are two different motivations for obedience:

  1. To prevent getting into trouble; and
  2. Obedience that comes from respect and trust for (maybe we can add desire to please) the one telling you what to do, whether or not you understand why.

Now….what about obedience to God? What is the main motivation for that? As we said above, it is either because we fear retaliation (going to hell) or because we trust in God that what He tells us to do is for our benefit and that He knows what He is doing.

Oh, wait! Let’s not forget those “middle-of-the-road” types that will do what they want to do and refuse to do what they don’t want to do, then find excuses for disobedience. Such as, “My Rabbi/Priest/Pastor/Minister told me I don’t have to do that anymore”, or “That was just because of health reasons, but we have better medicine today and things are cleaner”, or “The men who wrote the bible are chauvinists”, or the the one I really can’t stand,”That’s for Jews only; we are Christians and don’t need to do that because Jesus overcame it.”

Oy!! I really can’t stand that excuse, which is totally man-made by people who refuse to do what God says simply because they don’t want to, then use Jesus (real name- Yeshua) as their excuse, ignoring the truth that He did those things, Himself, and preached that everyone should.

When you obey God’s word, do you obey what He told Moses or what the Elders (in Acts) said Gentiles need to do? If you read the entire bible, you will see that everything the Apostles (in Hebrew they are called “Talmudim”) did and preached is all based on the Old Covenant writings, including the laws of Moses, and they never, ever said that Gentiles accepting Yeshua (Jesus) as their Messiah don’t have to follow the same rules and regulations as the Jews. That’s because there were no other religions that worshiped the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (BTW- He’s the same God of Jesus) that weren’t pagan. There were Pagans, and there were Jews, and the Jews worshiped God as God said they were supposed to. The same rules He gave Moses are the rules we are ALL told to obey.

God has no religion, only rules, regulations and commandments that are designed for our good. OUR good- not His. I mean, really- He’s God, the All Powerful, the Creator of Everything, the One and Only Almighty: do you really think there is anything, anywhere, that we humans could do or give Him that He can’t get anywhere except from us?

There is something God can only get from us: our worship, devotion and love.

I don’t obey every commandment, neither do you. None of us can, which is why Yeshua had to sacrifice not just His life on earth, but His divinity, too. But I try to obey, and more than that, I really, really want to be as obedient as I can simply because God asks me to do these things, and I trust God to know more than I do what is best for me. I also respect God, and as such want to do what he says I should out of respect for His justifiably absolute authority. Don’t think I am bragging- I try, but I fail, much more often than I succeed, but what I can boast about is that because of God’s Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit), which leads me, I can obey more often than I ever did. I’m still not very good at obeying, but I am getting better at it, and that is not from fear of reprisal, but from fear of the Lord (in the biblical sense, which means to have an awesome reverence for God.)

Obeying just to avoid going to hell is better than not obeying, but it is like the good seed falling on the poor soil, which never takes root deep enough to last during tribulations. If you obey only what is easy to obey, only what you don’t mind obeying, and only because you don’t want to go to hell, then your obedience is probably not going to be enough when the fecal matter hits the air circulation unit. The enemy will offer you a much better program, one that will let you pick and choose what you want to do and promise eternal reward for it. Trust me- it’s a lie; anything worth having is worth working for, and if you are promised great rewards for doing nothing hard, you are going to be very, very disappointed.

Think of all the wonderful things God has done for you- and even if you are homeless, sickly, distraught, lonely, whatever- even in those sad and unhappy conditions, God has made sure that you are still here: you still have hope for things getting better and you can always turn your life around. God will help if you ask for it, but you need to get off your tuchas and work at it. The bible tells us that salvation is not easy, that obedience is possible but very hard, and that suffering will ensue as you strengthen your relationship with God. It only makes sense- the world we live in is cursed and under the authority of the enemy, so anything ‘Godly” is out of place. So what? God is more powerful than the enemy, and even if the enemy attacks you and destroys everything you have (as he did with Job), God can replace it, easily, and give you even more than you had. And what God can do for you eternally the enemy can’t even come close to doing.

Obey from love, obey from respect, obey from desire to please God (a labor of love, so to speak) and obey every commandment you can. Do all that God said we should do (which is every commandment and regulation found between Genesis and Revelations) and never give up trying to do better.

That kind of obedience will be more than enough.

Science is the antithesis of faith

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What is faith?

When I want to know the meaning of something that matters to me, on both an eternal and spiritual level, rather than what Mr. Webster or Wikipedia may think, I like to go to the Manual (my ‘manual’ is the bible because I think it is the best User’s Manual ever created.)

So, to find the meaning of “faith”, the place I go to is Hebrews 11, verse 1:

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.

In other words, faith is believing absolutely in what has not been proven.

In science, things work a little differently; we start with an observation of an event, form a theory about why it happens, test our theory in a laboratory, and when we can manually recreate the event by doing what we theorized would cause that event, then the theory is considered scientific fact.

In other words, in science it is not considered to be true until such time as you can, in a controlled environment, create the event at will.

Therefore, since faith is believing in what we haven’t seen, and science doesn’t believe in anything it can’t see, you can “see” why I say they are the antithesis of each other.

If anyone wants to dispute the above by saying no one has seen quarks, or sub-atomic particles, or a  Worm Hole, yet science accepts their existence, that’s because their existence is accepted based upon the visible effect they have on their immediate environment; whereas they are not visible, they can still be “seen” through their effect on what is visible.

What is interesting is that although science cannot accept the existence of God as fact, a form of science (archaeology) is providing, on a constant basis, evidence that the bible is historically accurate and verifiable. Archaeological findings have constantly demonstrated the biblical stories we hear of are true, therefore it is reasonable to accept that if the historical accounts are true, then the reasons given for their occurrence might be accurate, as well.

In other words, if the eye-witnessed description of an event happened as described, then the reason given why or how it happened should be just as believable.

The problem is this: God will never provide absolute, irrefutable evidence of His existence until it is all over. Why? Because salvation comes from faith, not from a test tube. Scientific “proof” of God’s existence works against faith, because faith is believing in what can’t been seen and science only believes in what can be seen. If we can “see” God, if we can “prove” His existence absolutely, then faith is not needed.

For me, faith is stronger than fact. After all, how many “facts” over the millennia have proven to be wrong? The earth isn’t flat, the moon isn’t made of cheese, cigarettes are not good for you, and because it is on the Internet it doesn’t have to be true.

I love science, I love knowing how things work and being able to make things happen. Even just adding alkaline powder to my hot tub to watch the water color change from an acidic yellowish to clear blue is really cool, but science is not my religion. Unfortunately, it has become a religion to many people. They use scientific theory as fact (evolution is the best example) and work under the system where if something isn’t palpable and repeatable then it isn’t real. God is real, all right, and can be palpable (if He chooses to be so), but we can’t make that happen. That’s totally up to Him, so to those who believe only what they can make happen, God is an unknown.

I wish I could find this book: I was once told Og Mandino compiled a book of essays by famous scientists, of all areas in science, that found the more they understood how things worked, the more they realized there had to be an intelligence that made it all happen. That is how science can become faithful, by understanding enough to realize that this all isn’t just an accident. There may be some level of happenstance, such as how quarks move at the sub-atomic level, but life didn’t happen by some quirk: God created everything. He designed it, He changed it, He let some die out and He let some survive. The DNA molecule is the very backbone of creation, yet it is made up of only 5 chemicals, and how they are combined in different chains of different sequences is what makes a snail a snail and a human being a human being (even though some human beings I have known are as slow as a snail.)  Therefore, it only makes sense that when you have that strong a foundation to build from, you would find similarity in everything that exists based on that foundation. What I am saying is that just because the chimpanzee genome is nearly 99% the same as a human genome, it doesn’t mean we came from apes. The only conclusion science can accurately state is that humans and apes are closely related biological entities, but there is nothing to prove that chimps evolved into humans.

If you are confused about God and want some “sign” of His existence, keep asking for it in prayer, but also remember what Yeshua (Jesus) said about those that asked for a sign:

Matthew 12:39– “He answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign!””

Even so, Yeshua told them a sign would be given, which (even to this day) millions upon millions have rejected. So, ask and if God wills it to be done, you will receive a sign. The onus is on you to look for it and to accept it when you see it.

There are signs of God’s existence everywhere;  we only need to accept them for what they are to substantiate our faith.

Parashah Bo (come) Exodus 10 – 13:16

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The plagues continue, with locusts, darkness and the final plague, the death of the firstborn of Egypt.

Moses is instructed by God what the Israelites must do to be protected from the angel of death, for even though Goshen had been protected from the other plagues, it seems that the angel of death was over everyone and everything, and only the blood of the Passover Lamb would protect you from death. They are also told to sacrifice the lamb, and to make sure that the sacrifice is eaten in the prescribed manner, with nothing left over, and only those who are Israelites, or slaves and sojourners with Israel who have been circumcised may eat of this meal.

After the death of all the firstborn, both men and animals, Pharaoh lets the people go. They plunder the Egyptians, who give willingly, and leave the very next day. Moses reminds the people of the Passover regulations, commanding them to teach this story throughout all their generations and to eat the Passover meal (Seder) every year according to the way it should be done, with no leavened products for a week.

The term “The Passover Lamb” is first introduced to us in this parashah. To the Jewish people, the Passover Lamb represents freedom from slavery to Egypt, and is a very important part of our history. Because the Temple no longer exists, and the Torah specifies that the Passover Lamb had to be sacrificed at the Temple, we do not eat lamb at Passover; the usual dish chosen is chicken.

I have this great recipe for baked chicken: grease a pan, place the cleaned chicken pieces in the pan and spread butter over them. Sprinkle on salt, pepper, garlic powder and fresh parsley flakes. Bake at 375 for 45-60 minutes, or until the skin is browned and bubbling. YUM!!

The Passover Lamb means freedom from slavery to Jews, and to Christians it is a reference to Yeshua, who sacrificed Himself to free us from a different form of slavery: slavery to sin.

Now here is the interesting part: the Passover sacrifice was not a sin sacrifice- it was a thanksgiving sacrifice. There are 5 types of sacrifices:

  1. Whole Burnt Offering
  2. Meal Offering
  3. Peace Offering
  4. Sin Offering
  5. Guilt/Trespass Offering

The first three offerings are voluntary, and the last two are mandatory for atonement from sin. The main difference is that of all 5 sacrifices, the only one where both God and the person sacrificing shared of the meat was for the Peace, or Thanksgiving sacrifice. This was representative of the communion between man and God.

Yeshua’s sacrifice was clearly one made for the atonement of sin- it was most representative of the wholly burnt sacrifice, since His entire body was given to God. But wait! If the sacrifice Yeshua (Jesus) made was a sin sacrifice, why is He called the Passover Lamb? The Passover Lamb sacrifice was a peace offering, a Thanksgiving sacrifice, and not a sacrifice to atone from sin. So, then, is calling Yeshua the Passover Lamb really accurate?

Not from a human timeline, but since God is not subject to any timeline, we need to look at another specific sacrifice to find the complete relationship opportunity that Yeshua’s sacrifice made possible. That sacrifice is described to us in Leviticus 16- it is the Yom Kippur sacrifice. We are told to have 2 goats (not lambs)- one to be sacrificed and one to be released into the desert after the people have placed upon it’s head their sins. The goat that was chosen by lot to be sacrificed had it’s blood used to atone the alter and the Most Holy Place, and the rest of it was a burnt sacrifice. I checked the Chumash and did not see specifically where it mentioned if any portion of the Yom Kippur lamb was to be given to the Priests, but since God says that we are all to afflict our souls ( fast), clearly this had to be a wholly burnt sacrifice, with no parts being eaten by the Priests.

As we can see, Yeshua’s sacrifice was more like the Yom Kippur goat, not the Passover Lamb, so which is it? Did Yeshua’s sacrifice cleanse us of our sins, or bring us into communion with God?

The answer is: it has done both of these things at one time.

The way I see this working is that Yeshua took on our sins, as the Yom Kippur goat does, and freed us from sin when He sacrificed Himself on Passover. The Passover Lamb sacrifice was a Thanksgiving, or Peace offering which allowed us to commune with God. But, communion with God is not possible when we are covered in sin, so first we must have the sin removed. Only after we have been cleansed of our sins can we have complete communion with God and come into His presence. Under the Sacrificial System one had to perform two, separate sacrifices to attain this state of communion, but with Yeshua’s sacrifice both were accomplished, at once.

Yeshua is the Passover Lamb, which was a lamb chosen by man whose blood would protect them from death, and He is also the the Lamb of God, the Yom Kippur lamb chosen by God (through throwing lots) to atone for the sins of the people. He is both of these: God chose Yeshua to atone for the sins of the people, and when you choose Yeshua as your Passover Lamb, then you have both atonement of your sins and protection from death (not the first death, of course, but the second death, which is for all eternity.)

PS: Next week Donna and I will be on our annual anniversary cruise so I will not be blogging. Have a great week, and I will be back on February 13. 

Enough already!!

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I really don’t want this ministry to become a political sounding board, but I am going to make an exception today because of what I see happening.

It doesn’t have to do with any policies or choices that President Trump (yes, he is- deal with it) has recently initiated, or with the controversy (ongoing and most likely, never stopping) associated with the past election, but with the reactions of the people to these events.

I have read about a shooting in a Canadian mosque where the main things written about the shooter is that he is pro-Israel and pro-Trump. Maybe those were his motivations, but I think he was probably anti-Muslim before he decided to be pro-Israel or pro-Trump.

In fact, what I think is this (and please comment below if you agree or disagree, although I will not let this discussion get out of hand): anyone who has a grudge against a people or a religion have it for their own reasons and not because of who is in charge. What they do, though, is use the person in charge as their excuse for taking the actions they would have done, anyway. And the media? They eat it up!

Was it Jodie Foster’s fault that John Hinckley, Jr. tried to assassinate President Reagan? This attack against a mosque has no more merit to it than that excuse did.

When the American diplomat’s in Iran were taken hostage, many Americans attacked and brutally mistreated many Arab people living in America. No one protested that.

During the Second World War, Japanese Americans (who, for the record, were Americans that were of Japanese descent) were herded up and forced into concentration camps (yes, that is what they were) for years until the war was over. It was a despicable event in our history (just one of many), but no one protested or attacked President Roosevelt for doing it, at least not on the same level as what is happening today.

When the world seems to be falling apart (or maybe we should say, tearing itself apart) the best thing to do to seek answers to what we, those who worship God, should do is to look in the Manual and see what God has told us to do:

Proverbs 24:21-22– My son, fear the Lord and the king, and do not join with those who do otherwise, for disaster will arise suddenly from them, and who knows the ruin that will come from them both?

Hebrews 13:17- Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.

Titus 3:1- Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work,

1 Peter 2:17- Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor.

(OK, let the jokes fly about ‘Trump’ and ‘Emperor’ in the same sentence)

Romans 13:1-7- Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad.

Some of these may be a little out of context, but what Yeshua (Jesus) tells us, as well as God, is to obey God, and trust in God that the rulers He has appointed over you will also be judged by God. This, of course, is culturally a little different today, since in the biblical days the rulers were not elected. As such, in our day, because we elect the rulers we do have a responsibility to ensure that our rulers are just and true, subjecting themselves to the laws that govern all of us.

As a life-long student of history (my undergraduate degree specialized in early American history), I have to say that more often than not, our rulers have fallen short of that ideal. And when they have, to the extent that it is known, we have taken action: President Johnson (Andrew, not Lyndon) was impeached, President Clinton was impeached, and President Nixon was (essentially) forced to resign. Thomas Jefferson has been quoted as saying that the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of revolution, which today is more peaceably accomplished through demonstrations and protests, as we have seen since the election results of last year.

So, what’s the point? The point is that God is in charge, and if you believe that then you need to show it by accepting and respecting His choices.

We all complain, and we all seem to want someone else to do something about it. So, unless you are willing to do something against the leadership that God has placed above you, just give it a rest! I am fed up with all this hullabaloo about Russians hacking our systems- they’ve been at it for decades; the Chinese hack into our networks to gain political and military secrets and the Russians have their pharmaceutical websites to rip off the world. They have been doing this for years and will continue to do so. The media is making a big deal out of it not because it is a recent development, but to ride the wave of discontentment that had this country nearly split apart, politically.

I believe in our American system of jurisprudence, and I also know from my study of history that we have done more to promote justice, fair treatment and democracy than any other country in the world. We have our problems, and we will always have our problems; you can never please everyone. Now here’s a rose-colored glasses viewpoint, if ever there was one: if everyone was willing to go along with the majority and work together for the common good, we would be as close to an ideal form of government as human beings could ever create.

I am waiting for the only truly perfect government: a pure theocracy with Yeshua sitting on the throne over the earth as King of kings. It is coming, and until then all I can do is respect what rulers we have (if not the person, then the position) and work with them to try to make this country better. And if I disagree with the policies, and think I have a better one, then do something about it within the legal system. When I was in management and someone didn’t like what I was doing I would ask them for a better plan. If they had one, I would be willing to consider it (asking for suggestions doesn’t mean having to take them) and if they only wanted to complain, I didn’t want to hear it.

I am still the same way- either put up or shut up!

God is very much like that, too; He is always willing to listen to prayer; however, if you only complain about something, but won’t walk in faith to make change happen, God will not be going out of His way to support you. Prayer is asking God to make something happen, but we have to work towards it in faithful expectation.

In Matthew 21:22 , Yeshua tells us that we can pray for anything, and if we have faith, we will receive it. Yacov tells us (James 2:17) that faith without works is dead, so put these two together and we what we are being told is that when we pray for something, faithfully believing it will happen, we will receive it, and the way we show faithfully believing is to perform works, i.e., do what we prayed to receive as if we already have it.

So, if you want to change the legal system, write a bill and start getting the requisite number of signatures to put it before the Congress. If you want to change a policy, come up with a better policy and begin to get support, legally and respectfully.

In the meantime, respect the authority placed over you by GOD and work with it to make things as good as they can be.