Category: A Drash to Start the Day

How Important is the Trinity Regarding Salvation?

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One of the biggest arguments within Christianity is the idea of the Trinity, meaning that God, Yeshua (Jesus), and the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) are all really the same entity, in different forms.

It is a very hotly argued topic, but my question is this:

With regard to how we are saved, does it really matter if Yeshua is God or not?

If you prefer to watch a video, click on this link: Watch the video.


I know that there are a lot of people right now who are screaming, “Of course it does!”

OK, why? Are we saved by believing that Yeshua is God? Is there anywhere in the Gospels or the writings of Shaul (Paul) that states if we do not believe Yeshua and God are the exact same entity, we can’t be saved? Doesn’t Shaul write about how important it is to faithfully believe that Yeshua is the Messiah?

Look, I don’t believe Yeshua is God simply because it doesn’t make sense, spiritually or biblically. There are some 130 messianic passages in the Tanakh, yet not one of them indicates that the Messiah is going to be God.

Every single person who ever existed was created through the joining of a human male with a human female, with three exceptions: Adam, Eve, and Yeshua. And because of Adam’s major screwup, we are all born with a sinful nature (called the Yetzer Hara), also referred to as Original Sin, which traditionally has been passed down from Adam; original sin is transmitted through the father.

But Yeshua’s father was not human, and was not sinful- in fact, he was (and is) the holiest of all holies that has, does, or ever will exist. Yeshua had to be 100% human so that he could live a human life and know human temptations. But as the messiah, he also needed to be imbued with the Holy Spirit, which is the inheritance he received from that divine conception. It was his humanity filled completely with Holy Spirit that empowered him to overcome sin. And because he was able to live a sinless life he was an acceptable sacrifice for others- which was the ultimate the goal of the Messiah’s first coming.

He was born of flesh and spirit, but even though his conception was divine, he was not divine. What was divine was the Ruach HaKodesh that lived within him, just as we who accept Yeshua and have asked for this gift from God, have the Ruach HaKodesh inside us.

Do you believe you have the indwelling Holy Spirit? Does that make you God?

But let’s get back to this salvation thing: if I believe Yeshua is God, am I more “saved” than someone who doesn’t believe that? What if he is God, and I believe he is not, does that mean I can’t be saved?

Even if I believe he is the Messiah?

If I believe Yeshua is the Messiah and believe I can receive forgiveness of my sins by means of the shedding of his innocent blood, but I don’t believe he is God, am I doomed to damnation?
Everything I read in the Bible states that faith is how we are saved, but it must be a faith that motivates us to obey God and reject sin.

But nothing says we have to believe that Yeshua is God to be saved.

Let’s wrap this up: I will never tell anyone what they must believe, so believe what you choose to, but I believe that Yeshua is not God, and more than that, I believe it doesn’t matter whether he is or not when it comes to salvation because we are not saved by the belief that Yeshua is God, but by faithfully believing he is the Messiah God promised to send. And that he died for our sins, and because he was sinless he was resurrected, proving he was an acceptable sacrifice.
And that he now sits at the right hand of his Father, the one and only God, interceding for us.
You know, when you think about it, if he is God, why would God intercede with himself?
Like I said, I don’t believe that Yeshua’s being God or not has any effect on how we are saved, but since it causes so much division within the body of the Messiah, doesn’t it make sense that we all just concentrate on Yeshua’s role as the Messiah, and let God remain God?

Thank you for being here and please remember to share these messages (yes, even this one) with everyone you know, even non-believers. Hey, after all, you never know how fertile the soil is until you plant a seed in it.

That’s it for today, so l’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

What God Really Desires

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“For what I desire is mercy, not sacrifices, knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.”

Hosea 6:6 (CJB)

OK, so does that mean nothing else matters?

If you prefer to watch a video, click on this link: Watch the video.

God also tells us he isn’t interested in sacrifices in Isaiah 1:11, Micah 6:6-8, Psalm 51:16-17, and Jeremiah 7:21-23.

Yikes! I guess Leviticus 1-7 doesn’t count any more.

That’s not so, and the only reason the sacrifices outlined in those chapters of the Torah aren’t done today is because the temple where they have to be performed has been destroyed.

I have often said, and will continue to do so, that taking a specific verse or passage out of context is a dangerous way to interpret the Bible, so let me assure you that the context of all the passages I cited above is the prophet (or psalm writer) pointing out that the people have been just going through the motions, performing sacrifices that were not truly from their heart. Using animals that were not correct, and sinfully worshiping other gods and goddesses just before coming to the temple and sacrificing to God.

In other words, they were practicing what Shaul (Paul) would call “Legalism”, which is assuming salvation can be attained solely through doing things as ordered, which is what I call a performance-based salvation.

God had the prophets tell this to the people as a way to correct what they were doing wrong, because God always does what he does in order to bring us back into communion with him. And what was wrong was that without faith, the works mean nothing.

And it’s possible that some of the people still faithfully believed in God, but because they were polluting their worship of Adonai with their worship of other gods, their faith was rendered useless.

You can’t work with fish all day and come home smelling nice; when you sacrifice to Ba’al, pour drink offerings on your rooftop to the Queen of Heaven, burn your children to Molech, then go to the temple and sacrifice to God, you reek of faithlessness and sin. And that stench prevents God from accepting you.

What the people didn’t understand, and why these messages were given to them, is that sacrifices to the false gods are worthless, but they make your sacrifice to the one, true God worthless, as well.

So, what does God want?

He wants obedience, but not from desire to earn salvation. He want us to do what he says because we are faithfully trusting in him. Trusting that he will do what he says, i.e. bless those who do as he commands (Deut. 28) and that he will forgive us when we ask for forgiveness, now through the sacrifice Yeshua made for us.

Yeshua didn’t do away with the Torah, just like when God said he doesn’t want sacrifice he didn’t mean never to sacrifice again. The message is that we should be obedient to what God says we should do because we trust that God tells us what to do for our benefit.

God will never steer us wrong, and he always directs us towards salvation. That’s what the Torah does- it tells us what is right and what is wrong, so that we can do what is right.

It’s really quite simple: ignore the way God said to worship him and to treat each other and you cannot be on the path to salvation. You probably will be walking alongside it at times, and you might even cross it now and then, but the path that ignores the Torah is the wide road leading to the wrong destination.

Do you check the news every day? That’s fine- there’s nothing wrong with being up to date on current events, but do you also read the Bible every day? I ask because there is a significant difference: the news tells you about where you are today, but the Bible tells you where you will be throughout eternity!

The Torah isn’t just a bunch of laws- it is the roadmap to salvation.

Let me leave you with this… ignore for a moment what your religion has told you, and ask yourself this question:

Why would God give us the Torah if it didn’t lead us to him?

Thank you for being here and please remember to share these messages with everyone you know, even non-believers. Hey, after all, you never know how fertile the soil is until you plant a seed in it.

That’s it for today, so l’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

Yeshua is the Word, and the Word is the Torah

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First of all, we need to remember that when Yeshua (Jesus) walked the earth, the only “word of God” that existed then was the Torah.

If you prefer to watch a video, click on this link: Watch the video.

Do you really understand what the New Covenant is? I’ll give you a hint… it isn’t found anywhere in the New Covenant writings.

Here is the new covenant that God made with Israel, which Yeshua also made available to the Gentiles, and it is in Jeremiah 31:31-33 (CJB):

Here, the days are coming,” says Adonai, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Isra’el and with the house of Y’hudah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their fathers on the day I took them by their hand and brought them out of the land of Egypt; because they, for their part, violated my covenant, even though I, for my part, was a husband to them,” says Adonai. “For this is the covenant I will make with the house of Isra’el after those days,” says Adonai: “I will put my Torah within them and write it on their hearts; I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will any of them teach his fellow community member or his brother, ‘Know Adonai’; for all will know me, from the least of them to the greatest; because I will forgive their wickednesses and remember their sins no more.”

That is quite a covenant, wouldn’t you agree? It also happens to be the last covenant God made with us and I believe that is because it is the last one we will ever need.

In essence, God is saying that the Torah will be more than just a document we read, it will become a physical part of us, like blood or an organ, something that is an integral part of our very existence.

And that is what Yeshua brought to us- when he says in Matthew 5:17 that he fulfilled the law, he was teaching us the Torah’s spiritual meaning, the very “heart” of the Torah, and so that when we accepted him, and received through his name the Ruach haKodesh (Holy Spirit), we were having the Torah written on our hearts.

In other words, what Yeshua really fulfilled was not just a proper interpretation of the Torah, but he fulfilled the new covenant God gave to us through Jeremiah.

And as Shaul (Paul) points out in Romans, it was to the Jew first, then to the Gentile.

But then, the problems began: the main population of the Jewish people, having been coerced and threatened with excommunication by the power elite of Jerusalem, rejected Yeshua as the Messiah.

Later, after all the Jewish leaders of this new sect within Judaism died off, the movement was led by Gentiles who then rejected the Torah and created their own religion in order to not be targeted by the Romans, who were dealing with a Jewish rebellion.

Of course, that only worked to get the Jewish power elite coming against them. Later on, after the Romans destroyed the temple and killed thousands of Jews in their final battle, these Gentile believers thought they would be OK.

NOT!

Surprise! Now Rome came after them because the one thing Rome hated more than rebellion was some new religion being formed within their controlled territory.

So, what we have now, two millennia later, are Jews who stick to Torah obedience as God directed us to, and Christians, who profess to worship God, who say they follow in the footsteps of Yeshua, but reject nearly every single law, ordinance, regulation, and commandment God gave, which Yeshua obeyed perfectly, in order to follow man-made regulations, ceremonies, holidays, and tenets.

You know, within Judaism there are 5 different sects (6, if you count Messianic Judaism), but the one thing that is constant in all is that the Torah is the ultimate user Manual for Righteousness. From the Ultra-Orthodox (Chasidic) all the way down to the Reconstructionists, we go from extreme Torah observers to a humanistic viewpoint, but we all are trying to be Torah-obedient, in one way or another.

But Christianity, well, Christianity has a lot more than just 5 or 6 sects.

According to Google, there are as many as 45,000 different religions or sects that fall within the term “Christian”.

Forty-five thousand!

Now, as I recall, that nice Jewish tent-maker from Tarsus, in his letter to the Corinthians, said that God is not a god of confusion, but of peace.

You know what? If you ask me, when a religion has as its root tenet that it worships God and follows in the footsteps of Yeshua, but has some 45,000 different ways to do that, well… I am sorry, but I’ve gotta say that is one confused religion!

Hey, Folks- it’s easy! Really! God made the Jews his nation of priests to the world (Ex. 19:6), then he gave us the Torah, then he sent us the Messiah to teach us the true, spiritual meaning of the Torah, then the disciples of the Messiah brought the Torah (being God’s priests to the world) to the Goyim, which is Hebrew for the nations.

Simply stated, God gave Jews the Torah for us to learn so we could bring it to everyone else in the world.

Then the Goyim screwed it all up by rejecting the Torah, making up their own religions, and forcing us Jews to either convert or be tortured and killed.

Talk about killing the messenger!

So, what should you do? My suggestion is simple: read the entire Bible (that means start at Genesis and go through to Revelation) and then pray on it, asking God to guide you to HIS truth.

And let me offer this thought: when you stand before God at Judgement Day (which we all will have to do), and God asks why you didn’t do any of the things he said you should do, I guess that you will answer saying that you did what they told you to do because you thought they knew what they were talking about. I can’t speak for God, but I think he might say something to this effect…

“I know you only did what they told you to do, but it is what I say that counts.”

Thank you for being here and please remember to share these messages with everyone you know, even non-believers. Hey, after all, you never know how fertile the soil is until you plant a seed in it.

That’s it for today, so l’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

The Lord’s Prayer May Deny Your Salvation

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I know this sounds impossible, right? I mean, how can a prayer straight from the son of God deny us salvation?

Well, I’ll show you how!

If you prefer to watch a video, click on this link: Watch the video.

Let’s take a look at the prayer; it’s in Matthew 6:9-13 (CJB):

Our Father in heaven! May your Name be kept holy. May your Kingdom come,
 your will be done on earth as in heaven. Give us the food we need today.
 Forgive us what we have done wrong, as we too have forgiven those who have wronged us.
And do not lead us into hard testing, but keep us safe from the Evil One.
For kingship, power and glory are yours forever. Amen.’

Let’s concentrate on that line in the middle, you know, the one that says God should forgive us as we forgive others. What is that verse really saying?

It’s saying that if we do not forgive others, then God should not forgive us!

And that interpretation is confirmed by verse 14 when Yeshua says:

For if you forgive others their offenses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you;  but if you do not forgive others their offenses, your heavenly Father will not forgive yours.

So, if you are not willing to forgive those who sin against you, then God will not forgive you.

And Yeshua further confirms this in the parable about the man who was forgiven a great debt he owed, but refused to forgive a small debt owed to him (Matthew 18:21-35) .

Now, you may say, “Yo, Bro! Wait a minute! This was before Yeshua shed his blood for us, by which we are forgiven! We’re golden.”

I have to disagree. Yeshua said if we do not forgive, then God won’t forgive us. There’s no escape clause, no “But what if..?”, no option other than we forgive or we aren’t forgiven.

Now can you see why I say that the Lord’s Prayer can actually deny your salvation?

Sure, Christianity makes a big deal out of love thy neighbor, but it seems to me Yeshua is making a bigger deal out of forgive those who sin against you. And I can see why- doesn’t Yeshua tell us in Luke 6:32-36 that even sinners love those who love them? And aren’t we hurt by those who love us, and don’t we hurt those we love? It’s part of the human experience, which doesn’t always stop us from loving each other.

But when it comes to forgiving those who hurt us, that seems to be much harder to do, doesn’t it? Even those we love!

C’mon, be honest- how many times have you felt that someone just doesn’t deserve to be forgiven? The fact is we don’t have the right or the option to make that call- that call is up to God. What we are told is our responsibility is to forgive that person, no matter what our emotions tell us.

And when we forgive someone, don’t think that it makes them right with God, because it doesn’t- it makes YOU right with God!

This is the truth about forgiveness: it doesn’t do anything at all for the one we forgive, but it does a lot for us, in that it makes us right with God and it is the ONLY way to make the hurt go away.

The take-away from today’s message is simple…forgive others so that you will be forgiven and to make the hurt go away.

And here is a tip that helps me to forgive others: I imagine that person standing before God at Judgement Day, and if they haven’t done t’shuvah (repentance), when I think of what they will have to endure for all eternity, well…all I can feel is pity for them, and that feeling of pity is what helps me to forgive them. Maybe it will help you, too?

Thank you for being here and please remember to share these messages with everyone you know, even non-believers. Hey, after all, you never know how fertile the soil is until you plant a seed in it.

That’s it for this week, so l’hitraot and (an early) Shabbat Shalom!

Like It or Not, This is How It Works

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It starts with the creation of everything. Human beings are created, and God gives us the gift of Free Will, because his love for us is such that he will allow us to choose where we spend eternity.

If you prefer to watch a video, click on this link: Watch the video.

God wants us to love him freely and without being forced to, but free will is a two-edged sword: if we choose to obey God from love for him, we will live, but if we choose to reject God from love for ourselves, we will die.

Happily for us, God is not just willing to forgive us, but he truly desires to do so (Ez. 18:23), and so he provides a means for us to be forgiven.

But not yet.

God eventually chooses Abraham, and promises that through his descendants the entire world will be blessed.

But first he needed to protect us. You see, Levi and Rueben had placed the entire Jewish population at risk by slaughtering an entire town in retribution for the prince raping their sister, Dinah, so God had the entire family go to Egypt.

(Yeah, I know I am skipping some events, but the main message remains valid.)

After a time, the family grows into a nation, and then God shows himself to the nation through the miraculous events he causes, freeing his people from slavery and bringing them into the desert.

Now we come to the main point of today’s message: God’s plan for the Jews and the rest of the world.

  1. He tells Moses to separate the Levites, who will serve God for the House of Israel (Num. 3:10-12; Num. 8:5-22).
  2. God tells Moses that the House of Israel will be his (meaning God’s) nation of priests to the world (Ex. 19:6). They have to be priests to the world because the Levites are already priests to Israel, and all that is left to priest to….is the rest of the world. Duh!
  3. God gives this nation of priests the Big Ten (Ex. 20), and over time, through Moses the entire Torah to learn so that they can teach it to the world.
  4. God promises, in Deut. 28, that if we obey his Torah we will be blessed, so it works like this: God gives us Jews the Torah promising if we obey it, we will be blessed, then he tells the Jews to bring it to the world, so the world can be blessed, as well, fulfilling the promise he made to Abraham.
  5. He sends the Messiah, Yeshua, so that when the sacrificial system is not available (after the destruction of the temple) there will still be a means for his people, as well as all people, to receive the forgiveness he wants us to have, so long as we faithfully accept his Messiah and continue to obey God’s Torah, just as Messiah Yeshua did.

My purpose is to do the best I can to teach others how religions are misleading us, and the only way to truly worship God correctly is the way God said to do it!

Again…DUH!

When the Messiah returns, I believe there will be a third temple, and the sacrificial system will be reinstituted, but not for sin- Yeshua took care of that one. There are many other sacrifices to be made, such as the wholly burnt sacrifice (demonstrating our total devotion to God), the Thanksgiving sacrifice, the daily sacrifices, the Rosh Hodesh and Holy Day sacrifices, not to mention any voluntary sacrifices people wish to make.

Well, that’s the plan, Folks! It is laid out clearly throughout the Bible, and despite what Christianity has taught, this plan is confirmed by Yeshua and the teachings within the New Covenant writings.

I think many of you already kinda knew this is what God’s plan was, from the start, but have become complacent and happy to use your religion as an excuse for taking the easy way out. Well, sorry to burst your bubble, but salvation is not a Come-As-You-Are Party. It is free for the asking, and once given no one can take it away from you.

But you can throw it away by not following God’s User Manual for Righteousness, colloquially known as the Torah.

As I said from the start, you were given Free Will to decide where you will spend eternity: please decide wisely.

Thank you for being here and please remember to share these messages with everyone you know, even non-believers. Hey, after all, you never know how fertile the soil is until you plant a seed in it.

That’s it for today, so L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

Complacency is a Killer

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We have all heard that passage from Romans 6:23, you know… the one that says, “The wages of sin is death.”

And that’s true, but sin isn’t the only thing that threatens your salvation.

If you prefer to watch a video, click on this link: Watch the video.

How many times have you tried to explain to someone that their actions are hurting them? Whether it be misuse of drugs, or an ill temper, or maybe ignoring the word of God? Or maybe, as in my case, my sense of humor.

And when you try to alert them that they are hurting themselves, they say, “I’m okay, it’s not a problem. Don’t worry about it.”

They’re complacent. They have an uncritical and unconcerned attitude about themselves.

Many people are like that, and my concern is for the ones who profess to worship God, who say they believe Yeshua (Jesus) is the Messiah, and yet they accept, complacently, their religion’s explanations for rejecting the way God says he wants us to live.

If you go through the entire New Covenant, from Matthew to Revelation, there really isn’t any place in there where God, himself, tells us what he wants us to do. Everything in there was told to us long ago in the Torah.

There is nothing new in the New Covenant, and the reason is that Yeshua came for the lost sheep of Israel (Matthew 15:24), and since they already knew the Torah, it didn’t need to be repeated. What he did do was to teach us the deeper, spiritual meaning of the Torah.

Yet so many people rejected his teaching because they were complacent- in other words, they were comfy-cozy with the way they already lived. They didn’t want to learn anything different, or act differently, or make waves with the power elite (who saw Yeshua as a threat to their position) even if it might affect their salvation.

I have been saying for years that everyone needs to follow the Torah, whether you accept that Yeshua is the Messiah or not, because the Torah is God’s User Manual for Righteousness. Yeshua proved that by living it perfectly (something no other human can do) and, because he did, he was resurrected.

I think we can all agree that being resurrected to eternal life is definite proof that you were righteous in God’s eyes.

Christians have been taught for centuries that they can ignore the Torah because they have Yeshua, but Yeshua had the Torah! So, if someone wants to really follow in Yeshua’s footsteps, they need to follow the Torah. Duh!

In Romans 3, Shaul says that the Torah identifies sin, and later in Chapter 6 (as we stated above) he says the wages of sin is death. So, the Torah tells us what sin is and that when we sin we will die, so knowing what sin is we would (of course) want to avoid it.

Right?

So, think about this: Does it make sense that God gave Israel the Torah so they can avoid sin, which leads to death, then he sends the Messiah to Israel to tell them to ignore the Torah so they can all die?

And later, when the Gentiles were running the show, they told the (now called) Christians to ignore the way Yeshua lived, which was a Torah observant life, pretty much condemning them to death!

Really, when you think about it, would God send a Messiah to save the world by telling everyone they should ignore what God said to do? It don’t make no sense!

Christianity has made salvation sound like a “Come-As-You-Are” party, well… I don’t see that working out well for them at Judgement Day.

So, here’s the message: if your religion tells you that you do not have to obey the commandments in the Torah, and you’re fine with that because you don’t want to read for yourself what God says or be open to the idea that, since all Christian religions are man-made, that maybe what God says is more important, then I have to think that you are too complacent with your worship, and you might wanna consider that complacency is just as lethal as sin to your salvation.

Thank you for being here and please remember to share these messages with everyone you know, even non-believers. Hey, after all, you never know how fertile the soil is until you plant a seed in it.

That’s it for this week, so l’hitraot and (an early) Shabbat Shalom!

How You Worship Him Proves Nothing, But How You Pray Does.

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There are many forms of worship, all of which (supposedly) are to demonstrate the level of our faithfulness.

But worship doesn’t prove anything.

If you prefer to watch a video, click on this link: Watch the video.

For most religions, worship is a systemic process: you do this, then you do that, and you finish with these. In many religions music and singing is a preliminary requirement, then there’s reading prayers from a prayer book, but in the long run, worship can often become static.

As God says in Isaiah 29:13 and Ezekiel 33:31, we can end up just paying lip service to God because (as with human beings) when we do the same thing, over and over, it becomes rote.

I don’t think God wants rote, repetitive prayer; I believe God much prefers heartfelt prayer. And you can’t really pray from your heart when you are repeating a prayer from a prayer book, which everyone else is saying and which was written by someone else. Yeah, it probably was heartfelt from the author, but it ain’t your words, it ain’t your heart that is being opened, and I can’t see it being really effective.

In Matthew 6: 9-13, Yeshua tells us how to pray, but the words are not something he means for us to repeat, verbatim. Those words are OK, sure, but the prayer is not just a prayer- it is the template for ALL prayer!

It starts with honoring God and recognizing his power, then it goes to asking only for what we need today, representing our trust and faith in God to always provide for us. The scary part of this prayer is next, because we authorize God to not forgive us unless we forgive others; finally, we ask for divine protection and end, again, honoring God.

So, if we forget those exact words, but use the same process in every prayer we submit to the Lord- honor him, recognize his authority, ask only for today, convict ourselves to forgive others, request protection from evil, and end as we started by honoring God, then that prayer will have to come from the heart.

There are certain things I ask every morning when I pray (specifically for forgiveness), and although I often use the same words, they are never parroted (meaning just repeated without understanding). I try to ask for the same things in a different way, just to ensure that I am not being repetitive and offering static prayers instead of heartfelt ones.

In fact, there are some mornings where I ask God to forgive me for not praying, because I can feel, in my soul, that my prayers are not heartfelt, that I am not in the “mood” for real prayer.

Yes, I know that when we feel that way it is imperative that we DO pray, for there is nothing that makes one feel better than a heartfelt, humble prayer to God. And as David says in Psalm 51, God will never turn away from a contrite spirit and a broken heart.

And when I pray correctly, I know my prayers are heard because I get that feeling, that tingle, that sense of touch that tells me God is placing his hand on my shoulder.

If you’ve ever felt that then you know what I am talking about- it’s life-changing!

So, worship along with others, sing, repeat the same prayers when they are required, such as the Kiddish over the wine and bread, and the prayers for reading from the Torah, etc.- there’s nothing wrong with traditional, required prayers for a certain activity.

But when it is time for you to pray to God, I believe the most powerful prayers are the ones that come from your heart, and not from a book.

Thank you for being here and please remember to share these messages with everyone you know, even non-believers, Hey, after all, you never know how fertile the soil is until you plant a seed in it.

That’s it for today, so l’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

Hit Me Back and We’re Even

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When I was a child, if someone was hit by another person, they would make up for it by saying “Hit me back, and then we’re even”. The return hit wasn’t ever hard or even mean, it was simply to get revenge for the wrong done, thereby making things right between them.

But that is a worldly way of handling things, and God-fearing people should be above that.

If you prefer to watch a video, click on this link: Watch the video.

We show ourselves to be God-fearing by the way we act, or more correctly, by the way we react.

The world is a place where people seek revenge. Oh, yeah, they may call it justice, but the truth is that it is mostly revenge. You hurt me, and now I will hurt you…so there!

If you scroll through the popular streaming channels, like Netflix, Hulu, Prime or Paramount, I’ll bet if you count you will find only four types of movies: drama, romance, comedy, and an awful lot of vengeance movies.

And I have to confess, I do like the idea of getting that slammer in on someone who is being a real jerk, insulting them to the level where it pulls the rug out from under them and leaves them so embarrassed they are unable to respond. Oh yeah- that feels so good.

But does it really? Will I really feel proud of myself by acting at their level? I am pretty sure that I will still feel whatever pain they caused, but now I’ll also be embarrassed that I was as foolish and immature as they were.

And worse than that, I know that I will have disappointed God.

However, don’t get me wrong: I am not saying you shouldn’t defend yourself. No way! Hey, if someone wants to hurt me, and I can’t talk my way out of it, well…I am not a violent person, but I know how to be. The idea of turning the other cheek is only a metaphor.

The way to handle being insulted or hurt, in order to show that we are God-fearing, is to not reply with the same action or hurtful words, but to forgive and move on. In fact, we are expected to forgive: Yeshua tells us in Matthew 6:14 when we forgive, we will be forgiven.

The next thing he says isn’t so easy to hear, in Matthew 6:15, when we are told if we do not forgive, then we will not be forgiven.

So, the best way to handle being hurt is to not repay the hurt, but to show forgiveness. I know it’s hard to do that, especially when the hurt is significant, but it is essential to your salvation to forgive.

Proverbs 20:22 tells us not to return evil for evil, and what helps me to forgive that “unforgiveable” sin is to remember this: forgiving someone who sins against me doesn’t make them right with God, but it does make me right with God. And I also feel better knowing that come Judgement Day I will be in good standing, while they will have to answer for their actions.

Look, if someone has been exceptionally cruel to you and you find it hard to even think about forgiving them, consider what they will have to go through when they face God; if that doesn’t make you feel just a little bit sorry for them, then you need to work on your own spiritual maturity.

Thank you for being here and please don’t forget to share these messages with everyone you know, even non-believers. Hey, after all, you never know how fertile the soil is until you plant a seed in it.

That’s it for this week, so l’hitraot and (an early) Shabbat Shalom!

Use It or Lose It

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You know the problem with having large muscles? You have to continue to work them in order for them to maintain their strength and tone.

Not surprisingly, the same is true with your salvation.

If you prefer to watch a video, click on this link: Watch the video.

At the first, you accept Yeshua is the Messiah God promised to send, you confess your sins and repent, faithfully asking that by means of Yeshua’s sacrifice, you be forgiven.

Ta Dah! You’re now saved, meaning that your sins have been forgiven, you are clean as new fallen snow, and from this moment on, for the rest of your life, you to work at staying this way.

Huh? Waddaya mean, “stay this way”? I am forgiven, I am saved- there’s nothin’ else I need to do.

Well, that’s what most Christians are told, but the truth is different. The sins that were forgiven were the ones you already committed, but now you have to remain sinless.

The big lie (among many others) that Christianity has been teaching is that once saved, always saved (known as the OSAS lie), but if you sin, you are not going to be allowed into God’s presence.

Don’t take my word for it, let’s see what God says about this.

In Ezekiel 33:12-16, God tells us that those who are righteous, but turn from that lifestyle and commit crimes (i.e., sin), their righteous past will not save them. Conversely, the sinner who turns from his sinfulness and acts righteously will be saved; his sinful past will not be held against him. And God repeats this in that same chapter, later on in verses 18 through 23.

There’s one thing we can know for certain: when God says something twice, he really means it!

So, when you are saved, you must continue to live in a manner that keeps that salvation intact. Oh, yeah, it’s true that no one can take our salvation away from us, but what should scare the heck out of all of us is the fact is that we can throw it away!

So, the idea that you must use it or lose it means you need to know what God wants from you and to live that way, which is generally not the way most Christian religions tell you to live. The sad fact is that most Christian religions will tell you you don’t need to do most anything that God says he wants you to do, because that is all “Jewish stuff”.

Well, guess what? That “Jewish stuff” is what Yeshua did, and the idea that he did away with it all is so ridiculous, I am constantly amazed that anyone with any knowledge of the Bible would ever think that could be true. I mean, really? The Son of God, the Messiah, sent to die for people so their sins could be forgiven, having done that no longer requires us to be lawful or righteous, but rather to ignore his father’s commandments, to reject the rules and regulations God commanded us to obey, and to replace every one of the Holy Days he ordered us to celebrate with some man-made holiday.

And once we receive forgiveness, we don’t have to repent any more, we don’t have to change how we live or do anything different?

C’mon, now, does that really make sense?

This is what you need to do to avoid losing the salvation you received: you must truly repent of what you have done in the past (and you better really mean it- God isn’t stupid, you know- he knows your heart and mind), ask forgiveness and do t’shuvah (turn from sin) for the rest of your life, for every sin you will commit.

That’s right! The hard truth of it all is that salvation isn’t a “once-and-done” thing, it is a muscle you have to continually work out, constantly keep in shape, and never allow to depreciate through lack of use.

I pray every morning, and ask God to forgive me for whatever sins I have or may have committed. I figure I may not know what I have done, but God does, so I better ask for forgiveness just to cover my tuchas.

Here is your daily exercise- read the Bible (and I mean the entire Bible), learn what God wants from you and reject any religion that tells you you don’t have to obey God.

The Christian church teaches that you only have to obey the “Law of Christ”, which has to be the way he lived, right? Well, we know that he lived according to the Torah, otherwise his sacrifice would not have been accepted, so the “Law of Christ” IS the Torah!

I know, what a bummer! Well, it’s your salvation, use it or lose it… it’s up to you.

Thank you for being here, and please remember to share these messages with everyone you know, even non-believers. Hey, after all, you never know how fertile the soil is until you plant a seed in it.

That’s it for today, so l’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

Obedience to the Torah Will Save You

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Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know- Shaul says in Ephesians 2:8 that no one is saved by works, it is a gift from God and not from works.

But when explains what he means, he doesn’t trash the Torah.

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First off, you need to know this: to properly understand the Bible, you cannot take a sentence or a few words from here and there, but must always use the tool called “Circles of Context”. That means you interpret the words in the sentence using the culturally accepted meaning of those words, at the time they were being written. Then, you review the sentence within the paragraph, the paragraph within the letter, and take into consideration who wrote the letter, to whom, and for what reason.

Now, Ephesians was written to the people living in…(wait for it)… Ephesus. We know from reading all the Epistles that Ephesus was a constant problem for the young believing congregations there, who faced pressure from without, and from within. So, the main reason Shaul wrote to them was to get them back on track, and the way to do that was to reignite their passionate faith in Yeshua, while also reducing the pressure they felt from the Legalists, who throughout Asia were telling these neophyte, Gentile believers they had to undergo circumcision or they wouldn’t really be saved.

What Shaul goes on to say, after saying that salvation is not from works, is that it is from faith so that no one can boast (Ephesians 2:9). He was pointing out that it is through Messiah Yeshua, and only through Yeshua, that these Gentiles were now able to be included in receiving salvation, previously only available to the Jews.

But he doesn’t trash the Torah, he is reinitiating faith in Yeshua, which is the beginning of obedience to Torah.

When James suggested those 4 initial requirements for new believers to obey right away (Acts 15), he said that the Gentiles would eventually learn the law of Moses (i.e., Torah obedience) as they continued to attend Shabbat services.

You know, I’m glad that James never lived to see what happened with his suggestion, because by the end of the first century the (now) Gentile leadership of what had been a Jewish movement changed their Sabbath day, and never studied the Torah. In fact, they have rejected it to this very day.

Nowhere in the entire New Covenant does any apostle or disciple who knew and worked with Messiah Yeshua deny the value or worth of the Torah, or tell people that obedience to the Torah is wrong. No one ever said that works are useless. Never!

Most of the Epistles were directed at maintaining faith in God and Yeshua; all they said was that they cannot depend on works, alone, to gain salvation.

The Torah is God’s User Manual for Righteousness, and you have to ask yourself this question: if the Torah isn’t what God wants us to do, then why give it to us?

I’ll tell you why: just before he gave us the Torah, God told Moses that he chose the Jewish people to be his nation of priests (Ex. 19:6). Now, when someone becomes a priest, he learns how to worship God, right? He has to know the proper prayers, rites, rituals, celebrations, and history; in other words, he needs to know pretty much everything that God expects of people so that he can teach others what God wants from them.

Because God chose us to be his priests, then gave us the Torah, I think it is obvious that God wanted us to learn the Torah so that as his priests, we would bring Torah to the world.

Despite what your religion may have told you, the Torah IS the way God wants EVERYONE to live!

This is the absolute truth about the Torah: if anyone lives in 100% obedience to the Torah, 100% of the time, they will be righteous in God’s eyes, and as such they will be resurrected to eternal life in God’s presence. Like the title of today’s message says, Yes!- obedience to the Torah WILL save you!

How can I say that when Christianity has been saying for two millennia that you can’t be saved by the Torah? Easily! You see, it has already been done, and the guy who did it was raised up to heaven.

I think you know who that guy is.

The problem we humans have, and the only reason people say you can’t be saved by the Torah, is because our sinful nature doesn’t allow us to be 100% obedient, 100% of the time. That is why God sent the Messiah- so when we screw up, as we all do, we have a means to be forgiven.

I know this message is something that would make most any Christian think, “Nah! That can’t be- everyone I ever heard, loved, trusted, or knew has told me that all I need to do is to believe in Jesus and love others, and I go to heaven.” Sounds easy enough, doesn’t it?

Well, sinners love others, and every demon in Hell believes Jesus is the Messiah, so nu? do you think they are saved?

No?

Then maybe you haven’t been told the whole story. Maybe, just maybe, you need to follow some rules about how to worship God and how to treat each other that your religion hasn’t filled you in on.

And you know what? That’s why God gave us the Torah, because it tells us how HE wants us to do those things. And if you have faith in Yeshua, and trust that what God says is always for your benefit, then that faith and trust should motivate you to obey what God says you should do.

Hey, look…I’m not here to tell you what to believe or what you must do, that’s up to you. All I am saying is that you can choose to obey what a religion says to do, which is probably going to involve rejecting God, or you can choose to reject what a religion says to do, and obey God.

When you think about it, that choice is pretty much a no-brainer, isn’t it?

Thank you for being here and please remember to share these messages with everyone you know, even non-believers. Hey, after all, you never know how fertile the soil is until you plant a seed in it.

That’s it for this week, so l’hitraot and (an early) Shabbat Shalom!