It’s been nearly three decades since I first chose to accept that Yeshua is the Messiah God promised to send, and was happy to find that I could continue to live a Jewish lifestyle, even though I “believed in Jesus”.
And since then, I have learned a lot, and if I may, I would like to share some of that with you.
Warning: This is one of the longest messages I have given, but please stay around till the end because I really believe this is also one of the most important messages I have shared.
If you prefer to watch a video, click on this link: Watch the video.
Many of the spiritual lessons I have learned have a real-life, physical element of truth that, whether you are a “believer” or not, and even if you are an atheist, these lessons are valuable and can improve your life.
Let’s start with a touchy topic- forgiveness.
I have learned a very important fact, which is that forgiving someone does NOT make them right with God, but it does make YOU right with God.
In my experience, most people think that when they forgive someone for doing something bad to them it lets that person “off the hook”. What they don’t know is what King David did, and said so in Psalm 51, where he said his sin was against God, and God, alone.
Now, if you’re not familiar with which sin that was (Davey committed more than just one sin during his lifetime), it was a triple-play: he committed adultery, he committed murder, and he made his commander-in-chief, Yoav, an accomplice to murder.
You see, any time anyone sins, it is always against God. Yes, that sin is also against a person, but sinning is a rejection of God’s commandments, and (like it or not) God always comes first. So, if you forgive someone (which doesn’t mean you have to trust them), they still have to deal with God.
Here is the other side of that coin- if you do not forgive them, then you will also have to deal with God! Yeshua tells us that if we do not forgive on the earth, we will not be forgiven in heaven (Matthew 6:14-15), so you really must forgive those who sin against you: not for their sake, but for you own.
One other, and maybe the most important thing I learned about forgiveness, is this:
Until you truly forgive someone, the hurt will never go away.
If you have trouble forgiving someone, do what I do when I hit that roadblock: imagine what they will have to suffer if they never repent. If you have any level of compassion, you will feel so bad for them that it will make it easier to forgive them.
And this brings us to another lesson I have learned: how to love people better. By remembering all the ways we have constantly rejected God, especially my own people, the Jews, over the past 5 millennia yet he constantly is not just willing to forgive us, but he desires to forgive us (Ezekiel 18:23), it motivates me to be better, to be more compassionate (and that is not who I was before), and to be more humble.
Another really good lesson I have learned is that being humble is not being weak. In truth, it takes a lot of inner strength to be humble, and without humility you have little chance of every being saved.
Humility allows us to love better, to be more compassionate, and to accept that God is in charge. Being humble makes you a better friend, spouse, parent, and just an all-around better person.
True humility brings us closer to God, and improves our life tremendously.
I know I am much more humble since accepting God’s will over my own because before I knew the Lord as I do now, if someone was hurt of upset by something I did or said, I wouldn’t care. What I would do is to turn it around, and make it seem it was their fault that they felt that way.
Now you have to understand this was wrong because I DID do something wrong, I DID say something inappropriate or cruel, and it was MY fault. But not having humility, I was a coward and tried to avoid my responsibility for having done that.
Now when someone tells me that I did something to hurt them, my immediate response is to apologize. Even if I know that I did nothing wrong, it is more important to me that I deal with their feelings before my own.
Now there are times when someone will over-react and they need to be told that, but I will do it after I apologize. Yes, you may think I am eating crow that I shouldn’t have to eat, but that is what humility is- the strength to put someone else’s feelings ahead of your own.
Here is something else I have learned from knowing the Bible and observing the world:
The faithful are fearless and the faithless are fearful.
Without faith in God, it will never be any better than me against the world. Faith in humans is always going to be disappointing because we are, well…human! But faith in God is what strengthens you to be able to face anything, because even if you are to die, faithful people get to be with God forever, which is much better than anything we can have here on earth.
And, for the record, faithful to God does not mean following any religion, it means doing as God said to do, and that is found only in the Torah.
Something that is important to know is faith resulting from a miracle is having weak faith, at best, and that isn’t going to last because Satan can make miracles happen, as well.
You must choose to believe, and not be influenced by an event in your life because if one miracle turns you to God, another may just as easily turn you to Satan, and you won’t even know.
God will never provide absolute proof that he exists because if his existence can be proven, you don’t really need faith, but faith is the only way we can be saved.
I have also learned that there is a difference between what is important to know and what is just “nice to know” information. The “Acid Test” question I ask myself to determine which is which is this:
How does this affect my salvation?
If it doesn’t directly save me, then it isn’t important to know.
I now also know the answer to those two, age-old questions: “Why are we here?” and “What is life all about?” Would you like to know? Okay, I’ll tell you:
We are here to choose where we will spend eternity.
I’ve learned you can’t tell anyone what to believe, but you can tell them what you believe and why. Before anyone will accept what you believe, they have to first doubt what they believe, and you get them to do that by asking questions they can’t answer, but you can using the Bible to justify what you believe.
Finally, and I think what is probably the most important thing I have learned, is this:
We all have Free Will to choose what we will believe,
and we all will be held accountable for that choice.
So let me leave you with this thought: if you choose to reject the Torah (which, sadly, traditional Christianity teaches you to do) and you come before God at Judgement Day, which we all will have to do, and God asks you why you didn’t obey him you’ll have to say, “But Lord- I did what they told me I should do”.
Well, you know, I can’t speak for the Big Guy but I am pretty sure he will respond with something to the effect of….
“I understand, my child, that you only did what they told you to do,
but it is what I say that counts!“
Thank you for being here and please remember to share these messages with everyone you know, even non-believers, Hey, after all, you never know how fertile the soil is until you plant a seed in it.
That’s it for today, so l’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!