There has always been this issue between obedience and faith, with most people believing they are exclusionary.

I see them as complementary; and, more than that, I believe what is more important than being obedient is why we want to be obedient.

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

In the Book of the Prophets, God sometimes tells the people he is more interested in obedience than sacrifice. Now, at first glance, this seems to be self-negating since sacrificing is being obedient.

I believe what God meant was that he is more concerned with our desire to be obedient than just going through the motions.

Legalism is widely misunderstood by most Christians to be obedience to the Torah commandments; they see doing what the Torah says as rejecting the salvation Yeshua (Jesus) provided by means of his sacrifice.

I have heard Christians tell me that because I do all that “Jewish” stuff I am not really saved because I am under the law, and not under Grace.

Oy, if only they knew how idiotic that statement is!

Yes, idiotic because Grace does not trump obedience: Grace is not forgiveness or salvation, it is God’s willingness to forgive (Ezekiel 18:23). Look, if you continue to reject what God says to do, choosing instead to follow what some man-made religion tells you to do (or what it tells you you don’t have to do), then Grace won’t be coming your way any time soon.

God knows the heart, and he knows the mind, and what he wants is a desire to be obedient. If you are being obedient in a legalistic way, meaning doing what God said to do to earn points by being correct, then you have failed before you start because your heart isn’t into it; besides that, no human being can be 100% Torah obedient 100% of the time.

Yeah, Yeshua was human and he was always Torah obedient, but he was also the son of God and filled completely with the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit), so he had an advantage no one else ever had, or ever will have.

I try to be as obedient to the Torah as I can for the simple reason that God told us this is how he wants us to worship him and how he wants us to treat each other. That means anything some religion, any religion, teaches against obeying the Torah is not what God wants.

I don’t know about you, but I want to do what God wants me to do.

How can anyone say doing what God said to do is wrong?

How can anyone believe that God sent his son to us to tell us we don’t have to obey his father anymore?

Yeshua obeyed the Torah and was resurrected in God’s presence for all eternity, so how can anyone believe that not doing what Yeshua did will have the same result?

Hard questions with hard answers.

I will go as far as to say this: any religion that tells you you can ignore the Torah is leading you directly to destruction.

But I am almost forgetting today’s message: it isn’t really obedience as much as your desire to be obedient that really counts.

God knows we can’t be perfect; that is why he sent Yeshua. DUH!

God is looking at our heart to see if we want to obey him. If we desire to do as he said, I believe he counts that as righteousness on our part, just as he counted Abraham’s faithful acceptance of what God said as righteousness on Abraham’s part.

For the record, God told Isaac Abraham was blessed because he did everything God told him to do! (Genesis 26:5)

You know, when you think about it, we all wish we could be as faithful as Abraham, and to believe what God said to do is because he wants the best for us, is being as faithful as Abraham.

It comes down to this: if you believe that you can reject the Torah and be saved, your faith is more in people than in God.

After his terrible sins with Bat-Sheba and the murder of his friend, Uriah the Hittite, David asked God to create in him a clean heart and to renew a right spirit in him (Psalm 51). He knew that what God wants is a heart for him, and not just performing some physical acts of worship.

David asked God to search his heart: are you brave enough to do the same?

So, nu?… where is your heart? Is it to please God or to please some religion that tells you to ignore God?

Thank you for being here and please remember to comment and 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!

I have heard and read so many arguments about the “correct” name for God, and all that ever results from this topic is dissension within the body of Believers.

Does anyone really think that God doesn’t know who we mean when we pray to him?

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

One thing that so many people don’t understand is that when the word “name” is used in the Bible, more often than not it doesn’t really mean an actual name, such as Adonai, God, Jehovah, Yahweh, or whatever, but is representative of the reputation and renown of the entity that the name represents.

Okay, that sounds a little confusing, I agree, but it is a difficult thing to understand.

We humans use the term “Make a name for myself” when we want to create a reputation, but when the Bible says, “For his name’s sake” or “Call upon his name”, for some reason it is too often taken as a literal command to use a specific name for God instead of just accepting that it only represents God.

Have you ever considered that the names we use for God (and there are plenty of them!) are really titles or descriptions of him?

In Exodus 3:13, when Moses says the people will want to know the name of the God who sent him, the answer he receives is (CJB):

“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh ”
[I am/will be what I am/will be]

God is telling Moses that he is beyond any standard name or identifier because he is eternal. He is what he is, and he will be what he will be. Names are used to identify one thing from another, such as goat from elephant, Jane from Melody, or Steve from Harry, but God is totally unique: there is no name or moniker we can use that identifies him from another because there is no other.

We need names to identify who we are from other people, and since names are used over and over, we have to have two or three names, or sometimes even more than three. The reason we use them is to identify who we are from others.

But God doesn’t really need that, and what is completely unique is that we humans cannot read minds so when someone calls out, “Hey, Steve!” I look to see who it is, along with every other Steve in earshot. That’s because I don’t know who the caller means.

But God knows our hearts and minds, so when we pray to him, no matter which of the many, MANY different names we have for him, so long as the name we use we believe to mean the one true God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, I believe he will not have a problem with whichever name we use.

Remember: we are saved by faith, not pronunciation!

So, going forward, when you see or hear someone post or talk to you about using the “right” name for God, otherwise you are praying to a pagan god or some other ridiculous claim, tell them that God knows who you mean, and isn’t so egocentric or picky that he will reject a prayer because of what we call him.

If you ask me, I believe that to say God will reject a prayer if it isn’t using the “correct” pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton, or a name generally known to mean the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, is an insult to the Almighty because it implies he lied to us when he said he knows our heart and mind.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to insult God.

Heartfelt, humble prayers are always acceptable to God, and he isn’t concerned with which name you use.

Thank you for being here and please remember to comment and 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!

Too often we consider what we do to be the sin, but that is just the result of our sin.

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

For example, let’s say I am married and have a sexual encounter with someone who is not my wife, that is adultery and adultery is defined in the Torah as a sin.

But is the act of adultery the sin, or is the real sin wanting to commit the adultery? What I am saying is that adultery is just the result of my sin- the real sin was my decision to commit adultery.

What’s the difference?… I’m glad you asked!

Let’s look at the teaching Yeshua gave us about the Torah when he gave that Sermon on the Mount.

He taught us more than just the plain-language meaning (called the P’shat) of the Torah, he taught us the deeper, spiritual understanding of what God wants from us (called the Remes).

(If you are not familiar with those terms, please take a moment and look up PaRDeS)

When he said not to commit adultery wasn’t enough because we shouldn’t even lust with our eyes, he was telling us that the sin wasn’t in the doing, but in the desiring.

Committing adultery was not the actual sin; wanting to commit adultery was the sin, wanting to do it was the disobedience to God, and the sexual encounter was only the result of the sin.

He also said not to murder wasn’t enough, but that we shouldn’t even hate in our heart; in other words, the sin isn’t committing the murder, the sin is wanting to commit the murder.

Does this remind you of anyone, maybe like King David? That is why in Psalm 51 he said his sin was against God, and God, alone. He knew that even though he had sex with Bat-Sheba, and even though he planned Uriah’s death, those actions were the result of his wanting to do those things, which was the actual sin against God.

And let’s also recall what the real New Covenant says (Jeremiah 31:31), which is that God will write his Torah on our hearts. That means we won’t be thinking what does the Torah require, we will be a living Torah. There won’t be need to remember what the Torah says, no more so than having to remember to pump blood or to blink our eyes.

Obedience to God’s way of living will be as natural to us as breathing.

The problem is that this covenant won’t be fulfilled until the Acharit haYamim (End Days) are over, so until then we will have to purposefully remember not to commit that adultery in our hearts or murder someone in our thoughts, which is the sin.

This is also an example of why Legalism is so dangerous- it is based on your actions, not your thoughts or desires, so you could want to have sex with someone not your spouse or murder someone in your thoughts, over and over, but as long as you didn’t really do it, you were OK.

Well, no- not really.

So, my suggestion is that the next time you want to do something you know you shouldn’t, stop right then and there and ask God to forgive you (by means of the shed blood of Messiah Yeshua) in order to be clean.

Sadly, we cannot always (if ever!) stop thoughts from entering our heads, especially if we are in a highly emotional state, but we better try because if we so much as think of committing a sin, we already have.

Thank you for being here and please remember to comment and 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!

I have been a Believer in Yeshua as the Messiah for nearly 30 years, and during this time I have met many Christians who have been adamant that the Torah is only for Jews.

So much so, that they not only say they do not have to obey the Torah, but that any Believer (even a Jewish one!) who does try to obey the Torah isn’t really saved.

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

Now, I have written often how the Torah is NOT just for Jews, but for everyone who professes to worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

From my experience, most Christians not only deny needing to obey the Torah, but are actually anti-Torah! They say that anyone who is a Gentile and wants to be obedient is “under the Law” and not really saved, or that they are being legalistic and therefor do not know Jesus.

Okay, I understand that it is so much easier not to have to do all that Torah stuff, and to give up pork chops and lobster bisque is hard for everyone. But, still and all, the Torah is direct from God, isn’t it? I mean, other than in the Torah, where else in the entire Bible do you read where it is written:

“And the Lord said to Moses,’Tell the children of Israel that the Lord, God says…'”?

What God is telling us Jews is how to be righteous in his eyes. I don’t think anyone who knows anything about God or the Bible or has any inkling of a spiritual understanding will argue that doing what the Torah says is pleasing to God, and is the path to salvation. I mean, how can anyone argue against Torah obedience leads to salvation when Yeshua lived a perfectly Torah obedient life and was resurrected into God’s presence, forever?

Isn’t that the goal?

However, this is not a message to justify my belief that the Torah is for everyone.

What I want to do is ask a very simple question:

As a Gentile Believer, even if you do not have to obey the Torah, since the Torah has God’s instructions for living a righteous life, what harm is there in trying?

This is what I have never been able to understand, and never will- it is one thing to say, “I don’t have to obey the Torah”, but another thing to actually accuse those of obeying the Torah that they are wrong!

How can doing what God said to do be wrong? God chose the Jews to be his nation of priests to the world (Exodus 19:6) and gave us the Torah so we would be able to learn what is right in God’s eyes and then teach it to the world.

That’s what priests do- they teach people how to worship God.

So, if you are a Gentile and you say you believe Yeshua (Jesus) is the son of God and the Messiah he promised to send, even though you most likely have been raised being taught the Torah is only for Jews, what harm is there in doing what God says he wants his chosen people to do?

In the world, people who do what the successful people do become successful. So, if the Jews who obey the Torah (of course, we can only obey to the best of our limited ability) are pleasing to God because we do what he wants us to do, what can be wrong about copying behavior that pleases God?

I constantly hear Christians talking about being grafted in and how they are adopted children of Abraham, but then in the same breath they deny having to do what Abraham’s kids have to do or that they need to feed off the roots of the tree they are grafted onto.

It don’t make no sense!

So, all I am asking is for those who have an open mind, who are willing to do more than just the absolute minimum when it comes to showing their worship and trust in God, to consider that since God tells us what he wants us to do in the Torah, what harm is there in trying to do more for God?

Do you really think that God will punish anyone, Gentile or Jew, for trying to be obedient to the commandments he gave?

Will trying to be obedient to God’s Torah, not to be “correct” but out of love and respect for God, cause you to lose your salvation?

How will doing what God says he wants done be anything other than righteous in his eyes?

Look, do what you want to do, and if you choose to live believing that it is wrong for a Gentile to even try to be obedient to the Torah, that’s fine. It’s your choice, but may I make this recommendation: first find in the Bible where either God or Yeshua (NOT Paul or James or any human being) says it is alright for Gentiles to reject any of God’s commandments, or where God says the Torah is ONLY for Jews.

And I am recommending this because I don’t want anyone to have to be in front of God and have to answer this question:

“Who told you that it was okay to reject my commandments?”

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

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

The news is full of those screaming to “Free Palestine”, as well as those saying, “From the River to the Sea”, both having the same desired result- the destruction of Israel and the genocide of Jews.

And don’t think this is just about Jews in Israel- it is about Judaism, itself! Israel is just the first step.

But God has already told us what the result will be to these antisemitic terrosists.

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

In Ezekiel 36, God is speaking to the children of Israel who have been disbursed and defeated by their enemies, all because of the way they have violated Torah and defamed God’s name, both in Israel and even in the lands to which they were disbursed.

But God says that because those enemies of Israel have boasted about the troubles the people of God have suffered, and stated how they will take over the land now deserted (pretty much the “river to the sea” thing), God will punish them and return and bless the children of Israel.

In other words, as ignorant Americans and others cry to “Free Palestine!” (which doesn’t even exist, so how can you free something that doesn’t exist?), God has already told them that he will free his people to take over and remain forever in the land he promised to give us.

There was never really any established “state” of Palestine, to begin with!

After the Jewish revolts against Rome (especially the Bar Kokhba Revolt, AD 132–135), the Roman Emperor Hadrian deliberately renamed the province of Judea to Syria Palaestina, adding insult to injury by renaming the land after the ancient enemies of the Jewish people, the Philistines. This was later anglisized to Palestine, which wasn’t a state but a territory first controlled by the Ottoman Empire until England took it over.

It continued to be called Palestine but it was never established as a state with any constitution or recognized official documentation. The closest thing that came to any kind of official constitution was created in 2003 by the PLA, a terrorist organization which also created this whole “Palestinian people” propaganda program; they call it the “Palestinian Basic Law” which creates their fantasized state of Palestine with their own governing authority, even claiming Jerusalem as their capital.

While there are so many ignorant and genocidal puppets calling for the “River to the Sea”, which would be the end of Israel and Judaism, God has told them what will happen- he will establish his people and destroy their enemies. That which the PLA and all those terrorist organizations want to do will come back down on their own heads.

We can see that happening even today. Sadly, it will get worse before it gets better, but no matter how rough the ride, what matters is where you end up, and the final destination will be Israel under God’s protection, and the enemies of Israel, who- for the record- are the enemies of God (not a place I would want to be) will be totally destroyed.

My advice to the “Free Palestine” idiots is this: be careful what you ask for because what you want to happen to us is going to happen to you!

Thank you for being here and please remember to comment and 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!

I have always said that God has no religion; religion was created by men in order to have power over other men.

This has been the reason that so many people who think they are worshipping God correctly are actually on the wrong path.

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

Judaism is based on the Torah, which are the first five books of the Bible and are, in fact, the only place in the entire Bible where God, himself, tells us how to worship him and how to treat each other.

Christianity grew from a Jewish movement that accepted Yeshua (Jesus) as the Messiah God promised to send, and after Yeshua’s crucifixion and resurrection, allowed Gentiles into that movement. These neophyte Gentile believers were learning about the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as well as learning about the Torah.

The confusion began with Shaul (Paul) teaching the many Gentile messianic congregations he formed (there was no “church” in the First Century) about obeying the Torah out of a faithful trust in God, and not in order to earn salvation. His problems were exclusively with the believing Jews who were forcing the Gentiles to undergo B’rit Milah (circumcision) in order to be saved.

The Elders in Jerusalem, led by Yacov (James) helped in this by writing a letter that identified 4 requirements- INITIAL requirements, not the only requirements- for these Gentile believers to obey, stating that they would eventually learn the Torah by attending Shabbat services (Acts 15).

These Gentile believers had another problem, besides the believing Jews “legalizing” them, and that was Rome. You see, the Jews had been rebelling against Roman rule, and there were three major rebellions, the third and final one being around 170 CE, which resulted in the death of thousands of Jews and most of the remaining Jews being disbursed throughout the Diaspora. The Romans added insult to injury by retitling Judea to Syria Palaestina, which in English is Palestine.

The problems and confusion that has caused is for another discussion.

So, as the Jewish movement became more and more infiltrated with Gentiles (sorry, but that is the best word I can use) and as the Jewish leaders die, no more Jews were coming in because the Gentile leaders were transforming this Jewish movement into a new religion, rejecting the Torah and forming their own holidays and rituals. By the end of the Second Century, they had a polytheistic religion by creating the idea of the Trinity, which was an absolute turn-off to the Jews, even those who were willing to hear about this guy Yeshua, now rebranded as Jesus, a Christian savior.

What started out as a Jewish movement accepting Yeshua as the Messiah and even allowing Gentiles to join to receive salvation, was mutated into a new religion called Christianity which was against Judaism and rejected the Torah.

Within Judaism there are 6 sects: Chasidic/Ultra-Orthodox, Orthodox (modern-day Pharisees), Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist, and Messianic (although mainstream Jews do not accept Messianic as Jewish). And we can see that there are different ways that Jews interpret how to obey the Torah, but we are all basing our worship of God on how he said to do it.

Now, if you ask Google how many different Christian religions there are, this is the answer you will get:

There are an estimated 45,000 to over 49,000 Christian denominations globally. This massive number exists because of differing historical interpretations, cultural shifts, and the rapid growth of independent, localized churches.

So, we have to ask ourselves this question: how can there be so many different ways to worship God with so many different tenets and credos and holidays if they are all basing their worship on the Bible?

And the answer is obvious: they are not basing it on what God said but on what some human being said.

Christianity is not based on the Torah, although it does recognize the 10 Commandments and takes some things from the Torah.

The truth is that Christianity, for the most part, is a man-made religion that is based on an anti-Torah foundation, misusing and misinterpreting letters some Pharisee wrote to Gentile congregations having interpersonal power struggles and issues of faith. It is not based on how God said to live and worship him, but on what people have said how they want you to worship God.

That brings us back to the question I asked in the title of today’s message: Whom do you obey?

If you want to obey God, then you really need to do what God said to do, and if you have been taught differently, then how can you be obeying God? You can’t! You have to be obeying some man-made religion that has rejected what God said to do.

If you are thinking to yourself, “How can I be wrong if there are millions of Christians doing (pretty much) what I do?”, think about this:

When I meet God at Judgement Day, as we all will have to, I can say, “I tried my best to live as you said I should.”

But if you follow a religion that is not Torah based, the best you can say is, “I did what they told me I should do.”

Now, I can’t speak for the Big Guy upstairs, but I believe his answer to you would be something like this:
“I understand, my child, that you did what they told you to do, but it is what I say that counts!”

Do you really want to hear that when where you will spend eternity is being decided?

Oh, by the way, if you think Yeshua will get you out of that situation, don’t count on it, because he lived and taught the Torah and he never said anyone should ignore his father’s rules. In fact, he already has warned you about this in Matthew 7:21-23:

Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord!’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, only those who do what my Father in heaven wants.

Chew on that the next time your religion tells you the Torah is just for Jews.

Thank you for being here and please remember to comment and 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 let me wish you Chag Sameach Shavuot!

I have often wondered about this: if God knows our minds and hearts, why bother to test us?

I mean, he already knows what we will do, so what’s the point?

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

After thinking it over, I came to the realization that God doesn’t test us so he will see what we do, he test us so that WE will see what we do.

Let’s look at Abraham: when Abraham and Sarah went to Egypt to escape the famine (Genesis 12), Abraham asked Sarah to say she was his sister because she was quite a hottie and he was afraid he would be killed so another man could take her as his own wife (it ended up being the Pharaoh).

I don’t get it: it was wrong to take a man’s wife away from him,
but if you killed him first then it was OK. SMH!

I believe this showed Abraham’s faith was not yet ready for him to be given a son, since he didn’t trust in God to protect him. And this wasn’t the only time: he did the same thing later when he was in the land that belonged to Abimelech (Genesis 20). Fortunately, when she was with Pharaoh and Abimelech, God intervened to protect her from being misused; but, still and all, it showed Abraham’s faith wasn’t strong enough yet for his greatest test.

God knows that the one thing human beings rarely understand is their own heart. The best way for us to know what we will do in any given situation is to be in that situation: we may say we would do what is right when asked, but we really don’t know what we will actually do until we are in the midst of the trouble.

I hate to admit it, but I believe that if I lived in Yeshua’s time, it is very likely that I would be in the crowd asking for Barabbas.

It is always easy to know what we should do, but until we are facing that situation, no one can be sure how they will react.

That is why God tests us- it isn’t because he doesn’t know what we will do, it is to show us what we will do.

In war, no one can tell what they will do until the bullets start to fly, and even in everyday life, you don’t really know what you will do until you have to do something.

When you see a homeless person on the street, do you pass them by or offer to buy them something to eat?

When you have old clothes still in pretty good shape, do you toss them in the garbage or clean them and take them to a Goodwill?

These are tests- remember what Yeshua said about feeding him when he was hungry and clothing him when he had no clothes (Matthew 25)?

We are always tested, sometimes by God and other times by people, and (as I said) no one can really know what they will do until the test is before them. My suggestion is that we read the Bible constantly so that when there is a situation before us, we can recognize the test and by knowing what God wants from us, we will be able to pass it.

When we are in school we generally know when a test is coming, so we study for it in order to do well. In life, the best way to study is to know the Bible- the entire Bible- because it is a rare thing to know when life will test us; life is full of pop quizzes and surprise tests, and the best way to prepare for them is to know what is right in God’s eyes.

So, I’d say it is a good idea to review your past to see when you have already been tested; I believe we are tested daily but so few of us realize it.

I don’t know about you, but I want to have a passing grade when God reviews me at Judgement Day. And yes, Yeshua provides the “curve” to ensure I pass, but there are different levels when we will be on the new earth, and I want to make the Honor Roll.

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!