Tag: fire

Going Through the Fire is Necessary

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Learning new things can be a lot of fun, especially when it is in a nice, safe environment like a school or college. But there are some lessons that have to be learned out in the real world, and although they are valuable they are more often than not much less enjoyable than reading from a textbook.

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The lessons we learn from school are designed not just to give us knowledge, but to give us the skillsets we need to be able to find the knowledge. At least for me, this is the quintessential gift of education: to learn how to continue to learn. Once we think we know it all, we do. That’s because when we stop learning we know all that we will ever know.

God’s textbook is what I call the Ultimate User’s Manual for Life, better known as the Torah. These five books contain everything that God wants us to know with regards to how to worship him and how to treat each other. Everything else, from Joshua through to the end of Revelation, is just commentary.

After learning what God wants from us, our life from that point on is continuing education. Reading, studying the languages, learning ancient Hebraic runes, etc. is a part of that education, but the real lessons are the ones we learn after we have left the classroom.

Recently, I have gone through the consistently constant pain of a kidney stone. I have, over the past two weeks, been unable to sleep, doubled-over with pain and not getting any real relief even from morphine I received. This all started right in the middle of a 7-day cruise Donna and I were taking to celebrate our anniversary! Last week I underwent two separate operations 4 days apart. The second one resulted in a lot of pain for about a day or so after the operation. I feel better now and, God willing, the worst is passed (pun intended.)

Donna was sort of kidding with me yesterday, saying this was the work of the Enemy, attacking me to ruin our vacation. I really doubt that; in truth, I wish I was doing enough in God’s service that I was a threat to “Old Nick”, but I don’t think that was the case. I think I was simply learning a life lesson that was designed to help me become more refined, like gold, after being placed through a fire. I tried my best to suffer through without taking out my frustration and pain on Donna, who supported me wonderfully throughout this. I think, in some ways, the pain I was suffering (which was only physical) was worse for Donna because she saw her loved one going through anguish and pain, and there was nothing she could do about it.

And that brings us to the lesson I learned from this experience! Yes, I was the one going through “the fiery furnace” but what was the most painful thing for me was watching Donna’s emotional suffering. I hurt so much but she was in even more pain than I was, and I couldn’t do anything more about her pain then she could do about mine. It was like a double-edged sword: my suffering was causing her suffering, which upset me, and neither of us could help the other.

This sort of experience is a necessary part of learning how to be a God-fearing person who will not submit to the Enemy or the will of the world. We will have to go through persecution: the Bible is rife with warnings about the Acharit HaYamim (End Days) and anyone who thinks they will just be swept away before the faecal matter hits the air circulation unit may be just fooling themselves. Maybe there will be a pre-trib rapture, maybe there won’t; people will choose to believe what they want to about this topic. As for me, I am expecting to have to deal with it if it happens before I die. I would rather be prepared to go through the Tribulation than to expect to be saved and find out I was wrong.

That is why going “through the fire” is so necessary for us to experience now, while we are able to fail the test and still have another chance to pass later in the semester. We need to learn these lessons while we have a sort of safety net to work with, before the real Tribulation hits. There is an old saying: “The more we sweat in peace, the less we bleed in war.” We are already at war, the ultimate war, which is a spiritual war. Physical strength can help us survive adversity and suffering in physical war, but since we are in a spiritual war we need spiritual strength, which I believe is far superior and will outlast any physical attributes we may possess.

Most people will just say I had bad luck and feel sorry for me having to deal with a kidney stone, especially on a cruise, but I see it as a learning experience. I learned what I can deal with, and I learned how hard it is to see the ones I love to suffer through watching me suffer. I will use this experience to strengthen me so that in the future I can be more supportive of those watching me suffer. This may sound almost like an oxymoron, supporting those who should be supporting me during a time of suffering, but I think that is the answer to this test that God has placed before me. I am correct, then I graduate this class and will be promoted to the next level.

Are you in class right now, or are you in between semesters? Look at your life, every day, and when something happens that makes you feel that you are going through the fire, accept it and work with it. Embrace the suffering and realize it is not only necessary but making you stronger. James 1:2 says,

“My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.”

He goes on to show how this testing brings perseverance and spiritual strength. Also remember that those who love you will be suffering as well, so use this time to teach them the lessons you are learning so that they, too, will be able to appreciate and thereby learn from what is happening. 

Suffering sucks- there’s no two ways about it, so what we need to do is to try to get past it honourably and faithfully. And, just for the record, you can certainly do whatever you can to reduce the suffering by using whatever God provides for you (doctors, medications, etc.) while you are in the furnace.

Finally, here’s the good news: when you successfully get through this fire you will then be advanced enough in God’s Kingdom to get to go through another one, which will be even hotter! Praise the Lord because he never stops giving us a chance to continue learning, unless (of course) we drop out of school.

Don’t be a spiritual dropout; be a graduate student of the University of God and maybe one day you will become a Professor of Righteousness.

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Until next time, Baruch HaShem and L’hitraot!

hating is easier than loving

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They say good always triumphs over evil, and love conquers everything. I believe that both are true, but only in a spiritual sense: in the real world, I have seen that hate can be stronger than love and evil often wins out.

Sometimes evil does get what’s coming to it in the real world, but it always reaps the whirlwind in the afterlife.

I know people who can’t let go of their anger or hatred, and I can see it eating away their kishka’s (intestines) slowly. Hatred is a wormwood that infects the heart, and since (biblically) the heart is the source of intelligence, when we hate we not only damage relationships, but we get stupid, too!

Anger from pridefulness leads to hatred, unforgiveness feeds the hatred, and jealousy is (maybe) the worst form of hatred. And I believe (disagree if you want- that’s OK) that hatred is stronger than love in most people. To me, love is like clear, fresh water that extinguishes all anger and pride, whereas hatred is an all-consuming fire that is never satisfied and feeds on itself, never getting smaller and always growing stronger.

If we hate someone, usually they hate us back, but love is very often unrequited. In the long run, many more people love someone who doesn’t love them back, yet hatred will almost always return hatred. That’s how it feeds on itself. And hating is easy- very easy! To hate you only need to love yourself more than others, be prideful and unforgiving, and want everything to go your way. You see anyone and anything that prevents your desires from coming to fruition as the enemy. That is almost a description of human nature, isn’t it? Hating is a curse- not to the other person, but to the one who hates. Yet- we don’t care! Once we are in “hate mode”, we are gone! We lose control of our senses, our emotions, and we do and say things that will hurt ourselves and everyone around us. Hatred is death.

Love, on the other hand, is gentle, takes strength of character and humility, is forgiving and accepts everyone as they are, whether or not we agree with their choices. No mater what, we still love them. We know that they are children of God and if you love God, you have to love (at least, a little) His children.  I am not speaking about “hold me-kiss me-marry me”  love, but love in the spiritual sense.

Shaul (Paul) says in 1 Corinthians 13 that without love, he is nothing.  Hatred eats us alive, from the inside out, and then grows beyond us affecting everything and everyone we come into contact with. Well, love does the same thing, only it strengthens us from the inside out, and our love for others will also affect everyone and everything around us, but instead of burning and hurting (as hate does), love makes people feel better about themselves and the world. It may only last a moment with them, but it makes an impression. Even those that are consumed by hatred will be convicted by our loving example and will (probably) feel uncomfortable around us.

Hate is easy because it it fits well with our sinful personality. Love is hard because it takes self-sacrifice, forgiveness, and compassion- the exact opposite of what we call “human nature.”

“So, Mr. Cynical Steve, if you are so certain that hate is easier than love, and hatred is the norm, why even bother with love? How can we possibly attain it?” The answer is that God is able to show you how to love. God loved us all, even while we were sinners, enough to forgive us over and over, and finally to allow His only son to die so we could be saved. Yeshua loved us enough to give up, for all eternity, His divinity and take on a mantle of flesh so that He could die in order to save us from ourselves.

“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends .” (John 15:13)

This is the example we need to live up to, and with the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) dwelling inside us, we are encouraged to love. Hatred is a fire; fire can be extinguished with water; Yeshua (Jesus) said He is the Living Water, and that is what we need so we can extinguish hatred and become free of the fire. The waters of the this world can run dry, but the Living Water is always available.

The easy way is usually not the best way, just like if something sounds too good to be true, it probably isn’t. We have to fight to be loving, we have to run the race with our eyes on the prize to keep hatred behind us, we have to be willing to sacrifice our pride, and we need to understand that even when others hurt us we have to love them back. None of these things are easy to do, and are even harder to maintain when we are in a relationship that feeds on anger and unforgiveness.

I read a book once called “The Dance of Anger” (by Harriet Lerner) which said that when two people are in a relationship that is fed by negative reinforcement and destructive, when one of the two try to change it, even when that change is beneficial and good, the other person will go out of their way to bring the relationship back into disharmony because it has become comfortable. In other words, if we argue all the time and I try to stop arguing, you will be the one who constantly tries to start an argument. Or, if you try to calm me and work with me, I will do everything I can to undermine your attempts at peace so we go back to hurting each other. I read that book in my previous life, when I was in a very bad marriage, and what the book says is true. I ate crow for months, and did everything I could to avoid arguments. I even accepted that my family, my friends, and everything I ever held dear to myself (including my morals) were wrong. Yet, whenever I tried to make the relationship better, she tried to bring it back to where it was. She wanted to vent, and the more she vented, the windier it got- there was no venting because the fire of hatred and unforgiveness is unquenchable.

The answer to hatred is that you need to just stop hating, i.e. remove the fuel: that is the only way to put out the fire. With humans it is very hard- nearly impossible, but with God, all things are possible..

That’s Not My Job

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In the Gospels Yeshua tells us that if we so much as lust after someone with our eyes we have already committed adultery. That’s a tough lesson to listen to, especially in a world where we are constantly bombarded by sexual commercials and ads telling us how to be more attractive and showing off how attractive others are.

But there is a difference between looking at someone who you recognize as beautiful/handsome, and stripping them down with your eyes while imagining how the rest of it could go.

I thought I would try to do as Job said he did, i.e. make a covenant with my eyes not to look at any young girls. I asked God to help me overcome what I am as much conditioned to do as (maybe) sinfully want to do, and I asked Him again, and again, and again. I asked him to keep me from staring at beautiful women; in fact, I asked Him to take all sexual thoughts from me, completely.

Here is the answer He gave me:  “Not my job.”

HUH? Not your job? But, but, but…we are told that whatever we ask for we will receive, and that you answer prayers, and, and, and ..uh…uh…that when we ask in Yeshua’s name we will receive what we ask for. I want you to take this from me! I want to have clean thoughts only, I want to be acceptable before you always. You know, like David prayed in the Psalms: create in me a clean heart, renew a right spirit in me, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart always be acceptable before thee.  Aren’t these good things to ask of you? Isn’t this the kind of prayer you will not just acknowledge but one that you want to hear? Whassup with this, “Not my job” thing?

That’s when God answered me, again. I didn’t hear some majestic voice thundering, and it wasn’t even a still, quiet voice. It was a thought that just came into my head: one so simple, one so truthful, and one so significant and demonstrative of God’s ways that I knew it wasn’t from my brain. God made me to understand His answer.

“It doesn’t work that way. I won’t just take this from you because then when you need to learn how to call on My Spirit to help you, you won’t know how to. Spiritual strength is like any other strength- it needs to be exercised to reach it’s full potential. If I just take away sin from someone, they won’t have the spiritual strength to stand up against the enemy when he comes at them.”

It’s like the parable Yeshua tells about the man cleansed of a demon, and after the demon roamed the earth he came back into the very same man because the house had been cleaned, but it was empty. The lesson is that when the man was made clean, he didn’t do anything to fill himself with God. He was cleansed without any actions of his own, and when the demon came back he had no defence against it. Similarly, just being made pure in thought by having God “rewire” my CPU won’t help me to keep it that way.

We all, each of us, have to go through the fire of purification. We have God there to help and guide us, and His Ruach haKodesh (Holy Spirit) to comfort us as we struggle with ourselves, but in the end, it must be us, it must be you, it must be me who overcome the sin in ourselves.

Didn’t God tell Cain that sin crouches at his door and is waiting for him? And more than just that warning, God told Cain that he-Cain- must conquer it!

Right from the start we are told that we must conquer the sinfulness in us. God will help us, God will guide us, God will provide (and already has, in Messiah Yeshua) the means for us to be acceptable when we fail to overcome our sin. But, day to day, we each must work at strengthening our spiritual muscles so that we can overcome the sin in our lives and stand up to the enemy when he comes at us.

Ask God to strengthen you, to guide you, to send His Ruach to comfort and ease your pain, and continually thank him for Messiah Yeshua, who is the ultimate Get-Out-Of-Jail card for everyone who does T’shuvah in his or her own heart, then asks forgiveness from God in Yeshua’s name.

That is how it works.  We must first want to turn from our sins, then accept the grace God gave through His Messiah (Yeshua/Jesus) so we have forgiveness despite our own failure to be sinless, then after accepting Yeshua as our Messiah we can be given the Ruach HaKodesh to comfort, guide and help us through knowledge and understanding of God’s ways so that even though the journey is difficult, we will know the way to walk.

God will answer prayers, God is always there, and God wants us all to turn from our sin and live. He is clear about that throughout the bible. With God we are able to do this, but God is not an enabler- He will always help us, but we have to do it. He will guide us, but we have to walk. He will lift us up when we fall and help direct us to the right path, but we need to keep going.

When it comes to salvation, God has provided it.

When it comes to forgiveness of sins, Yeshua has provided it.

When it comes to overcoming the sin in ourselves, that’s not His job- it’s ours.

Empty Is A Good Start

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I got nottin! Usually, I have some idea of what I am going to say. I rode my bike both Saturday and Sunday, and when riding I pray and get inspiration for these blogs, but this morning all I have is a deep desire for December 31, 2016. That’s the day I am planning to be my last, official working day. As for inspiration, a word from the Lord, or even a good idea of how to get my lazy tuchas in gear to go to work this morning, I’ve got “nut’n’ honey!”

That’s why I titled this the way I did, because I realized, as soon as I started writing, that being empty isn’t a bad place to be, because being empty allows one to be filled (as He is doing to me right this minute!)

There’s the old question, “Is the cup half-empty or is it half-filled?” My answer is simply that there isn’t enough there. Being unfilled (or unfulfilled, as the case may be) can mean, with the proper attitude, that you are ready to be filled.

It’s what we fill ourselves with that matters: some fill themselves up with the Holy Spirit, some fill themselves up with themselves, and some are like the parable of the man who was freed from the evil spirit and his house swept clean (meaning he was void of evil thoughts) but he didn’t fill himself up with anything of value. Being empty, but not filling himself correctly, the same spirit that once filled him filled him again, but it brought with it seven other spirits, all worse than itself.

We need to die to self in order for Yeshua to live more within us, meaning to be filled with the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit.) This doesn’t mean that we are replaced, but that we are changed. I was scared to death about being “replaced” if I was to give myself to God. What I have learned is that there is so much of who I am that I want to give up, that I would love for the Lord to take away, but He hasn’t. That’s what I have come to realize in my spiritual maturity (what there is of it): we need to be able to call on the Spirit and use the strength and power it gives us, but we are still in charge of who we are and what we do. I asked God over and over to take away sexual thoughts and seeing people as objects, I have prayed that He excise this part of my thinking, remove it, just take it away! And He answered my prayer: He told me that isn’t how it works. I have to overcome my sin. Even way back in the days of the Garden, didn’t God tell Cain that sin crouched at his door and he had to overcome it? God can, if He so chooses, rewire our brains in a heartbeat, but then we don’t learn anything, do we? If it is done for us, how will we find the strength to overcome the Tribulation Days? Where will we find the strength to refuse to take “The Mark?” If one doesn’t exercise the body, how can they ever expect to be strong?

No, God will not just make it happen, He will coach us, He will help us and guide us, He will supply the Ruach to strengthen and empower us with wisdom, discernment and knowledge.

But He will not do it all for us.

That’s why the Prophets and the Psalms talk about being tested in the fire, about burning off the dross, about walking through the valley of the shadow of death- we have to, each one of us- be prepared to do our own battle with evil. God is the coach, He is there to help us, to pick us up, to strengthen and encourage us, but He will not do it all for us. We need to be filled with Him, we need to empty ourselves of much of ourselves, not everything, but enough so that what is left will mix well with the Ruach.

God has given each of us talents and gifts, those need to stay; by being empty of the other things, the things of the world, we leave room for more of Him and that emptiness is a good emptiness, that is, as long as we fill it with His Spirit.

If you’re feeling a quart or two low on Spirit, there is plenty to go around. Being empty or feeling void of God’s spirit is not something to be sad about- that is working with the enemy. When you feel “down” and like you just aren’t making any progress, do not allow yourself to become morose and sad because that evil spirit and his buddies are just waiting for that door to open to them. If you feel that your “house” is empty, when you think you are not measuring up, or any time you just feel “empty”, drive yourself to God’s gas station, get on your knees, look up and say, “Fill ‘er up with high test!”

God never has an embargo on Spirit, and it is always free for the asking.

Always remember this: being empty is the first, and a very important step, to being filled with the Spirit of the living God.