Tag: acceptance

Do We Really Drink His Blood and Eat His Flesh?

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In each of the 4 Gospels, there is a statement that Yeshua makes where he tells his Talmudim (Disciples) that they are to drink the wine of the Kiddush, which is now his blood, the blood of the New Covenant (Jeremiah 31:31), and they should eat the bread (actually, it was matzo) which is his flesh and his body.

Sounds really pagan and disgusting, doesn’t it? Nothing at all that any self-respecting, God-fearing Jew would ever do.

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Of course, we all know he was speaking metaphorically. Or do we?

The Roman Catholic Church believes in Transubstantiation, which is the transformation of the bread and wine into the actual flesh and blood of Yeshua. Yuck!! They explain this in the same way they explain most of the doctrine they have created: it is what it is and we can’t understand how it is that way. In other words, I ain’t got no idea where this came from but I was taught this is how it is, so don’t ask questions and just believe what you are told to believe.  Typical RCC stuff.

(Sorry, Pope your Grace, but Yeshua would never tell anyone to actually eat flesh or drink blood, which is a sin.)

Let’s get back on topic…Yeshua says this in Matthew 26:28, Luke 22:20, Mark 14:24, and John 6:55. It is also repeated by Shaul (Paul) in 1 Corinthians and elsewhere in other Epistles of the New Covenant.

To understand why Yeshua said this, which was meant to be metaphorical, we need to go back to the Tanakh, then to John’s Gospel.

Let’s start at Leviticus 17:11, which says this:

For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life.

Next, let’s go to Deuteronomy 8:3 (Moses is talking to the Israelites just before they enter the land of Canaan):

He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.

And the last thing we need to read is John 1:14:

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.

When we take these three verses and put them in their proper perspective, Yeshua’s blood is the life we gain by reason of the atonement he performed for us on the execution stake, and his body is the word of God which we must take “inside” ourselves, meaning to have it be a part of us, indwelling and written on our hearts.

Yeshua was talking about the new covenant as God promised it should be, from way back when Jeremiah first told us about it.  Yeshua was speaking to Jewish men using terms that they could understand because they knew what the blood and the body represented. The ones we read about in John 6:53-59 who thought he was speaking literally did not have the spiritual sekhel to know what Yeshua meant.

Many acceptance ceremonies within societies include toasting and sharing food; maybe they are based on the Kiddush? We can cite anything from a wedding to a Bar Mitzvah, to a military Hail and Farewell at the Officer’s Club (this is when new officers coming into the company and officers being transferred out get together for drinks and dinner.)  The ceremony where Yeshua shared drink and food was the Passover Seder, so it was very appropriate at that time for him to make this “toast”, which would be the way for all people to enter into communion with him and the Lord throughout all eternity.

Whenever we, those who have accepted Yeshua as the Messiah, perform the Kiddush prayer, we do it in memory of him. Whereas we are literally eating bread and drinking wine, we are metaphorically taking into ourselves the word of God and the life that it gives us.

To answer the question posed in today’s message title, what Yeshua meant when he said to drink his blood and eat his flesh is that when we accept him as the Messiah we will have eternal life (yeah, there is a little more to it than just that, but that is for a different message.)

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Until next time, L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

Parashah Metzora (Leper) Leviticus 14 and 15

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Continuing the laws of cleanliness, Chapter 14 deals with leprosy of the body and any infectious contamination that spreads to the plastering on the walls of the house.  Chapter 15 deals with bodily secretions, such as when a woman has a discharge during her menstrual cycle or a man with a seminal secretion.

You would think, this being the Bible and all, you wouldn’t find mention of such graphic and disgusting things. Yet, having read through the Bible many times, there isn’t a part of the body, and I mean ANY part of the body, that isn’t mentioned or referred to very specifically in the Bible, somewhere.

So, you have a skin disease, your house has mold or something similar, you are bleeding or exuding some liquid from your body- you are unclean. Whether it is contagious or not, you are unclean. Everything you touch becomes unclean, and anyone who touches what you touched or is touched by you becomes unclean. The only difference is that the clean who touched the unclean must wash themselves and their clothes, and after doing so at evening (meaning the start of the next day) they are clean. When you become unclean by association you wash and for the rest of that day you are unclean, but then you are clean (mostly meaning ceremonial, or having to do with entering the Sanctuary area) the next day. If you are the source of the uncleanliness, you are always unclean until, according to the rules stipulated in these chapters, the Cohen declares you no longer unclean, you make the appropriate sacrifice, and then you are accepted back into the camp and the Sanctuary.

The simple truth is that these laws deal with outward evidence of being physically unclean- we are, all of us, unclean in our hearts. We are born with the Yetzer Hara, the Evil Inclination, and we have to overcome this. As Yeshua said, with man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible; hence, we have a Messiah to be the ultimate soap, if you will, to cleanse us spiritually so that we can come before God, tabernacle notwithstanding, and be clean before Him.

The warning in today’s Parashah is about not dying in one’s uncleanness by entering the Sanctuary when unclean. The intimation is that if you enter the Sanctuary unclean, you will be killed, and thus not just die, but die unclean. Not what you want, really. When we accept Yeshua as Messiah and ask forgiveness of our sins in His name, it is His righteousness that cleanses us so we can come before God clean. The cleanliness of our bodies is still important: when they say cleanliness is close to godliness, these chapters about clean and unclean should dispel any doubts about the accuracy and biblical confirmation of that old saw. But, yet, more than physically, or even ceremonially, clean, we need to be spiritually clean. We need to be more than clean outside, we need to be clean inside. Didn’t Yeshua tell us that it isn’t what goes into us that makes us unclean, but what comes out of our hearts?  Read Matthew 15:11 and Mark 7:15 to see what He said.

The Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) is what cleans us, inside and spiritually, and to receive it we have to ask. But we won’t want to ask until we are ready to be clean, until we want to wash our hearts and minds of the dirt that we are born into because of this cursed world we exist in. We have to do T’shuvah before we can really clean up our act (pun intended) and want to ask for the Ruach.

No one would go to the Cohen to get diagnosed until they saw the evidence of their disease, and wanted to be clean. We need to see the evidence of our disease, our sinful nature and accept what we do as truly being wrong; we need to stop rationalizing what we do as acceptable and start realizing what we do as wrong. That’s the first step. Next we have to truly want to stop doing wrong, that’s called T’shuvah, or turning from sin. Now we can come to the Cohen, either a religious leader as a Rabbi or Minister or Pastor or Priest, and ask them for help.

In truth, even a good friend can do the same- you need to find a spiritually mature person who can help you to be cleansed and then you clean yourself with water; not water from a sink but the everlasting water that we only get from Yeshua ha Maschiach.

The best thing is that once cleansed by Yeshua’s blood, you don’t have to wait until evening to be clean.

This is a simple lesson- to be clean forever the steps are:

  1. Confess that you are dirty
  2. Do T’shuvah
  3. Accept Yeshua as your Messiah and ask for His intercession before God
  4. Pray to God for forgiveness, calling on the name of Yeshua (not praying to Yeshua, but praying to God and asking that God accept you as one of the sheep that Yeshua owns)
  5. Ask for the gift of the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) and accept it
  6. Be prepared to fight against your nature for the rest of your life.

And remember: you can be strengthened in that fight knowing you now have the hope of eternal joy and peace, which you can also find here on Earth, through the Ruach HaKodesh.

Why They Just Refuse to Believe

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I’m no psychiatrist (although my going to one has been suggested) but I think I know, from personal experience, why so many people just refuse to accept the truth about salvation.

I think it’s from fear of loss. And what they fear losing is their freedom to sin.

No one will say that they want to sin. Well, maybe there are some who will admit it, but most people won’t say they want to sin, and being “saved” means they can’t, so they would rather reject God.

But I think that’s the real reason why they reject God.

I know when I was rejecting (and ridiculing) God and all who accepted Him and the truth that Yeshua is the Messiah He promised, I was afraid of having to become “holy”, meaning that I couldn’t joke around, drink, have sex without marriage, make dirty jokes, curse a blue streak when angry, etc. And yet, when I thought about it, I realized that these things aren’t the best parts of my humanity, but I still didn’t want to be ‘transformed’ into the image of Messiah.

Also, as a Jew, I was told that this Jesus guy was a Jew who started a new religion, and history can support the teaching I received, which was that Christianity hates Jews. I  will talk about why Jews reject Jesus in my Monday, 8/3 blog.

Yet, deep down, I did want to change. I didn’t like the cynical comments I made all the time, I didn’t like it when I hurt people (although I blamed them for being hurt) and I didn’t like embarrassing myself. I didn’t like some things about me and I did like other things about me, but being a “saved again Believer” seemed to require giving up everything.

Man, oh Manischevitz, am I glad I was wrong! I finally got sick and tired of not making a choice and when I did I found out that what I really wanted was to have God’s spirit in me to help me get rid of the dreck and improve what was left. I didn’t become a different me, just a better me. There is still plenty of “wrong” stuff to work on so that I am still the “me” I was before, but just with a lot less of the stuff I didn’t want.

I think most people don’t want to review their thoughts and beliefs about God and Messiah because they are comfortable where they are, even though they have a first class seat to Hell. They are enjoying the ride without any thoughts about the destination. That’s a shame, and it’s what the enemy can use to win souls to him, even when those souls have no idea what is happening.

What really frustrates me is when you meet that person who was raised a Gentile and has heard about Jesus all their life, and is comfortable with what their religious leader told them. Most are told either you are going to hell if you are a bad person and heaven if you are good, or that Jesus died for your sins so you are OK, don’t worry about that “Jewish” stuff in the Old Covenant and just be a good person. It’s all OK.

That teaching is a one-way ticket to the hottest spot in creation, and I’m not talking about a night club.

Do you know someone who says they believe in God, pretty much, and they know about Jesus (Yeshua is His real name, and the only name that has a meaning to it) but they don’t want to talk about the bible or God? They just want to go to church on Easter and Christmas and be left alone. If so, try to reach them by reassuring them that whatever changes they may have to make to live a more Godly life will be welcomed changes. Tell them that you changed and you now can look back and realize how much more blessed your life has been, how much happier you are and more calm and peaceful, even when you are in the midst of terrible times. Let them know that they will have to change some of their behavior, take time and make the effort to read the bible and get to know God’s word (which is the best and fastest way to get to know Him) but that with the Ruach HaKodesh helping and guiding them, this work will feel more like enjoyment. Basically, they can still have a really fun ride while also going to the right destination.

I know people, close to me, whom I love, who refuse to accept that they need to make a decision on their own and to face up to accept or reject. God is binomial- either you are with Him or you are against Him; there is no other choice. And yet, these people just want to stay where they are, lean on the broken stick that their religion taught them about salvation (just be a good person) and refuse, adamantly, to save themselves. It really hurts to watch people run to destruction.

If you are reading this and seeing yourself, please don’t be afraid of the change. You will be more peaceful and able to find that “calm in the midst of the storm” as you go through life when God is your pilot. Life is a storm, we get tossed about like leaves in a tornado sometimes, and there are things we can’t control. But God is in control of everything, and when you choose to be on His side, He will keep you safe. The changes you make will be at your speed because God won’t put on you more than you can take (Yeshua told us His yoke is easy and His burden is light) but you do have to work at it. You will need to live more and more in accordance with the Torah, which is God’s commandments to everyone who worships Him (God has no religion, remember?), but it isn’t hard.

Face up to the reality that you are on a trip to eternity, like it or not. You can choose what you do while traveling, and you can choose who you want to travel with, but the destination is coming and you never know when you will reach it. It may be years from now, it may be today. But you will reach it, it is going to come, and it will be where you remain for all eternity.

The trip is short, as James says, it is a mist that is here and then gone; think about how long it takes for something you really, really want to arrive, and when you look back how quickly the time seems to have passed. Stop thinking you have all the time in the universe, because you don’t. Your destination will be here before you know it, and when you have to get off the ride you will not have any choice.

Enjoy the ride, sure, but make sure that you are going to the right place first.

Sin is Sin

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I read an article this morning about a Lesbian Minister who has performed over 700 same sex marriages in the DC area. She said that many of the couples have already been together for decades, and that the “paper” makes them feel that they are finally “legal.” She said it was uplifting, that the services are full of love, and that she feels one of the most important things to do to maintain a long relationship is to constantly say to each other, “I love you” and to always ask forgiveness.

It all sounds nice, and despite the fact that I cannot agree with the lifestyle choice, I am impressed that these relationships, of themselves, have shown to be ones of duration. Let’s face it- heterosexual marriage today is no better than a crap-shoot: your chances are better to be divorced than to be together. If same sex relationships are more long-lasting, that’s something no one can argue is a bad thing.

The downside is that it is not right in God’s eyes. The idea of a gay minister is,to me, an oxymoron, but it is a reality that we all have to face in todays world. And, as I have said before, although homosexuality gets a lot of attention, it is just one of the many sins we all commit. I may not be homosexual, but I do many other things that are sinful: in my thoughts, my words against others, and in how I act, as well. I try to forgive but I am still angry about things done against me, unfairly, that happened many years ago. Not “red-in-the-face-yelling” angry, just not feeling the sense of closure that comes when you know the one who screwed you got their comeuppance. Not revenge, so much, as knowing that God has judged in my favor. You see- there’s a sin, right there: I want God to judge them and find them guilty of the sin they committed against me, but I should be asking Him to forgive them that sin for what they really need is His love and salvation. No one has ever come close to really doing anything so terrible to me that they should burn forever in hell. I want revenge, yes- there! I’ve admitted it. And that, in God’s eyes, is not any different than if I was homosexual- sin is sin.

Why I title this the way I do is because in the midst of the lasting and loving relationship this Minister described has been her experience to witness, these people are still living in sin. Maybe they have the approval of human law, but it is not approved under God’s law.

Do you know about LGBT churches? Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender churches, Christian and Jewish, that allow and encourage openly gay (as if that would make a difference to God, who sees everything and who knows the heart) members and clergy.  And this isn’t new. Even in the days of the Temple there were the cult prostitutes, and all the way back to Lot we know of the sexual misdeeds of the men of Sodom and Gomorrah. Homosexuality has probably been around ever since we had more than two of any particular gender.

Does that make it right? No. Does that make it normal? No, and Yes: no, in that God says it isn’t the way we should be, and yes, if we describe “normal” as something that one will usually find existing within a population. And there can be no argument that homosexuality has existed in human populations for thousands and thousands of years.

So…what do we do, those of us who are told we should hate the sin but love the sinner? I can’t speak for you, but I have family members who are actively and openly gay, and I love them. I love being with them, I see their long-term relationship partners as much a part of my family as they do, and I welcome them into my house and my heart.

I just don’t agree with their sexual orientation. That’s no different than if they were liars, or kleptomaniacs, or had adulterous relationships. Actually, I would prefer homosexual to the other sins, if I had to make a choice. And since I also am a sinner, if I am asked about my position, I state it but I don’t “judge” them as being any more sinful than I am.

What “gets me” is when the gay community says that they have a right to make their own choice and the rest of us shouldn’t treat them any differently, then turn around and in the same breath demand that we agree with their stand that it is not a sin to be homosexual. Of course it’s a sin- God spells it out clearly, so just admit it. You want to live that way, fine, I don’t- I have as much right to disagree with what you do as you have to do it! So stop being so hypocritical and just admit that you do what you do because you choose to do it- don’t blame genetics, your mothers hormones, or society.  There are more than enough cases of homosexuals returning to a heterosexual lifestyle as there are the other way around to make an argument that it is a choice. Just live your life and let me live mine; make your choices and let me make mine. Stop saying the Bible is wrong, God is wrong, and I am wrong just because you don’t like the consequences of your chosen lifestyle.

Many of those who have chosen to be Believers and live in accordance with the Word of God have suffered bigotry, torture and death, just as many Gay people have.  The truth is that what is really normal in the world is godlessness. The majority of people in the world do not worship the one, true God as He says He should be worshipped. Even within the religions that profess to be God-fearing, they make up their own rules and traditions that overrule God’s word- the same thing Yeshua resisted and told us was wrong when He was walking the Earth.

That’s what my ministry is all about: God has no religion.

Gay, liar, murderer, gossiper, foul-mouthed and nasty, bigoted, hateful, self-serving: all are the same in God’s eyes, all are sinful. And God doesn’t grade on a curve- sin is sin, and any sin separates us from God. It is only through Yeshua that we can have any hope of being with God.

Here’s the final statement on this for today: if you ask me do I think that Gay people can get into heaven, based on all I have said so far, I would have to say….yes. If they accept Yeshua as their Messiah and try to live as He did, if they do T’Shuvah and turn from their sin, then yes- I believe they can enter heaven because sin is sin- I sin, you sin, everyone sins. Those of us who have asked for God’s forgiveness in the name of Messiah Yeshua and done T’Shuvah, still sin. If I am right that homosexuality is a sin, and that every sin is the same to God, then if you are heterosexual and eat pork, you have the same chance of getting into heaven as the gay, kosher person. And remember this: Yeshua told us there is no marriage in heaven, there won’t be sexual relationships, so being gay or heterosexual is only an Earthly condition. It won’t matter who you like to kiss after you are dead.

One last thing: the Minister got it backwards when she said that couples should always ask for forgiveness. People in love should always forgive each other, whether or not they are asked. God commands that we forgive, not that we ask for it. The hurt doesn’t go away when someone asks us to forgive them, it goes away when we DO forgive them, so forgive each other.

They say, “To err is human; to forgive, Divine.” You wanna know something? they’re right!

Believing Isn’t Accepting

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Do you recall where, in the Bible, we are told that just believing in Yeshua as the Messiah and Son of God isn’t enough? It is followed by the fact that even the demons believe He is the Son of God (I’ll give you a hint- look for it in the Book of Yakov.)

When I talk to people about salvation, even though I call myself a “Believer”, what I really should start to do is call myself an “Acceptor” because I don’t just believe that God exists, and I just don’t believe that Yeshua (Jesus) is the Messiah God promised us, but I accept this. That means I adopt it, I embrace it, I am committed to living my life differently because of it.

When I accepted that Yeshua is the Messiah, I realized that my life would have to change. When you stop denying your car needs to go to the shop, when you know that you’re overweight and a glucose count of 3,000 is something you cannot live with…whenever you have a “truth” you don’t want to acknowledge, but have to, that is what it is like when you accept the truth (if you will) about Yeshua.

It’s something that, once accepted, can no longer be ignored. You have to make a choice- be a slave to sin or a slave to God.

I think that’s why so many people will believe, but not accept. They live in a sort of partial acceptance and partial denial: they believe Yeshua is the Messiah and Son of God, and that God is real, but they deny to themselves that there are consequences for ignoring God’s rules and laws. They go with, “I believe in Jesus- He died for my sins. And besides that, I’m a good person; I don’t commit murder and I don’t steal, so I will go to heaven.”

WRONG!!! No one is good, everyone sins, and there are 613 commandments in the Old Covenant: take away the 1/3 (thereabouts) of them that deal with the sacrificial system and you still have a lot more commandments, rules and regulations than just not murdering or lying. According to God, and to Yeshua, and to Shaul (St. Paul), if you have violated so much as one stroke of the pen of the Torah you have violated the entire Torah.

God is bi-nomial: it is or it isn’t, right or wrong, black or white, day or night…there is no “middle ground” with God. If there was, we probably wouldn’t need Yeshua.

The truth is we are all sinners, inside and out, and without Yeshua/ Jesus/ the Messiah we wouldn’t have a chance of surviving the second death. That is what people hear, many believe it but so many still don’t accept it as really real.

When you feel a cold coming on, don’t you tell yourself it’s just a sore throat from talking and that you will feel better tomorrow?  We know it’s a cold, but we tell ourselves it isn’t. And we keep saying that until we are sick as a dog and now have to face the truth. And by the time we accept the truth, it is too late to avoid the consequences.  When I am coughing, nose running and throat sore for two days, it is too late to take the Cold Eeze to avoid the sickness. Now I will have to suffer through instead of either having it much easier or maybe having been able to avoid it, altogether.

If you believe Yeshua is the Son of God and the Messiah God promised, well, big deal. That won’t do it. You need to accept His Messiahship, you need to change how you see sin, you need to do T’Shuvah (turning from sin) and you need to do it now. Who knows when it will be too late?

I used to sell Revocable Living Trusts, which protect an estate from most of the expenses of Probate, and when people would tell me they believe it is a good idea, but they aren’t ready to accept it (i.e., commit to getting it done) just yet, I would say, “That’s right- why spend the money until you absolutely need to? So, since this takes about 3 months to complete (as I pull out my calendar) tell me when you are going to die and I will make an appointment three months before then.”

Unless you know, absolutely, when you are going to die, you need to accept Yeshua now! Don’t just “believe”- that’s not enough. You need to accept, to commit, to do T’Shuvah.

When I was an active duty Marine, I learned that “close” only counts in two games: horseshoes and handgrenades. Believing is close, but won’t get you there. Only accepting will save you.