Tag: devil

How to Deal with Being a Sinner

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Like it or not, you are a sinner. I am a sinner, and we all are not only sinners but sinful, filled with the desire to sin (which is called “iniquity”.)

So, how do we deal with this? We do that by, well…dealing with it. We can’t escape it, we can’t stop it, but we can learn to control it better than we used to.

The best answer I can give you is what I always say:  We can never be sinless, but we can always sin less. 

(No video today.)

Grace is what we call forgiveness from the sins we commit, but it is on a spiritual level; in the physical realm, we will always have to suffer from the consequences of our sins. And even worse than that- many times it will be the innocent people who we care about that suffer, as well.

There exists within Christianity a very popular teaching (popular because it removes any feeling of guilt or responsibility) that says once we have asked forgiveness in Yeshua’s name, we are forgiven forever. The term used is OSAS (Once Saved, Always Saved), and it is a lie from the pit of Sheol.  It makes one feel good about sinning and removes any feelings of repentance.

How?  Simple: when we think no matter what we do, we are automatically forgiven then we don’t worry about what we do. This is NOT the way to deal with your sinfulness.

Oh, yes, there are some who will make the excuse that the Holy Spirit will guide us and prevent us from doing wrong; others will say the Torah was already written on our hearts the moment we accepted Jesus.  Both are wrong.  Salvation is not a momentary change of heart, it is a life-long process. The Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) may warn us when we are about to sin, but if someone has been taught their sins are automatically forgiven why would they worry about listening to the little angel on their shoulder saying, “Uh, uh, uh- you really shouldn’t!”?  Especially when the little devil on the other shoulder is saying, “Don’t listen to that one- you are already saved by the blood of Christ! If you think you have to obey God to be saved, you are not under the blood but under the law!”

That’s the same guy who told Eve, “You certainly won’t die.”

What do you think? If I continue to sin because I think I am already saved, is God going to accept me into his presence? Will my ignorance be forgiven and my sinfulness ignored because the reason I rejected his instructions in the Torah was a result of someone telling me I didn’t have to obey them?

I don’t think so.

I can’t speak for God, but I’m pretty sure that if I came before him on Judgement Day and said, “I am sorry I rejected your instructions, but my (Priest/Minister/Pastor/whatever) told me I didn’t have to obey them”, he might say something like: “I understand, my child, that someone told you what to do, but it’s what I say that counts!”

What was “nailed to the cross”, as Shaul (Paul) tells us, was not every sin we will ever commit, but only every sin we have already committed. The past is forgiven, but the future remains open. We can continually work at being better or we can continue to sin and make excuses. This is a very important truth to understand or you cannot properly deal with your sinning.

Let me remind you of the main point in this message- we WILL continue to sin. One way or the other, we each have to deal with this.

When we face up to the fact that we are sinful, the way to deal with it is the way God tells us to in the Torah: obey the instructions he gave us and when we sin, repent and ask forgiveness through Yeshua’s sacrifice. When we do that we can trust his promise that we will have life, eternal.

God says in Ezekiel 18 and elsewhere, throughout the Tanakh, that if we obey we will have life, meaning life eternal. We still suffer from sins on earth, yet we will be forgiven in the resurrection. BUT..only if we remain repentant and continually ask for forgiveness, demonstrating the genuineness of our repentance by working, every day until we are dead, to sin less each day.

Most of Christianity teaches an easy path to salvation: trust in Jesus and you’re saved forever. That sounds nice, but you know the old saying: if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Yeshua said that if we want to follow him, we must each of us pick up our execution stake and walk after him. If that sounds like a cake-walk to you, you have a real problem with comprehension!

And the Enemy? He wants you to believe that, and sometimes he will try to make you feel so bad about sinning that you might just think, “I can never stop sinning, no matter how hard I try! I might as well chuck it all and just enjoy myself. Why should I beat myself up any more for something I can’t control?”  It should be obvious this is not how to deal with your sin.

We are sinners, we always will be, and that’s not okay but it is the way things are. We deal with it, first of all, by taking possession of our own iniquity, owning up to our weaknesses, and asking God’s help to be obedient to his instructions.

Think about it: God created this game called “Life, Death, and Resurrection”, and he gave us the instructions telling us how to win it.  So, nu?  why would anyone want to ignore them?

Amen?….AMEN!!

Thank you for being here, and if you like what you have heard please share me out, and don’t forget to SUBSCRIBE in the right-hand margin.

I welcome comments, just be nice, and until next time…L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

Do All Blessings Come from God?

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Before we begin, admin stuff must be attended to, so please (if you haven’t done so yet) click on the SUBSCRIBE button in the right-hand margin and also do so on the video.

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

One last admin item: please remember that comments are always welcomed (as long as you are nice) and if you have a specific question you would like to hear my opinion on, please don’t hesitate to comment or IM me with your question.

BTW…Fall is coming to Florida, so pretty soon I may have to go from muscle shits to T-shirts!  🙂

Now for today’s drash…

We know that God loves to bless his children and that he rains on both the just and the unjust, alike (Matthew 5:4.) To me, that means even someone who rejects God will receive blessings from him, if for no other reason than God loves all his children.

Besides those blessings God gives to us simply because he loves us, we can earn blessings through obedience to his commandments (Deut. 28), which means that there is an awful lot of really nice stuff God has for all of us, and he never ever runs out of blessings for us.

But what about the Enemy, the Devil, that old lion HaSatan stalking each and every one of us, trying to place a wedge between us and God? Does he ever do nice things for people?

You bet he does!!

In fact, I believe that Satan gives more good things to people than he does bad things. Why? It’s because when we are given things we like, especially things that are worldly and appeal to our base nature, we become prideful and unappreciative. The Israelites in the desert are a perfect example of this, and for those who are not Jewish don’t think for a moment you are any better than they were. Even after 40 years of seeing bread fall from heaven, water come from rocks, clothes and shoes not worn from the rough terrain, having food and water supplied for over a million people (not to mention millions of animals) and yet, the moment they were had any trouble, they carped and complained and lost faith in the One who had been providing this all along.

They had the same attitude towards God that I used to hear when I was in Sales:

“I know you’ve been the best producer this branch has ever had, but what did you do for me today?” 

I believe that Satan gives many blessings so that when they are taken away, we will curse God. Look at the Bible verses that support this:

Job 2:9– His wife said to him, “Are you still maintaining your integrity? Curse God and die!”

Matthew 4:9–Again, the devil took Him to a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. “All this I will give You,” he said, “if You will fall down and worship me.”

Revelation 16:11– And the fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and its kingdom was plunged into darkness, and men began to gnaw their tongues in anguish and curse the God of heaven for their pains and sores; yet they did not repent of their deeds.

We know that Job did not fall victim to the Devil’s tricks, and neither did Yeshua. But we are told that in the Acharit HaYamim (End Days) many will curse God for the pain and suffering they will be going through without realizing that this is as much a chance for them to be saved as it is having to suffer God’s just punishment for their sinfulness.

The Enemy knows that after being blessed with fleshly desires we not only get used to them, we think we deserve them. And when they are taken away, we feel rejected, unjustly punished and we take it out on the one who we think gave us these in the first place- God!  How many people who have been given blessings (Satanists notwithstanding) think that the Devil made it happen? Probably none. We blame the Devil for bad things happening in our lives, but not for the good things. And because we think God is blessing us, when the Devil takes away those things he gave us we don’t blame him- we blame God. We ask “Why?”; we look for reasons we are being punished;  we tend to get sad, melancholy and resentful, which results all too often in our rejecting God.

Can you see how by blessing us the Enemy can turn us against God?

So, nu?  How can I know who gave me the blessings I have? Actually, it’s not so hard to figure it out: if you are being obedient to God’s Torah you will receive blessings. That’s God’s promise, and all his promises are trustworthy. If you know that you are not obedient to Torah and yet, you are receiving blessings, then you have to ask yourself, “Who is giving me so many wonderful things for rejecting God’s commandments?” The answer is obvious, isn’t it? There is only one entity in the universe who will reward people for disobeying God.

One last note on this: if you are doing your best to obey the Torah and find yourself devoid of blessings, or at least having a lot of tsouris, then be happy for that. It means you have successfully rejected the Enemy’s attempt to seduce you and you are getting closer to God, which is why now he is attacking you. Maintain your faith and the blessings will come, eventually, just as they did for Job.

Blessings are able to be earned and also given freely by God to those who love him and show that love by obeying his commandments. If you know that you are disobedient to God’s commandments but have many blessings, you can be fairly certain those blessings are not from God.

This may sound like an oxymoron, but the Bible shows us it is true:

The Enemy gives us wonderful things to take us away from God; God takes away what we have in order to bring us back to him.

Always be certain your blessings are the ones earned through obedience.

Parashah Terumah (offering) Exodus 25:1 – 27:19

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Shabbat shalom! Donna and I are back from our trip to England, where we celebrated our 20th anniversary together with friends. I didn’t post anything during  that week, and now am getting back into the swing of things. I posted a little montage of our trip on the Picture Album page and hope you have the time to check it out.

If you would prefer to hear this message in a video presentation, please click on this link: Watch video message

We are in the part of Exodus where the rest of this book is a description of the making of the Sanctuary. It is somewhat tedious to go through, as the details are very specific, but this is something that as we read through we need to look past what is written. In other words, read the P’shat but ask the Ruach ha Kodesh (Holy Spirit) to show you the Remes, the underlying meaning (if there is one- not everything has to have a deeper meaning) of what spiritual message there might be for us.

Parashah Terumah starts with God instructing Moses on the making of the Sanctuary and the items for the Sanctuary. This includes the ark of the covenant, the menorah, altar, tables, items necessary for the sacrifice, and the tent itself, including the support bars and their sockets. If we look at the instructions for items that are going to be in the section called the Holy of Holies, then work our way outwards to the outer court, we see the materials to be used are different based on where they are located. Those closest to the Holy of Holies are to be overlaid and made of pure gold, and the materials for the tent are to be the finest woven linen.  As we move outward, the sockets and rings for the tent supports are made of silver, and the tent itself from goat hairs and rams skins. As we reach the outermost court, the sockets are brass and the tent is from tanned skins.

So what does this mean to us? For me, it means that to come closer to God we need to be made more pure. We all start out at the farthest edge from God, being born into original sin with the Yetzer Hara (Evil Inclination) the Talmud describes. When we are of the age to decide, we decide how much closer we want to come to God. When we choose to be closer to God, we begin a lifelong trek that goes from the outer court to the inner court to the Holy of Holies. This is a spiritual trip, which as we travel we change from brass to silver to gold.

This sounds nice, but there is a catch: purification is a process that involves heat and stress.  You don’t go from brass to gold without suffering through a lot of T’souris first.

The choice to get closer to God is not an easy one to make, right from the start, because most everyone you know will think you are in a cult or just crazy, and they will try to dissuade you from it. I used to wonder why someone would do that. Then, as I grew more spiritually aware it became very clear to me why: someone who is God-fearing reminds those who aren’t how wrong they are.

Shaul (Paul) tells us this in 2 Corinthians, 15-16:  For we are to God the sweet aroma of Messiah among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one, we are an odor of death and demise; to the other, a fragrance that brings life. 

I believe that we all are born into original sin, but because we are made in the image of God we also have an innate knowledge of the existence of God. It is deep in our DNA, and we sense it when we ignore God. Oh, yes, we excuse it away, we rationalize disobedience, and we tell ourselves it is just religious rhetoric. We do that because we hate to think we aren’t in charge of ourselves.

In truth, in the most important way there is, we are in charge of ourselves: we have Free Will. And we are allowed to use that Free Will to choose whether we will be a slave to God or a slave to the world (sin.) The truth that no one wants to hear is that we are slaves, and the only real choice we have is to accept the lie of freedom that the enemy offers (which is slavery to sin and eternal damnation), or the truth that we must submit to God, who is a benevolent master and who wants us to have eternal peace and joy.

God wants everyone to be closer to Him. Both those that love and worship Him, and those that hate and reject Him. God wants all His children to have eternal life. But- He is still God, and holy, and to get closer to Him we need to become holier.

Yeshua made getting closer to God much easier: He blazed a pathway for us that wasn’t possible before. When you accept Yeshua as your Messiah, by His sacrifice receive God’s Grace and decide to obey Torah as God commanded you, you start a lifelong passage from brass to silver to gold.

And as you get closer to God, you will be more blessed and joyful and secure than you could ever have imagined.

As we say today, you’ll be “golden!”

 

How To Recognize a Demagogue

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Part of the definition of a Demagogue, according to Wikipedia, is:

Demagogues overturn established customs of political conduct, or promise or threaten to do so.

Although the term is usually applied to a political system, can it be found within spiritual circles?

And if so, how do we recognize it?

 

How To Blow Up a Bridge

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A bridge gives us passage from one place to another over a terrain or obstacle that cannot be crossed by walking or driving. In the Marines Corps, one of the things I was responsible to do was to be able to blow up bridges that gave the enemy a tactical advantage

We have a bridge that is between us and God, which has it’s entrance here in the world and leads to salvation. Like all bridges, it is composed of components that provide the support needed to allow us to cross over.

The enemy of God wants to destroy that bridge, and we need to know how he plans to do it.

Nice May Not Be Nice

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I was riding my bike last week and came to a large intersection. I walked the bike half-way across, and was standing in the yellow safety zone, waiting for the light to change to red so I could safely cross the three lane highway. A car was coming down the left turn only lane, and stopped about 10 feet before me, which was about 30 feet before the light. He had a green light, and there was no oncoming traffic. He was, I suppose, trying to be nice and allow me to cross the street ahead of him.

Maybe he thought he was being nice, but he was really leading me to my death. The idiot seemed to forget that there were still three lanes of high speed traffic right on the other side of his car, all with a green light and the drivers would be totally blind to me crossing in front of his car. What he thought was being nice was really attempted murder!

I thought about this in spiritual terms, and realized this is what the enemy will do to us if we are careless and just do as we are told. I mean, really now- do you think he will walk up to you and say,”Hey, there! I’m the Devil, I want you to give up your salvation and suffer in eternal torment with me. Whaddaya say?”  Nah- not likely.  What the enemy will do is to approach you carefully, with a great big smile and his hand out to shake yours. He will be nice, he will offer you something that you really want, and it may seem spiritually pleasing to have it. He will try to convince you that he is on your side, he is also a Believer and he knows what is God’s desire for you. He will entice you with worldly rewards and tell you they are blessings from God that you receive for proper obedience.

He will let you cross the street in front of him, knowing there are cars speeding by on the other side, and smiling at you while you walk blindly into traffic.

Yeshua told His Talmudim (Disciples) when He sent them into the world to preach that they need to be wise as serpents, and harmless as doves (Matthew 10:16) so that they can show the love and compassion of Messiah, but not be so stupid as to cross the road blindly and get run over.

I believe God gave me this simple warning to share with you: the enemy will come as a friend, as a helper, and as a Believer who loves the Lord and wants to help you know Him better. He will entice you with spiritual awareness and sound like he really has an insight to God, but he is a false prophet. How will you know the difference? By looking past the nice things and seeing what is behind them. By being on the alert, always, and being suspicious of everything and anything that seems to be too easy to have. Let’s not forget that Yeshua tells us following Him is not easy:

         Luke 9:62   Anyone who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is not worthy of the kingdom of God;

Matthew 10:35   For I have come to turn “‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law-…;

Matthew 8:20    Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”

It is better to suspect now and find out later that you are wrong, then to accept blindly and find out later that you are doomed.

This is my formula for knowing if something is from God or from somewhere else: if it is easy to do, gives me worldly rewards and everyone else is doing it, then I probably shouldn’t be doing it.

That, and look twice before crossing the street.

Parashah Ki Tesa (when you take) Exodus 30:11 – 34

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Wow! This parashah is really full of such wonderful stuff: the formula for the incense, God giving the Torah to Moshe (twice, in fact), the sin of the Golden Calf, the sacrificial attitude of Moses, refusing to allow God to make a nation from himself so that the people survive (even asking God to blot him out with the people), Moses also begging God to travel with the people or leave them where they were, and finally we are told of the Divine attributes of God (in Judaism called the Imitation of God), which God, Himself, calls out as He passes by Moses.

With all of that, what shall I talk about today? None of it. I want to talk about something that is in-between the lines, something mentioned in the Chumash commentary but not mentioned directly in the Tanach.

What I am referring to is that when Moses left to go up the mountain to meet with the Lord, he left two people in charge (Exodus 24:14): Aaron and Hur. Aaron from the tribe of Levi and Hur from the tribe of Judah, yet when the story of the Golden Calf begins we only hear about Aaron. The Chumash explains the traditional belief is that Hur resisted the people’s wishes for an idol and was put to death by them. Seeing this, Aaron decided he better build the idol.

The Chumash states that Aaron’s deeds were not correct, but the “spin” they give is that he was stalling, hoping for Moses to come back in time to stop this. Another explanation is that Aaron was a man of peace, so seeing resistance as futile and fearing division within the tribes, he acquiesced to the demands of the people.

Really? So because Aaron was a man of peace, he ignored (in truth failed to perform) his duty as the Cohen HaGadol (High Priest) and rejected the commandments God gave the people so that they wouldn’t fight among themselves? Sounds more to me like Aaron was interested in saving his own skin. Clearly, the idea of being a martyr did not appeal to him, whereas Hur became the first martyr in the bible.

Sidebar: it is usually taught that Stephan was the the first martyr mentioned in the bible , but when you consider the (Merriam-Webster) definition of the word:

A person who voluntarily suffers death as the penalty of witnessing to and refusing to renounce a religion.

when we talk about the first martyr mentioned in the bible, it seems Hur should hold that distinction.

Here is what I see- Moses, representing God’s ideal government of both religious (prophet) and civil (king) authority in one position (which is what we will have under the rule of Messiah), goes to commune with the King of kings, and leaves two people in charge. One whose authority is religious (Aaron, from the tribe of the priesthood) and one whose authority is civil (Hur, from the tribe of Judah: remember that Judah will hold the scepter until Messiah/Shiloh comes, which was the blessing that Israel gave on his deathbed in Genesis 49:10.) This is a precursor of the times at the end of the Prophets, when a king was requested who would rule separately from the Prophets (1 Samuel 10), setting the standard of separation of church and state that still exists today.

The authority of the prophets comes directly from God, and the authority of the king comes from the people. Oh, yes, we read how God told the prophets who they should anoint, but we see later that the kings set themselves up more often than a prophet did. And today the political power of nearly every single nation is from human choice, not Divine announcement.

I believe that the bible shows us (starting in this parashah) that civil authority is what the people prefer, and yet the best authority is the one God grants. Whenever we listen to humans instead of God, we reject God and fall into sin, and when the religious authority succumbs to the civil (as Aaron did), all hell breaks loose. We see this happen throughout the bible, and yet we never seem to learn. Even today we still have rejected God- He has been taken out of our courts, out of our schools, and replaced with political correctness under a one world court called the United Nations.

The ideal government God designed is the one that the enemy of God, the Son of Perdition, will establish. That is why, I believe, it will be so powerful and will only fall to the Divine intervention of God. The prophet-king government, a Theocracy, is what God wants on earth. We had it under Moses, and the first time we tried to break it up (in this parashah) we see that the government failed to function.

For you and I what this means is that we need to decide who we will follow- God or Man? Yeshua (Jesus) tells us to give unto Caesar what is his, so we pay our taxes (correctly!) and obey the laws of the country and municipality. But what we see from our religious leaders today is coming more and more under a civil dictate than what God says: in both Jewish and Gentile places of worship we see not just allowing some members to remain members even after professing they are homosexual, but support of that lifestyle as acceptable. We see churches and synagogues presenting their position for or against candidates for office. I agree we should support those politicians that are god-fearing, but we are supposed to accept that God is in charge and He will put in authority whomever He chooses- our political choices should be secret. After all, isn’t the right to a secret ballot one of the most important rights we have fought for? If we have shed blood so that we can vote for someone in secret, why then do we go around violating that secrecy by announcing who we will vote for and (even worse!) demanding to know from others who they will vote for?

We are just so wrong in everything we do, yet we continue to do wrong even in the face of history and seeing, over and over and over….and over…how when we reject God’s path we walk into a pile of manure.

OY!!

Until we have that perfect, Divine government under Messiah, we will have to work within the political system we have. Historically, every attempt at returning to the Mosaic government has failed: the leaders of these attempts are called Dictators and Despots. That’s not the government God wants. So what we have to do is remember that we are to respect the government authority, and follow our leaders as long as they are following God’s design.

One day you may have to face that ultimate challenge, which is (essentially) to take the mark of the devil or refuse it; when that day comes, we all need to be ready to give our mortal life so that we can retain our immortal soul.

is willing to obey enough?

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Why do we obey? When we are told to do something, we always have the choice to obey or refuse. There is a middle course- obey the order but don’t do it the way we were told. That isn’t really refusing, but it’s pretty darn close to it.

In the military you obey for one of two reasons: the first reason is if you don’t, you get in trouble, which can mean anything from losing free time to losing money to going to the Brig. The second reason is that you trust the officer giving the order and do what he or she says out of respect, and knowing that what they are asking you to do is for a good reason. You don’t have to know their reason, you just have to trust that they have a good one.

At the workplace (I think) most obey in order to keep their job- obedience from desire to remain out of trouble. And yet, as above, obedience does often come from knowing the manager has a good reason, respect for the person and trust that they know things need to be done in a certain way because that is the best way to do it.

We obey traffic laws so we don’t get a ticket, but overall we recognize that when everyone drives lawfully we protect ourselves and others. This obedience comes more from a desire for self-preservation than from respect for the Department of Motor Vehicles.

However, whether in the military, at the workplace, or even within a family unit, some people will refuse to do what they have been told to do and make excuses, saying someone else told them a different way, they didn’t understand, they got bogged down with other work and will get to it soon, yadda-yadda-yadda. Nearly everyone can find an excuse for not doing what they were told that will not result in them getting into too much trouble.

If you have been agreeing with me so far, I hope we can agree that when it comes down to it, there are two different motivations for obedience:

  1. To prevent getting into trouble; and
  2. Obedience that comes from respect and trust for (maybe we can add desire to please) the one telling you what to do, whether or not you understand why.

Now….what about obedience to God? What is the main motivation for that? As we said above, it is either because we fear retaliation (going to hell) or because we trust in God that what He tells us to do is for our benefit and that He knows what He is doing.

Oh, wait! Let’s not forget those “middle-of-the-road” types that will do what they want to do and refuse to do what they don’t want to do, then find excuses for disobedience. Such as, “My Rabbi/Priest/Pastor/Minister told me I don’t have to do that anymore”, or “That was just because of health reasons, but we have better medicine today and things are cleaner”, or “The men who wrote the bible are chauvinists”, or the the one I really can’t stand,”That’s for Jews only; we are Christians and don’t need to do that because Jesus overcame it.”

Oy!! I really can’t stand that excuse, which is totally man-made by people who refuse to do what God says simply because they don’t want to, then use Jesus (real name- Yeshua) as their excuse, ignoring the truth that He did those things, Himself, and preached that everyone should.

When you obey God’s word, do you obey what He told Moses or what the Elders (in Acts) said Gentiles need to do? If you read the entire bible, you will see that everything the Apostles (in Hebrew they are called “Talmudim”) did and preached is all based on the Old Covenant writings, including the laws of Moses, and they never, ever said that Gentiles accepting Yeshua (Jesus) as their Messiah don’t have to follow the same rules and regulations as the Jews. That’s because there were no other religions that worshiped the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (BTW- He’s the same God of Jesus) that weren’t pagan. There were Pagans, and there were Jews, and the Jews worshiped God as God said they were supposed to. The same rules He gave Moses are the rules we are ALL told to obey.

God has no religion, only rules, regulations and commandments that are designed for our good. OUR good- not His. I mean, really- He’s God, the All Powerful, the Creator of Everything, the One and Only Almighty: do you really think there is anything, anywhere, that we humans could do or give Him that He can’t get anywhere except from us?

There is something God can only get from us: our worship, devotion and love.

I don’t obey every commandment, neither do you. None of us can, which is why Yeshua had to sacrifice not just His life on earth, but His divinity, too. But I try to obey, and more than that, I really, really want to be as obedient as I can simply because God asks me to do these things, and I trust God to know more than I do what is best for me. I also respect God, and as such want to do what he says I should out of respect for His justifiably absolute authority. Don’t think I am bragging- I try, but I fail, much more often than I succeed, but what I can boast about is that because of God’s Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit), which leads me, I can obey more often than I ever did. I’m still not very good at obeying, but I am getting better at it, and that is not from fear of reprisal, but from fear of the Lord (in the biblical sense, which means to have an awesome reverence for God.)

Obeying just to avoid going to hell is better than not obeying, but it is like the good seed falling on the poor soil, which never takes root deep enough to last during tribulations. If you obey only what is easy to obey, only what you don’t mind obeying, and only because you don’t want to go to hell, then your obedience is probably not going to be enough when the fecal matter hits the air circulation unit. The enemy will offer you a much better program, one that will let you pick and choose what you want to do and promise eternal reward for it. Trust me- it’s a lie; anything worth having is worth working for, and if you are promised great rewards for doing nothing hard, you are going to be very, very disappointed.

Think of all the wonderful things God has done for you- and even if you are homeless, sickly, distraught, lonely, whatever- even in those sad and unhappy conditions, God has made sure that you are still here: you still have hope for things getting better and you can always turn your life around. God will help if you ask for it, but you need to get off your tuchas and work at it. The bible tells us that salvation is not easy, that obedience is possible but very hard, and that suffering will ensue as you strengthen your relationship with God. It only makes sense- the world we live in is cursed and under the authority of the enemy, so anything ‘Godly” is out of place. So what? God is more powerful than the enemy, and even if the enemy attacks you and destroys everything you have (as he did with Job), God can replace it, easily, and give you even more than you had. And what God can do for you eternally the enemy can’t even come close to doing.

Obey from love, obey from respect, obey from desire to please God (a labor of love, so to speak) and obey every commandment you can. Do all that God said we should do (which is every commandment and regulation found between Genesis and Revelations) and never give up trying to do better.

That kind of obedience will be more than enough.

having control doesn’t mean being in control

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Anyone who believes that God is the Supreme Being who created the Universe, and who created life on Earth, and who has done all the things we read about in the Bible doesn’t have any problem also believing that He is in charge of everything. Believers believe that God controls everything.

Or does He?

My answer is: no, He doesn’t. Not that He can’t, just simply that (I believe) often He just chooses not to.

You see, being in control of everything doesn’t mean that you are controlling everything.  The word we use for this phenomena is: delegation.

When we read the stories in 1 and 2 Kings we see how God uses other rulers, such as Pharaoh (a couple of them throughout the ages) and Nebuchadnezzar, for example, to be His means of punishing the Israelites for their rebellion and idol worship. God sent them, so He was in control, but He also punishes them afterwards for their unusually cruel, sadistic and self-centered actions when doing His work. So, if God is in total control all the time, and he sends “Nebbie” to kick Tzidkiyahu’s tuchas, why punish Nebbie for just doing what he was supposed to do?

According to the bible it was because of what Nebbie did that he wasn’t supposed to do, by (as I mentioned above) being extraordinarily cruel and later thinking himself higher than God. So God was in control of what He wanted to get done, but He delegated the means and ways of doing it to Nebuchadnezzar, who did what he wanted to and not what God sent him to do.

God was in control, in that He sent the army against Israel to punish them, but He wasn’t controlling what happened because He gave that control to Nebuchadnezzar.

We can see this in the story of Job: God delegated authority to Satan to do harm to Job, but He was still in control in that He limited what level of harm was allowed.

We see this in the story of Shaul ben Kish (Saul, the first King of Israel), in that God caused Saul to prophesy even when he was unwilling to do so, yet Shaul did many things wrong, which caused God to take control back and appoint David as King.

We see this in the story of Yeshua (Jesus) at the rock in Gethsemane,  who prayed that He be delivered (if possible) from what was going to happen to Him. God could easily have stopped that whole affair, but He delegated the authority to Pilate and allowed the slaughter of His son to take place. God had control over it all, but He let the people be in control of the events.

Jonah was called, then he took control and ran away; God took control back and sent a storm (which was destroying the ship.) Eventually, Jonah took back control of the situation and sacrificed himself to save the others on the ship. God took control and sent the fish to save Jonah, and left the rest up to Jonah. It was Jonah who ultimately made the decision to go to Nineveh- if not, he might still be there today, trying to get a good cell signal from the belly of that fish. God called Jonah, Jonah took control and fled, God took control back and sent the storm, Jonah took control back and saved the ship and crew, God controlled the fish to let Jonah think about it for three days. Again, God controlled events just enough to let Jonah decide; God gave Jonah control of his own decision.

How many times do we hear this question, “Why do bad things happen to good people, and how can God allow that to be?” The answer is because we live in a cursed world and bad things happen. God is in control; yet God has said He causes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust, alike (Matthew 5:25.) He also said that He will have mercy on whom He will have mercy (Exodus 33:19.) What that means (to me) is that God is in control but He chooses not to control everything that happens.

We have free will, mainly so that we can decide to worship God; if God controls our will, then we can’t choose to worship Him, and that is NOT what He wants from us. God will often (as we see above) control the periphery of our life, make things happen that lead us to a decision, but ultimately we are in control of what decision we make. Who knows how many people over the millennia God has called to do His work but at the last minute they decided not to. God could have made them, but He didn’t, and because He is in control, total control, He called someone else until the plan God had was accomplished. This is what Mordecai meant when he told Hadassah (Esther) in the Book of Esther 4:14:

 For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then will relief and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place, but thou and thy father’s house will perish: and who knoweth whether thou art not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?

This is the same position every one of us finds ourselves in, every moment of every day: maybe we are here for a purpose we aren’t aware of, and standing on the precipice of being able to do something wonderful that will, maybe one day, affect all mankind?

If only I knew what the heck that was!!

God is in control of everything, which is the very reason why He doesn’t have to control everything. Whatever He wants to happen will happen, but it is up to each of us to do our part of that plan, to meet and accept the calling God has for us. I don’t know what that is for me- maybe this blog? Maybe my book? Maybe my position at the Zionist Revival Center here in Melbourne? I really don’t know, but I am trying to keep my ears open and my eyes open to see and hear His calling on my life. I don’t want to “pull a Jonah” when the opportunity comes.

Do you see how God has influenced your life? The times He took control and the times He allowed you make your own choice? We can be confident that God’s plan for salvation is true and will be accomplished, in fact, already has been accomplished through Messiah Yeshua. We can also be confident that whatever God wants to happen will happen. The only thing we can’t have any real confidence in is ourselves, and you are the final ingredient in God’s recipe for the calling in your life.

Don’t screw up the stew- keep looking for the opportunities to do God’s work that He will place along the pathway as you walk through this life, and when you see them, choose to do God’s work. God is in control, and he is letting you control what you do.

Choose to do what pleases Him.