Tag: old covenant

Parashot Vayak’hel/Pekudei (He gathered/Countings) Exodus 35:1 – 40:35

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In order to be in alignment with the Gregorian calendar, some Torah readings are doubled, as in the case of these last 6 chapters of Exodus. This dual parashah (hence, Parashot in the title) minutely details the finalization of the building of the Sanctuary. We are told that the people, who just committed the terrible sin of the Golden Calf, have now turned their hearts back to God. They give the necessary materials for building the Sanctuary (cloth, skins, precious gems and metals, etc.) with so much generosity and zeal that the workers have to ask Moses to command that the people stop bringing these items, as there is far too much material for the workers to use.

The manufacture of the separate parts of the Sanctuary is completed, and God decrees that it be assembled on the first day of the first month, which is the first of Aviv (now called Nissan), the spiritual New Year. After erecting the Sanctuary, Moses anoints the building, the items in it and the Priests. After doing so, God’s Shekinah glory so fills the tent that even Moses is not able to go inside. From that moment on, the cloud stays over the tent to show that God is ever-present (during the day it was cloud, and at night the cloud was filled with fire. Imagine how awesome that must have looked!), and when the cloud was withdrawn, it went ahead of the Israelites to lead them to their next destination.

In Chapter 39, verse 42 we are told that when Moses inspected all the work the people had done, he saw that they had done everything God commanded, exactly as God had commanded them to do. Then Moses blessed them.

To me this is a very important statement, that not only had the people done all that God said should be done, but they did it as God had told them to do it– not how they thought it should look, not with whatever materials they wanted to use, or with colors they preferred, but they did it all, just as they were commanded.

Are we like that today? In my opinion, we are far from that. Look at all the different ways we have created to worship God: all the different religions, rites and regulations not found anywhere in the Scriptures. Even within Judaism, we have Chasidic, Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist and Messianic sects. Yes, all read the Torah but all do not follow the commandments the same way. Yes, all are “Jews” but the Messianic Jews are not considered Jews by the other “mainstream” sects, and from some Chasidic viewpoints, they don’t even consider the Orthodox as real Jews because they are more relaxed in their observances.

As anyone who reads this blog knows, my message to the world is this: God has no religion! People have created religions, and each one worships differently than the other, so by definition we can’t be at the same place the Children of Israel were when the Sanctuary was built- we are not all doing what God said we should, exactly the way He said it should be done. Not one of us.

Some are closer than others, and (I am not being prejudicial here) the Jews are the closest of all, mainly because their foundation for worship is based solely on the Torah. Most Christian religions have their foundation built upon the writings of the New Covenant, and they (again, not meaning to be unfair or judgmental) for the most part ignore the Torah. Funny thing, though, is that they don’t realize there is nothing in the New Covenant that is different from the Old Covenant; in truth, everything Yeshua (Jesus) taught is solely from the Tanakh (entire Old Covenant) because that was the only Word of God that existed.

God gave the Torah, through Moses, to the Jewish people in order for them to do as God wants us all to do- they were supposed to show the world how we all are to behave. God called the nation of Israel to be a nation of Priests and, as such, examples to the rest of the world regarding how to worship Him and how to treat each other. Torah was given to the Jews, but it is for the whole world.

The Tanakh (the Old Covenant) is sort of a “Torah 101” class for the world.

A few millennia later, along comes Yeshua, the Son of God and Messiah to the world. He is sent to the Jewish people because they are God’s Chosen nation, and have already had the prerequisite class, Torah 101. Now, it is time for Yeshua to teach the advanced class, Torah 202. Since this was an advanced class, everything He taught was based on the previous teachings. He goes beyond just teaching Torah by using the entire Tanakh to demonstrate who He is and to instruct the Jewish people so they can have a more advanced understanding of Torah. The Jewish people knew the P’Shat, the written words, of the Torah but did not understand the deeper meanings; Yeshua taught the Remez and Drash of the Torah (for a detailed description of Torah exegesis, click here: Pardes), which is why He used parables and riddles.

You see, Yeshua wanted to give the people a deeper understanding of what God was saying to them, and these lessons were very advanced. By using parables and riddles, which require deep thought to find and understand the answer, He was teaching them the tools they needed to be able to more completely understand the Bible. I think that is why Yeshua was surprised that after three years with Him, His own Disciples did not understand the meaning of many of His parables. Ultimately, as with His Disciples at that first Shavuot after His resurrection (Pentecost), it is after we have the Ruach Ha Kodesh, the Holy Spirit, within us that through that Spirit we can see the deepest meanings of God’s word.

Moses blessed the people for doing what God said to do, the way God said to do it. If Moses is willing to bless for doing as God said, think how much more willing God will be to bless for doing as He says! In fact, if you read Deuteronomy 28, you will get a detailed listing of all the blessings God will shower on you for acting in accordance with the Torah. But don’t stop there- read on to learn of all the T’souris (curses) you will suffer if you refuse to obey. God won’t really do all those bad things to you because that you get just for living in the cursed world we live in. God’s blessings are protection from the world, and we have that protection when we walk under His wings, i.e. obey His word in the way He said we should.

I am not saying that anyone who is not strictly in accordance with the Torah will go to Hell- no one can live strictly in accordance with the Torah, which is why we needed the Messiah! Duh! What I am saying is that God will send more blessings to you, the more you are in obedience to His instructions. Yeshua’s sacrifice covers our sin, but only when we are truly repentant of that sin; if you think that Yeshua died for your sins so you can live your life any-old-way you want to, you are in for a very unpleasant surprise!

It’s really simple: God gave the Torah to the Jews to show the world how to be. The closer we are to observing the Torah, the more blessed we will be; it should be no surprise that the converse is true, meaning that the further away we are from Torah observance, the less blessed we will be. Ignoring the Torah entirely will result in eternal damnation.

As with everything else, you need to make up your own mind: do you want to be more blessed, or less blessed?

salvation: easy to get, hard to keep

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“All who call on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Joel 2:32) is a very comforting thought.

Are any of you reading this surprised to see me cite Joel? Were you perhaps thinking this is from Acts 2:21 or, maybe, it’s in Romans 10:13? You are correct: we do find this verse in each of those letters, but the writer was quoting Joel. In fact, there is nothing “new” in the New Covenant- it is all, every single word, based entirely on what is found in the Tanakh.

And when Joel said this, just like when Shaul (Paul) repeated it centuries later, the meaning was not that calling on the Lord is all you have to do, but that calling on the Lord is only the start of what you have to do, and continue to do for the rest of your life.

What is “calling on the Lord?” Is is asking for forgiveness? Yes. Is it asking to be rescued from a dangerous situation? Yes. Is it asking to be saved from your sinful lifestyle and the consequences that come from it? Yes, of course it does. But does it mean call on Him once and that’s it? You don’t need to do anything else?

Not a chance!

The Lord is wiling and able, and even more than that, desiring to forgive you. He wants to forgive you, He loves to see a lost soul return to the flock. In Ezekiel 18:23 he tells us:

 Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Sovereign LORD. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?

Being forgiven is something that comes easily because the One who forgives wants to do so. It wasn’t so easy for Yeshua (Jesus) to provide the pathway to salvation, but it is easy for us to get on that road. There is no toll booth, no “Exact Change Required”, and no traffic.

However, it is a rough road to travel.

As we go along our way, we need to stop in to the churches and synagogues that are along the road to get refreshed, and we need to avoid the “tourist traps” that have billboards all along the road. They want you to get off the road and travel to their hotel, or inn, or restaurant. They offer free drinks, free food and free accommodations. They are enticing and very hard to resist when you have been travelling a bumpy and dusty road.

What I am talking about is the “world”- everyone else who has chosen to take the smooth, paved highway to hell, with all it’s earthly pleasures. They want you to join them on their road as badly as God wants you to stay on His road. He knows it’s a hard road to travel, He knows that our very nature is to get on that smooth surface and glide through life, and He knows that what He is asking is hard for us. Not impossible, just hard. It’s designed that way, because the only way to prove we are serious and honest about our call to Him is to have us go “through the fire.”

And this isn’t to prove to Him how serious we are- God sees the heart, He knows our desires and our inner-most truths. The reason we have to go through hell-on-earth to avoid going to hell-for-eternity is to prove to each one of us that we are serious.  We are the ones that need to know what is truly in our hearts because, as humans, we lie to ourselves. If we lie to ourselves, then when we tell others the same lie it isn’t really a lie, right? After all, we believe it to be the truth, so when we tell someone else it isn’t lying, right?

Wrong. It is a lie, but it is not a lie of volition, it is a lie of omission. We omit the truth about something by pretending and convincing ourselves that it doesn’t exist or that what we are being told is not the truth.

For instance, if you thought that the quote at the start of this message was original to the New Covenant, that is a lie, but a lie that you were taught is the truth by someone who also was taught it was the truth. The lie is not where the verse originated as much as the lie that it is a Christian “thing.” Many Christian teachings are designed to ignore the Old Covenant because that is for Jews, and not for “us”. They are saved by their Torah but we have the Blood of Christ!

That is also a lie. Christians aren’t the only ones who have the Blood of Christ because Jews have the blood of Christ, too. Muslims have the Blood of Christ, as well. Buddhists, Hindi’s, Atheists, Skin-heads, Nazi’s, everyone has the Blood of Christ to save them!  He didn’t die just for Christians- He died for everyone. His blood doesn’t care who you are or what you believed in- when you call to the Lord for salvation, it is there for you. I, you, we are saved by the Blood of the Messiah, no matter what we did before we called on His name.

And when we call on His name, that is just the start.

Once you have been given salvation, it is not set in stone. No one can take it away, that’s true, but we can easily (as many do) throw it away. God gives you a ticket to get into the Garden of Eden, but you have to get there yourself. He provides the divine GPS, the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) to lead us and help keep us on the pathway, but there are all those billboards. Come in for free drinks; children eat free; get a free night’s stay for every night you sleep here (Hotel California); take this short cut to the same destination because our road is smooth, and the gas is free!

The signs are enticing, they are overwhelming, and they are constantly in our faces. But they do not lead us to the place we want to go. That is why salvation is easy to get, and hard to keep, because the world we have to live in is cursed and sinful and it wants us to join it as badly as God wants us to be separated from it.

That is why almost every prayer we have starts with:

Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu, Melech Ha Olam, asher kidshanu, b’mitzvotav, vitzivanu… which means: Blessed are you, oh Lord our God, King of the Universe, who has sanctified us with Your commandments….

To be sanctified, to be made holy, means to be separated. And what we need to be, and remain separated from, is sin. Sin is all around us, not to mention living inside of us. It is our nature to sin, and that is why the road is so bumpy and difficult to travel: we have to overcome our own desires, and it is so much harder to do that when all we see, every mile, at every exit ramp, is the sinful world calling out and beckoning to us with rich and pleasurable rewards if we would only return to it.

Don’t be fooled. Stay the course, keep running the good race, and keep your eyes on the prize. Please believe me, or better yet, believe God when He tells you that the rewards at the end of your trek will be more than worth the effort it takes to get there.

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.

 

 

Parashah B’resheet (In the Beginning) Genesis 1-6:8

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This past Monday, the 24th, was the celebration of Sh’mini Atzeret, the Eighth Day. This is also called Simchat Torah, or Joy of Torah. The joy is that we read the last sentence or two of D’varim (Deuteronomy) and then, as the congregation sings songs of joy, we turn the Torah back (you can get real “Popeye” arms from doing this!) to the start, and read the first sentence or two of B’resheet (Genesis.) The Parashot readings are usually over a one year cycle, but some synagogues will read the Torah over a three year cycle. In either case, Simchat Torah will always be on the eighth day of Sukkot.

This first parashah takes us from nothingness to just before God causes the flood. Of course, even in the nothingness of a universal void, God already was there. What was for Mankind the very beginning of everything was just another eon for God.

For the Jewish people, reading the Torah is joy, and the Haftorah portions and traditional Holy Day readings incorporate most of the rest of the Tanakh. But for many Christian people, they never get to know who Yeshua (Jesus) really is because they separate the Torah and the Old Covenant writings from the New Covenant. This is mainly because we are all taught, both Jews and Gentiles, that these books represent two separate religions. Of course, nothing could be farther from the truth.

Traditional teaching is that the “God” of the Old Covenant is vengeful, violent and strict, whereas the “God” of the New Covenant is, essentially, Jesus (real name- Yeshua), and I say that because whereas the O.C. is all about the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the N.C. talks about God only as “the Father”, and He gets second billing to Jesus. The O.C. God has the Jews kill nations and depopulate Canaan, He kills His own people, He is strict, He has all these rules and laws and commandments, He requires sacrifices, He has His prophets call fire from heaven on people, yadda-yadda-yadda. That O.C. God is a real meanie. Oh, but the N.C. God, this nice, quiet, calm and totally loving Jesus is nothing like that. He is all about love, He is all about forgiveness, and acceptance, and peace. He cried at Lazarus’s tomb. He is such a nice boy, to make His mother proud.

Get real, people- Jesus was (and still is) His Father’s son! Did Jesus ever say anything nice, loving, compassionate or forgiving about the Pharisees? As I recall, He called them white-washed sepulchers, full of dead man’s bones. And what about those quiet, society-serving businessmen that were helping people to buy sacrificial animals and exchanging monies in the Temple courts? They were serving the people, and Jesus whipped them, over-turned their tables and (without using bad language) cursed them out. He told His followers they had to eat His flesh and drink His blood; He told His followers that He came to separate families and turn fathers against sons, and mothers against daughters; He said people had to crucify themselves if they wanted to follow Him. He even called-out one of His best friends: when Kefa (Peter) voiced how upset he would be if anything bad happened to Jesus, instead of lovingly hugging him for being so concerned, Jesus called him Satan- He said, “Get thee behind me, Satan!” He didn’t say, “C’mon, Pete- get with the program” or “Thank you, Brother, for the kind concern but I must do my Father’s work.” No- Jesus chewed Peter out, in front of everyone!

As we start to read the O.C.  again, let’s remember (and if you never learned this before, then learn it now) that these are NOT separate stories about two separate religions: it is the same story, the same religion, the same God and the same Messiah.

  • The O.C. starts with absolutely nothing in existence. It then tells how God created everything, chose a people, developed them, grew them despite everyone else in the world trying to kill them; gave them His rules for how to worship and honor Him, and how to treat each other. It tells how He set them up in their own land so that from there He could rule them, and they were to be an example and a blessing to the world. Finally, through His chosen people, His Torah (which means teachings, not laws) and His Messiah, the entire world would find salvation from their sins and have eternal communion with Him. It ends with the overthrow of Jerusalem, destruction of the Temple, and the dispersion of the Jewish people throughout the known world.
  • The N.C. is the continuation, taking over where the O.C. left off, with the coming of the promised Messiah who taught the Jews the hidden meanings of the Torah that they had not discovered. Jesus taught them how to live the Torah to it’s fullest, both physically and spiritually, and that He was there to finalize the Almighty’s plan of salvation by becoming the ultimate and final sacrifice for sin. Because we all failed to live in accordance with Torah, Yeshua ha Maschiach (Yeshua the Messiah) completed God’s plan of salvation by overcoming, with His own blood, those sins that we could not overcome on our own. We then read how His story spread and how salvation came to both Jews and Gentiles. The N.C. ends as the O.C. began,  with a brand new beginning.

If I was to write a dust jacket for the (entire) Bible, it would be something like this:

A wonderful love story of the one and only God and how He fulfilled His plan to create Mankind and provide an eternal paradise for them. There is action, death, rebellion, supernatural events, romance, treachery and despite what seems to be the total destruction of God’s plan, there is a happy ending for those that find the truth and accept the salvation provided for them. It can be hard to understand in parts, and sometimes the story line drags a little, but it delivers a satisfying read with many messages that are appropriate for both the individual and the society. Overall, I give it two thumbs up! (Available in both paper and digital format.) 

If you think that the O.C. is for Jews and the N.C. is all Christians really need to know, try reading the second book in a series without reading the first one. After you do that, then read the first book, and you will see how much you were missing. It is the same with the Old and New Covenants- please believe me when I tell you these are one book, one story, one God (the same one in both) and one Messiah, promised in the first book and delivered in the second. With one beginning and one ending, which is a new beginning.

That new beginning at the end of the bible is when the new heaven and the new earth are created for the survivors of the destruction of the old earth; it is a new paradise.

Start your year right now, with a new beginning of understanding and a new realization of the symmetry and synergy between the Old and New Covenants. Read from Genesis all the way through Revelations, and see how it all fits perfectly. If you are Jewish and have never read the New Covenant, invest in your eternity and buy a Messianic version just so that you can get passed some of the subtle anti-Semitic intonations of the King James and NIV versions. However, even those versions will give you an idea, if you are willing to look, of the Jewishness of the New Covenant. Jesus’s real name is Yeshua, meaning God’s Salvation, and He was, is and always will be identified as a Jewish man, the Son of the God of the Jews. That is an unfortunate label, because God is not the God of the Jews, He is God- the one and only God, and the God of everyone and everything. He has no religion, He has His commandments, rules and regulations for worshiping Him and treating each other.

That’s all there is- worship God and treat each other as you would want to be treated. All the rest falls into place if you do those two things.

Chag Sameach! (Happy Holidays) and may God bless you in your endeavor to know Him better, to serve Him with love and faithful obedience, and may you be a blessing to others.

Finally! The long awaited sequel is out, “Son of…..

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If you are a Baby-Boomer like me, you remember the great movies that had sequels. For my younger readers, that’s when you find out what happened after what you are watching. Today they’re all about prequels, finding out what happened before what you are watching occurred.

We had “Son of Kong”, “Son of Paleface”, “Son of Zorn”, “Tarzan Finds a Son”…movies that took the popularity of the original and continued the story line.

To me, that’s exactly what the New Covenant writings are all about. Growing up Jewish, all I ever heard about Jesus and the New Covenant was that Jesus was Jewish, a Rabbi, and he started a new religion called Catholicism. I was also told that the New Covenant is their bible, not ours. Oh, yes- and all the other Gentile religions came out of Catholicism.

Now I know the truth is very, very different. Nearly 20 years ago, when I first started to look for God and wanted to finally decide about what relationship, if any, I was going to have with Him, I researched for myself; I read the New Covenant (a Messianic version, which bold printed everything that was directly from the Old Covenant, so nearly every page had 1/3-1/2 of it bold printed), I talked to mature Christians who were open and knowledgeable about their Hebraic roots (thank the Lord He directed them to me), and eventually (after I decided to believe before I actually did believe) I learned the truth about who Jesus (His real name is Yeshua) was, and is, and who is the real creator of modern day Christianity.

Oh, in case you’re interested, Christianity as it is known and practiced today did not come from Jesus- it came from Constantine and the Council of Nicene.

The Old Covenant is all about God, really. Yes, we learn of the Jewish people, their good times and their bad; we also learn of the other people of those days. We read about the events that happened to both Jews and Gentiles, the destruction of the Northern kingdom of Shomron (Israel), the destruction of the first temple, exile to Babylon and the last king, Zedekiah, which was about 570 some-odd years before Yeshua. After him the only other major event, before the New Covenant events, was the Maccabees and the story of Hanukkah, about 400 years before Yeshua. This is where the OC ends, still waiting for the Messiah to come.

Despite all the events, peoples and kings, the one character in the Old Covenant that is steadily seen and heard throughout the book, who is the progenitor, hero, and star of the show, is God.

The New Covenant also mentions God throughout it, but the real star is Yeshua. Therefore, we could call the Old Covenant the “Story of God” and the New Covenant, “Son of God.”

Now the title to today’s post seems to make sense, doesn’t it?

Just like the old sequels, the first book introduces the hero and leaves us with a promise of more to come. The Messiah never appeared, although He had been mentioned and prophesied about throughout the book. With the NC, we have a culmination of writings about this guy Jesus who claimed to be the Messiah, and also said He was the Son of God.

And if you ask me, He did a pretty good job of proving that what He said was true!

“Jesus” was used for His name because the Greek’s had no reference for a name which meant “God’s salvation”, so they used Jesu, which means nothing in and of itself, but sounds like “Yeshua.” That’s right- “Jesus” is a Latin-ized version of a transliteration that has no etymological root.

The OC promised a Messiah to bring the Jewish people back to God, and also that the Jewish people would be a blessing to the world; eventually, the final promise is of paradise with all the nations of the world worshiping God. That is, worshiping God as He told us we should in the Torah. The NC is the continuation of that story, introducing the promised Messiah, showing how He proved who He was/is, and ending with a number of epilogues (the Epistles) that showed how the truth of Messiah was spread throughout the world. This book has no sequel because the end is eternity with God and Yeshua. All the bad guys are destroyed, the world is created anew, and those that have been faithful to the King have been rewarded with eternal peace and life forever in the presence of the King.

Nice ending; nice “Son of” sequel; all-around nice story. The best part of the whole thing is that it is real-life, and those who accept the truth of it are also part of the story, along with the Father and the Son, and we all end up in Paradise together.

 

 

God loves you enough to punish me

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And God loves me enough to punish you, too.

Sounds a little backwards, doesn’t it? If God loves you, why punish me? To me the answer is very simple to understand- God is just and true, dependable, and righteous. That means, despite how much He loves every one of us, He will do as He says He will do when it comes to the unrepentant and sinful at Judgment Day.

I get really sick to my stomach when I hear people who talk about God only in terms of His love. Yes, love is important, and yes, love is what we are to do to each other, and yes, God is love.

But He is also righteousness, He is also truth, He is also very hard to follow in a world that hates and rejects not just Him, but all those who follow Him. Yeshua said to follow Him we must give up everything that we have held dear, even those things that we were raised with, people we know and love, but are sinful . Sin is very comfortable and fits us like a glove, whereas righteousness needs an expert tailor to make it feel (at least) wearable.  Love helps to overcome, but it doesn’t overcome everything.

I think the people who only want to talk about God as love, loving everyone and every single thing, and their discussion always comes down to how God loves us are probably enablers in their own lives. Love is not acceptance of wrongdoing; love is not acceptance of sin; love is not acceptance of improper behavior.  Do you think Yeshua showed “love” when He made a whip of cords and drove out the businessmen from the Temple courts? Did they feel the love? And what about when God sent fire and brimstone down on Sodom and Gomorrah? Or the fire that destroyed the (total of) 100 men who came after Elijah?

Or the death of Ananias and his wife Sapphira in Acts? And the way Yeshua talked to the Pharisees? Insulting them, calling them “white-washed sepulchers?” Was that a term of endearment?

God is totally just and His love is truly remarkable, but that isn’t all He is about. He is about zealousness for His laws, determination to live as He says and not as the world demands, and strength and honesty. God is not about lovey-dovey dreck: He is a strong and glorious God who is about truth, devotion, faithful obedience, and love. But love for what is right also makes Him a jealous and fearful God! God is love, all right, but not human “mamby-pampy everything is love, you are love, I am love, God is love, love love love, love is all you need” kind of love.

God is about the hard love that brings people into righteousness.

I accept God as my God, I accept Yeshua as the Messiah God sent to us, and I also accept that love is the keystone of salvation, but it is not the whole building. There is also the need for punishment for those who reject God. If we can’t trust God to punish the wicked, we can’t trust Him to reward the righteous. It’s that simple- God is totally binomial: right or wrong, truth or lie, just or unjust. If you notice, throughout the bible when God gives us a commandment, those who violate it first are punished most severely, and it seems that later on people catch a break. In Numbers we read how the man that gathered sticks on Shabbat, right after God said do not work, was stoned to death, but in Ezra’s day they bought and sold on Shabbat and no one was killed for it. Yes, it was a bit later, but God is the same today, tomorrow and yesterday, so His laws are just as important today and tomorrow as they were yesterday.  God’s mercy, which comes from His love, prevented us from totally destroying ourselves. He gave us His laws and when we first violated them His punishment was swift and terrible, but as we continued to violate His laws His mercy showed (mercy from love) in His tolerance for our wrongdoing. But that didn’t stop Him from punishing Shomron and dispersing His people throughout the world, and it didn’t stop Him from destroying His own house and nearly destroying Judea.

The ultimate sign of His love was sending Yeshua, His only begotten Son, to die so that we can be absolved of our own sinfulness.

God’s love for us doesn’t override His punishment for those that don’t love Him back, and I don’t think that He expects us to allow sin in our lives or to accept sin from others. We are to be holy, meaning separated, from the society of the world. We are to hate the sin, and love the sinner. But not love them to the point where we accept what they do in the name of love- we are to reject the sinner who continues to sin. We are to ostracize those who sin, even our own brothers and sisters. Those who plow and look back are not fit for the kingdom of God, so said Yeshua, which means we must go forth and not cling to the past. Our past is sin, our present is grace, and our future is salvation- as long as we walk the walk.

Love is fine, love is good, and as Shaul said, without love, I/you/we are nothing. But love doesn’t conquer all: sin is not acceptable, ever. Love the people in your life, even though they are sinners, but make it clear that their sin is not acceptable and if they refuse to stop sinning in your presence, then vomit them out of your life. Not right away, not without trying to save them, and not every single one of them because even Believers sin. I can’t draw a line in the dirt for you telling you exactly when you should reject someone and when you keep trying to save them; you need to determine that on your own with the guidance of the Ruach haKodesh (Holy Spirit.)

What I am trying to say is that love is fine and love is wonderful, but it may be the alpha and omega, but there is plenty of stuff in between, and we need to recognize all the factors that go into living a righteous life. If we want to live as Yeshua lived we need to understand this: It ain’t easy being Him!

Messianics 101: Approaching Jews about Jesus

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First rule: don’t use the name “Jesus”- use “Yeshua.” The name “Jesus” brings up too many unwelcome memories to Jews, such as “Christ killer”. I grew up being called that by all the Catholic school kids. In the past decade or so Catholicism has “lightened up” on us Jews, but there is too much history to make a Jew comfortable with the name Jesus. And there are still many modern-day Christians who push Replacement Theology, which is an insult to God as much as it is to Jews. Even after understanding the truth of who Jesus is, knowing the Jewish Messiah Yeshua for nearly 20 years now, I am still uncomfortable with “Jesus.” And don’t even start me on the word “Christ!”

Second Rule: don’t quote from the New Covenant writings. Jews don’t believe it is Scripture, they have been told that Jesus created a new religion (that hates Jews) and the New Covenant is what He wrote (not true, of course, but that doesn’t really even matter.) You need to be totally familiar with the Messianic passages in the Tanakh. You also need to know more about the Tanakh than the Jewish person you are talking to, or at least enough to impress them that you have some knowledge of, and respect for, Judaism. The fact is, if you don’t know the Old Covenant and the Messianic scriptures that define who Yeshua is and what He will do, then you shouldn’t minister to anyone because you aren’t fully prepared. Counting on the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) is fine and useful and biblically sound, but you still need to know enough to talk to a Jew like a Jew if you want to get through to a Jew. Nu?

Third Rule: Don’t tell, ask. Believe me, when you start to talk to a Jew about Yeshua, and you talk about Isaiah 53, and Jeremiah 31:31 and Joel, and Zachariah, and all the other 144 or so Messianic passages in the Tanakh (and you should know what “Tanakh” means) you can tell a Jewish person all there is and when you think you’ve sold them, they’ll simply say they don’t believe Jesus is the Messiah, “Because He isn’t, that’s all!”  That’s what they have been taught for centuries; in fact, for more than two 2 millenniums. The best way (take it from an old “sales” pro) to make someone accept what you say against what they have been told is not to tell them why something is so. You start out by making them doubt what they think is the truth as maybe not really being all that true. “And how”, you may ask, “do I do that?” The answer is: you don’t tell, you ask.  Instead of telling them all the reasons you know why Yeshua (remember: we don’t use the “j-word”) is the Messiah, ask them why they think Yeshua is not the Messiah. I can almost guarantee that 99.9% of the time, the answer will be, “Because He’s not, that’s why.” And they answer that way because that is what they have been told is the truth by parents, by their Zayda and Bubbe, by their Rabbi, by everyone they know who is Jewish. He just isn’t, that’s all there is to it. Once you get to that point, you can then ask these questions, in this order:

  1. Do you think that recognizing the Messiah when He comes, no matter who he is, is important? (if they say no, don’t waste any more time on this one)

  2. When you have to make an important decision, do you feel better doing it with good information or by just blindly guessing? (again, if they say guessing is fine, move on)

  3. (If you make it to this question, here’s what you say next) Well, then I’m confused: You say you want good information yet you have nothing but, “Just because.” You are choosing your eternal future on no information instead of listening to good information. (Don’t pause to let them speak but go right into the kicker)…If I told you there are hundreds of thousands of Jewish people who have accepted Yeshua as their Messiah and are still 100% Jewish, practicing Judaism exactly as you do, holy days, Shabbat, Torah, everything exactly as you have been brought up doing, would you be interested in hearing  just a little more about Messianic Judaism?

These are the essential three steps to ministering to Jews. If the answer to that last question is, “Yes”, then you have planted a seed. Now you have to let it grow, at it’s own pace. Now you can tell them more about the Tanakh passages and, since they doubt what they knew to be true (which is, essentially, you can’t believe in Jesus and still be Jewish) and are open to the real truth, you can take the Tanakh passage and relate it directly to the New Covenant passage. And remember, also (this is VERY important) to point out that the New Covenant is NOT a new religion, Yeshua never taught against the Torah or Judaism, and that the New Covenant is the eye-witness account about a Jew, written by Jews, of what happened to Jews. That is also the description of the Old Covenant, isn’t it? Eye-witness account written by Jews of what happened to Jews.

If you can master these questions, and deliver them with the compassionate understanding that for thousands of years Jewish people have been told believing in Jesus is being a traitor to your family and to God, then you have a good chance of helping Jews to find and know their own Messiah.

If you “bible-pound” Jewish people with threats of hell and eternal damnation and quote from the New Covenant, you might as well “kick against the goads” and not even waste your breath. Being a Jew I can tell you this: Jews will not be able to accept the truth about who and what Yeshua is until they can get past all that they have been told He isn’t.

Here is an absolute truth: people believe only half of what you tell them, but 100% of what they say. You need to get them to doubt what they believe before you have a chance of them listening to what you have to tell them.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Christ isn’t a Christian

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I know that sounds blasphemous to some, but it is the truth. Well, actually, Christ isn’t even a name (https://messianicmoment.wordpress.com/2015/08/05/whats-in-a-name-2/) so I would be more accurate to title this, “Yeshua isn’t a Christian.” At least, not the way Christianity is today.

Today Christianity, for the most part, teaches that Christ is the Messiah (OK- that’s true), but from there it goes off on it’s own, ignoring Torah (Jews have Torah and Christians have the Blood of Christ) and teaching that as long as you are a good person you go to heaven because Jesus died for your sins, implying that you are now essentially sinless because you are immediately and constantly forgiven.

That is not at all what Yeshua taught. He never even thought such a thing- Torah not important? No way! Some rules for Jews and others for Christians? Ridiculous- God’s laws are paramount, eternal and for everyone!

God gave the Torah to His chosen people, who were not chosen to be the only ones saved from sin, but chosen to be the ones to save everyone else from their sins by teaching them how to obey the Torah! Yeshua taught us that the letter of the Torah is important, but the spirit of the law is even more important. He did this best when He preached the Beatitudes in the Gospels. That is where we hear the real A-B-C’s of Yeshua’s teachings, and none of it is against the Torah. In fact, it is all about the Torah: Yeshua tells us how the Torah says we should act, then not only endorses that but takes it to the next level by telling us it isn’t enough to act in accordance with Torah, but we must think and feel in accordance with Torah, too!

The basis of Yeshua’s teachings is this: it isn’t enough to just do what Torah says, you need to be what Torah is. Yeshua showed us that throughout His life and ministry in that He was the Living Torah. The prophets tell us (Jeremiah, for one, and Joel for another) that in the Acharit HaYamim (End Days) all will all know the Lord, we will prophesy, and we will have the Torah written on our hearts.

Christianity is very, very different from the laws and regulations God gave to us in the Torah. That’s because Christianity was not created by God, or by Yeshua. It was Constantine who planted the seeds of modern Christianity, which was then expanded and perverted by Luthor, Smith, and the other founders of all the separate sects of Christianity we have today.

God has no religion. His rules and laws and regulations are for anyone and everyone who professes to worship Him. Torah is as valid today as the day He gave it to Moshe (Moses) and it’s laws and regulations are still 100% necessary for all people to follow. Kosher is still required by God, the Sabbath is on the 7th day (Friday night to Saturday night), homosexuality is still forbidden, the penal code in the Torah is still to be observed, and we are all still sinners who have to ask forgiveness of our sins to have them forgiven.

Being forgiven is NOT a given- you have to ask. Yes, the sacrificial system is no longer being practiced, but not because Yeshua did away with it: it is not done because the sacrifices had to be made at the Temple in Jerusalem, and that was destroyed. We don’t sacrifice because we can’t do it in accordance with how God said it should be done. There are 5 different types of sacrifice, and only one of those is the sin sacrifice that was the one made by Yeshua. His sacrificial death will cleanse us of our sins when we ask for forgiveness in His name.  Just because Yeshua died so we can have forgiveness doesn’t mean it is automatic. You can’t go out and live like you want to, sinning left and right, and think that you are right with God because “Jesus died for you.”

What Jesus/Yeshua taught was that God sees our heart and knows our motivation (which is what the prophets had been saying for centuries) and therefore the spirit of the law has to be observed as well as the letter of the law. Maybe that’s why before Yeshua the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) would fall on people, but always be lifted up again? It didn’t stay and indwell because the teaching that Yeshua gave hadn’t been taught yet. Once Yeshua told us, and showed us, how to be living temples of God’s spirit; after His resurrection when we could accept the grace of God through that sacrificial death; after demonstrating our faithfulness by asking for forgiveness in Yeshua’s name; and after we truly do T’Shuvah (turn from sin in our hearts), only then are we able to accept and have the Ruach HaKodesh indwell. It falls on us, and stays with us, for the rest of our life- so long as we hold on to it.

Salvation is a free gift from God, and it is irrevocable, which means God will not take it back. But… we can throw it away. The Spirit will stay with us only as long as we ask it to remain.

God did not create Christianity- people did. God gave His rules and commandments to us all in the Torah. The Jewish people were chosen to be custodians of the Torah, teachers of the Torah, and a nation of priests to the world so that all who have sinned can be saved. Where we can’t do what we should according to Torah, we are saved by Yeshua’s sacrifice. Yeshua’s sacrifice doesn’t overrule Torah- it supplements it!

You can verify what I am saying through research, but the best way (especially if you are Jewish and don’t believe in Yeshua at all) is to simply read the Gospels. Read Matthew for a start, and only Matthew- that is most “Jewish” of the Gospels. Read it and realize that Yeshua taught from the Torah only- there is nothing “new” in the New Covenant writings. Nothing new, nothing different from traditional Judaism (which has also been perverted over the millennia by people) and nothing at all against the Torah.

If you are a faithful Christian, a good Catholic, an observant Episcopalian, a pure Protestant- whichever Christian religion you practice, if you are being taught that Jesus is the creator of Christianity and that the Torah is just for the Jews, then you are being led down a path that doesn’t lead to salvation. At least, not the one Jesus taught.

Wake up! Arise, for your light has come! (Isaiah 60:1)  Isaiah knew what he was talking about- do you?

You need to read and know the Old Covenant before you can even start to understand the New Covenant. Here is a hard truth to accept: if your religious leaders don’t acknowledge the validity of the Torah, then they are not teaching what Yeshua taught: they are teaching what people created out of their own desires and needs.

God has told us what He wants from us- you can find it in Micah 6:8.

Parashah Lech Lecha (Go Forth) Genesis 12-17

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This parashah starts with these words:

The Lord said to Abram, Go forth from your native land and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 I will make of you a great nation, And I will bless you; I will make your name great, And you shall be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you And curse him that curses you; And all the families of the earth Shall bless themselves by you.”

What should we do when we receive a calling from God?  The answer is: do what you are told to do.

Abram (he isn’t Abraham yet: Abram means “Noble Father” but it isn’t until he is to fulfill his side of the covenant through circumcision that God says his name is to be Abraham, meaning Father of Nations) is to leave all that he has known, his family, his friends, everything that is of the Chaldees where he has lived. This is so that he will not be contaminated by their pagan worship, and the household he is to train up to be God fearing is also not to be influenced or contaminated by the unclean pagan worship and lifestyle.

The calling from God was more than just that God will make Abraham a blessing to the world. There was the need for Abraham to obey the calling so that this promise could be fulfilled. If Abraham had remained in Ur, if he had not gone to the land God called him to go to, then he would not have ever become the blessing that God intended to make of him.

But it’s not useful to be a hermit. It may be true that the only way to be completely free of wrongful influences is to hide away on some deserted island or make a home in the North Atlantic woodlands, which is especially hard in today’s technological world where everyone is only an email or a FaceBook post away. In Abraham’s day all he had to do is walk far enough away from everyone else, but that would have prevented him from fulfilling the rest of his calling.

By becoming a hermit we can stay “pure”, but that purity is useless because it brings no glory to God and doesn’t do God’s work in the world. Yeshua tells us in Matthew 5:15 that no one lights a lamp then puts it under a basket; they light the lamp and place it high up where the light can be seen by all. Abraham’s calling was to be a light to the world, and through him, i.e., through his example of worship, his lifestyle and his actions, the world would be able to see how he is blessed by God. Then they would be influenced by his goodness. As they learned to live as Abraham lived, then they would, as a consequence of following Abraham’s example, also be blessed by God.

We must follow the calling we receive. You may not have heard it yet, or you may have heard it but you’re waiting for the right time. Well, if you are waiting for God to tell you it’s time for you to fulfill your calling, you have already missed it. God is not a god of “Let’s think about this”; God is the god of “Get it done!”, and that means now. When you receive a calling from God He is telling you He wants you do to something. If you stall or wait too long, His plan will go forth, without you. If you do not do as God says to do when He says to do it, you will miss out on what He had in store for you.

God’s plan of salvation is like a large ship going from creation to creation. As the ship travels, with God at the helm, people can get on for free, and they also can get off. That’s called Free Will. And there will  be many doing just that- many getting on, many getting off, and most just waving as it goes by. But the ship will continue to sail, and it will reach it’s destination. If you want to get on, it’s free. You have to work, though- it’s a free entry but it’s not a free ride.

Abraham did as God told him to do, without hesitation. We usually think of Genesis 15:6 when we think of Abraham’s righteousness, but I would venture to say that the true demonstration of Abraham’s’ righteousness and faith is the fact that he didn’t just do as God said to do, he did it then and there. He left his home right away, he went without knowing where he was being led, he circumcised everyone (including himself) the very day he was commanded to do so, and even when he was told to sacrifice Yitzchak, his only son, the son of the promise, he left early the next morning to do so. No hesitation, no questioning, no discussion. God said do, and he did.

I don’t know about you, but I haven’t heard too many callings in my life. I believe writing my book was a calling, but even though I wrote it and have tried to push it out (see the links at the bottom right of this web page), I really think I should have done more long ago, and even though I know I should do more now, I hesitate. I have invested a few grand in this, and need to invest more. I know that God will honor what I do, and if this book is giving God the glory I think it does, He will get it out there.

But I still need to do my part. I had a calling to give a testimony (the link to it is at the bottom of my bio) and I hesitated on that, too. I was a new Believer, but it seems I still have a lot to learn about faithful obedience. We all do, don’t we?

Praise God that He is not just patient, but compassionately understanding. I feel ashamed to confess to you that I have these hesitations, but I am not here to tell you about God because I am an expert at following Him- I am here to show you that even someone as useless as I am can still do God’s work in the world and honor Him. Even though I, myself, am weak. Just as Shaul said of himself in 2 Corinthians 12:9, God’s strength is made manifest in our weakness.

But you don’t have to be weak- you can be stronger than me, stronger even that Shaul. You can obey the calling God has for you ASAP. If you don’t know what that calling is, or He hasn’t revealed what He wants you to do for Him yet, then wait for it. It is coming, and you can prepare for it by studying His word, separating yourself from those influences of the world that would contaminate you, and listening. Remember that God was not in the fire or the shaking mountain or the fierce wind, but He was just a still, quiet voice (1 Kings, 9:12.) To hear the majestic voice of God, we need to listen quietly and faithfully.

Faith isn’t just believing, it is also doing. Abraham showed tremendous faith in doing as he was told to do, and doing it as soon as he heard the command. God grant us all that we may demonstrate that same level of faithfulness.