Category: A Drash to Start the Day

Love is a Muscle

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Arnold Schwarzenegger. Lou Ferrigno. Steve Reeves (you have to be in my age group to remember him.)

When we think of those names we think of one thing- muscles! Big, well-developed muscles.

They got those muscles through hard work, dedication and sacrifice. And after all that work, after all that strenuous activity, hours upon hours in the gym, proper diet, and loss of personal time with friends and family, if they don’t keep at it, those muscles get weak and flabby.

No, muscle doesn’t turn into fat- totally different things, but they do get flabby and weaken. Muscles need to be worked constantly to remain strong.

We all know that the heart is a muscle, but love is only a feeling right? Is it? Most people would say that love is an emotional thing, not a physical thing; however, if you have ever been in love you know that it can affect you physically.

I submit that love is a muscle. You know that old saying, don’t you? The one that goes:

“If it looks like a duck, and it walks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, it must be a duck.”

Love has a physical effect, love is something we feel and experience; when we are unloved, it hurts and when we are loved, it is better than the best adrenalin or endorphin high any athlete can experience. Love acts like a muscle, it works like a muscle, it hurts like a muscle, and it grows like a muscle. Sounds to me like it’s a muscle.

Love needs to be nurtured and it needs to be constantly worked at. It takes sacrifice, it takes hard work, it takes humility, it takes compassion. It takes as much work as any physical effort you would make to build any other muscle in your body.

And like the muscles you get when you work out steadily, you need to keep at it to maintain what you have gotten. I am no muscle-man by any stretch of the imagination (although I do have a pretty nice set of guns for an old fart) and I work twice as hard at just maintaining what I have as I ever did building it up. I also work just as hard, if not harder, to maintain the love I feel for Donna (my wife) and my family and friends. I don’t do social media because I believe that is more like broadcasting than committed communication. I call and email people one-to-one to demonstrate that I am willing to take the time to be with them, and them alone.

Today everything is cocooned- yes, FaceBook, Twitter, etc. have made socializing easier, but is it the right kind of socializing? Is it really intimate? Is it really one-on-one? Does it take effort? These technological forms of communication have taken something very valuable out of communication- it has taken away the love. It has taken away the intimacy of talking to someone and replaced it with the cold, unemotional and unattached simplicity of just posting something on a bulletin board for any and all to see. In other words, it takes no effort and building love takes effort.

Love needs to be personal. How can it not be? Love for one’s fellow man (or woman), love of art, love of nature- these are all good, but impersonal.

There are so many passages in the Bible about love I won’t even put one here, except the most important one- Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul and all your might.

See? Didn’t I tell you that love is a muscle? God tells us to love Him with all our might and you need muscles to be strong.

The message today is really simple- we are commanded to love God and to love each other- this takes a lot to do. We are, by nature, self-centered, self-absorbed and selfish. We are sinful and hedonistic. We can overcome our Yetzer Hara (Evil Inclinations) with the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) leading us if we follow what it says, and if we exercise our love.

I am not one to talk. I am saying do as I say (actually, do as He says) and not as I do. I try to do what pleases God and fail many times. And when I do something good, I revert back. If backsliding was an Olympic sport I would hold many gold medals. But I keep trying, and that is what we all need to do. To run the good race, to keep our eyes on the prize, to build muscles of love and not let them get flabby.

The V’ahavta prayer (Deuteronomy 6:5-9) tells us to love God, and remember His commandments, to speak of them when we arise and when we sleep. I do. I also make sure that when I arise I tell my wife, Donna, that I love her. And when we go to sleep, I tell her that I love her. And I tell her that I love her as often as the feeling hits during the day (and it hits a lot.) I also remember to tell my sisters Wendy and Gayle that I love them. I would tell my children, Alexandra and Bryce, that I love them (if they would talk to me.) I do this not just because I do love them, but it is also how I exercise my love. It’s how I keep it strong.

You really want to build up a sweat exercising your love? Tell your spouse how much you love them next time you are in the middle of an argument! Yes, right there in between the “You always” and the “Why don’t you ever”  statements say, “You know, despite all this I love you and I am so thankful we are married. Even though I am pissed right now, I am still very much in love with you and never want to be with anyone else. Ever.”

Then go back to arguing… if you can.

Love is really strong when you exercise it regularly, and it has the strength to knock out anger and hatred in one punch. Wouldn’t you like to be that strong?

 

 

Signs of the times

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He answered and said to them, “When it is evening you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red’; 3 and in the morning, ‘It will be foul weather today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ Hypocrites! You know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times.

So said Yeshua (Mattitiyu 16:2-3) when chiding the people and the Pharisees for being able to see the signs of the weather but not recognize Yeshua for who He is.

Are you reading the signs of these times?  I have written before about the way the enemy of God is making himself acceptable- Buffy the Vampire Slayer was a cult movie but now we accept there are good and bad vampires, there are  “good” demons in other TV shows, and now I see that they have a new show coming out, Lucifer, where the trailers indicate that the devil , himself, isn’t really such a bad guy.

Today in the paper I read a story about how the Oscar’s will be boycotted by Spike Lee because of the racial “snubbing” of the Academy towards films that are more African-American centered than Anglo-American (is that stated in a politically correct manner?). That is such a laugh. Not that there is racism, that is not acceptable or funny, but it is the hypocrisy of it all (just as Yeshua pointed out): here is an industry that is rife with homosexuality, drug-abuse, infidelity, and which has (historically) made a mockery of what a marriage is supposed to be, being accused of committing a sin! No! Really?

We live in a time where sin is the “new” good, where TV shows and movies are graphic (both in cruelty and sexuality), where Satan is actually not such a bad guy, where God has been removed from schools and government, and the history channel commentaries on the bible demonstrate that it is all just a story, nothing more than myth and legend.

But there is good stuff, too- I am proud to say I am friends with people who are deeply involved in organizations such as Jacob’s Hope, Bridges for Peace, and Ezra International. These are Christian-Jewish organizations whose goal is to help the Jewish people throughout the world (especially in the European theatre and Africa) to make Aliyah (return to Israel)  and to provide them food, medical supplies and housing. These organizations are helping to make prophecy come true, and we see large numbers of Jews being regathered to Israel. Since it’s inception as a state in 1948, there have been over 3 Million Jews that have immigrated to Israel. According to Wikipedia, in 2014 there were approx. 14.2 Million Jewish people in the world. The Jewish population over the centuries, despite what the enemy has tried to do, has remained fairly constant. So, in the last 70 years or so, nearly 20% of the entire world Jewish population has gone back to Israel. I would call that a good start!

These times are very different than any other time in history: not just because of the regathering of Jews to Israel, not just because of the satanic forces gaining power and (even worse) acceptance, and not just because of the overall rejection of God and the increasing terrorism and hatred against Israel and Judaism, but because this is all happening worldwide faster and more efficiently than ever before. More people can see and read lies because of the Internet: whatever anyone may think can be transmitted worldwide, and people are stupid, people are gullible, and people are like sheep, easily led astray. If you say something often enough, and to enough people, it will be considered fact. Look at the Theory of Evolution: even though “theory” is part of it’s name, how many people do you know that believe it is scientific fact?

I think the hypocrisy Yeshua was talking about was that the Pharisees did know who He was, they did understand what He was talking about and they rejected Him because they didn’t want to lose their power and authority. That’s why people reject God- they want to believe the lie the enemy tells them is the truth: that they are in control of their lives and they are the best ones to determine how they should live.

I will ask you again: can you read the signs of the times? No one knows when Yeshua will return, and He told His Talmudim (students / Disciples) that when they see these signs it will only be the beginning. Well, I think it has begun. I see the spiritual battle in full force.

When I get dressed in the morning I go into my closet and pick out the pants, shirt, belt, and shoes that are the Armor of God (Ephesians 6:11-16).

To paraphrase a popular commercial saying, “What’s in your closet?”

Starting with nothing

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I am sitting here, waiting for an inspiration. I actually glanced through the newspaper- same old, same old. Nothing jumps out at me, nothing that spurs my creative juices and uplifts (or upsets) my spirit, giving me a thought or a divine inspiration with which to blog about this morning.

We have a friend from Philadelphia, who we met while being Docents together at the Zoo there, staying with us this weekend. My older sister, Wendy, has visited us often, but no one else has come down here. We have even had family as close as an hour or less away vacationing at Disney or other Florida vacation spots and, believe it or not, they never even called Donna to ask if they could meet.

There’s a message for us! Friendship, whether familial or social, is something that needs to be worked at. It is something that needs to be watered with sacrifice (I let Jeanette do my Cryptoquip in the paper this morning) and fed with constant connections.

And I don’t mean Facebook or Twitter. Those posts and notifications are essentially one-way communications. Think about it- it really is all about me me me: My opinion, where I am, what I’m doing, where I’m going,  copy and share, like this page, me me me me me!!

Friendship, true friendship, true family, is not about me, it’s about you. It’s about the other person, it’s about taking time from your schedule not to tell them what you are doing or where you are going, but to ask them what they are doing, where are they going, how do they feel? Friendship is sharing, and that means being a friend to someone who needs to share their feelings, and they should be there to let you share yours.

I know people who wonder, out loud sometimes, why they can’t meet someone who will complete their life, make them happy, make them feel good about themselves and make them feel loved. My answer is that they will never find anyone to do that for them until they are able to do that for someone else. My marriage to Donna works so well because we aren’t about what the other one does for me, but what I do for the other one. I prepare her cup for when she wants her morning tea before I fix my coffee, and she will have everything I need to make coffee ready for me when I wake up (the few times I sleep later than she does.)

It’s things like this, little things, every day, that we need to do to reconnect with our family and friends. Texts and posts on social media are a cop-out.

The same is true with God. We need to reconnect with God daily, daily prayer is essential to maintaining our relationship with Him. The Torah section we are in covers the days at the end of the slavery in Egypt, and we are going to hear a lot going forward in the book about the children of Israel in the desert. They had divinely delivered food, they had water from rocks, their clothes didn’t wear out, they got to see God, Himself, on Sinai! And heard His voice! Oy!

Yet, they k’vetched and moaned and whined over and over, for months, and even years. They didn’t reconnect with God until He had to slap them upside their heads, with quails that made them sick, with snakes to bite them, with plague, and with fire from heaven. The history of God’s people, Israel, is one of taking Him for granted.

If we take God for granted, how much more so do we take each other for granted? That has to stop. This has to be nipped in the bud and we need to get our heads back on our shoulders, out of Facebook and Twitter.

These aren’t making communication better- they are destroying what makes communication worthwhile! They remove the personal and compassionate relationships we have when we take the time to sit and write, to call and speak, to connect one-to-one instead of one-to-many.

Is God important enough to you to speak with Him only? Is there anyone in your life you care enough about that you want to spend time connecting to him or her alone? Is there a friend or family member that you love so much you don’t want to share them with me, or my friends, and their friends’ friends all at the same time?

I am going to post on my Facebook page this week, once I get the wording correct in my head (you ‘d think that should be simple, given all the empty space I have to work with) a last post. I enjoy some of the posts, I like how I have connected with people who I wouldn’t have connected with, but I am going to end my FB because it is NG for me. I am in communication, but I am not communing. If the people I am reading posts from and replying to can’t take the time to write me a personal note or email, then my friendship (in their mind) must not be worth taking any extra effort to maintain. And making personal posts isn’t the answer- it’s still just a FB post, albeit a different format. And if I am that unimportant, they won’t really miss me. And, hurtful as it may be to find out that if it takes an effort to stay in touch with me I am not worth it to them, at least that will be an honest and truthful relationship. I have friends who, to me, are like family but I know I am not like family to them. I am usually the one making all the effort to communicate, and since I have known these friends for decades, I know from this long relationship that I am important to them, they just don’t take the time because that is how they are. It hurts, and sometimes it makes me really mad, but when we are together I can feel their love and friendship. They need me as much as I need them, it’s only that I am better at understanding the dynamics of the relationship. And that’s not from me, that’s from God in me.

There are those that are givers, and those that are takers- neither one is wrong or right, they are just what they are. The world needs to be in balance, and I am a giver and many of my friends are takers. They need me, and I need them- we balance and complete each other. One of the hardest lessons I had to learn in life was to accept generosity as easily and quickly as I give it. It is much harder for me to accept a gift than to give one, and the way I learned was to remind myself how wonderful it makes me feel to be able to give something nice to someone. Then, I turn that around and when I am uncomfortable taking a gift, I remember how nice I feel when I share or give something to someone, and tell myself that I am being selfish and discompassionate by not letting that person have that same feeling.

We all know it is better to give than to receive, and so when we are supposed to receive something let’s “give” the other person that wonderful feeling by receiving it joyfully and appreciatively.

And stay in touch with each other; no greater love is there than that one should give one’s life for a friend- isn’t that what Yeshua tells us?

It’s a lot easier to write a personal memo or make a phone call than it is to die.

PS: If you agree, please comment after you read this. Scroll down and agree that we need to be more personal in our relationships, we need to be more about the other person than about ourself, we need to reconnect with God, friends and family in a way that makes the other person feel we are really speaking only to them. We must take the time and make the effort to communicate with them, only them, and no else but them, because they are that important to us.

“Coexist” is not the plan

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I have to think that everyone reading this has seen the bumper sticker that spells out the word “coexist” in different religious symbols. Isn’t that a wonderful ideal? All people living together, practicing their religious beliefs without interfering or harboring hatred towards each other, in a peaceful and respectful environment. World peace.

Right! Tell me another story, Daddy.

The truth is what history has constantly revealed- there is no coexistence between people with different religious beliefs. Sorry, it just ain’t happening: it never has, it never will, and the fact of the matter is, it isn’t supposed to!

There is only one God, and He has no religion. He has rules, He has commandments, and when you reject His rules, you reject Him. Period: End of sentence: Close the door on your way out: buh-bye.

I could give you scripture after scripture describing how God has destroyed those that have rejected Him, how He has called His people, Israel, to follow the commandments, regulations, ordinances and laws that He gave in the Torah, and made them a nation of priests to the rest of the peoples so that they, too, could be saved from judgement. This same Torah, which is not for Jews alone, defines the only way God said He should be worshipped and it applies to everyone who professes to believe in and worship the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. EVERYONE.

There is no coexistence with someone whose religious beliefs order them to either convert or kill someone who believes differently. There is no coexistence with anyone whose religious leaders tell their followers that the Torah is invalid (effectively rejecting God’s commandments.) There is no coexistence with a religion that teaches Jews are rejected by God because teaching that calls God a liar. There is no coexistence with a religion that groups many gods together, where each one has some level of authority and autonomy, rejecting the very premise that there is only one God who is the only true God. .

There is no coexistence with those who are so adamant they are right that they slander other religions and kill other people because of their beliefs.

Yet, our God tells us that those who do not accept Yeshua as their Messiah will be judged at the end of times and rejected by God.  In the end, it will be the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who will prove to be the one true God and creator, the only one that deserves worship, and He will be known to all.

So, how is this different than someone who says to kill all infidels? It doesn’t seem very different. I think the main, and really important, difference is that my God tells me that He will judge, that He will avenge, and that He is the only one to make fair and righteous judgements. I am not to judge, lest I be judged; I am to hate the sin and love the sinner, I am to be compassionate, and I am also not to be in the presence of sin. I am to respect the life of those that reject God, and leave the punishment for that rejection to God, in His time, the way He will do it.

That’s the difference between what my God teaches and what their god tells them- they are to kill the infidel, they are to judge the non-believer, but I am to be a light to those in darkness.

That’s the difference, and it is a BIG difference. It is not coexistence, it is living in a world with them but not being a part of that world.

What I am saying goes against the world’s view of tolerance, peaceful relations and coexistence. That’s OK with me, because my experience and understanding of the Bible is that whatever the world thinks is good is most likely against what God thinks is right.

Just about everyone wants to go to (their definition) of heaven: Judeo-Christian religions see heaven as a wonderful place we all go to where we play harps and have wings, Islam has a different view (is heaven only for men? What do women care about 40 virgins?), and those who follow Hinduism just want to get there, eventually.

The truth is that there is going to be a new earth and a new heaven, and a new Jerusalem. I don’t know if the new Jerusalem will be like the current one- I figure it has to be different. Yeshua said that every stone standing will be toppled (Matthew 24:2) and to me, that sounds like a complete destruction not just of the Temple but the city. After all, why have a new Jerusalem if the old one is still habitable? And Yeshua will sit on the throne of David and rule forever from the new Jerusalem (there are too many verses to put any one or two of them here: it’s in the Psalms, in the prophets from Isaiah to Joel to Zachariah, and it’s in the Gospels, too.) And God will live with His people, in their presence (or, if you prefer, we will live in His presence) forever and ever.

The only way for humans to coexist is to have a single way to live, a single God, a single government (with God at the head of it) and a single form of worship. Yes, this sounds exactly like what the anti-christ will want to establish, and that’s because it will work!  That is what we were supposed to have during the times of the Judges, that was God’s original plan for us- God at the head, the Judges (who would be Levites) ruling and “managing” the people, and there would be just the one way to worship God, as He told us how, in the Torah. And that is what God will establish when all is said and done.

The way God wants things to be has no room for “coexistence”, which (by definition) means different ways of existing being together. There will be no “co”-existence after all is done, there will only be eternity. One God, one King (Yeshua), one way to worship and one rule for everyone.

God isn’t interested in coexisting- He wants all His children to turn to Him, to follow His rules (Torah) and His way to worship Him, and to exist forever in His glory and presence and eternal peace.

Face it: there is room for only one God in Eternity, and it’s His way or the hell-way.

The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away- BIG time!

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The parashot we are in at this time of the year is the story of the plagues against Egypt in Exodus.

For those who don’t know, the Torah is sectioned off, so to speak, into portions to be read at each Shabbat service. These portions are called Parashot (parsha, or parashah for each one) and when following this annual cycle every Jew across the world is reading the same exact part of the Word of God, every week.

Currently we are in the midst of the plagues that God sent against Egypt, designed to weaken the Pharaoh, call down judgement on the Egyptians and free the Israelites from bondage. These plagues first destroyed the land, then the cattle, the crops, the people and even the very heritage of Pharaoh, when his first born son is killed. Finally, the power and might of Egypt, it’s army, is drowned in the Red Sea.

When I read this I think of Genesis 12:3, where God promises Abraham that He will bless those who bless him, and curse those that curse him.

Come, Sherman, to the Way-Back machine, and let’s go back some 400 years, to Genesis 41. Here we read how Joseph interpreted Pharaoh’s dream, and Pharaoh immediately blessed Joseph. He raised him to a level of nearly autonomous power, and when Joseph brought his family into Egypt for protection from the famine, Pharaoh gave them the best of the land. This Pharaoh blessed the seed of Abraham, and through Joseph he became the richest man in the world. When we read this story we see that Pharaoh, who at that time was already the political and religious leader of the country, also came to own the country, the people and their goods. As they ran out of money to buy grain, Joseph had them exchange their cattle, the land and even their homes. The Pharaoh that blessed Joseph was totally blessed by God.

Back now to Moses and the current Pharaoh, the one who has cursed the seed of Abraham with bondage and cruelty. Let’s see what happens to him:

  • the Nile to blood kills his fish and the fishing economy
  • the cattle disease kills his cattle
  • the hail destroys his trees
  • the locusts destroy his crops
  • his political and religious authority is eroded (we read how the people take protection as Moses tells them, ignoring the Pharaoh’s example. His authority and position as a god is eroded as the God of the Hebrews shows His true sovereignty)
  • the death of the firstborn throughout the land destroys the people’s morale, and robs the Pharaoh of his legacy
  • the destruction of the army in the Red Sea not only robs Pharaoh of his military strength but leaves his entire country defenceless. I guess it was a good thing for them they had nothing left to take!

Everything God had given to the Pharaoh who blessed His people was taken away from the Pharaoh that cursed them; in fact, not only did God take away that which had been given, but what he had already (his political and religious authority) was taken away, too.  It’s just as Yeshua said in Matthew 25:29:

For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.

In our everyday life it seems sometimes that we are being cursed, that what we have is being taken from us, and many times I have heard people say that this is punishment from God. It may be, but I don’t think so; at least, not in most cases. People always want to blame God for everything, when we should remember that as we come closer to God, the enemy is more threatened and he will move more against us. The trials and tribulations we go through aren’t always because God is “after us.” The enemy likes to screw around with God’s people in order to fool them into thinking God has abandoned them.

Don’t fall for it and don’t worry about stupid things like clothes, jobs, money, etc. Yeah, yeah- in a modern world we need it, but recall how Job lost everything but it was returned to him, doubled! If it was God who sent tribulation upon you, if you repent and return to Him, He will return to you what was taken. He tells us that in Joel 2:25:

And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpiller, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you.

Also, we read in Matthew 6:25-34:

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life ? 28“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

The Prophets talked continuously about the regathering of the people, and we are a blessed generation because we are seeing this prophecy fulfilled, today. The world is coming down around us, and in the midst of the dust and debris we see people making Aliya (literally, “going up”, returning to Israel) and many of the groups helping these people to make Aliya are Christian based! The “one man in God” that Shaul (Paul) talks about in Galatians 3:28 is actually happening! Right now! Today!

Look at the history of God’s people, with respect to those that have cursed them: the Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Philistines, the Ninevites, the Assyrians, the Romans, the Spanish (yes, they were the world power from the 14th through 18th Centuries, but after the Inquisition they were destroyed as a world power, forever), and, of course, the Nazi’s. Even though we still have the Arab countries constantly try to destroy Israel, they have failed. Today as technology increases and our dependance on the oil fields lessens, the arab nations whose power and wealth is tied up solely in oil will fall. And each time they try to destroy Israel it goes this way:  they attack and we kick their butts!

As the Jewish people have said for millennia: “They tried to kill us; we killed them; let’s eat.” And we can say that because God is on our side, just as we are told in Psalm 118:6.

Salvation is a gift from God that we can never buy or earn, but blessings are things we can earn. And since they can be earned, they are not irrevocable. As Job said, God can give and take away. We can’t always (in fact, we probably never will) understand what God is doing or why, but we can trust that He always does what is best for us. So even when you find yourself in the midst of the fiery furnace, keep trusting, keep praying, keep growing in faith and continue to lovingly obey the Torah, and you will be saved.

God likes to bless His children, and we are all His children, so never, never, NEVER think that you are abandoned by God. You can abandon Him, and He may stay out of your way (which takes away all your protection from a fallen and cursed world) but God is always in the wings, rooting for you, and His hand is always held out waiting for you to reach for it.

If you think that God doesn’t care about you, you’re wrong.  You probably don’t care enough about Him, so do T’shuvah (turn from your sin) and reach out to Him. He’s waiting for you.

What kind of seed are you?

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In Matthew, Chapter 13 Yeshua tells the parable about the sower of seeds. Remember it? The seeds are sown along the path, some falling on rocks, some in shallow soil, some eaten right away, some growing with weeds and some on good soil that turn out a great harvest.

Ever think about what kind of seed you are?

I suspect that if you are the seed that never took root, you probably aren’t reading this blog, so there isn’t much to say to you except IF you are reading this, and you don’t really believe in God or care, please consider that you might be wrong. Actually, you are, but you probably don’t care that I am telling you that. After all, how many 3-pack a day smokers care what a reformed smoker tells them?

If you are one who believes in God but you don’t really believe in everything that is in the bible, or that a lot of it doesn’t matter anymore, that would make you one of the seeds that is in shallow soil. I suspect that you usually don’t pray for help when you run into hard times, but you may not have too many bad things happen. After all, you are not really a threat to the enemy of God because your roots aren’t deep enough to turn out any harvest. A couple of good hits, knock the wind out of you once or twice, and you’re done as someone who cares about God.  I would hope you take this to heart- get your head back on your shoulders! If you even think you believe in God, then you need to believe in the bible, that it is all true and that you cannot shape God into what you want Him to be: He is that which He is. Stop being half-donkey about it and start to work on your faithful obedience and trust that God does exist and the bible is the manual. Heck- there are things that everyone doesn’t like about the bible, things we are supposed to do, ways we are supposed to treat each other. For instance: we know that we are supposed to treat others as we would want them to treat us, but human nature is more focused on being treated than treating. The difference between those who really believe in God and want to do what pleases him and those who don’t care is that the ones who don’t care aren’t strong enough to overcome their humanity. Not only is their flesh weak, but their spirit is almost non-existent. If you’re a seed in shallow ground, the time is running out faster than you realize. PLEASE! uproot yourself and move to good soil.

The main character for today’s drash is the seed in soil that gets choked by the weeds. The weeds, as you recall from the parable, are (essentially) the things of the world. The message of the Good News has been accepted, many of these “seeds” are Born Again Believers, but they become trapped by the worldly things they don’t want to give up. They believe in God, they do what is right, but not because they want to please God.

I know people who are moral, upright, honest and trustworthy. They believe in God, many are Born Again and they want to do what is right. But not to please God- they do what is right in order to please people. They do what is right because in their hearts they don’t want to be a “bad person.” They want to be liked by others, they want to please other people, they want to be what they have been told is a “good person” by their parents, their religious leaders, teachers….they are doing what they do to please the world and not to please God.

And I honestly believe that they have no idea that pleasing the world is their true motivation. They are choked by weeds of human standards for behaviour, which (for the most part) are correct biblically, but when it comes down to it, they are not focused on God. When they are attacked by the enemy, and these seeds will be attacked because they are doing things that are correct and right in God’s eyes, they could easily fall and falter and eventually be choked to death, literally. The weeds will choke them until they fall subject to the second death that is the final judgement. They will be like the ones in the story Yeshua tells in Matthew 25:44 who thought they were doing well but find out, when it is too late, that they never really served the Lord.

These are the sad ones, the ones who are trying to walk in God’s ways but are walking a path somewhat parallel to the true path but not leading to salvation. They are choosing a path that most walk, even though they have been told the path to salvation is the road less taken, the door less used. They are the 80%, but the elect are the 10%. Oh, but they are so close!

As we say in the Marine Corps, close only counts in two games: horseshoes and hand grenades.

I have nothing to say about the seeds that are turning out a harvest other than… keep it up! Good work, well done good and faithful servant: you will be welcomed into your Lord’s happiness.

But keep a weather eye out for trouble because those who do God’s work are the enemy of the enemy of God, and he will attack you. Maintain your faith, maintain your strength, wear that armor Shaul tells us about in Ephesians (which he quoted from Isaiah 59:17) and be an example to the world, especially the seeds that are being choked.

I pray that this blog, my book and my work where I worship is yielding a harvest for God. Also my everyday activities, just trying to be a light in a dark and dreary world. I am still bogged down by my humanity (and when I use the term “humanity” I am referring to the worst parts of it, not the best) and I am most certainly NOT in a weed-free environment, believe me! There are plenty of weeds in my little garden, I assure you. I keep asking the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) to help me weed out the weeds in my life. So long as we are human, we will have some weeds.

The parable of the man who planted good grain but the enemy planted tares among the grain- remember that one? It’s in the same chapter- Matthew 13, verses 24-30.  This parable tells us that even the seeds in good soil, the ones bringing a harvest, will have tares among them. So when we look at both of these, we see that the seeds are sown everywhere, in all types of soil, and the seed itself is always good. The soil it falls on will either turn out a harvest or not, and even the harvest will have tares and weeds among it. At the end, though, the tares will be separated from the wheat, and the tares will be tied up and thrown into the fire while the wheat will be stored in the masters barn.

It’s remarkable when you think about a plant uprooting itself and walking to a place where the soil is rich, then planting itself there. But that is exactly what we are to do. We are seeds with feet that will allow us to plant ourselves in good soil so we turn out a harvest 10, 20 or 100 times what we were given.

So, nu? Have you checked out your roots lately?

There’s no such thing as “waiting in God’s will”

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The great American humorist, Will Rogers, is known to have said:

Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.

The same is true when doing God’s will. God’s timing is perfect- no one ever really argues that point, but yet how many times do we hear someone (maybe even ourselves?) saying something to the effect of, “Well, I am pretty sure that is what God wants me to do but I am waiting for Him to tell me when to do it.”

Yeshua said that we know how to tell the signs of the weather but we don’t know how to read the signs of the times (Matthew 16:3).

When God gives you a calling, it isn’t for you to consider or to think about. It is a calling, it’s a thing to do, it is an action not a notification. If you are waiting for a sign when it should be done, you’ve already missed it: God doesn’t tell us to do something later.

When He told Abraham to leave Ur, it wasn’t for a later date. When He told Moses to go to Egypt, it wasn’t something for him do after the holidays. When God told Joshua to attack Jericho, he wasn’t supposed to send invitations. When God told Jeremiah to buy the field, He meant now.

The only thing that God delays is His judgement, and we should be very thankful for that delay. Unfortunately, it hasn’t really proven to make a difference. Shomron and Judea both had plenty of time to get their act together, but eventually all that extra time God gave them didn’t help.

The parashah this past Shabbat and for the next two Shabbatot covers the plagues upon Egypt. Last Shabbat Moses received his calling, and (as you probably know) he wasn’t too anxious to do it. He hemmed and hawed, and nearly got himself killed by God on the way to Egypt with his delaying. Moses certainly is an example of hearing God’s call and not heeding it right away. But, he did go, and although he had a slow and stumbling start, he continued to listen to God. And as he did more and more of what God directed him to do, he got stronger in his spirit and more confident in his ability to accomplish God’s plan. By the time Moses had been leading the people for years, he was strong in spirit, confident in his actions, and able to lead a multitude of people through a desert. Imagine: only a few years earlier he told God he wasn’t the man for the job. Guess God was right, after all. Duh!

Our God is a god of action, not a god of sitting around and waiting. As the title says, there is no such thing as waiting in God’s will- it is walking in God’s will; it is being in God’s will; we are to be acting in God’s will.  We are to be, to act, to walk, to serve…all of these are action verbs. We are not to be idle, or waiting, or planning, and we are certainly not supposed to be waiting for a sign when we hear God telling us what to do.

When God tells us to do something, He means N–O–W! The “sign” that God is ready to help us is that He has told us what to do. When God is ready to use us as His vessel, He will let us know what His will is. That’s when we do it. Not later, not when it is a better time (there’s no time like the present, right?) and not when we feel “ready” in our own timing.

I believe, and I will speak for myself here, that I am never going to be ready to do God’s will when I hear Him call me. I am just that confident in my own inability. But that’s OK. In fact, that is what it should be. Moses wasn’t ready, but he was divinely enabled when did as God directed. God’s the quarterback, God’s the pilot, God’s controlling what happens so we don’t need to ask for the fleece to be wet or dry, we just need to do what God tells us to do when we hear Him tell us to do it.

No one is ever really “ready” to do God’s will: are you? You may be willing to do it, you may want to do it, but are you ready? That would imply that you are already filled with all the spirit, the Ruach, that you need. When I read the bible, it seems to me that every disciple of God, from Abraham all the way to the 12 Talmudim of Yeshua, gained their spiritual strength after they started to do what God called them to do. Abraham lied about Sarah to protect his life- not very trusting of God, is it? And he did it twice! And so did Isaac. Jacob sent gifts to appease Esau. Moses needed Aaron to go with him. Gideon threw the fleece before the Lord. Saul hid when called to be anointed as king (Saul’s a good example of what happens when you constantly refuse to follow God’s calling), Elijah hid from Isabel and asked God to kill him, Jonah…well, we all know about Jonah. Kefa (Peter) walked on the water but immediately lost faith, Judas betrayed Yeshua, Shaul (Paul) had to get knocked off his “high horse” to see the truth.

All these biblical characters, all of which did great things when walking in God’s will, still all had to be discipled by God, they had to be taught to draw on His Ruach HaKodesh, they had to “learn the ropes”, so to speak, and none of that started until they began to walk in God’s will and do as He commanded them.

We will never be ready to do God’s calling in our life. God knows that, and I don’t really think He even wants us to be “ready” because He will teach us all we need to know. What God expects is that we are willing to go when called. And don’t worry about what to say (Luke 12:11), don’t worry about what to eat or wear or about where you will sleep (Psalm 37:25) and don’t worry about your safety (Psalm 118:6).

My biggest fear in my spiritual life is that I will hear God’s calling for me, clearly and undeniably, and I will fail to move. I will create excuses, as I already have in many ways, and I am most afraid that I may miss doing as He called me to do because I was waiting to be ready.

Do you remember reading in the bible about those people whom God called to do wondrous works in His name but didn’t? That’s right- there aren’t any. That’s the point!

God has a plan for all of us- listen for it, be willing to follow God’s lead, and don’t ever expect to be ready to do what He calls you to do. That’s what walking in faith is all about- we can’t see where we’re going, we don’t know what is waiting for us, and we know there isn’t anything we can do to control what is going to happen. But because God is calling us and leading us, we faithfully know that whatever is going to happen will be controlled by God.

As it says in Romans 8:31…if God is for us, who can be against us?

 

Respectfully, Yeshua, I disagree

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In each of the Gospels (B’rit Chadashah) when Yeshua is praying before His arrest, He asks the Talmudim (Disciples) with Him to stay awake, but they are sleeping when He returns from praying. He says, “the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.”

Respectfully, Yeshua, I disagree.

The problem we have as human beings is that the flesh is strong, often stronger than the spirit. Now, nothing is more powerful than God, and when we call on His spirit all things are possible (Yeshua says that, too, and I fully agree!), but the flesh is our humanity. It is our physical presence in a physical world, one which resents and rejects the very Ruach (spirit) that is what we really need to survive being “in the flesh.”

The flesh is what causes us to not just sin, but want to sin.  Our nature is sinful, in that we are drawn to hedonistic opportunities. The little red guy with the horns and pitchfork on our left shoulder usually beats the stuffing out of the little white-robed guy with the harp and the halo on our right shoulder. If that little angel really wanted to, he could knock the red guy into the next century, but that’s not in his nature. Yeshua was led like a lamb to slaughter, not saying anything. He was humble, even to death. We are told that the proud will be humiliated, and the humble raised. That’s the reason, I believe, the little guy with the harp gets the short end of the stick most of the time. However, when we work with that guy, we can overcome our nature. With the spirit, our flesh can be subdued and the spirit can be the stronger. When we partner with the Holy Spirit (Ruach HaKodesh) it will help us to overcome the Yetzer Hara, which is the Evil Inclination that we are all born with; in Judaism it is the Yetzer Hara, in Christianity it is called Original Sin- either way, we are born into sinfulness and must spend our entire life overcoming it.

When Yeshua said the flesh is weak, what He really meant is that the human ability to overcome our nature is very weak. The “flesh” Yeshua was talking about was our self-discipline, our desire to do good, our ability to overcome ourselves. That is weak because the sinful nature of our flesh, the self-absorbed, hedonistic and undisciplined mindset we all have hard-wired into our very psyche is humanly impossible to get past.

But with God, all things are possible. And that means that even the meek, humble and forgiving little angle on our shoulder can rip the horns off that little devil and stick them where only a proctologist will be able to recover them. He can do that, with our help, with our support and with our desire to obey the Torah.

As a human I love, first and foremost, myself. To some degree it is a necessary thing- self-preservation is the most basic instinct of any living creature. However, God teaches us that to give one’s life for a friend is the epitome of love, and we all know at least one person whose self-love is so out of control that they live an unhappy, solitary and depressed life. I don’t want to end up like that, do you?

We can’t weaken the flesh, but we can strengthen the spirit. I have asked God to take a certain desire from me, I have lifted it up to Him and said, which I really, really feel, that I can’t do it and I need Him to just excise this desire and these thoughts from my mind. You know what His answer was? He told me, “It doesn’t work that way.”  He showed me that I need to work with His Ruach, I need to strengthen my ability to draw on His spirit for strength, He showed me why Shaul (Paul) said in 2 Corinthians 12:9:

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.

The flesh is strong and the spirit is weak in each of us, but the flesh is as strong as it is ever going to be, whereas the spirit can grow stronger every day until we die. As I try to obey God’s word (that means the Torah) more and more, I strengthen the indwelling spirit simply by getting myself out of the way so that the spirit can fill me. In other words, each day I try more and more to die to self.  The more I die to self, the more the spirit will fill me, the stronger it becomes until it rules my every action, and even though I will always have sinful thoughts, the spirit will be speaking to me louder than the flesh can. My flesh will whisper and God’s Ruach will shout, so all I will hear is God.

We are told that God’s Word never returns void, so here’s an easy way to strengthen your spirit: read a chapter of the Bible every day.

That’s a spiritual exercise everyone can do.

Another day closer, another day further away

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Four days left for 2015. Today we go back to work (most of us), Thursday we get off early, and Friday is 2016.

Thursday will be 2015, Friday will be 2016: on Friday we will be one year closer to the salvation we look forward to, and one year further away from the opportunities we had to be more the way God wants us to be. But yet, Friday is only one day away from Thursday.

Before we know it, the time to do something we want to do has come and gone. Shaul (Paul) of Tarsus tells us to run the good race (Acts 20:23) , to keep our eyes on the prize (Philippians 3:14) and we are told, from Genesis through Revelations, to look forward to salvation; to await eagerly for the Acharit HaYamim (End Days) when the Olam Hazeh (current world) will pass and the Olam Haba (world to come) will arrive.

Paul also tells us that we are constantly being formed into a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17) as long as we are in Messiah, as long as we have the Holy Spirit (Ruach HaKodesh) living in us. We get that by asking and then accepting Messiah Yeshua to save us from ourselves. To save you from yourself. To save me from myself.  Salvation is a very personal thing: it is between me and God, and the only thing that comes between me and God that is not an idol is when I have to face Him at Judgement Day and Yeshua, my Messiah, my defense attorney (it’s always best to have a Jewish lawyer) and my intercessor comes between me and the Throne of Judgement and says, “This one is mine, Father.”

That is the moment I look forward to. Until then, I want to make every moment I have one where I can do more to glorify God. It’s hard to do because I am so self-centered, so prideful and so world-weary. And when I say “world weary”,  I mean that I am so often wearied by fighting against what the world says I should do that I come to a point where I succumb to it’s temptations. I’m not talking about doing drugs, drinking, cavorting and such; I am talking about simple things, things that no one even notices because they are what the world does. Things like cursing, getting angry at people because they don’t do what I think they should, and complaining about other people. Not so much gossip, but just talking about them and identifying things that I don’t like that they do. These, and other things, are what the world does, but they have no place in God’s kingdom.

This is a time when the world says we should make New Year’s resolutions. That’s not a bad idea, and here’s one I would like us all to make: make every day a new year. Why try to better ourselves only one day of the year? We make these resolutions, usually with the intention of doing them but knowing in our hearts there isn’t a snowballs’ chance in heck that we will live up to the standard we are setting.  So, if we have a “New Year” every day, we can “adjust” that resolution until it becomes something we can do. Just as Paul said, we can start our life anew, every day.

To run a good race, you need to run smart. Any experienced runner will tell you when running a race you need to pace yourself. Don’t make resolutions that are so much beyond your ability to accomplish it is like trying to run a marathon by sprinting the whole way. Goals (I learned while getting my MBA) have to be reasonable and attainable. You can set your goals high, but they must be realistic.

And when you make these resolutions, remember that with God, all things are possible (Matthew 19:26), so work hard and discipline yourself to attain your goals this coming year. Forget the past failures so you can strive to be more of what God wants you to be; ask Him for guidance, let the Ruach fill you by allowing more of yourself to get out of the way. Look to the future, get over the past (it is an anchor that keeps you from moving forward) and make every day a new year, every day a step closer to the salvation we are promised, and every day a new hope for entering into Paradise.

It will come like a thief in the night, it will be here before you know it, and when it arrives there will be no going back to make amends or try again.

When is the best day to start over? Yeshua tells us (in Luke 12:20) that no one can look forward to having tomorrow, so get off your tuchas and start TODAY!!

A modern day Christmas Message from the past: Isaiah 29:13

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I am going to skip the Parashah teaching today because , it being Christmas Day, I feel there is a more important message the Lord would have me deliver.

Isaiah was a Prophet to the Southern Kingdom of Judah and tried to help the people realize the hypocrisy of their worship. He lived during the reign of 4 kings of Judah and within 100 years or so of his ministry, the Southern Kingdom of Judah was destroyed.

Isaiah was telling the people that their worship was useless because they were only paying lip service to God. The above-referenced passage says it all:

The Lord says: “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught.

This message was about how sacrifice had become corrupted and polluted into a meaningless rote activity that had no real love or worship of God attached to it.

Sounds exactly like what Christmas is today, doesn’t it?

Look at what Christmas is today: there is nothing “godly” about it anymore, except the occasional bumper sticker that says, “Keep Christ in Christmas.” Even that has become passe and meaningless to most- it’s something akin to the beauty pageant answer, “What I would like most is to have world peace.”

Most of us know that Christmas is not a Holy Day, nor is it a biblically commanded festival to God; it is a celebratory event created by Constantine in the Third Century (or thereabouts) to help rebrand the pagan celebration of the Solstice to a more “Christian” event.

That doesn’t mean it can’t be a wonderful thing. The music of Christmas is some of the most beautiful and heartfelt devotion to God I have heard from any religion, and the spirit of goodwill that comes on people during this season is unique, and refreshing. There is a magic to Christmas.

Unfortunately, even that is more from social conditioning than a desire to be closer to God, and how many of us really feel the impact of what Christmas means? Heck, if we really thought about what Christmas is supposed to stand for, celebration and thankfulness for the birth of the Messiah, we should all feel sad and dejected that someone was born into this world to suffer for us, to accept the blame and physical abuse that our sins deserved, and that this miraculous birth, this proof of prophecy, this wonderful and merciful living gift of salvation would have to die a horribly painful and lingering death because of what we have done.  That’s really what Christmas is about: thankfulness for the Messiah coming into the world, but tempered with the sadness of knowing what this tender, innocent baby would have to endure. Christmas should make me feel remorse and repentance that this baby had to live the life He lived because of what I have done.

Personally, I don’t think Christmas s such a happy time when you think about what will happen to Yeshua. Yes, I am thankful for His birth, and I am disgusted with myself for causing His death. It’s true: I killed Yeshua. In fact, you killed Yeshua. Each and every one of us killed Yeshua because if there had been but one sinner in all the world, Yeshua would have done what He did for the sake of that one person. His parables about finding the one lost sheep, the woman who found the missing coin, the statement that there is no greater love than that one will give his life for a friend (note that He didn’t say for many, or for friends, but for a friend- even saving one life is worth dying for); all the teachings Yeshua gave us, all of which are directly from the Torah, teach us that it is what we do and what we feel that add up to who we truly are.

I hope that you all have a merry and joyful Christmas- the birth of the Messiah is truly a wonderful event, the fulfilment of God’s promise of salvation for the world, and the proof that biblical prophecy is valid and trustworthy. The fact that it is not a biblical Holy Day, that Yeshua was probably born during Sukkot, that Constantine created it as a theo-political event, and that it has become totally corrupted in modern society is something we can get past. If we worship God from our hearts, if we ignore the retail sales events, the presents to each other and all the schmaltz, and instead concentrate on thanking God for His Son, and thanking His Son for all He suffered for us, then…just maybe then…Christmas can be the joyful and penitent celebration it should be.

Yeshua said that we should give to Caesar that which belongs to Caesar, and to God that which belongs to God. Thankfulness and worship from the heart belongs to God, sacrifice belongs to God, honor and glory belong to God. Give each other niceties, sure, but first give to God that which He is entitled to. Celebrate Christmas with heartfelt thankfulness to God and conscious recognition of how far short we come to measuring up to what God expects of us.

If you really want to show God that you are thankful for the birth of the Messiah, than go visit the sick, help the needy, dress the naked, feed the hungry. Instead of spending thousands of dollars at Kohl’s and Walmart and Macy’s, spend a few hundred at the soup kitchens and food pantries, give your time to bring food to the hungry, give to charities you know are doing good for people.

Today Christmas is all about what I get from you; let’s make Christmas all about what I can give to those who are in need.

That would be a Christmas present to God and Yeshua that I just know they would love to receive. Remember that Yeshua told us in Mattitayu 25:40:

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

Why we don’t start a new tradition of giving Christmas presents to God instead of each other?