Do sinners go to heaven?

November 16, 2016 2 Comments

Geeze, I hope so! Otherwise, I am in BIG trouble!!

Frankly, so are you.

Anyone, and everyone, is a sinner. Whether they commit murder, rob, lie, or just eat ham on Shabbat, they (and we) all are sinners. Adam sinned, Eve sinned, Cain sinned, Nimrod sinned, Enoch (well, maybe not Enoch), and just about everyone else down the line, sinned. Moses was a murderer, King David was more than just a murderer, he was an adulterer who committed murder to cover his crime, Solomon burned his own children to Molech; yet, I don’t think anyone doubts that Moses, King David or Solomon are in heaven.

Look, Yeshua came to earth to die for our sins because we are sinners. DUH! And no one can live a sinless life. As I have said, and will continue to say:

We can never be sinless, but we can always sin less.

So, if sinners can go to heaven why bother not sinning? Oy! Now I sound like Shaul (Paul) in his letters. The reason we try to stop sinning is to demonstrate the one thing that separates the sinners who live and the sinners who die- it’s called T’shuvah, which is the Hebrew word meaning “repentance.”

We have the propensity to sin in our DNA, we are born into it, and it is what (in Hebrew) we call the Yetzer Hara, the Evil Inclination. We also have the Yetzer Tov, the Good Inclination, but the Rabbi’s tell us that doesn’t develop until we are old enough to study Talmud and Torah (unfortunately, that is often the order the Orthodox take. I think it should be the other way around), so we all start out with sin in our hearts. We are all sinners, who continue to sin.

Again, the difference is not who sins and who doesn’t, but who doesn’t want to anymore! I have another saying you might have heard me repeat (often):

Before I was saved I was a sinner who rationalized my sins; now I am a sinner who regrets my sins.

Yeshua (Jesus) came to earth, stripped Himself of His divine nature and took on a mantle of flesh, specifically so that He could act as the substitute for us, to take on the penalty for sin that we deserve. He gave up eternal divinity so that we could have eternal life. But, if being sinless (as He was) is the condition for salvation, then it was all a waste because no one can be sinless. It would have been just plain stupid for Him to give up what He did if we have to be sinless to avail ourselves of His sacrifice.

Let me tell you something you probably already know: God and Yeshua? they ain’t stupid!

The difference is simple- if you have truly accepted God’s grace through Yeshua, have accepted the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) and live every day in order to die to self, then you will have done T’shuvah, you will regret your sins, you will live to sin less, and thereby you will be able to spend eternity in the presence of God. That is really what heaven is- eternally in God’s presence.

On the other hand, even if you call on the name of the Lord but do not change your attitude towards sin, if you say you’re a good person because you don’t kill and lie but you cheat on your taxes and fail to give to the poor or tithe, and if you constantly try to get away with explaining your sins as OK because Jesus died for you, then you are going to be very, VERY sadly disappointed when you come before the Throne of God (as we all will); because, when God starts to read off your sins and you turn to the right hand of God and scream,

“Yo! J-man! How you be? Get me outta here, ‘K?”

I am afraid you will only hear Yeshua say, “Get thee away from me- I know you not.”

We all sin, and yes- sinners do get to go to heaven (we can discuss another time that we really don’t go to heaven- read Revelations) as long as they are repentant sinners who have fruits of righteousness they can present to the Lord. We are told never to come before the Lord empty handed, and at Judgement what we bring will not be the blood of goats or rams, but the fruits of the Spirit we have developed, the execution stakes we picked up when we decided to follow Yeshua, and the good works we did in spite of the iniquity within us.

Yes, Virginia- there is a heaven for sinners, but only those sinners who constantly sin less because they are faithfully obedient to God.

after the storm

October 10, 2016 Leave a comment

I live in Brevard County, Florida, so Matthew came through with a vengeance. However, God was good and protected us and most of the neighbors. A lot of tree debris, my screened in porch suffered a large branch falling on it and bending one of the main supports (Hello? USAA?), but other than that we had no real problems.

I am sooooo sore from moving everything that was on top of the plywood window covers, taking them out, putting them up, moving everything back so I could put the car in the garage, then taking them down, moving everything out of the way, putting them back in , ….well, you get the idea. Oh, wait! Then I had to collect all the debris, cut the big branches down to reasonable size, move it all to the street, bag up all the little stuff, and yesterday morning (before it got too hot) I was on the roof cleaning out the gutters.

Here’s what it did to the porch and the pile of leftovers all over the yard:

I have been told that I look like I am only in my late 40’s (I sleep in the fridge- it helps a lot), but I am in my early 60’s and really feeling it today. Oy!

I am grateful to God for making this first hurricane we have gone through relatively easy on us, although Haiti, the Bahama’s, and sections of America have had terrible damage, and deaths have resulted. For those who say, ” Meh- this wasn’t so bad.” they should consider the people who are burying their loved ones and can’t even go home after the funeral, because they don’t have a home, anymore.

So why does God do this to people? Why do they have to die in a weather event? These are the questions we ask each other, and we ask of God, aren’t they?

“Why did You do this?”

I can only answer for myself, and this is my opinion only: it’s because God doesn’t see things the way we do.

We see barely past our own noses, for the most part- we are self-absorbed and self-centered. It’s what we are, it’s who we are, it’s what the world tells us to be. God, on the other hand, is all about His children and the salvation He has planned for us. God doesn’t see life as the whole and death as the end: He knows that there is eternity following life. He knows that what we have is only fleeting, a mist, a memory, grass that springs up in the morning and is dried out and burned at evening. God is looking at things from an eternal viewpoint, so when people die and property is destroyed, God sees that as we see a scratch: it is a little bothersome today but by tomorrow it will be past, and by next week we will have totally forgotten we ever had a scratch- as if it had never even happened.

Of course, to us having a loved one killed or our homes destroyed is more than a scratch, but as I said, that is from our perspective. Our perspective is too limited- to help us get past these kinds of traumatic events in our lives, we need to see from God’s perspective.

Try to remember that what we go through now will be nothing more than a memory, if even that, when we are in God’s presence for all eternity. I wrote a post a while ago called “SWISH“- So What, I‘m Saved: Hallelujah! If my house has damage, SWISH. If I have lost a loved one SWISH (although I agree that is really hard to SWISH by); if I have a lot of cleanup to do and I am sore, SWISH.

I don’t mean to minimize the extent of the pain, damage and cost of a hurricane, but I do want to try to minimize it’s effect on my spirit and my attitude. There are better things to come, better days ahead, and eternity in the presence of God which will be a joy forever.

All I am saying is that in the midst of Tsouris, try to remember and focus on the future in Paradise. And if you don’t have that future, then ask God to help you attain it. The invitation is written with your name on it, all you have to do is accept it and show up wearing the proper clothes- humility, T’Shuvah (repentance) and thankfulness.

Days of Awe are Here Again

September 16, 2015 Leave a comment

L’Shonah Tovah! Happy New Year! Although it isn’t really the beginning of the year, biblically, it is still a celebratory day and a mandated Holy Day (see Leviticus 23.) The Rabbi’s have made this a civil new year (the beginning of the year for Jews is Pesach/Passover, see Exodus 12:2) and it is also the beginning of the Days of Awe.

The ten days after Rosh HaShannah, up to Yom Kippur, are a time for self-evaluation and reflection. We are to look inside ourselves and see what is there: is there repentance and a sense of T’Shuvah, or is there only rationalization and lame excuses for failing to even try to obey God?

We are to be in “awe” of God and His wonderful blessings, but I am more like, “Awe, shucks- I didn’t do as well as I wanted to do” when it comes to pleasing God. And that is the same way I feel every year, although I can say I have been doing much better since I started to worship God then before I knew Him or Messiah Yeshua (around February of 1997.)

I think of all the times in the past year I have done wrong to people: I wrote a nasty-gram at work, I chewed out my niece on Facebook (sorry, Heather- I love you and hate Facebook), I even got mad at Donna once or twice (how could that ever happen?), and I am sure there are others I have hurt along the way that I am not even aware of having done so.

A traditional event at this time of the year is to ask forgiveness of those we have sinned against, and I do now, publicly, ask those named above, and anyone else I may have hurt, to please forgive me. I’m sorry. And I do this knowing that the forgiveness I need most is from God, for every sin I commit is against God, first and foremost. And I also want to remind all of you reading this that the forgiveness we all need from God is already here, through Messiah Yeshua. So many (in fact, almost every one) of my family disagree with my belief in Yeshua, but that is OK because they have a right to their opinion. God gave us all free will, and how well we use it is up to us. But you should at least be willing to ask why I believe as I do. If you are right, you have nothing to lose; if I am right, you have everything to gain. But I will not force you to listen. I will not force anyone to hear the truth about God and His Messiah.

What I (in fact, what all Believers) really should be doing is speaking with my actions, not my words.

During this time of introspection, review your actions over the past year but don’t beat yourself up over it. Getting distressed and upset about things you can’t change is giving power to the enemy, who will use the uselessness of wanting to change the past to destroy you. Remember the past so that you can have a more fruitful future; the best thing to do with past memories is use them to create a better future. I know people who will not let go of the past, who constantly live wanting the past to be different; consequently, their present is not as joyful as it could be and they can’t see any future. They live in limbo: feeling like they have no control, frustrated, angry and hateful. And through it all they haven’t a clue why they are so miserable.

Look back on this past year and decide how you will make next year better. Look to God for help and to His Ruach/Spirit for guidance. Read the Manual (Bible) every day to get good ideas about how to act, and how not to act, and (may I suggest) go through Proverbs slowly. There is more than a single lifetime of wisdom in that book.

All the commandments God gave to us were designed for one thing, and it isn’t just the proper way to worship Him (although that is in there), and it isn’t just what we are to eat (although that’s in there), and it isn’t just how we are to treat each other (you’ll find that there, too): the reason God gave us those laws (and He tells us why more than once) is so that by obeying them we will have long life, we will be happy, and we will live in peace.

Makes you wonder why anyone would not want to obey God’s laws?