Author: Steven R. Bruck

Sin and Visceral Fat

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Alright, I know you must be thinking that this title is totally off, but believe it or not I see a relationship between these two things.

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For those who may not be familiar, visceral fat is the fat that forms around the liver, heart, and intestines, underneath the subcutaneous fat (the fat directly under the skin). The danger of visceral fat is that it isn’t as obvious, yet it increases the risk of chronic diseases, inflammation, insulin resistance, hormonal imbalances, and can cause premature death. 

(Of course, if you believe in Predestination, then there isn’t any such thing as premature death, right?)

So, visceral fat isn’t just fat, it is a silent and invisible killer.

Starting to see where I am going with this?

Sin is not always so obvious as we would like it to be, but it is a killer, none the less.

Oh, yeah, sure, you know when you have killed someone, or committed adultery, or cursed out a parent, or any other of the many sins outlined in the Torah. Those are easy to spot.

But what about when your religion tells you it is OK to eat pork, or to observe Sunday as the Sabbath Day, then after church go out to a restaurant for a nice brunch?

Or what about when you reject God’s Holy Days to celebrate man-made, non-biblical holidays because you have been told that is worshipping God?

Or maybe you don’t know you have sinned simply because we have a sinful nature, and doing what feels right is probably not right in God’s eyes; and, not being intimately familiar with the Bible, you aren’t aware of what you are doing.

In the end, though, just like when you tell the cop who stopped you for an illegal turn that you weren’t aware it was not allowed, God will give you the same reply when you say you didn’t know it was a sin:

Ignorance of the law is no excuse.

The way to get rid of visceral fat is to eat the right foods, get regular exercise, and reduce stress (stress causes the release of a hormone called Cortisol, which promotes fat storage, especially visceral fat).

Remarkably enough, that is also the way to reduce sin (using a spiritual equivalent):

Eat the right foods means to take into yourself only that which is healthy, meaning reject false doctrine and any tenets or ceremonies that are not biblical;

Get regular exercise means to read the Bible every day, strengthening your spiritual muscle and maturity; and

Reduce stress by increasing your faithful trusting in God to keep you safe, even when you are walking through the valley of the shadow of death.

You may be wondering how to increase faith, and the answer (at least, for me) is to recall all the times you were nearly hit by another car, or when you really needed to get somewhere and all the lights were green, or when you lost something valuable and a stranger returned it to you intact. Every time something in your life happened that you thought would end up terribly, but you came out okay, that was God protecting you. When you think about how many times that has happened, even (as with me) way before you became a Believer, that is how you strengthen your faith- by remembering and believing that all those times, it was God interceding on your behalf.

And one other thing- because visceral fat is nearly invisible, you have to know it is there by measuring yourself. The rule for visceral fat is your waist should be half the number of inches of your height, so if you are 5’10’, that is 70 inches, your waist (above your bellybutton) should measure 35 inches. Any more than that, you’ve got visceral fat!

As for your spiritual visceral fat, read the Torah; that is the only place where God, himself, tells us directly how he wants us to live, and see how close you come to God’s definition of what the ideal measurement should be.

For the record- Yeshua was skinny as a rail!

I know this message feels more like an infomercial than a spiritual encouragement, but I have been working on my visceral fat (the physical kind) recently, and it occurred to me how invisible fat and unrecognized sin are the same: both are dangerous to your health.

We all need to work at being healthier than we are, both physically and spiritually, and it has to be a lifetime commitment.

Thank you for being here and please 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!

PS: Hey, can I ask you to do me a favor? Will you please make any sort of comment on this and all of my messages in the future? Even just a Thumbs Up emoji helps these messages get more exposure on the Internet. Todah Rabah!

Are You Praying or Just Trying to Sound Prayerful?

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Prayer is such an essential part of our relationship with God. Unlike using Facebook or Messenger, which are really very impersonal forms of communications, having as much intimacy as a corporate memo, prayer is a very intimate sharing.

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When we pray, most of the time we are sharing more with God than he is sharing with us, but he always listens and he does answer. That answer is not always what we expect or when we want it, and sometimes it’s just “Nope- no gonna happen“, but he always answers.

The trick is being open enough to recognize the answer when it comes.

I have heard people go on and on and on…and on when they pray, and they even stop often. When they do, it’s almost comical because you can see their faces contort because they are trying to figure out what to say next.

If you ask me (and even if you don’t), that ain’t praying: it’s trying to sound prayerful, and I will also go as far as to say it is probably meant more to impress those listening than to impress God.

I think if you ask someone well-versed in the Bible what they consider the most beautiful prayer, they might say 1 Kings 8:22-53, which is the prayer Solomon made at the dedication of the temple in Jerusalem. It is quite beautiful and I believe the, if not one of the, longest prayers I have read in the Bible.

But for me, the most beautiful prayer in the entire Bible is in Exodus 12:13, when Moses prayed for his sister, Miryam, to be healed from God’s punishment, when he gave her tzara’at (leprosy) after she and Aaron spoke up against Moses.

And what was his prayer?

“Oh God, please heal her!”

Why do I believe that is the most beautiful prayer?…because it comes directly from his heart. It is simple, direct, and heartfelt to the point where just reading what he says you can feel his pain and anguish at the fate of his sister.

He doesn’t run on, he doesn’t repeat “Father God” fifteen hundred times, and he doesn’t search for something to say that sounds very “King James-ish.”

You know, I am pretty sure that Yeshua would agree with me because when he was asked how we should pray, he gave us not just a simple and short prayer (in Matthew 6:9-13), but what is the template for all prayer:

1. Start off recognizing God’s authority and omniscience
2. Ask just for what you need
3. Ask to be guided in the proper way to live, and
4. Finish with thanking God and (again) recognizing who he is.

Let’s not forget that Yeshua warned against babbling on and on like the pagans do, so the next time you are praying and find yourself thinking of what to say, my recommendation is that you have already said too much, so just shut it down there.

Don’t misunderstand me- if you are praying long and hard, but it comes directly from your heart, maybe even with some tears, that is okay. In fact, that is great!

But if you are repeating the same things over and over, and find yourself trying to find more words, or feel there should be more to say, you need to stop.

We are told that God already knows what we want and what we need, so you might ask,
“If God already knows my heart and mind, and what I need, why do I have to pray to him and ask for it?”

My answer is that God wants us to pray to him because when it comes from the heart, prayer creates a strong bond of intimacy, which is something that God desires to have with everyone.

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

That’s it for this week, and I will be off all next week (Donna and I are going on a cruise), so until then, l’hitraot and (an early) Shabbat Shalom!

Automatic Tipping and the Bible

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Okay, I’ll bet you are waiting to see how this one turns out, right? I mean, what do restaurants with automatic tipping have to do with the Bible?

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Let’s start by reviewing what Yeshua said in Luke 17:7-11 (CJB):

If one of you has a slave tending the sheep or plowing, when he comes back from the field, will you say to him, ‘Come along now, sit down and eat’?  No, you’ll say, ‘Get my supper ready, dress for work, and serve me until I have finished eating and drinking; after that, you may eat and drink.’  Does he thank the slave because he did what he was told to do? No!  It’s the same with you — when you have done everything you were told to do, you should be saying, ‘We’re just ordinary slaves, we have only done our duty.

Let’s first talk about the slave thing- if you recall, and even if you don’t, in the Gospel of John, in Romans, and in 1 Peter we are told that everyone is a slave to that which controls them. So, we might be a slave to sin, a slave to obedience, or a slave to Facebook…but we are always a slave to something.

The ideal thing is to be a slave to God. (DUH!)

We’re getting closer to the automatic tipping part of this message.

By the way, when I talk about obedience I do not mean obeying a religion but obeying what God said we should do, how to worship him and how to treat each other, and that is found only in the Torah. That obedience is not something that we get extra credit for- it is what we are expected to do. There is no “tip” for resting on the Shabbat, no “tip” for fasting on Yom Kippur, and no “tip” for loving your neighbor.

No! That is the minimum required.

Now let’s get to automatic tipping: one of the real problems in America today, as I see it, is that people in a service industry, such as a waiter in a restaurant or a steward on a cruise ship, are being given tips automatically. The bill comes and there is a 17% tip automatically charged to you (sometimes it’s called something else, but it is a tip), and they still have a space under the subtotal for you to add another tip!

Why is that a problem, you may ask? I’ll tell you why- it supports the selfish and lazy attitude people have because they feel they are entitled.

C’mon, tell me that you don’t think many of today’s youth think they are entitled. They expect their school loans to be paid for, they expect to work hours convenient for them, they expect raise at work for just showing up! When people are expecting to automatically get a reward, where is their motivation to give the best service they can?

In my experience I have found that when you have people working together, and the ones who do the least get the same rewards as the ones who do their best, guess who changes their attitude?

When I was an Executive Officer in the United States Marine Corps, I was transferred to a company whose morale was so low you could walk on it without having to get on your tip-toes! I spent a month or so punishing those who were lazy and not doing what they were supposed to do, and the morale increased tremendously.

Most Christians are taught that because Yeshua served God, they don’t have to! The idea of following all those rules and regulations in the Torah are not for Christians because when you believe in Jesus, you get an automatic tip called salvation, no matter how good or bad your service is.

Sorry, Folks, but salvation is not automatic, forgiveness is not automatic, and when you just do what you want to do you are a slave only to yourself.

But to be saved you must be a slave to God!

So, from this point on, please review your service to God and make sure that you are doing what you are supposed to do without expecting any special treatment in heaven or here on earth. Remember how Yeshua often said that those who seek their reward from men will get only that?

Too many have been taught to expect a lot from God only because they believe in Yeshua, but that won’t get you anywhere. Remember, every demon in hell believes in Yeshua! What you need to do is to faithfully believe Yeshua is the Messiah, and because of that (not in spite of it) obey God, which is demonstrated by your good works.

I can tell you that when I face God at his Throne of Judgement, all I want to hear is “Well done, good and faithful servant.” I don’t need anything more than that because I know when I do what is right in God’s eyes, that is what I am SUPPOSED to do!

But it isn’t all bad news: just like servers who do exceptionally well get a larger tip, according to Deuteronomy 28, when we serve Adonai as best as we can we receive blessings, which is God’s way of giving us a tip.

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!

How Trustworthy Are the Gospels, Really?

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What is a “gospel”? According to a few different dictionary definitions I looked up, it is anything from the revelation of Christ to the first 4 books of the New Covenant, to just being a good story. I have also heard people use the word “gospel” as referring to something completely trustworthy.

But when we consider the Gospels, those first 4 books in the New Covenant, are they really totally trustworthy?

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Now, before anyone starts to accuse me of blasphemy, let’s remember that the truth is tough enough to take a little testing. In fact, if we aren’t willing to test what we consider to be the truth, we are setting ourselves up to believe in a lie.

The gospels are considered to be the factual account of the life and ministry of Yeshua (Jesus), and the books were (supposedly) eye-witness accounts of the teachings and events during Yeshua’s ministry on the earth, written by his disciples named Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

But are they really eye-witness accounts? The answer is… NO, they are not all eye-witnessed accounts of the life and ministry of Yeshua.

I did a “Google search” asking about the writers of the gospels, and was somewhat surprised (but not really, since I always thought this was the case) that modern scholars consider the books were written anonymously and attributed to the names of his disciples in order to lend authority to the books.

Matthew and John are stated in both Luke and Mark to be one of the 12 men Yeshua chose to be in his “inner circle”, but Mark and Luke weren’t given that privilege.

When you research the gospels, you will see that Matthew is considered to be the most “Jewish” of the gospels, which means that if his is the most Jewish, then one of them has to be the least Jewish. In my opinion, that is the gospel of John, which I won’t go into here but I believe was written by a Gentile Christian and is a false gospel, one designed to make Jesus appear more Christian than Jewish.

From what I could find, Mark was an assistant to Peter and Luke a travelling companion of Paul, but neither of those two are verifiably eye-witnesses to the many things we read about in their gospel.

In fact, we are told by Luke at the very beginning of his gospel that he did not witness any of the events he is writing about but has collected stories which have been handed down over the years.

In other words, everything in the gospel of Luke is not an eye-witnessed account, but rather something between third party hearsay and gossip.

In my book, “Back to Basics: God’s Word vs. Religion”, I start the Introduction with this question:

Have you ever told a funny story at a party, later have it circulate back to you, only then to hear it transformed into something almost unrecognizable from the story you told?

My point is that an account that has been repeated and repeated by many different people is not reliable. And the gospels were written by people who heard it from people who heard it from people who…well, no one will ever know how many times these stories have been circulated, will they? And although there are many commonalities within the gospels, such as the parables and miraculous events, the question remains:
“How can we trust what we read in the gospels as being legitimately what Yeshua said or did?”

I do believe that because of the similarities within the gospels, we can consider the telling of the parables and most events that are repeated in all four of these books to be reliable enough to be accepted as accurate.

And the minute differences that exist are only to be expected because these are not eye-witnessed accounts. Heck, ask any investigator and they will confirm that if 6 people see the exact same event at the exact same time, you will get 6 different stories, so imagine how much difference there might be when people relate what they heard but might not have ever seen.

So, what does this mean to readers of the gospels who want to know who Yeshua is and what he taught? If these gospels are actually just a collection of hearsay, having many similarities but, still and all, just stories handed down, what can we believe? Where does that leave us?

It leaves us with this: it is up to each and every one of us to become very familiar with all four gospels so that we can see what is similar and thereby probably trustworthy, and what is not similar to the other gospels. That which is unique is something we might want to doubt its validity.

Remember, there was a significant separation between the Jewish followers of Yeshua and the Gentile followers who didn’t really start to join this Jewish sect until after Yeshua was already at God’s right hand. By the end of that first century, most of the Jewish disciples and followers were dead, and what had been a Jewish sect was now mutating into a Gentile religion that rejected most of what the Torah said and replaced God’s Holy Days and instructions for righteous living with totally different holidays and canon.

The gospels were written sometime between 70 and 100 AD, some 30+ years after Yeshua had risen to heaven, so what he said and did had been handed down, orally, for decades. Not to mention that these are written by people, not dictated by God or even close to being considered God-breathed scripture.

The truth is that God doesn’t even speak anywhere in the entire New Covenant, except at the immersion of Yeshua and at the transfiguration when Yeshua is on the mountain and visited by Moses and Elijah, and all he says then is that Yeshua is his son.

You may ask, am I saying to ignore the gospels, that they are unreliable, or that they should be rejected?

No, not rejected, but not accepted as the gospel truth (pun intended).

When we read the gospels, we need to do so with the understanding that these are handed-down stories about a man and what he taught others regarding the Torah and God. You should always take what you read with a grain of salt, as they say, and even though I do believe that Yeshua is the Messiah God promised to send, and that the miraculous events described as being done by Yeshua did happen, I am somewhat suspect of the significant differences I find in different gospels, most of which I find between the gospel of John and the other three gospels.

And, for the record, many scholars agree that John’s gospel is significantly different from the other three, which I have already written about a few times so you can search my website if you are interested in learning more about that.

Read the gospels, accept what you will but don’t be afraid to question what sounds “off”. Even though faith is believing in what can’t be proven, that is no excuse to be lazy and just accept everything you hear.

I will end today’s message the same way I started: the truth is tough enough to be tested, and if you aren’t willing to test what you are told then you will never know if you are being led down the wrong path.

Thank you for being here and please 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, Baruch HaShem, and since tomorrow night is Erev Yom Kippur, may you have an easy fast.

If We Can’t Trust God to Punish, We Can’t Trust God to Reward

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Do you know anyone whose kids are real brats? Undisciplined, disrespectful of anyone else, and noisy?

Have you also noticed how the parents of those kids are so loving and understanding, never punishing them or even telling them they are acting badly?

Now, how many people do you know who say that God is like those parents: loving, forgiving, and compassionate, never cruel or punishing?

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God is loving, is compassionate, is exceptionally understanding, and remarkably forgiving. In fact, he not only is willing to forgive us when we repent, he desires to forgive us. He even says so in Ezekiel 18:23!

So, because God is loving, compassionate, and forgiving, he also will kick your tuchas if you continue to do wrong without repentance.

Too many people don’t know what Proverbs really says about punishing a child; they think it says if you spare the rod you spoil the child.

WRONG!

Proverbs 13:24 says:

Whoever spares the rod hates their children, but the one who loves their children is careful to discipline them.

and Proverbs 22:15 says:

Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far away.

and, finally, what I consider to be the most important one is Proverbs 23:13-14, which says:

Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you punish them with the rod, they will not die.
 Punish them with the rod and save them from death.

Note how discipline is designed not to hurt the child, but to save it, essentially, from itself. And sparing the rod doesn’t just spoil your child, it condemns your child to death!

We have to remember that God doesn’t concern himself with mortality: when he says life or death, he is talking about your eternal condition. An undisciplined child will not only have trouble during its lifetime, but it will likely end up in hell, forever.

And whose fault is that? It’s the fault of the parents!

This is why truly loving and compassionate parents will discipline their child, but in the way that God disciplines us. No, I don’t mean to rain fire and brimstone on them (well, maybe…. no, I’m kidding), but to punish without anger, without yelling, and with mercy.

I don’t think corporal punishment always works, but as a last resort it may be necessary: some people just naturally refuse to listen until the consequences of ignoring what people tell them are painful.

What this is all leading up to is the truth about God and punishment: God will punish us not just because he is angry with us (which he probably is), and not because we have done wrong (which we did to make him angry), but because he loves us and he wants us to be with him forever.

I know it is so much nicer to believe God forgives us no matter what, and that is probably why someone came up with that silly idea of OSAS (Once Saved, Always Saved), claiming that sins are automatically forgiven once you accept Yeshua as your Messiah. And not just the sins you’ve already committed, but the ones you will commit for the rest of your life.

How biblically ignorant to even think that could be true.

And I understand that we would much prefer a God who forgives us so long as we say, “Oops, sorry ’bout that, Chief !”

But God will punish us when we do wrong without confession, or even worse without repentance.

Many Christian teachings state that their God (you know, the different one who sent Yeshua, not that mean guy from the Jewish Bible) is loving and forgiving and all anyone needs do is believe in Jesus (whatever the heck that is supposed to mean) and love their neighbor and they will be forgiven and go to heaven. They say that punishment is the old way, but with Jesus it is all just loving forgiveness.

Of course, anyone who knows the Bible and has a reasonably good understanding of who God is, knows that is a lie from the very pit of Sheol! As the title of this message says, if we cannot trust God to punish the sinners, then we cannot trust God to reward the righteous.

God has to punish those who constantly do wrong without repentance because he said he would. If he doesn’t, then he lied, and as such can’t be trusted to keep his word about rewarding those who obey him.

In other words, if you have been taught that the God of the New Covenant is different from the Old, that he is only loving and forgiving instead of cruel and punishing, then you are worshiping the wrong God and on the wrong path.

God is holy and cannot lie, and when he says in the Old Covenant that he will punish the sinner, he will do that to any believer in Yeshua who sins continually without confession or repentance.

There is no such thing as a free lunch, and no such thing as forgiveness without confession, repentance, and ASKING for forgiveness.

The God of the Old Covenant is the same God of the New Covenant, and the only reason he seems less punishing in the New is because the people are now established in the land, and the storyline is about Yeshua.

If you really think the “God of the New Covenant” isn’t one to punish harshly, ask Ananias and Sapphira. Oh, wait a minute, you can’t ask them because they were killed off in an instant for lying to the Ruach haKodesh (Holy Spirit).

Yeah, sorry to burst your “I’m Okay” bubble, but it’s the same God, and if you screw up enough, you will get the same punishment he gave to people in the Tanakh.

Don’t think for a second that because you have accepted Yeshua as your Messiah that you do not have to be concerned with sinning or punishment, or that your salvation is guaranteed.

You may be saved at this time, but it is how you act for the rest of your life (and hopefully your parents taught you how to act) that will guarantee your salvation.

Or lead to your destruction.

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 to Understand Echad in the Shema

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First off, before we do anything else, let me wish you all a very joyous New Year.

However, to put it in perspective, let me also remind you that Rosh HaShanah is a man-made holiday; this is not a biblical new year. At some time in the past, the Rabbis of old decided to change this from Yom Teruah (Day of Trumpets), a memorial Holy Day, to celebrating a new year.

What we should be doing at this time is not celebrating but becoming more introspective. We are to review our actions over the past year and confess just how far we fell short of what God wanted us to be. Part of this introspective activity is to also reflect on who we have, or may have, sinned against in the past year and go to them to ask for forgiveness.

These are the Ten Days of Awe, and we should be preparing ourselves, both emotionally and spiritually, for Yom Kippur.

Okay, now let’s get to today’s lesson.

The Shema is the watchword of the Judaic faith, and is the foundation of Monotheism.

The last word, “echad“, is usually interpreted as “one”, but I believe there is a better way to interpret it.

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

In the Hebrew language, he word echad is primarily understood as “one”, as in “ish ehcad” (one man). And this is how we generally translate the Shema:

“Shema Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echad” 
“Hear, O Israel: the LORD is our God, the LORD is one”. 

But echad also has a secondary usage, which can be interpreted as “alone” or “only”.

In that case, we would be saying, “The Lord is our God, the Lord, alone.”

Now, to me, that’s a BIG difference because all gods are one, when you think about it. Even in the Hindu religion, where they have some hundreds of gods, each one of their gods is a singularity.

Every god is “one”, isn’t it?

But when we say that Adonai is our God, Adonai alone aren’t we making a definitive statement that – for us- there is only one God… Adonai!

Yeah, many others have their god or gods, but we have only Adonai. He, alone, is our God.

Again, it may not make a lot of difference to many people, but to me it is such a stronger and more definitive statement of monotheism than just saying that our God is one.

I have been in different synagogues where most use echad as “one”, but there are some who are using echad as “alone”.

So, today we have a simple lesson about the use of a word in the most important prayer in Judaism, and how it can be understood in a different way.

Either way, whether you say “one” or “alone”, the Shema is the foundation stone of our monotheistic faith.

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!

Trust Enough to Ask God to Help You to Trust

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In Chapter Nine of the Gospel of Mark we read about a man who asks Yeshua to heal his son, if he can. When Yeshua says all things can be done if you trust, the man’s response is something that we should all confess we need.

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

When Yeshua tells the father that if he trusts anything is possible, we are told (CJB):

 Instantly the father of the child exclaimed, “I do trust — help my lack of trust!”

So, how can he say he does trust if he needs help for his lack of trust? It seems that either we trust, or we don’t trust, right?

Not right; trust is tiered, not absolute.

And because we are human, that goes for trusting God, too. Even though we all know he is 1,000% trustworthy, trust is an emotional thing. As such, it has different levels: we can trust someone who doesn’t trust us, and vice-versa.

For example, a man who has been paroled from jail for robbery asks us for a job as cashier because he did that before he stole from where he was working. He says that he has learned his lesson and repented, so we give him a chance.

But we don’t trust him, well, not completely, so we have a video system to watch his every move which we check every night when we double-check his closing-out numbers. Now, he trusts us to allow him to continue to work there so long as he remains honest, but we don’t trust him enough to leave him unobserved.

We trust his ability to do the job, so there is that level of trust, but he trusts us as his employer a whole lot more than we trust him as our employee.

Eventually, if he has really repented of his criminal desires and proves, over time, that he is trustworthy, then the levels of trust can be more equal.

Getting back to the Bible story, when this man trusted that Yeshua could heal his son, he still doubted because of his own insecurities. I believe that is why trust is so hard for so many, myself included, because we always interpret the world through our own experiences and knowledge. If we have had a life of difficulty, or been misled and cheated on, we will find it difficult to trust anyone, even someone like Yeshua who we heard so much about.

And that time in Israel’s history was a very untrustworthy period; the Sanhedrin were composed often of political hacks who weren’t Levites, the king of Israel was not a descendant of David, and the High Priest was a descendant of Aaron, but he was appointed by a Roman official, not by lot.

It was probably the most dishonest time in Israel’s long history, so trusting did not come easily for many.

I confess that I am like that man: I trust that Yeshua is the Messiah and that he did those things we read about, but when it comes down to asking for healing for myself, or someone I care about, well… I don’t trust that I am trusting enough to deserve that help.

Yeah, yeah, I know what you are going to say- God is trustworthy to do what we ask him to do, and he will bless us even if we do not deserve it. And blessings, unlike salvation, is something we can earn (Deuteronomy 28). But still, whether we need to deserve a blessing or not, it is up to God to bless or not to bless, and I will always feel that my level of trust is undeserving of his blessings.

Yet, I know he blesses me every day, so I trust, but I need help to trust more. I have known God’s work in my life, I know absolutely that he is there and watching me, and I also know, absolutely, that he knows what is best for me.

There are some prayers I have been praying for decades which haven’t really been answered; at least, not as I was hoping they would be. God did answer me once, and it was something that I didn’t want to hear: after asking many times for God to excise certain thoughts from my brain that I don’t want, thoughts that are sinful, he told me that it doesn’t work that way.

He said that if he just took away all my evil thoughts then I would never be able to call on his power when having to face the Enemy’s temptations.

In other words, if God just made it happen then I would not be able to stand on my own when faced with temptation. God is not a “helicopter parent”, he is a coach and he will teach us how to trust, how to live, and empower us when we call on him for help. But, we also need to be able to stand on our own two feet when facing tsouris (troubles) because spiritual strength comes from spiritual exercise, and if God does everything for us, we will never develop those spiritual muscles.

I believe that every single one of us has good reason to ask God to help our lack of trust because we are human beings, which means we are weak, self-absorbed, and easily led to sin.

When we are truly humble, we will be able to recognize our weaknesses, and then we can remember what Shaul (Paul) learned. In his second letter to the Corinthians (verses 12:9-10), when asking God to remove the thorn in his side, God replied (CJB):

“My grace is enough for you, for my power is brought to perfection in weakness.”

Shaul goes on to say he will boast of his weakness.

I, also, am strong enough to confess that I am weak.

And with that oxymoron to consider, I will thank you for being here, ask you to continue to share these messages with everyone you know, and wish you an early Shabbat Shalom.

What Not to Have Faith In

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Last time we were together I spoke about what we need to have faith in, and now we need to understand the other side of that argument- which faith is useless, maybe even deadly.

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

I am going to tell you the first, and most important thing NOT to have any faith in, and this will probably shock you- have no faith in a religion.

And yes, that includes Judaism, although if you have to faithfully believe anything, Judaism is the closest thing to what God said to do. Yet, even within Judaism, there are so many Talmudic things which are not in the Torah (or even go against the Torah) that you need to watch out for.

Within Christianity, well…there is one unchanging God, yet there are some 64,000 (Yes, THOUSAND!) Christian religions, all claiming that they are the one, correct way to worship God!

So, how can that be?

Overall, having faith in any religion that tells you the law was done away with by the son of God is misplaced faith.

Think about it: sin is breaking the law of God, right? And God gave us the Torah which identifies what sin is (Romans 5:13), so if there is no longer any Torah then there is no longer any sin, right? I mean, how can you break the law if there is no law?

And (here’s the real kicker!) if there is no law, then there is no sin, so there is no need for a Messiah anymore- he doesn’t have to return. With no law there is no sin, so everyone goes to heaven and there can’t be an Apocalypse because it would be wrong of God to punish people for sinning if there is no sin.

Bottom line?- if Yeshua did away with the law then everything in the New Covenant about the End Days is wrong.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t put any faith in that statement.

Another thing not to put any faith in is a human being because, as I said the last time, humans are innately sinful, selfish, and self-absorbed.

And we are easily fooled, so even someone who thinks they are doing what is right can be led to reject God and bring others along with them on that path to destruction.

Here’s a good example of how easily we can be fooled into doing something hurtful: you know those posts that say something very compassionate and then challenge you to copy and paste it if you feel the same way? Or maybe you see a post or saying on Facebook that you love, sent to you by someone you know, so you copy and paste it then send it to everyone you know because it is such a wonderful, compassionate statement.

Well, that is how many viruses are spread. You see, in HTML (the language of the Internet) a series of coded statements, including an executable (which runs a program) can be hidden within a paragraph of text. All the person has to do is codify that section of writing as (0,0) and it will not be visible to the reader, but it will be there, all the same, and the computer will recognize it, and perform it.

Faith in what you see on the Internet is just plain ignorant and foolish, and that means ANYTHING you see on the Internet whether it be news, posts, quotations from famous people or whatever. There are no rules of validation or requirement to be true for anything on the Internet.

Another reason not to place your faith in a religion is because God has no religion: he only has his rules for how to worship him and how to treat each other. That isn’t a religion, it is a lifestyle.

Men created religion so they could have power over other men, so the more faithfully you follow a religion the more you are putting your faith in people, and we just went over why that is foolish and leads you to the path of destruction.

Now, I do not want you to think I am suggesting that you never follow any religion. I am trying to say that you should not blindly put your faith in any religion. What you need to do is read the Bible and be aware of what God says so that you can tell when a religion is going in the wrong direction.

You will find the only place where God says what he wants us to do is in the Torah- everywhere else when he speaks (as he does to his prophets) he is not giving any new instructions; what he is doing is to warn the people to get back on track with the original instructions.

And the only time God speaks in the entire New Covenant is when he tells us Yeshua is his son, whom he loves and we should listen to him.

So, put no faith in people or in a religion, and here’s another hard to accept statement: do not put faith in your version of the Bible.

You see, there are literally thousands of versions in hundreds of different languages, and every single version of the Bible is subject to the interpreter’s personal understanding of the original language, the correct cultural usage of the words and terms when the Bible book was written, and personal bias.

So, where are we? Put no faith in a human being and except for the commandments and laws found in the Torah, which were dictated to Moses by God, everything else in the Bible was written by humans, and we know about them.

I know, I know, if what I am saying is true then we can’t put our faith in anything, right? It seems that way, but there is one thing you can absolutely have faith in, and that is God and his Ruach haKodesh, his Holy Spirit, which will guide you to see God’s truth, no matter which version of the Bible you are reading.

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!

Saved by Faith, but Faith in What?

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The saying “Saved by faith” has been around since Shaul made it popular way back when, and even today people keep saying, “We are saved by faith!”

But faith in what?

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

The answer is really simple, but there is more than just one thing to be faithful to.

First of all, you have to understand that faith means choosing to believe in something that you can never really prove. Proof is the antithesis of faith because if something can be proven, then you have it as a fact and there is no need for faith. I can tell you that there is plenty of proof that God exists, but it is all just as easily dismissed as coincidence or science.

People who want to disprove God’s existence explain things scientifically, but what they fail to catch on to is that God created science and is not restrained by it.

So, to start with, when it comes to being saved by faith you must first faithfully believe in God. DUH! Without faith in God, you have nowhere else to go except to live your life knowing that there is no one behind you, no one caring about you, and no one you can truly, absolutely have faith in except another human being.

And given how human beings are, that is one in the loss column before you even start to play the game.

Next you have to have faith that what God says he will do will be done. Period.

The next thing is to faithfully believe that Yeshua IS the Messiah God said he would send. The reason this is essential for salvation is because there is no temple, and without the temple we cannot bring a sacrifice to be forgiven, and without forgiveness of sin there can be no salvation.

No one stained with sin will ever be allowed into God’s presence, so the way we are saved is through being forgiven. The shedding of innocent blood is the means by which we receive forgiveness, but it is forgiveness alone that saves us.

To receive forgiveness under God’s Torah, we had to shed innocent blood (Hebrews 9:22), and that had to be at the place God put his name (Deuteronomy 12:11), which was the temple in Jerusalem (Deuteronomy 12:5).

No temple, no forgiveness, no salvation no matter how faithfully you try to obey Torah (and I say “try to obey” because no one can be 100% Torah obedient 100% of the time).

This is where Yeshua comes into the salvation picture- his sacrifice, as the Messiah, replaced the need to bring an animal to the temple in Jerusalem, so through faith that God does what he says, faith that Yeshua is the Messiah and faithfully believing that as the Messiah, Yeshua’s sacrifice is a once-and-for-all sacrifice for everyone, you can receive the forgiveness that will save you.

And lets’ set the record straight right now: the once-and-for-all sacrifice doesn’t mean that all sins are automatically forgiven… NO! It means that every time we sin, we can find forgiveness when asking God to forgive us by means Yeshua’s shed blood. And you DO need to ask forgiveness for every single solitary sin you commit for the rest of your life.

And don’t think for a second that all you need to do is to ask. Without real t’shuvah (repentance), without feeling guilty and ashamed for having sinned, God will not forgive you.

God is not stupid or ever fooled- he knows your heart and what you are thinking, so without true repentance, you are no better off than a faithless person.

Oh, I almost forgot- faith in God is demonstrated by obedience to God, and not some religion. Don’t take my word for it: that’s what the brother of Yeshua said in James 2.

And, just in case you missed it the first time, the only place in the entire Bible where God, himself, tells us what he wants us to do is in those first five books, called the Torah. If your religion tells you, in any way, that you don’t need to follow the Torah, then you can never prove your faith by works, so your faith will be dead.

You can be the nicest person on the earth, give to the poor, go to church or synagogue every Shabbat, love everyone, and be as good a person as any human being can be BUT… if you reject anything in the Torah, such as reject celebrating the Holy Days God said to celebrate, reject God’s laws of Kashrut (Kosher) by eating whatever you want to, have intimate relations when you are not supposed to, or with someone you shouldn’t, or violate any of the other rules in the Torah, all that “good’ stuff you do will not help you.

Oh, yeah, and here’s the biggie!- according to the Messiah, as he tells us in Matthew 6:14-15, if you do not forgive those who sin against you, God will not forgive your sins against him, and (here’s another kick in the pants)… every sin you commit is against God.

So, there you have it, saved by faith means:

  1. Faithfully believing (that means without needing proof) that God exists and is 1,000% trustworthy to do as he says he will.
  2. Faithfully accepting that Yeshua is the Messiah.
  3. Faithfully believing his sacrifice was an acceptable sacrifice.
  4. Faithfully believing that because of his shed blood you can receive forgiveness of sin.

Salvation is what we are able to receive only when we are totally cleansed of sin, which is why it is so imperative that each and every day you ask God to forgive you, even if you don’t think you sinned.

Better to be covered than cursed.

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!

What I’ve Learned

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It’s been nearly three decades since I first chose to accept that Yeshua is the Messiah God promised to send, and was happy to find that I could continue to live a Jewish lifestyle, even though I “believed in Jesus”.

And since then, I have learned a lot, and if I may, I would like to share some of that with you.

Warning: This is one of the longest messages I have given, but please stay around till the end because I really believe this is also one of the most important messages I have shared.

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

Many of the spiritual lessons I have learned have a real-life, physical element of truth that, whether you are a “believer” or not, and even if you are an atheist, these lessons are valuable and can improve your life.

Let’s start with a touchy topic- forgiveness.

I have learned a very important fact, which is that forgiving someone does NOT make them right with God, but it does make YOU right with God.

In my experience, most people think that when they forgive someone for doing something bad to them it lets that person “off the hook”. What they don’t know is what King David did, and said so in Psalm 51, where he said his sin was against God, and God, alone.

Now, if you’re not familiar with which sin that was (Davey committed more than just one sin during his lifetime), it was a triple-play: he committed adultery, he committed murder, and he made his commander-in-chief, Yoav, an accomplice to murder.

You see, any time anyone sins, it is always against God. Yes, that sin is also against a person, but sinning is a rejection of God’s commandments, and (like it or not) God always comes first. So, if you forgive someone (which doesn’t mean you have to trust them), they still have to deal with God.

Here is the other side of that coin- if you do not forgive them, then you will also have to deal with God! Yeshua tells us that if we do not forgive on the earth, we will not be forgiven in heaven (Matthew 6:14-15), so you really must forgive those who sin against you: not for their sake, but for you own.

One other, and maybe the most important thing I learned about forgiveness, is this:

Until you truly forgive someone, the hurt will never go away.

If you have trouble forgiving someone, do what I do when I hit that roadblock: imagine what they will have to suffer if they never repent. If you have any level of compassion, you will feel so bad for them that it will make it easier to forgive them.

And this brings us to another lesson I have learned: how to love people better. By remembering all the ways we have constantly rejected God, especially my own people, the Jews, over the past 5 millennia yet he constantly is not just willing to forgive us, but he desires to forgive us (Ezekiel 18:23), it motivates me to be better, to be more compassionate (and that is not who I was before), and to be more humble.

Another really good lesson I have learned is that being humble is not being weak. In truth, it takes a lot of inner strength to be humble, and without humility you have little chance of every being saved.

Humility allows us to love better, to be more compassionate, and to accept that God is in charge. Being humble makes you a better friend, spouse, parent, and just an all-around better person.

True humility brings us closer to God, and improves our life tremendously.

I know I am much more humble since accepting God’s will over my own because before I knew the Lord as I do now, if someone was hurt of upset by something I did or said, I wouldn’t care. What I would do is to turn it around, and make it seem it was their fault that they felt that way.

Now you have to understand this was wrong because I DID do something wrong, I DID say something inappropriate or cruel, and it was MY fault. But not having humility, I was a coward and tried to avoid my responsibility for having done that.

Now when someone tells me that I did something to hurt them, my immediate response is to apologize. Even if I know that I did nothing wrong, it is more important to me that I deal with their feelings before my own.

Now there are times when someone will over-react and they need to be told that, but I will do it after I apologize. Yes, you may think I am eating crow that I shouldn’t have to eat, but that is what humility is- the strength to put someone else’s feelings ahead of your own.

Here is something else I have learned from knowing the Bible and observing the world:

The faithful are fearless and the faithless are fearful.

Without faith in God, it will never be any better than me against the world. Faith in humans is always going to be disappointing because we are, well…human! But faith in God is what strengthens you to be able to face anything, because even if you are to die, faithful people get to be with God forever, which is much better than anything we can have here on earth.

And, for the record, faithful to God does not mean following any religion, it means doing as God said to do, and that is found only in the Torah.

Something that is important to know is faith resulting from a miracle is having weak faith, at best, and that isn’t going to last because Satan can make miracles happen, as well.

You must choose to believe, and not be influenced by an event in your life because if one miracle turns you to God, another may just as easily turn you to Satan, and you won’t even know.

God will never provide absolute proof that he exists because if his existence can be proven, you don’t really need faith, but faith is the only way we can be saved.

I have also learned that there is a difference between what is important to know and what is just “nice to know” information. The “Acid Test” question I ask myself to determine which is which is this:

How does this affect my salvation?

If it doesn’t directly save me, then it isn’t important to know.

I now also know the answer to those two, age-old questions: “Why are we here?” and “What is life all about?” Would you like to know? Okay, I’ll tell you:

We are here to choose where we will spend eternity.

I’ve learned you can’t tell anyone what to believe, but you can tell them what you believe and why. Before anyone will accept what you believe, they have to first doubt what they believe, and you get them to do that by asking questions they can’t answer, but you can using the Bible to justify what you believe.

Finally, and I think what is probably the most important thing I have learned, is this:

We all have Free Will to choose what we will believe,
and we all will be held accountable for that choice.

So let me leave you with this thought: if you choose to reject the Torah (which, sadly, traditional Christianity teaches you to do) and you come before God at Judgement Day, which we all will have to do, and God asks you why you didn’t obey him you’ll have to say, “But Lord- I did what they told me I should do”.

Well, you know, I can’t speak for the Big Guy but I am pretty sure he will respond with something to the effect of….

“I understand, my child, that 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!