How can a God-fearing person be a hater? It’s an oxymoron, right?

Unfortunately, it is far from unusual, and in truth, God-fearing people have been teaching their children to hate for hundreds of generations.

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Here’s a question: is hating always bad? I don’t think so. After all, we are to hate the sin (but love the sinner), and we should hate evil, hate wrongdoing, and other things that are against the way God wants us to live, shouldn’t we?

So long as we recall what Shaul said in Ephesians 4:26, about not sinning in your anger.

When I say there are God-fearing people who hate and teach others to do so, I am talking about Jews and Christians.

Growing up Jewish (and, for the record, I never converted when I accepted Yeshua as my messiah- I am still Jewish) I can tell you, absolutely, that Jews hate Jesus. We grow up being taught not to even listen to anything having to do with Jesus because he was a traitor to Judaism. He created Christianity, which has for millennia hated, persecuted, tortured, and killed Jews in his name. Just ask any Jew and they will tell you that none of their Jewish friends or family want to hear anything about Jesus.

If you ask a Jew about another Jew who “believes in Jesus”, they will tell you that person isn’t Jewish anymore because anyone who believes in Jesus is a Christian. Period.

Well, what about God-fearing Christians? Being taught that Jesus is all about love and to be a good person and love others is how they get to go to heaven, certainly a Christian will accept a Jew for who they are, right?

Ever hear of the Crusades? Howzabout the Spanish Inquisition? Did you know the Nazi’s had “Gott mit uns” (God is with us) on the belt buckles of their uniforms?

Do you know about Replacement Theology? That teaches because the Jews rejected Jesus, God has rejected the Jews as his chosen people, and the Born-Again Christians are now God’s true Chosen people.

If you ask me, that theology is nothing but an insult to God because it is calling him a liar! Throughout the Tanakh God constantly states the Jews will never be destroyed or rejected by him.

They also seem to forget that the thousands fed by Yeshua, and the thousands that were “converted” at Pentecost were all Jews! Truth is, there were probably tens of thousands of Jews who accepted that Yeshua is the messiah God promised to send, long before any Gentiles even got the chance to convert to Judaism.

That’s right! The first Gentiles who accepted Yeshua were really converting to Judaism.

When Kefa and Shaul (Peter and Paul) went around trying to save the souls of pagan Gentles, if the pagans accepted Yeshua as their messiah and began to worship God, they were becoming Jews. Christianity, as a separate religion from Judaism, didn’t even get its start until the end of the First Century.

Ask a Christian Missionary what they will do when talking to a Jewish person, and they will say they are trying to get the Jewish person to convert to Christianity. I can’t tell you how many Christians I have talked to who have never even heard of Messianic Judaism or the Hebraic Roots movement- all they have even been taught is to convert people to worshipping Jesus.

And I mean exactly that- to worship Jesus: not to worship God and accept Yeshua as his messiah, but to worship Jesus Christ, and more often than not, to also recognize that Jesus is God

The greatest insult to Judaism and Jewish thought is the idea of a trinity- God being three beings instead of the one, and only one, true God who we have always worshipped. To a Jew, God is the only savior and his messiah is God’s representative to serve as our King and Cohen HaGadol (High Priest) who will reestablish the temple and bring us all back into communion with God.

When you tell a Jew that Jesus is God and the only savior well, to us, that is blasphemy.

If you ask me, I believe this whole Trinity thing was started in order to further separate Christians from Jews, making Christianity an anathema to Judaism.

I hate to say it, but Christians are taught to hate everything Jewish, which includes the Torah, and that what they are supposed to do- a divine calling- is to make everyone a Christian by ignoring anything about Jesus that was Jewish.

When I was in college, just a little after the earth cooled, I was dating an Italian girl whose family was fresh from Italy. One night while having dinner there, I saw their silkscreen picture of the Last Supper hanging on their wall (I was not a Believer then) and mentioned that it was a Jewish celebration called the Passover Seder, and that Jesus and all his disciples were Jews. Their response was “No! No, Tu batso!” (you’re crazy) I asked the youngest daughter, who was attending school at the local Catholic school to ask the nuns about it. The next time I was there, I asked her what the nuns said, and she replied “They said that Jesus was born Jewish, but it isn’t important”.

So, can you now see what I mean about God-fearing people being haters?

“Okay, Steve, I see your point. What can I do about it?”

The answer is stop the hatred, beginning with yourself.

Correct people about God and Yeshua; talk to Jews using the name Yeshua (never use Jesus) and let them know that accepting Yeshua to be the messiah God promised to send does NOT make one a Christian because Jews can believe Yeshua is the messiah and still be Jewish.

In fact, I am more “Jewish” now than I ever was as a Reformed Jew not knowing about Yeshua.

Teach Jews that Yeshua never changed or rejected the Torah, and teach Christians the same darn thing!

I am going to plug my latest book, “The Good News About the Messiah For Jews: Debunking the Traditional Lies About the Jewish Messiah” as a basic primer for approaching both Jews and Christians with the truth about who Yeshua is, what he taught, and the hateful lies that both Jews and Christians have, throughout the centuries, passed down to their children regarding who he is and what he taught.

The only way to overcome hatred is with understanding that comes from knowledge, especially when hatred is based in ignorance. When Jews and Christians know the truth about Yeshua, then we will be reunited as God-fearing lovers of God, and not God-fearing haters of each other.

Thank you for being here and please share these messages with everyone you know to help this ministry continue to grow. Subscribe on my website and YouTube channel, buy my books, and join my Facebook group called “Just God’s Word” (please make sure you click that you agree to the rules or I cannot let you in).

And remember that I always welcome your comments.

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

You might be thinking I got my title a little mixed up. After all, aren’t anger and joy opposites? What could they possibly have in common?

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

Before I explain, I need to talk about fire.

When there is a fire, doesn’t it feed on and effect everything around it? And when a fire runs out of fuel, it will begin to feed on itself, right? And when it does that, it dies out.

Anger is an emotional fire, but this type of fire is unique: when it feeds on itself, it grows stronger!

The longer someone stays angry, the harder it is to release the anger, and the more one dwells on what made them angry in the first place, the angrier they become.

So how can this be like joy?

It can because joy has the same characteristic: when we are happy, the more we think about why we are happy, the happier we become. And the longer we stay happy, the easier it is to stay that way.

One other thing anger and joy have in common is that they are both highly contagious.

When someone is angry, they usually take it out on those around them, making them feel (at the very least) uncomfortable, and more often than not angry with the angry person who is now making them angry.

And when we are joyful, we spread joy to others who can’t help but feeling happy seeing how happy we are.

So, nu? What happens when a joyful person runs into an angry person? Do they neutralize each other? Does the angry person become less angry, and the joyful person more sedate?

It all depends on the person.

You see, another thing anger and joy have in common is that, while they are both easily influenced by external factors, we decide how we will feel.

You choose to be angry, and you choose to be joyful- even though (as I have already pointed out) they are both highly contagious, when in the presence of someone who is happy or mad, we can create an immunity to their feelings, if we choose to.

That’s why some people aren’t influenced by other people’s emotional state and some are- it is entirely up to us to decide how we feel.

Of course, it isn’t as easy as I make it sound, and I can tell you from my own experience it takes a lot to overcome anger, and sometimes it takes a lot to be joyful. But when you come down to it, it is our choice, and though external factors can influence us, the uncomfortable truth is there is no one to blame for how we feel except ourselves.

This is where God comes into play- trusting that God is in charge of our life, and by accepting Yeshua (Jesus) as our messiah and being able to receive forgiveness by means of his sacrifice, we can comfort ourselves knowing that this life is short but eternity is, well…it’s eternal, and nothing that happens in this life will matter all that much.

I once wrote a message called SWISH, which stands for So What, I‘m Saved, Hallelujah!

The next time you hear that hoof-footed guy with horns wearing the red jumper suit sitting on your shoulder and telling you to get back at, be mad, or hate someone, SWISH him away!

Believe me, you will feel much better when you do.

Thank you for being here and please share these messages with everyone you know. Subscribe to my website and YouTube channel, buy my books, and join my Facebook group called “Just God’s Word” (but please make sure you agree to the rules or I can’t let you in).

And remember that I always welcome your comments.

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

We know that God is the Creator, the King, the Judge, the Shield, the Father, the Savior, and there are still a few other titles we could give him.

But have you ever thought of him as a referee?

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I looked up what a referee does, and according to Wikipedia, a referee:

Enforces applicable activities rules and assess penalties when necessary

Therefore, God as a referee means he knows the rule book, inside and out, which makes sense: after all, he wrote the darn thing! We call it the Torah. And when someone violates those rules, God will make the “call”, throw the red flag, and assess what penalty is to be given.

We see this in action throughout the Bible: 5 yards for offside (Do Not Commit Adultery); 10 yards for illegal receiver (Do Not Have Any Other Gods Before Me); 15 yards for clipping (Do Not Steal); and ejection from the game for unsportsmanlike conduct (Thou Shalt Not Kill).

What is interesting is that when we read of God telling the prophets to review the rules with the people, he always states the punishment as something that the people bring on themselves. Even though God, himself, is causing the punishment, it isn’t really his doing, it is their doing- in other words, these rules which are immutable and eternal, and when you break a rule- whether or not you agree with it- whatever results from that infraction is solely your fault.

Just like when the referee throws the flag and imposes the penalty- he is just following the rules. He doesn’t have the option to decide if he will enforce the rules or not, and he also doesn’t have the option to decide the penalty for that infraction because the rules tell him what he can, and cannot, impose.

And the one who violated the rules is the only one to blame for the penalty.

You are the only one responsible for what happens when you do (or say) something that is in violation of the rules: there is no one else to blame.

Too many people blame society, or their parents, and some even blame God when they suffer for something they did. The old excuse “I couldn’t help it- they made me do it!” doesn’t hold water with anyone.

When the comedian Flip Wilson dressed up as Geraldine and cried, “The Devil made me do it!”, that was funny; but, the truth is that the Devil doesn’t make us do anything. Oh, yes, he certainly creates an environment where we are enticed to sin, but what you do and say is because you do it., and because you say it!

Do you recall what God told Cain? Wasn’t it something about sin crouching at the door, but it was up to Cain, alone, to conquer it?

So, when you screw something up (and we all do, sooner or later), stop looking for someone or something to blame, and bite the bullet. Confess your mistake and (hopefully) you are also sorry you did it (they call that “repentance”, or in Hebrew, T’shuvah).

After confession, repentance, and asking God for forgiveness by means of the shed blood of the Messiah Yeshua, you can start again, clean.

Here’s the hard part: after you square it away with God, go to the one who you sinned against and ask their forgiveness, too.

It doesn’t really matter, on an eternal level, whether or not they forgive you because this is how that works: you have already made yourself right with God so you don’t really need their forgiveness, but they need to forgive you in order for them to be right with God.

Asking forgiveness from someone is hard because we are baring our heart to them, but it is so important for them to have that opportunity to forgive you which makes them right with God.

You might ask, “Why do I need to do that? Shouldn’t they do that themselves?” and you are right- they should forgive you whether or not you ask for it, but when you do ask, it gives them that chance.

Isn’t giving someone the chance to get right with God a way to show love for another as yourself?

Thank you for being here and please share these messages with everyone you know. Subscribe to my website and YouTube channel, buy my books, and join my Facebook group called “Just God’s Word” (please agree to the rules so I can let you in).

And remember that I always welcome your comments.

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