Tag: Bible

Here we go, again

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It’s 2017, and most of the world is starting a new year. Resolutions to make (then break), hope for a better future (while reviewing the past) and a sense of foreboding as we begin a new journey into an unknown future.

Except for those who believe in God. We trust Him to protect us and look forward to His return. For us, all we should consider with regards to the new year is that we are that much closer to seeing God’s kingdom on Earth become a reality. We should not be afraid of the future, and should not dwell on the past.

Yeshua said that anyone who puts his hand to the plow and looks behind them is not fit for the Kingdom of God (Luke 9:62), so let’s let the old year be a memory and not a memorial, and look to the future with a trusting faithfulness that God is in charge, so no matter what comes our way we can handle it.

And what we can’t handle, God can.

With the passing of the “holiday season” we also see (hopefully) the passing of the “holiday blues”, the condition that causes many people to feel saddened and depressed during the holidays. With all the celebratory advertising- happy families loving and caring for each other, kids getting more presents than anyone should have, husbands buying cars for their wives (really? What average American does that?) and everyone being happy, in love, and sharing wonderful things with each other- it’s no wonder anyone who is single without a special someone, or someone far away from family, or families that are normal (meaning dysfunctional) become depressed seeing all that they want everywhere else but in their life.

These are the people who need God the most. We are supposed to be a light in the darkness, which is a very hard thing to be because, in truth, we all need to strengthen our faithfulness. We all need to work hard to overcome the sadness all around us. It is like working at the fish market: even if you aren’t handling the fish, just being around them all day makes you stink like fish when you get home.

God gave us the Torah to sanctify us, to make us holy (meaning separated from the world), yet Yeshua (Jesus) tells us we are to go out into the world to make Disciples.  How do we work in the fish market and not come home smelling like fish?

The answer is that we wash ourselves every day with the cleansing of the Ruach HaKodesh, the Holy Spirit. Yeshua’s blood cleansed us of our sins, and the Holy Spirit can cleanse us of the stench of the cursed and fallen world whenever we read His word, whenever we are blessed for obeying a commandment, and whenever we commune with God and others who are like-Believers.

If you haven’t yet come home stinking of fish, let this year be the one where you do. If you haven’t yet done so, it’s time to go to the fish market and become fishers of men, find the darkness and bring the light of Messiah into it, and when you get home, read the Word, pray, join with others in a spiritual mikvah that will cleanse the stench of the world off of you make you smell like baby oil.

Or, better yet, you will smell like anointing oil.

I pray that you all have a better year in 2017 than you did in 2016, and that you look forward to seeing what God has planned for you. Forget about who’s the President, forget about your job issues, forget about the economy, don’t give the global warming issue another thought- just go forth trusting in God and knowing that all His plans for you are for your good. Look for the blessing in the Tsouris, find the peace the Ruach gives in the midst of suffering, and be comforted by the knowledge that this will all be forgotten and totally unimportant when you are basking in the light of God’s presence, for all eternity.

Now that’s what I call a good way to start the year.

Reaching a goal is always something to be thankful for

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It took me 50 years but I finally made it- today is the day!

Actually, today is the last day- of working!

Starting tomorrow (although it is technically a “Floater Day” for me) I will be among the ranks of those that receive a payment from the United States government for doing little more than breathing.

I have changed careers often during my lifetime, and now that I change career paths one last time, from an IT career to a Nothing career, I am thankful to God for my having made it to here. He protected my life all these years, He kept me working, He made sure that our house is paid for (a super-blessing!) and He has blessed me with a wonderful wife who, despite the stereotypical joke about ending up having to kill me because I am going to be around her all day, I really, REALLY look forward to spending all my time with her because, when all is said and done, we honestly like being with each other.

And it is ALL because God has blessed us, so much more than I could even start to thank Him for. If I never received another blessing for the rest of my life, and lived as old as Methuselah did, I would still have received more blessings than I could ever count.

What are you looking forward to? What plans, what designs for your life do you have that you have’t yet reached? Whatever they are, God is there to help you get to them.

And if you are already there, be thankful to God for making it to the goal. If you are still working towards a goal, keep at it faithfully expecting and asking God to work with you. We are told in Philippians 3:14, and in 1 Corinthians 8, and even as far back in the Bible as Proverbs 4:25 (which is most likely where Shaul/Paul first learned this to repeat in his epistles to the new Believers) we should always keep our eyes on the prize and strive forward to reach the goal. That goal is, of course, living as God wants us to live to attain (and maintain) salvation. That’s an even better goal than retirement.

So be thankful. Be thankful for when things happen as you expect, and be thankful for when things blow-up in your face, because it is very likely that things are going “south” because you are getting off the path you need to be on. Always look for the blessing in the Tsouris, because all God wants to do is bless us, and when we feel we are under a curse it is almost always because we are the ones walking out from under God’s covering. When we walk with Him, He protects us from the world. Everyone eventually strays out from under God’s covering, and when we do we have problems; when we recognize that as the reason for the problems, then we can get back in line with God, and receive blessings. Do you see how that works? When bad things are happening, don’t blame Satan, and don’t blame God, just look at it positively and realize that somewhere you must have taken a wrong step. That’s all it is, and when you review your steps, you will see where you need to change course to get back on the path of righteousness again.

Look- sometimes it is Satan attacking you, sometimes it is God testing (and refining) you, but it is always something you can overcome and see as a blessing to strengthen you during your walk with God.

I am planning for many things during retirement, and I am still trusting in God to help me get those things done. I pray that He will continue to bless us both (Donna and I) with health and strength to do the things we want to do together, for a long, long time. I pray he keeps us financially stable, and that we grow even more faithful to Him.

I know what I plan to do, I have no idea what I will end up doing (that’s life, right?) but I will continue to work towards what I want to do, make the best of what I am doing, and always be watchful for missteps that take me off the path God wants me to be on.

It’s really pretty simple to stay in God’s will, when you think of it this way: when things are going well, you are doing right, and when things go wrong, retrace your steps.

It’s like spitting on a boat: if you’re facing to the stern, you stay dry, and if you spit towards the bow,  well … you will immediately know that you need to turn from your current direction.

 

Too afraid to preach what we need to hear?

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How many of you go to your place of worship and get told, over and over and over, how much God loves you? Just the way you are? And that Jesus loves you, and died for you so that you can be with Him and the Father in heaven, forever? And that your sins are forgiven the moment you call on the Name of the Lord? Forever and ever. All you need to do is call on His name and you are saved! Hallelujah!!

That’s all true, of course; God does love you, and Yeshua died for you so that you have a chance to be with Him.

But not in heaven- that is not where the bible says we will be.

And when you call on the Name of the Lord for salvation, it only works if you really mean it, and that requires you to change your ways for the rest of your life. And if you think that is hard to do, you’re right!

And when you go to a place to worship, you must tithe to that place. And not just the loose change you happen to have, but 10%! Too often people argue: 10% of gross? 10% of net? of expendable? Why not just give what you want to give, no matter what percent it represents?  That’s up to you, but you must tithe, and that tithe should be, at the very least, a significant amount of your income.

And you need to participate. You need to help clean up after an Oneg Shabbat (snacks after the services- it means ‘Joy of Sabbath’), or clean up the property, or help vacuum the sanctuary: whatever it is, you need to participate in congregational activities.

These are things that are biblically required, but how often does a Minister, Priest or Rabbi talk about tithing? Or tell you that calling on God’s name is only the start, because you have to work at it. Constantly. And how often does someone tell their congregation they need to get more people to come because we need more people to do the work?

Yes, we hear leaders pray for Yeshua (Jesus) to send more harvesters to the field, and we pray for God’s divine guidance and help to fulfill our mission, but that’s not enough. There is nothing in the bible that says we should sit around and pray, and not do anything. All the people in the bible God called, He called to DO something.

God didn’t tell Abraham to stay in Ur; God didn’t tell Jacob to stay with Laban; God didn’t tell Moses to hang around Mt. Sinai; God didn’t tell the Prophets to stay at home and pray; God didn’t tell Yeshua to stay in Bethlehem; Yeshua didn’t tell Shaul to stay at home, and God will never tell you to sit around, pray for something and wait for Him to make it happen for you. God wants you to look to Him for guidance, for help, for strength and for leadership, but He expects that you will do something with it when He gives it to you!

(Read the parable of the Talents- Matthew 25:14)

I am blessed and honored to give the message about once a month, and we usually follow the parashot in the Torah, but this year I think I need to expand that to tell people they need to get off their tuchas and do something. We need to stop going to church or synagogue on Sabbath Day and pray, sing, and kibbutz, then forget about it all until next weekend. We need to be challenging ourselves to do more during the week, as well. Bring God into conversation, ask people you know to visit with you at the next service, ask your religious leader what you can do to help him or her to accomplish the mission of your place of worship. Volunteer somewhere that does God’s work, with humans or with animals- it doesn’t matter. God likes animals, too.

And if you are a leader in your religious community, a Pastor, a Rabbi, a Council member, an Elder…whatever you are, if you are in ministry leadership, don’t be afraid to tell your congregation what they need to know. If you don’t feel comfortable talking about tithing because it is, after all, your salary, well…get over it!  God commands people to tithe, and if you don’t keep on them about it, then you aren’t spreading God’s word, and (worse than that) your fear or discomfort may be causing some to stumble into sin.

If you don’t like to talk about the hard work and suffering it takes to remain a faithful servant of God, and all you want to do is tell people the “Happy-Happy” stuff because then they tell you how much they liked the sermon, and you get more people coming in to hear about how they are OK just as they are, then you are failing to tell the truth. You are recruiting people for battle without showing them how to defend themselves or even giving them any battle armor.

If you are in leadership you need to lead. You cannot be afraid to tell the truth about salvation, that truth being that it is hard: Yeshua said we need to leave everything behind, which includes our comfort zone, and carry our own execution stake to follow Him. People need to be prepared for the fact that they will be ridiculed, excluded from friends, (maybe even) excluded from family, talked about as prudish and “holier-than-thou” by other people. They need to know they will be required to give their time and money to the place where they worship, and expected to participate in activities there.

If someone is unevenly yoked, meaning that their spouse doesn’t believe the same way they do, or maybe is just a member of a different place of worship, they need to be told that there will have to be compromise- but never compromise to the point where you do not tithe or participate. Two people who love the Lord and believe in Yeshua as their Messiah can still be unevenly yoked. Dealing with that situation ain’t gonna be easy, take it from me, but if you also show your spouse the the love, patience and understanding that God shows to you, you will make it that much easier to deal with.

Salvation is easy to get, and hard to keep. If we don’t let people know that, up front, then the good seed will not be able to take root. Living for God is living against the world, and there’s a lot more world out there than there is you, or me. But we have God on our side, so the bottom line is that, as Shaul (Paul) says in 2 Corinthians 4:8-9:

We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair;  persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.

And in Romans 8:31, Shaul also gives this word of encouragement regarding our struggle against the world:

If God is for us, who can be against us? 

So be prepared to prepare yourself, and your congregation, for what is to come. Yes, preach about God’s love and forgiveness- please don’t ever let up on that, for it is an encouraging and edifying word. But also let people know what they will be up against, and what they need to do to maintain a proper attitude of faithfulness- not just in their spirit, but from their pocket and from their sweat.

It is because God’s love for you and me is so great that it resulted in God sending His only son to die, which required Yeshua to give up His divinity in order to take on flesh, so that He could die. We often hear that God is all about love, but God isn’t all about love; He is also about sacrifice, hard work, justice, diligence, and perseverance. Don’t ever forget that.

Look at all He did for you, all He gave up, forever: is what He asks back from us so much?

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.

Parashah V’yishlach (and he sent) Genesis 32:4 – 36

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There’s so much in here: Jacob becomes Israel; Jacob and Esau are reunited; Rachel gives birth to Benjamin and dies; Dinah (Jacob’s daughter) is raped and after forcing the entire town to have every man circumcised, Simeon and Levi slaughter them all as they are recovering and weakened, forcing Jacob to leave Shechem; we learn that the wives and children of Jacob have foreign gods with them (Genesis 35:2-4) which they have to remove from among them, indicating they were still influenced by the religion of Laban (remember that Rachel stole the family gods when they fled); Isaac dies; we are given the generations of Esau and the kings that ruled his land.

So, nu? Where to start? And, once I have started, how do I end?

I feel led to talk about what Jacob wrestling with the angel might mean to us, and I will be so bold as to talk about what it means to me and let you consider if you agree or not. That’s just one of the many wonderful things about the word of God- it can mean two totally different things to two totally different people, and both can be correct.

Jacob had striven against men and he did pretty well: he managed to buy the rights to the firstborn, he succeeded in fooling Isaac to give him the blessing that was associated (and rightfully belonged) to the one who had the rights of the firstborn,  and he outsmarted Laban more than once. All of these challenges to Jacob during his life he was able to overcome. Now, as he is about to face a life-threatening challenge, i.e. Esau with 400 men, he calls to God for protection and God sends to him an angel to prevent him from crossing the Jabbok river (Genesis 31-32).

Jacob wrestled with the angel and overcame him, but at the cost of a painful injury to his thigh, which he never recovered from, causing him to limp for the rest of his life.  So, although Jacob won the match, he sustained a life-changing injury which weakened him.

I think of Shaul (Paul) asking God to remove the thorn in his side (2 Corinthians 12:7), which Shaul tells us was there to prevent him from becoming too conceited. Jacob has prevailed against both man and God, so if anyone had a right to be proud, it was Jacob. Yet, here he is- the angel is back in heaven, none the less for wear,  and Jacob will limp for the rest of his life. He may have won that match, but it cost him something, or….maybe the limp was a blessing in disguise? Maybe this limp represents his ego, his self-importance, which God is using as a thorn in Jacob’s side, a reminder that no matter how successful Jacob (now called Israel- another reminder) may be, he is still dependent upon God and it is God who is behind his success.

I know that I need constant reminding that whatever I do that is worthy of praise, it is more the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) which leads me to do good that deserves the glory than anything I do on my own. My nature is to do wrong, to do what I want for selfish and self-serving purposes. I am not saying this to demean myself, I am saying it to remind myself- I was born into sin, and have a sinful nature. Sin is natural for me, as it is for all of us, and only by recognizing this can we overcome it.

An alcoholic or a drug addict can never even start to recover until they hit what is called “rock bottom”, which is the time when they realize they are not in control of the substance but the substance is controlling them. Only when they do their own form of T’shuvah (turning) and “own” their habit can they truly start to overcome it.

And the healthy and sustainable attitude is that they are never cured- they are simply recovering. An alcoholic is always an alcoholic; a drug addict is always a drug addict; what they are while they remain sober/clean is a ‘recovering’ alcoholic or addict. Recovering: not recovered, but recovering. That is a very important attitude they have to have because, like Jacob’s limp and Shaul’s thorn, it is a constant reminder of what they are trying to overcome.

We all have our own thorn or limp; we are all “recovering sinners”, so to speak. The 12 step program for recovery says, “One drink is too many, and two drinks aren’t enough” (or something like that) and the same is true for sinning. We do it unintentionally (I hope!) and, often enough, without even knowing we just committed a sin. That is why the sacrificial system includes a sacrifice for forgiveness for the sins we do that we don’t even know we did. We need a reminder, a limp, a thorn, something to keep us on the straight and narrow.

I wear a mezuzah around my neck as a sign of my faith, and also as a reminder. I also wear a gold bracelet, part of my sales training, to remind me that it is more important to listen than to speak (James 1:19.) At first I didn’t wear a gold bracelet, I wore a rubber band. The lesson was that every time I wanted to say something during a sales pitch, I was to stretch the rubber band and let it snap back onto my wrist. It was a painful lesson, but I learned it well, and my successful sales career demonstrated that. Once I didn’t need to snap the rubber band, I “graduated” to a gold bracelet (being a good salesman, I could afford it then) but it is still a reminder, just a little nicer looking reminder.

Maybe you have something you wear? A mezuzah, a cross, a plastic “WWJD” bracelet? A rubber band around your wrist? Whatever you use to remind yourself to do everything you can to overcome your sinful nature, cherish it because it can save your life. When we can be reminded to do as God wants us to do, and that reminder keeps us from sinning, even if it is just one sin a day less than we would do on our own, it is a blessing from heaven.

And if you limp, have bad knees, suffer from some debilitating disease or physical/mental challenge, accept it not as punishment (too many times I hear people blame God for their problems) but as a reminder of who is in charge, and what is really important.

God is really important. Whatever you have or don’t have or suffer with today, it will mean nothing in eternity. That is the goal, that is the prize- eternal life in God’s presence. So embrace your problem, embrace your challenges, and strive against them as Jacob did, trusting in God to help you overcome them.

That which seems to be a curse can always become a blessing in disguise- it is all up to you and how you deal with it.

Can I come to God unclean?

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Sometimes when I am starting to pray to God I feel so unclean, spiritually and physically, that I feel unworthy to approach the Lord. Maybe sometimes you feel the same way?

I once read a Rabbinic thought for the reason the Messiah hasn’t come to the Jewish people (remember “mainstream” Judaism doesn’t accept that Yeshua/Jesus is the Messiah God promised) is because we are unworthy, because we are too sinful to receive the Messiah. I tried to find this again, but couldn’t; however, if I am remembering it accurately, then it is such a shame that they just don’t “get it.” Our sinfulness is not what is keeping Messiah away- it is the very reason He has to come!

I mean, think about it- if we have to be sinless to deserve the Messiah, our sinless condition would disqualify His need to come at all.

Truth be told, only when we are unclean can we come to God for cleansing.

We read in Mark 5:25-34 about a woman who had an issuance (some form of bleeding or fluid loss) which made her ceremonially unclean, but was able to come to Yeshua and be healed.

In Matthew 8:3 a man who is unclean comes to Yeshua saying if Yeshua is willing He can cleanse him; Yeshua says He is willing and cleanses the man.

We also read about how Naaman was cleaned of leprosy by bathing in the Jordan because Elijah told him to do so (2 Kings, 5:10) and we read how God cleansed Miriam of leprosy after Moses prayed for Him to heal her (Numbers 12); of course, in this case it was God who caused the leprosy to come upon her as punishment for talking out against Moses, but the fact remains she was unclean and God cleansed her.

The reason Messiah has o come is because we are unclean; and when we are unclean, if we don’t come to God to ask for cleansing, how will we ever be made clean?

Yes, there are ceremonial practices where we wash our body and clothes in water and after sundown we are clean from certain uncleanlinesses (is that a word?), and for other forms of an unclean condition we may need to sacrifice animals, be sprinkled with blood, etc., but still in all, we have to come to the alter to sacrifice to be cleaned; we come to the Cohen (God’s representative) to be inspected and pronounced “clean” before God and the people; there is no other way to come to God for cleansing other than when we are in our state of uncleanliness.

When you see your child all muddy and soiled, you just have to throw that kid in the bath and burn the clothing!  God feels the same way about us when He sees into our hearts and sees the soiled, filthy desires of a sinful nature. He desires to clean us, He wants us to come to Him in any condition we are in. It’s a “Come-as-you-are” salvation that God offers to us, and when we come ready and willing to be cleaned, then God will clean us up. We will still get dirty, and through Messiah we can always be cleaned up again, but because we want to stay clean we will get a lot less dirty than before we did T’shuvah (turning from sin.) Eventually, from a spiritual viewpoint, we won’t look like “Pigpen” from the Charlie Brown comic strip anymore.

Isaiah knew all about our spiritual condition, and said so in no uncertain terms (Isaiah 64:6):

All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;

King David, when he asked God to forgive him for his sin with Bat-Sheba, knew about God’s willingness and ability to clean us of our sins (Psalm 51:7-12):

Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.  Let me hear joy and gladness;  let the bones you have crushed rejoice.  Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity. Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

David, who the bible calls a man after God’s own heart, knew that there is no state of unclean that God cannot make clean.

So if you feel, as I do sometimes, that you are too dirty to come before God, do as I do when I feel that way: remind yourself that God is always willing to clean you up. He has continually cleaned the uncleanable, saved the unsavable, healed the unhealable, and made the filthiest sinner so clean that they shine like silver and are as white as new fallen snow.

Brothers and Sisters, please- never feel you cannot come before God. There is no condition of spiritual or physical being He will reject if you come to Him humbly and honestly: He is always here, within reach, with His hand held out just waiting for you to grab hold of it.

Salvation is an “IF…, THEN” statement

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I used to be a programmer back in the Nineties, and when you write a program the most basic and useful command is called the “If…, Then” statement. This is the one command that, in my opinion, drives the entire program because it is what directs the program by telling it when there is something it has to do, and where to go to do it.

If the number if greater than 5, Then go to this module; If the input is not the required type, Then go to “Error Processing”, and so on.

We live our lives the same way, don’t we? When you come down to the lowest common denominator of decision making, we decide what to do by reviewing our options: If I have a salad, Then I won’t have room for desert (consequently, I eat very few salads); If  I don’t get the report out in time, Then I will have to deal with an upset Boss; If I tell my spouse what I really think right now, Then I will be sleeping on the couch for a week.

Salvation is no different: everything God tells us about how to live, how to worship and how to act is an “If…,Then” statement. If you do as I say, Then you will have blessings. If you do as you want, Then you will have no blessings.

God gave us all Free Will and I believe He really likes to see us use it wisely. Foolishness, according to the way it is used in the bible, is not acting silly- it is refusing to accept the existence and sovereignty of God. When you think about it, that is the ultimate silliness- refusing to accept that God exists and that He is the King of kings. When we use our Free Will to accept God’s existence and sovereignty, then He is pleased with us. When we do that and also choose to believe that Yeshua is the Messiah, better still. And when we believe in God, accept that Yeshua (Jesus) is the Messiah God promised, do T’shuvah (turning from the desire to sin) in our hearts, and live our lives trying to sin less- well, IF we do all that, THEN we will be saved.

That’s the eternal IF…, THEN command: trust in God, accept the gift of Grace provided by the sacrificial death of Yeshua, do T’shuvah, and show it in how you live your life (which means to respect and honor the Torah- that has to be in there, too), and you will be saved from eternal damnation. It’s that simple, it’s that complete, and it’s the hardest thing you will ever do.

But it’s worth doing. And not when you have time, and not when you are ready, but right now. This very moment. Stop reading this-well, actually, don’t stop reading until I finish telling you what to do- so, after you stop reading this, close your eyes and tell God that you are sorry for not obeying Him. Tell God you are sorry that you have never really tried to stop sinning, and (this is especially important if you are Jewish) tell God that you believe Yeshua is the Messiah Adonai promised to send to the Jewish people and the world. Lastly, ask for the forgiveness Yeshua provided for you and ask to receive the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) because you want it to lead your life from this moment on.

IF you do that and mean it, THEN you are set on the pathway that will lead to earthly blessings, peace of spirit and the comfort of knowing that you will be spend eternity in the presence of the Lord, God Almighty.

IF you don’t, THEN you’re screwed!

Parashah V’yetze (and he went out) Genesis 28 – 32:3

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Jacob has left his home in fear of his brother, whose blessings were given to Jacob. He goes to Haran where Rebekah’s brother, Laban, lives and Jacob stays with him. On the way he has a dream in which God appears and confirms to Jacob the promises that He gave to Abraham and Isaac.

Jacob sees Rachel before he sees Laban, and falls in love with her right then and there. Laban welcomes him into his home, and after a month Laban offers to pay Jacob. Jacob names his wages: he will work 7 years and then Rachel is to be his wife.

Now we start to see how the one called the “Supplanter”, who manipulated his brother into giving up his birthright, now meets his match. Well, almost his match.

After 7 years Jacob is all set to marry Rachel, but Laban throws Leah into the tent and by the time Jacob realizes who he has been celebrating the honeymoon with (I gotta think- how drunk was he to not notice the difference?) it is too late. Laban has pulled a fast one on Jacob, who now is forced to work another 7 years for Rachel (at least he gets to marry her first, after he spends the mandatory 1 week with Leah.)

Now that he is married and the years of labor for Rachel are in full swing, Leah starts to drop male rug-rats like there’s no tomorrow, whereas Rachel is barren.  Then Rachel orders Jacob to give her children through her handmaiden, to which Leah counters with the same demand, and eventually Rachel gives birth to Joseph, and we have the birth of 11 of the 12 tribes of Israel, and are told the reason for each of their names.

Meanwhile, back at the sheep troth, Jacob asked for speckled and dark sheep and goats (the less valuable) as payment for tending  Laban’s flocks, and by using streaked rods when the animals drink and mate, he manages to get the strongest kids and lambs to be in his flocks, whereas Laban’s flocks are weaker. Jacob hears Laban’s sons becoming hostile and decides it’s time to go back home, so he takes his family and flocks and beats a fast retreat to Canaan when Laban is not anywhere around. Laban goes after him and catches up, but God warns Laban in a dream not to do anything bad to Jacob.

Laban is also upset because, unknown to Jacob, Rachel has taken the family gods which are the inheritance of the firstborn and gave Laban authority over the other members of the family. Laban never found the gods because Rachel said she was in her time of Niddah (menstruating) so that Laban would not come near her to search under the saddle she was sitting on, where the gods were hidden.

Finally, Laban and Jacob make a pact that neither will cross over a standing stone to do the other harm, and Laban goes back to his home.

Well, well, well…what goes around comes around, doesn’t it?

Jacob finagles the blessings and rights of the firstborn from his brother, then is tricked into marrying Leah, consequently forcing Jacob to work an additional 7 years to marry Rachel (who was first promised to him.) Then Jacob manipulates the flocks so that he has the healthiest and Laban has the dreck (Yiddish for trash.) Then, when Jacob sneaks away, Rachel steals the family gods, which are part of the birthright of the firstborn.

‘Round and ’round, up and down- Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive!

I find it interesting that here we have the Patriarchs! The fathers of Judaism, the ones that are righteous before God, who God, Himself, talked to. More than once, even! And yet, they are deceptive, they are self-centered (telling your wife to allow herself to be taken into a harem to protect your own skin) and they end up marrying the same type of person: Rebekah told Jacob to fool Isaac and Rachel stole from her father.

I read in my Chumash that the Midrash explains why Rachel stole the family gods: it was so that her father wouldn’t worship them. C’mon, really? That is what I call giving something that isn’t holy a holy “spin.” Those gods represented power and authority in that culture: the other family members would go to the oldest, who was the keeper of these gods, and pay him to pray to the gods so that their crops would be plentiful and their herds reproduce well. I don’t believe for a second that Rachel had anything else in mind other than to take what she felt was hers.  I base this on Genesis 31:14, where both Rachel and Leah state that they no longer have any inheritance in their fathers house. They accuse Laban of having sold them and used up what there was of the purchase price. In other words, Laban has nothing left to give them as an inheritance. I think it is pretty clear that Rachel stole the gods to recoup what she felt was owed to her.

This is what is so wonderful about the bible- we see the people in it for who and what they really are: human beings. There is no “sugar-coating” their actions or their intentions. And why I think this is so wonderful is that it shows us that we don’t have to be super holy to be loved by God; we don’t have to be sinless to be saved; and God will help us even when we aren’t doing everything on the “up and up” so long as we are trying to do what He wants from us.

The bible stories are so interesting, so full of romance, deceit, murder, retribution, and (best of all) a happy ending for the good guys. I am not at all surprised that thousands of years after these events happened, we are still fascinated reading about them (well, I am) and the message they have is never old or out of date.

Maybe that’s because the bible is about more than just God and salvation- it is about us. About people, about society, and about what the world is like. And, of course, about what the end will be and how to finish on the winning side.

If you aren’t reading the bible every day, please do so. If you know someone who doesn’t read it at all, share these stories but don’t tell that person where they are from until he or she asks. I really want to do something to help people read the bible because they need to know what God is saying, not only what some Pastor, Rabbi or Priest is telling them they learned in Theology class.

The world is witnessing the fulfillment of God’s promise of judgement on the nations, and seeing the regathering of Israel. It is not coming soon, it is happening now! We who know the Lord and know what is to happen are obligated to tell those who are ignorant and obstinate.

Tell someone else about this blog- I don’t mean to sound uppity or self-important but I am trying to write in here that which will always give glory and honor to God, and I want to help people realize the truth about what God says so they can compare it to what they are being told. We need to understand what being “holy” really means, and not what the church or synagogue makes it seem like.

To be holy means to be separated, that’s all- and when we are separated from the world, which is a cursed and sinful place, although we may still be sinful in our hearts we can control ourselves to be less sinful.

I was a sinner before I knew the Lord, and now that I know the Lord I am still a sinner! BUT- I am a saved sinner because I have done T’shuvah, I have turned from my desire to sin and now have a desire to sin less. I understand I can never be sinless, but I know that I can always sin less.

Read the “manual” and get to know the people in it, who and what they are, and be empowered by their weaknesses which they overcame with God’s help. As Shaul (Paul) says in 2 Corinthians, 12:9:

And he said to me, My grace is sufficient for you: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest on me.

Let the weaknesses of the Patriarchs encourage you so that you, too, can be a Patriarch (or a Matriarch) of your own future.

hebraic roots and messianic judaism: two sides of the same coin?

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I am a Jewish man. I was born a Jew, from Jewish parents of Russian descent. I was raised in a Reform Jewish environment, and since neither of my parents ever really embraced being Jewish, my B’rit Milah (circumcision) and Bar Mitzvah were as much a “This is what we do” thing as it was a spiritual acknowledgement of my covenant with God. When I grew older I forgot about religious observance, and always felt distant from God yet desiring to be closer. What kept me away was my desire to sin, which constantly overcame my desire to know the Lord for some 40-odd years. It was a series of traumatic events that led to my desire to know God, and a determination to finally either know Him or reject the whole thing, once and for all. Thankfully, I did get to know God, and then I also needed to know the truth about this guy Jesus, who most of my life I was told was Jewish but started His own religion and was someone we Jews killed.

Now I know who Jesus really is: a Jewish man named Yeshua ben Yosef, who is in truth the Messiah God promised would come, who was born Jewish, lived a Jewish life and died Jewish. He was still Jewish when he was resurrected. During His life He observed the Torah and never-ever started a new religion (for the record, modern day Christianity is from Constantine, not Yeshua.) So, now that I am still Jewish (I am not a Christian, a Christian-Jew, a Hebrew-Christian or anything other than a Jew) but have accepted Yeshua as my Messiah and recognize that He is the son of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, that means I am no longer just a Jewish man, but I am a Messianic Jewish man.

Messianic Judaism is not Jews for Jesus. Jews for Jesus is an organization, a non-profit company with a “religious” mandate to bring the truth of the Messiah to Jewish people. One of the things that I wish they would do is stop sending Jews willing to know Yeshua to Christian churches. Not that Christian churches are a bad place, but most Christian churches are not Hebraic Roots churches (Oy! Another label!) and many, many Christian churches have a “don’t need Torah” attitude, and (worse than that) some are Replacement Theologists.

The Hebraic Roots Movement is similar to Messianic Judaism in that Messianic Judaism is for Jews (and Christians, too- most Messianic congregations I have known actually have more Gentiles than Jews) who accept Jesus (Yeshua is the preferred name) as the Messiah, but still maintain the Jewish lifestyle and worship rooted in observance and obedience to the Torah. Hebraic roots congregations are Christians (and some Messianic Jews, like me) who desire to get to know and worship the Lord as Yeshua did, worshiping as they did in the First Century.

Essentially, if a person is someone who has accepted that Yeshua/Jesus is the Messiah, and worships as the followers of Yeshua did in the First Century when He walked the earth (and for about two centuries after that), then they are either Messianic Jews (if they are Jewish by birth) or Hebraic Roots Christians (if they are Gentile by birth.)

Same coin, different sides.

By the way- this is obviously a very simplistic explanation. I am hoping that it is effective in getting across the idea that anyone who worships the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who accepts that Yeshua was born a man by Divine conception, who believes He was and still is the Messiah God promised in the Old Covenant writings, is thereby one in the body of Messiah. And, whether or not they were born Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, Buddhist, whatever- when they accept Yeshua as their Messiah, they also accept His lifestyle. Which was, as we would label it today, Judaism. In fact, more similar to Orthodox Judaism than any other sect within Judaism.

I worship at a Hebraic Roots church (zionistrevivalcenter.org) and am one of only maybe 3 or 4 Jewish-born members. We are very small, no more than 15-20 or so “regulars” but we will, with God’s blessings, grow. I believe there is a growing desire in the Christian world to get closer to Jesus, since most of what He really is and what He really taught has been thrown out and replaced with Christian rhetoric, ritual and Anti-Semitic diatribe (such as the Replacement Theology claim that God has rejected the Jews for rejecting Yeshua, and Christians are now the “Chosen people.” Really? I don’t think so- God is pretty clear about His devotion and love for the Jewish people throughout the Bible.)

The aim of this blog-ministry of mine is to help people understand that God doesn’t have any religion, just rules. His rules were given to us in the Torah and the Torah is meant for everyone. It is not, and was never meant to be, exclusive to Jews. It was given to the Jews to bring to the world.

Whatever belief system you have now, does it respect the Torah? Do you believe (or have you been told to believe) that the Torah is valid for everyone? Do you believe that God still expects you to obey the laws of Kashrut outlined in Leviticus 11? Do you honor God by celebrating the festivals God said we are to celebrate and in the manner He described in Leviticus 23?

Or- do you believe (or have been told) that the Torah is only for Jews? Were you taught that Jews receive their salvation from Torah but Christians are saved by the Blood of Christ? Do you believe that the only things in the Old Covenant that are valid for you are the “moral laws” that God gave the Jews? If so, you have a very rude awakening coming to you.

Here’s the truth- the biblical truth that you can verify in the bible- Yeshua lived and worshiped as a Jew. The Disciples lived and worshiped as Jews. Shaul (Paul) never “converted” to Christianity- it didn’t even exist then! The followers of Yeshua were Jews who met in the synagogue or, if under social or political attack, met in their homes but NEVER stopped worshiping as Jews. There was no “church” in the first century- the “church” (as we know it today) was formed by Constantine and the Council of Nicene a couple of centuries after Yeshua walked the earth. The truth, my friends, is that if you believe Jesus is the Son of God and you claim to worship Him, than you should be worshiping God, not Jesus, and worshiping God as Jesus did.

I see bracelets with “WWJD” on them, and hear all the time that Christians should do as Jesus did and walk as Jesus walked, yet the Christian world teaches (for the most part) to do nothing like what Jesus did, and to walk a path Jesus would never have even thought of walking! Consider this: the world is about to celebrate the birth of the Messiah and enjoy a holiday feast in His honor with food that He would have considered an abomination to see on His dinner table! I am talking about the traditional Christmas Ham, of course. When you think about it, eating ham on a day designed to celebrate Jesus’s birth is, in fact, disrespectful to God and to Jesus.

The end is always coming closer. That is just simple math- our timeline moves in one direction, and the end is at, well…the end, so every day, every hour, every breath brings us all closer to the final judgement. And the real kicker is that we don’t know when the end is! Bummer! That means that the best possible time to get yourself right in accordance with God (through Yeshua) is now. Right now. And that means if you haven’t accepted your own sinfulness, now’s the time to get with the program. We all hear about asking for forgiveness, but the truth is until you accept your own sinfulness and inability to overcome it, there’s no desire to ask anyone for forgiveness. So, first and foremost, we have to accept and “own” our sinful nature as being against God and we have to want to change it, to do T’Shuvah. Then, and only then, will our request for forgiveness through Yeshua’s sacrificial death on our behalf, be honest.

Next, accept that the truth that God’s will is for us to live as He said we should, which is defined and outlined in the Torah. Yeshua taught nothing but what is in the Torah- He respected it, He observed it perfectly, and he taught others to do so. He never, never, never taught anything against or outside the Torah. What really happened is God gave the Torah to Moses, the people added too many rules and regulations on their own and when Yeshua came to earth to teach the truth, He upset the “religious” authority by telling people that it is God’s authority that counts. We were only looking at the words of the Torah, and Yeshua taught us the spirit of the Torah. And He was all about the Torah and all about God.

If you want to  worship God in a way that will please God, then doesn’t it just make sense to worship God as He said to worship Him? To live your life in the manner He said to live it?

Duh!

 

 

 

prayer spam

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When the Talmudim (Disciples/students) of Yeshua asked Him how they should pray, well….we all know His answer. But do we think about the line that goes, “Give us this day our daily bread…”? Do we think about what He might have meant by that?

Not the P’shat, which means the written word as it is written, but the Drash– the underlying, spiritual meaning.

I believe what Yeshua was saying was that when we pray, we need to ask only for what we need, then and there. Not for success in life, not for riches or fame, not for next week’s presentation to the Board, but for now. Right now, and only right now, and only what I need right now. I also think that God wants our prayers to go to Him, to the Father, to be delivered in the name of the Son. Not to the Son, not to a “Saint” who is supposed to, what? Intercede with Yeshua (Jesus) to intercede with God? Didn’t Yeshua say the ONLY way to the Father is through the Son (John 14:6)?

What does that mean? It means that our prayers are to be sent to the Father in the name of the Son, and not to the Son for Him to bring to the Father. When we pray to anyone, or anything (even worse!) other than God, Himself- God the Father, God the Creator, God the one and only and God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob- then we are committing idolatry.

And when we pray to God, do we pray for what we need now, and only what we need now? I have heard people pray, and I believe their prayers are earnest, but they pray for the same thing over and over, they use “Father God” over, and over, and over- the way a “Valley Girl” uses the work “like”- until I have to think that God is saying to Himself, “All right, already- I know who I am! Just ask for what you want and leave all the ‘Father God this’ and ‘Father God that’ out of it! Oy!”

Don’t pray spam to God. He wants to hear from your heart. I have seen people pause during prayer and I can see them start to sweat trying to think of something else to say. If you have nothing more to say, than what you should say is: nothing more. Just stop. Just end the endless stream of useless words and catch-phrases that are supposed to make you sound like Solomon blessing the Temple. That was a long prayer, and it was a really good one. But long doesn’t mean better. How about Moses’ prayer (Numbers 12:13) when Miriam was struck by God with leprosy? Did he go on and on, or did he just say, “Oh Lord- please heal her!”

Moses found those 5 words to be as effective and meaningful as an entire thesis presented by a graduate student in Theology. God doesn’t just see the heart, He hears the heart.

We see someone who is homeless and downtrodden and (usually) think the worst, yet God sees Job during his trials of faith. We see someone who is mentally or physically challenged and thank God it isn’t us, and God sees a caring, faithful and compassionate person who is thankful that no one else they know has the same problems.

The words we use when we pray are not as important as the condition of our heart. When King David prayed for forgiveness in Psalm 51, he said that God will not despise a broken heart and a contrite spirit. It is the condition of our heart that generates prayer pleasing to the Lord; the fancy King James style words we use, the number of times we say “Oh Lord” or “Father God”, or the length of prayer is all totally meaningless. That is only pleasing to humans who know only what they see and hear. People only see the P’shat of the world, and not the Drash of humanity. I think people just pray “spam” when they use fancy words and long, poetic phrases meant to impress the people around them, and I just have to believe that God is thinking, “Your prayer is to Me, but I know the way you are praying is to impress those around you, so let them answer your prayer.”

Remember: when you pray, God already knows what you need. He knows what you want, He knows is best for you, and He will deliver it when He knows the time is right for you. What you say will not influence His decision but what you feel in your heart will.

When you pray remember the advice Yeshua gave His Talmudim in the Gospels- do not worry about what to say because the Ruach (Spirit) will give you what you need. Trust in the Spirit to guide your prayer and don’t pray from your mouth: pray from your heart.