Tag: Bible

Parashah Bo (Go) Exodus 10 – 13:16

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The last three plagues fall upon Egypt: the locusts, 3 days of darkness and the death of the firstborn. With this last and most terrible plague, Pharaoh is humbled before God and allows the people to leave without condition. In fact, he pretty much kicks them out. The rules for the Passover Seder and the festival of unleavened bread are also given in this parashah, as well as the Lord telling Moses that this is to be the first day of the year for the Jewish people.

The sacrifice of the lamb is very different here than anywhere else in the Tanakh. This lamb was to be chosen on the 10th day of the month (Nisan in the current Jewish calendar, Abib back then) and then taken into the house- separated from the rest of the flock and treated, almost, like a family pet. Then it was to be slaughtered in the late afternoon to evening of the 14th day, roasted whole over a fire and eaten in it’s entirety.  Anything that was not eaten was to be burned up completely.

We always hear Yeshua referred to as the Lamb of God, and the Paschal (Passover) Lamb, and His sacrificial death is the ultimate sin sacrifice, through which we all are able to be forgiven.

We may be wrong in calling Yeshua the “Passover Lamb” because the Passover lamb wasn’t a sin sacrifice!

The Passover lamb was not a sin sacrifice: it was a friendship offering.  There are 5 types of offerings, or Korbanot:

  1. the burnt offering- represents total submission to God’s will and the entire animal is burnt on the altar at the Temple
  2. the sin offering- this was for unintentional sins, and the part that was eaten was eaten only by the Kohanim (Priests)
  3. the guilt offering- this sacrifice was for any sins that may have been committed but the person is unaware of them. It’s like insurance, and the eaten part was eaten only by the Kohanim
  4. the food and drink offering- this is another type of friendship or thanksgiving offering, devoting to God the fruit or work of our labor. The items sacrificed are not naturally made but man-made items which we devote back to God. Whatever portion is to be eaten is to be eaten by the Kohanim
  5. The peace, thanksgiving or friendship offering- this was obligatory for survivors of life-threatening crises and included free-will offerings, and offerings made after fulfillment of a vow. The essential difference between the peace offering and all the other offerings is that only the peace offering is eaten by both the Kohanim and the one making the offering. This was shared between God, the Kohan and the one making the offering.

Thus, the Passover lamb that was slaughtered was not a sin offering at all- it was a thanksgiving offering (in Hebrew, Todah / תודה) so we can’t really call Yeshua the Paschal Lamb because that lamb was not a sacrificial death to absolve us of sin.

On the other hand, the peace offering was designed to bring us closer to God, as all the sacrifices were meant to do, and with Yeshua’s death the Parochet was torn from top to bottom, representing that the curtain separating the Holy of Holies from the common person was no longer there. And this was an act of God because it was ripped from top to bottom, from Heaven to Earth, from God to Man. So when Yeshua died, His death not only was a sin sacrifice, as we would do on Yom Kippur, but was also a peace offering.

Yeshua’s sacrifice, the offering of His life, performed a dual purpose under the sacrificial system- the sin offering to cleanse us before God, and the peace offering to bring us in total communion with God.

The Passover was supposed to be shared with family and those who have been circumcised and joined to the people of Israel (sojourners with the people) and as such no one who is not a “Believer”, if we can use that term, is supposed to partake. I have shared my Passover seder with people who are not Jewish; in fact, Donna and I try to invite people who are not Jewish and have never been to a seder to introduce them to the roots of their religion. If anyone is a member of any of the Judeo-Christian religions, then the Passover seder should be for them since they are followers of God. How often have you heard me say that God has no religion? So if they believe in God then they should partake of the Passover seder. Well, that’s my feeling.

I also feel they should be made aware of the fact that God’s laws and rules in the Torah are valid for them, too. In fact, not just valid, not just a good idea, but required.

I think it is interesting that the Passover seder is probably one of the most well-known Jewish celebrations, and that Yeshua (Jesus) is called the Passover Lamb by nearly everyone, yet His sacrificial death was not the same as the passover lamb’s death. His death at Passover represented what the Yom Kippur sacrifice is to do. The two biggest Jewish festivals, Passover and Yom Kippur, were brought together in one event with the sacrificial death of Messiah Yeshua. He freed us from sin and brought us into communion with God, which is what is happening in the parashot we are reading tonight. We read how the people are freed, and soon the people come to Mt. Horeb (Sinai) and there they commune with God.

Is there a parochet still separating you from God?  The curtain in the Temple was woven material, thick and heavy, but is there a parochet in your life that you can’t see? Do you obey the commandments that are in the Torah? Do you follow what God says to do? Do you believe that you should do as Jesus did?

I believe there is a parochet thicker, heavier and more impossible to penetrate than the one in the Temple of Solomon- it is called “religion”, and it is what separates us from God. It separates us from God because it rejects His laws (I am not just talking about Christianity- even within Judaism many of the Jews today who are reform or conservative ignore and reject Torah laws as obsolete) and acts, thereby, as an idol. The biggest complaint Yeshua had against the Pharisees was that they gave man-made traditions precedence over God’s laws. Rules made by people that take precedence over the rules given to us by God: this is what I consider the absolute definition of “religion.”

People need to read the bible, from Genesis through Revelations, and recognize it is one book, Christianity was not created by Yeshua (it was created by Constantine) and the commandments God gave us in the Torah are the only rules and regulations that we are to follow. At the end of Deuteronomy Moses writes that anyone who adds to or detracts from the laws written in that book will suffer all the plagues of Egypt. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to have to deal with that.

Read the book, the whole book, and see for yourself that there is nothing “new” in the New Covenant  and understand that Yeshua died so we could be free of sin once and for all, and that the parochet that was torn was supposed to stay torn.

Don’t let your ‘man’-dated worship of God repair the parochet.

 

 

 

“Coexist” is not the plan

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I have to think that everyone reading this has seen the bumper sticker that spells out the word “coexist” in different religious symbols. Isn’t that a wonderful ideal? All people living together, practicing their religious beliefs without interfering or harboring hatred towards each other, in a peaceful and respectful environment. World peace.

Right! Tell me another story, Daddy.

The truth is what history has constantly revealed- there is no coexistence between people with different religious beliefs. Sorry, it just ain’t happening: it never has, it never will, and the fact of the matter is, it isn’t supposed to!

There is only one God, and He has no religion. He has rules, He has commandments, and when you reject His rules, you reject Him. Period: End of sentence: Close the door on your way out: buh-bye.

I could give you scripture after scripture describing how God has destroyed those that have rejected Him, how He has called His people, Israel, to follow the commandments, regulations, ordinances and laws that He gave in the Torah, and made them a nation of priests to the rest of the peoples so that they, too, could be saved from judgement. This same Torah, which is not for Jews alone, defines the only way God said He should be worshipped and it applies to everyone who professes to believe in and worship the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. EVERYONE.

There is no coexistence with someone whose religious beliefs order them to either convert or kill someone who believes differently. There is no coexistence with anyone whose religious leaders tell their followers that the Torah is invalid (effectively rejecting God’s commandments.) There is no coexistence with a religion that teaches Jews are rejected by God because teaching that calls God a liar. There is no coexistence with a religion that groups many gods together, where each one has some level of authority and autonomy, rejecting the very premise that there is only one God who is the only true God. .

There is no coexistence with those who are so adamant they are right that they slander other religions and kill other people because of their beliefs.

Yet, our God tells us that those who do not accept Yeshua as their Messiah will be judged at the end of times and rejected by God.  In the end, it will be the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who will prove to be the one true God and creator, the only one that deserves worship, and He will be known to all.

So, how is this different than someone who says to kill all infidels? It doesn’t seem very different. I think the main, and really important, difference is that my God tells me that He will judge, that He will avenge, and that He is the only one to make fair and righteous judgements. I am not to judge, lest I be judged; I am to hate the sin and love the sinner, I am to be compassionate, and I am also not to be in the presence of sin. I am to respect the life of those that reject God, and leave the punishment for that rejection to God, in His time, the way He will do it.

That’s the difference between what my God teaches and what their god tells them- they are to kill the infidel, they are to judge the non-believer, but I am to be a light to those in darkness.

That’s the difference, and it is a BIG difference. It is not coexistence, it is living in a world with them but not being a part of that world.

What I am saying goes against the world’s view of tolerance, peaceful relations and coexistence. That’s OK with me, because my experience and understanding of the Bible is that whatever the world thinks is good is most likely against what God thinks is right.

Just about everyone wants to go to (their definition) of heaven: Judeo-Christian religions see heaven as a wonderful place we all go to where we play harps and have wings, Islam has a different view (is heaven only for men? What do women care about 40 virgins?), and those who follow Hinduism just want to get there, eventually.

The truth is that there is going to be a new earth and a new heaven, and a new Jerusalem. I don’t know if the new Jerusalem will be like the current one- I figure it has to be different. Yeshua said that every stone standing will be toppled (Matthew 24:2) and to me, that sounds like a complete destruction not just of the Temple but the city. After all, why have a new Jerusalem if the old one is still habitable? And Yeshua will sit on the throne of David and rule forever from the new Jerusalem (there are too many verses to put any one or two of them here: it’s in the Psalms, in the prophets from Isaiah to Joel to Zachariah, and it’s in the Gospels, too.) And God will live with His people, in their presence (or, if you prefer, we will live in His presence) forever and ever.

The only way for humans to coexist is to have a single way to live, a single God, a single government (with God at the head of it) and a single form of worship. Yes, this sounds exactly like what the anti-christ will want to establish, and that’s because it will work!  That is what we were supposed to have during the times of the Judges, that was God’s original plan for us- God at the head, the Judges (who would be Levites) ruling and “managing” the people, and there would be just the one way to worship God, as He told us how, in the Torah. And that is what God will establish when all is said and done.

The way God wants things to be has no room for “coexistence”, which (by definition) means different ways of existing being together. There will be no “co”-existence after all is done, there will only be eternity. One God, one King (Yeshua), one way to worship and one rule for everyone.

God isn’t interested in coexisting- He wants all His children to turn to Him, to follow His rules (Torah) and His way to worship Him, and to exist forever in His glory and presence and eternal peace.

Face it: there is room for only one God in Eternity, and it’s His way or the hell-way.

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.

Parashah Va-Arya (And He spoke) Exodus 6:2 – 9

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Moses had just asked God why He didn’t free the Israelites as He said He would, and God answers that He will. He tells Moses that He is God, He will do what He said he will do, and He lays out the plan for redemption from slavery: God tells Moses what He will do, Moses tells Aaron to tell Pharaoh, and Pharaoh will ignore them.

The plagues come: the river turns to blood, then frogs, next gnats (at this plague the magicians cannot duplicate God’s work), then flies (at this point the land of Goshen is separated and protected whereas everyone else in Egypt is under the plague), next cattle blight, boils (now it’s not just the land and the animals, but the people are afflicted, too) and the last plague in this parashah is the hail that falls as hail from the sky but burns as fire on the ground. This last plague is the worst one yet because so far only animals have died, but now anyone caught in the hail will die. In fact, Moses warns Pharaoh to make sure his people know to protect their property and themselves by staying inside.

What is wonderful about this parashah is that God lays out a plan and works it to perfection. He starts off “Even-Steven” with the magicians, who duplicate the first three miraculous works (rod to snake, Nile to blood, and frogs). I believe this was to make sure everyone was on the same page, to to speak. Then, God upped the ante by creating gnats, which the magicians could not do. Next, he raised the bar with flies that attacked everyone except His people, Israel. Not only did God prove His power to create and destroy, but He also proved His power to save and protect- He attacked the Egyptians and in the very midst of them protected His people. The bar was raised even higher when God attacked the people of Egypt with boils, so badly so that even the magicians (who represented the religion and gods of Egypt) were so stricken they couldn’t even appear in court. The hail took it to a whole new level- now not just the land and the animals were dying, but the people who were caught in the hail died, too.

Except for the Hebrews living in Goshen.

And yet, with all these wondrous miracles, Pharaoh remained unmoved by the power of God.

Many people have a similar problem, which is that they fail to recognize and stand in awe of the miracles God performs, every day. It seems that Pharaoh was looking for reasons to diminish the wonder and awesomeness of God: when the magicians duplicated God’s miracles, Pharaoh brushed Moses and Aaron aside. When the other plagues hit, each time Pharaoh confessed his wrongdoing and conceded to allow the Jews to worship if Moses would only stop the plague. But when the plague stopped, he reneged.

Perhaps one reason he didn’t take these plagues seriously was because he thought that since Moses could turn them on and off, they weren’t so much. They were controllable, they were explainable, so they weren’t really such miraculous things. Maybe?

Today we see miracles everyday, everywhere, yet we don’t acknowledge them as such. Why? Because the new religion of the day, “Science”, can explain how it happens. Human pride and human arrogance makes us believe that if we understand how something works it isn’t a miracle, or even special. Understanding of how God’s miraculous wonders (i.e., life) work lessens God in our sight, and makes us less appreciative and respectful of Him.

There is a story about when the greatest scientists in the world gathered for a meeting to discuss all the advancements in science that have been made. They are talking about how, now that we have been able to map and read the entire human genome, we will soon be able to cure all diseases and infirmities, and how with cloning we will be able to make people in the image we want. They got to the point where they told God He wasn’t needed anymore. God asked them, “Do you think you can make a human being from a lump of clay?” The scientists discussed it and replied, “Yes. We believe we can.” God says, “OK- show me!” and they go out and pick up a large lump of clay. They are about to carry it into their lab when God says, “Oh, you can’t use that- that’s my clay. You have to make your own!”

Just because we can understand how a miracle works doesn’t make it any less of a miracle. For instance, Job 36:26-29 says:

How great is God—beyond our understanding! The number of his years is past finding out. 27 “He draws up the drops of water, which distill as rain to the streamsc ; 28 the clouds pour down their moisture and abundant showers fall on mankind. 29 Who can understand how he spreads out the clouds, how he thunders from his pavilion?

This verse shows that they understood water goes into the sky, is stored as clouds, then falls back to Earth. Even with this basic understanding of the process, the speaker is still in awe of the fact that it is done!  Today we really don’t understand it all that much better. We know about evaporation, water vapor, electromagnetic forces that cause lightning, the thunder is the rushing of wind back into the vacuum caused by the lightening, etc.  We understand it, we can even create it at will, but does that make it any less miraculous? We can understand it, we can re-create it, but we didn’t create it. We didn’t create any of this. Sure, we can create a lightning bolt, but that’s because we saw the original one and figured out how it can be done. But what about the One who created it first? What about the One who thought it first?

The Jews in the desert saw manna come from nowhere, they saw water come from rocks, birds come from far way and land at their feet. Their clothes didn’t wear out and their shoes survived walking in the hot, desert sands and rocks. A million or more people, not to mention many millions of animals- all fed and watered, surviving in the most desolate and unforgiving of environments anywhere in the world. And what did they do? They kvetched, over and over, about having to leave Egypt, where they seem to have forgotten how horrible their lives were.

We think that because we see something every day, or because we understand the process, the creator of those things is not so much. Yeah, you make fire fall from the sky but so can I with a plane and a napalm bomb. So what?

So this: God is the Creator and Controller of all things. What we copy, He created. What we try to understand, He originated. What we think we know how it works, He designed from scratch. What we try to manufacture with scientific tools, He made with a thought.

Don’t be a Pharaoh, be a Job. Remain totally awe-struck and appreciative of the miracles that God does, every day. Look for them- a flower opens in the morning and closes at night; the bees know how to dance and communicate better than the most accurate GPS; the surf knows just how far it can come into the land; the prey animals are born able to run within an hour and the predators take years to learn to hunt. There are miracles all around us, inside us, above and underneath us. There are miracles we have been allowed to understand and there are miracles we will never understand. Yet, they all are still miracles and the One who has created these is still totally awesome and powerful beyond any human understanding.

Don’t take God for granted.

There’s no such thing as “waiting in God’s will”

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The great American humorist, Will Rogers, is known to have said:

Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.

The same is true when doing God’s will. God’s timing is perfect- no one ever really argues that point, but yet how many times do we hear someone (maybe even ourselves?) saying something to the effect of, “Well, I am pretty sure that is what God wants me to do but I am waiting for Him to tell me when to do it.”

Yeshua said that we know how to tell the signs of the weather but we don’t know how to read the signs of the times (Matthew 16:3).

When God gives you a calling, it isn’t for you to consider or to think about. It is a calling, it’s a thing to do, it is an action not a notification. If you are waiting for a sign when it should be done, you’ve already missed it: God doesn’t tell us to do something later.

When He told Abraham to leave Ur, it wasn’t for a later date. When He told Moses to go to Egypt, it wasn’t something for him do after the holidays. When God told Joshua to attack Jericho, he wasn’t supposed to send invitations. When God told Jeremiah to buy the field, He meant now.

The only thing that God delays is His judgement, and we should be very thankful for that delay. Unfortunately, it hasn’t really proven to make a difference. Shomron and Judea both had plenty of time to get their act together, but eventually all that extra time God gave them didn’t help.

The parashah this past Shabbat and for the next two Shabbatot covers the plagues upon Egypt. Last Shabbat Moses received his calling, and (as you probably know) he wasn’t too anxious to do it. He hemmed and hawed, and nearly got himself killed by God on the way to Egypt with his delaying. Moses certainly is an example of hearing God’s call and not heeding it right away. But, he did go, and although he had a slow and stumbling start, he continued to listen to God. And as he did more and more of what God directed him to do, he got stronger in his spirit and more confident in his ability to accomplish God’s plan. By the time Moses had been leading the people for years, he was strong in spirit, confident in his actions, and able to lead a multitude of people through a desert. Imagine: only a few years earlier he told God he wasn’t the man for the job. Guess God was right, after all. Duh!

Our God is a god of action, not a god of sitting around and waiting. As the title says, there is no such thing as waiting in God’s will- it is walking in God’s will; it is being in God’s will; we are to be acting in God’s will.  We are to be, to act, to walk, to serve…all of these are action verbs. We are not to be idle, or waiting, or planning, and we are certainly not supposed to be waiting for a sign when we hear God telling us what to do.

When God tells us to do something, He means N–O–W! The “sign” that God is ready to help us is that He has told us what to do. When God is ready to use us as His vessel, He will let us know what His will is. That’s when we do it. Not later, not when it is a better time (there’s no time like the present, right?) and not when we feel “ready” in our own timing.

I believe, and I will speak for myself here, that I am never going to be ready to do God’s will when I hear Him call me. I am just that confident in my own inability. But that’s OK. In fact, that is what it should be. Moses wasn’t ready, but he was divinely enabled when did as God directed. God’s the quarterback, God’s the pilot, God’s controlling what happens so we don’t need to ask for the fleece to be wet or dry, we just need to do what God tells us to do when we hear Him tell us to do it.

No one is ever really “ready” to do God’s will: are you? You may be willing to do it, you may want to do it, but are you ready? That would imply that you are already filled with all the spirit, the Ruach, that you need. When I read the bible, it seems to me that every disciple of God, from Abraham all the way to the 12 Talmudim of Yeshua, gained their spiritual strength after they started to do what God called them to do. Abraham lied about Sarah to protect his life- not very trusting of God, is it? And he did it twice! And so did Isaac. Jacob sent gifts to appease Esau. Moses needed Aaron to go with him. Gideon threw the fleece before the Lord. Saul hid when called to be anointed as king (Saul’s a good example of what happens when you constantly refuse to follow God’s calling), Elijah hid from Isabel and asked God to kill him, Jonah…well, we all know about Jonah. Kefa (Peter) walked on the water but immediately lost faith, Judas betrayed Yeshua, Shaul (Paul) had to get knocked off his “high horse” to see the truth.

All these biblical characters, all of which did great things when walking in God’s will, still all had to be discipled by God, they had to be taught to draw on His Ruach HaKodesh, they had to “learn the ropes”, so to speak, and none of that started until they began to walk in God’s will and do as He commanded them.

We will never be ready to do God’s calling in our life. God knows that, and I don’t really think He even wants us to be “ready” because He will teach us all we need to know. What God expects is that we are willing to go when called. And don’t worry about what to say (Luke 12:11), don’t worry about what to eat or wear or about where you will sleep (Psalm 37:25) and don’t worry about your safety (Psalm 118:6).

My biggest fear in my spiritual life is that I will hear God’s calling for me, clearly and undeniably, and I will fail to move. I will create excuses, as I already have in many ways, and I am most afraid that I may miss doing as He called me to do because I was waiting to be ready.

Do you remember reading in the bible about those people whom God called to do wondrous works in His name but didn’t? That’s right- there aren’t any. That’s the point!

God has a plan for all of us- listen for it, be willing to follow God’s lead, and don’t ever expect to be ready to do what He calls you to do. That’s what walking in faith is all about- we can’t see where we’re going, we don’t know what is waiting for us, and we know there isn’t anything we can do to control what is going to happen. But because God is calling us and leading us, we faithfully know that whatever is going to happen will be controlled by God.

As it says in Romans 8:31…if God is for us, who can be against us?

 

Parashah Shemot (the Names) Exodus 1 -1 6:1

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Wow. That’s about all there is to say when reading this parasha; in fact, when reading the next couple of parashot. Wow!

The seeds of the Nation of Israel have been planted in Goshen, seventy souls, and they begin to multiply. Joseph dies, and so, too, the generation of Joseph’s brothers. Later a new ruler, one of ancient Egyptian heritage (the Pharaoh who showed such kindness to Joseph was of the Hyksos and they were replaced by previously ousted Egyptians) is fearful of the multitude of Israelites, so he makes them slaves. As a way to maintain their numbers, he orders the death of the male children but the midwives refuse to do so and make excuses why they can’t get there in time to kill the children. The Israelites continue to prosper, despite the hard labor they are under.

One day a child is born who is kept aside, hidden for three months, then released to God’s care in a basket floating down the river Nile. His sister, Miryam, follows in the reeds (extremely dangerous when you consider that the Nile Crocodile, which can grow to 20 feet or more, likes to sunbathe in the reeds) and when a daughter of the Pharaoh finds the child and shows compassion, Miryam offers to get a Hebrew woman to nurse him. So, Moshe (Moses) is nursed by his own mother for years, and when he is returned to the daughter of Pharaoh he is old enough to have learned of his true heritage, which he remembers during his years under Egyptian study and while living in the Palace.

Moshe as an adult sees an Egyptian TaskMaster beating a Hebrew and in a fit of anger, kills the Egyptian, thinking no one will ever know. But he is discovered, and flees for his life. Living in Midian he takes a wife and becomes a shepherd. He has a son and when he is 80 years old, he sees the burning bush and receives his calling from God.

He didn’t take to it right away, but Moshe does go to Egypt and God has his older brother, Aaron, also go with him. Moshe asks Pharaoh to release the children of Israel. Pharaoh refuses, and to show even more disregard for the people and their God, he orders that they maintain their daily quota of bricks but refuses to give them the straw needed, forcing them to take what little time they have to themselves and use it to gather the straw they need.  The people, understandably, were not too happy with Moshe and Aaron, and this parashah ends with Moshe asking God why He has made things even worse than before when He said He would free the people.

There is a small part of this I want to talk about today- it is in Chapter 3, verses 21 and 22. Here is what the Chumash has:

“And I will give this people favour in the sight of the Egyptians. And it shall come to pass, that, when ye go, ye shall not go empty: (22) but every woman shall ask of her neighbor, and of her that sojourneth in her house, jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment; and ye shall put them upon your sons, and upon your daughters; and ye shall spoil the Egyptians. (Italics added)”

In Deuteronomy 15:12 we are told that when a faithful servant leaves the master that the servant is to be equipped liberally by the master. Therefore, God is saying that the parting from the Egyptian peoples, not the royalty, but the people, should be friendly and compassionate.

Most interpretations are that the despoiling of the Egyptians is thought to be the overdue compensation for centuries of unpaid labor, and there is certainly some validity to that interpretation. However, we are told in Deuteronomy 23:8 that we “shall not abhor an Egyptian.” The hebrew word often translated as “spoil”, נצל , is found 212 times in the Tanakh, and in 210 of those times it is translated as to snatch from danger, to save. The Chumash, therefore, says the proper translation of the end of verse 22 in this chapter is to save the Egyptians, not despoil them. The fact that the children are to be the ones wearing these ornaments and jewels demonstrates that this is an act to be remembered throughout the generations.

I was amazed when I read this, and I believe this is a hermeneutically proper usage of the word “נצל” because God is a God of forgiveness and compassion, and even though there is a very strong argument that the Israelites were due compensation for their labors, it is more important to forgive and reconcile than to revenge and repay. The Israelites were going to save the Egyptians by asking them to provide their former slaves with gifts as they leave their service. How does this “save” the Egyptians? By letting them send away the Israelites with good feelings, with a clean slate, so to speak, and by letting the Israelites have the reminders of the generosity of the Egyptian people so that they will know it was the Pharaoh, not the people, who persecuted the Hebrews.

Saying that the Hebrews despoiled Egypt is to me an anti-Egyptian (if you will) interpretation, no different than the underlying anti-Semitic interpretation of the New Covenant writings, in which it sounds like the entire Jewish nation rejected and hated Yeshua, when in truth the people loved, listened to and followed Him. There were probably tens of thousands of followers of Yeshua at the time of His death and after His resurrection, yet the interpretations of the New Covenant books and letters make it sound like the entire nation wanted Him dead. It was only the political powers that were against Yeshua, not the people, not “the Jews”. It was the leaders, not the led.

This was true of the persecution of the Jewish people under Pharaoh during the time of Moses, and it was true of the persecution of the new Believers, the Messianic Jews, in Jerusalem during the first and second centuries.

Throughout the bible we see how the people suffered as a result of the sins of their leaders, we see this in the (subliminal) anti-Semitic teachings in the Christian world where so many Christians have been taught that Torah is invalid and doesn’t apply to them. Today, thank God, many Christians are becoming more aware of the fact that their Jewish roots are still valid, that Torah is still valid, and that it is not true that Yeshua died a Jew and then was resurrected as a Christian. The Epistles of Shaul are not polemics against the Torah, but apologetics for it. Yes, things will change, but the word of God does not change. Yeshua said that the world will pass away but His words will never pass away (Mark 13:31), and all of His words were in keeping with the Torah. More recently, we have had world wars, terrorism, James Jones, Charles Manson, etc.  People suffering for the sins of their leaders.

What this passage reminds us is this: leaders don’t always speak for the people. That sounds bad, doesn’t it? I mean, if that’s true then we elect people based on what they say they stand for and what they will do, but that doesn’t mean when they are in power they will keep their word. Oh, really? Duh!!

We have to be the leaders, not them. For a government, or for that matter, a company, an organization, even a sports team, to be true to it’s standards, the leadership must be subject to the people, not the other way around.

Gee, doesn’t that sound familiar? Didn’t Yeshua say as much when He told His Talmudim:

“Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant,…”   Mattitayu 20:26

The government in Moses’ day was hereditary; the government in Yeshua’s day was comprised of appointed leaders by a despotic ruler, and the legal leadership (Sanhedria) were mostly political “hacks” appointed by Herod and not true Levites. Today, we have elected officials.

But, when it comes down to it, it doesn’t matter if the ones in charge are there by heredity, by appointment, by election or by military coup: the leaders must be subject to the led. The organization, whether political or social or laic, must be an inverted triangle.

That is what God wants, that is how the bible shows us we should be organized. If you are in a position of leadership, you should lead by being an example, not an exception. You must lead by taking care of your people, with compassionate guidance, and by taking the responsibility for what happens. Rulership sucks- you have to do what the people want, and when that happens and something goes wrong, you have to take the responsibility for it. It’s essentially a “lose-lose”or a “win-win”: there is no middle ground.

We are beginning a new year today- although I think it is silly to teach that this is the time for making resolutions to change for the better. We shouldn’t make that an annual thing, it should be a daily thing. In any event, today’s lesson from the Word of God should encourage us to be both more understanding of those in leadership positions, and more attentive to what they do. We need to make sure that our leaders do what they said they would do, and that they be held accountable. The truth is that we, the people, are the leaders and the “leaders” we place in charge of us are just there to help facilitate things. But it’s our responsibility to make sure they do as we expect, and if they don’t, it’s our responsibility to place someone there who will.

I also confess I am as much to blame for this as anyone- I don’t follow politics much at all. I need to change, too.

I guaranty that if we start to successfully impeach and/or vote out of office those government officials who don’t do as we want, the ones that are there will realize their greatest shield against losing their job, which is our apathy, is no longer effective. And the ones we vote in will know they got there because their predecessor didn’t do what he or she was supposed to do and if they don’t, they will be out on their tuchas, too!

I am not preaching anarchy, I am preaching responsibility. As I said, we see throughout history how the people suffer for their government’s actions. If that is to be the case, then we should (at least) make sure those actions are what we want them to be.

God wanted the Egyptians to have the opportunity to be absolved of the horrible things their leaders did. The people certainly suffered much before the Jewish nation was set free, and to ask for gifts upon leaving the service, and to have the Egyptian people give those gifts willingly and generously, did save the people from the wrongdoing of their leaders.

Don’t accept what your government, corporate or (especially) religious leaders tell you without carefully reviewing and justifying the validity of what they say. Too often, for too long, people have been misled by the leaders they trust, so always make sure that you are aware of what you are being told.

Ultimately, it’s your butt on the line so you better make sure the ones you expect to keep it safe are doing their job.

Respectfully, Yeshua, I disagree

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In each of the Gospels (B’rit Chadashah) when Yeshua is praying before His arrest, He asks the Talmudim (Disciples) with Him to stay awake, but they are sleeping when He returns from praying. He says, “the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.”

Respectfully, Yeshua, I disagree.

The problem we have as human beings is that the flesh is strong, often stronger than the spirit. Now, nothing is more powerful than God, and when we call on His spirit all things are possible (Yeshua says that, too, and I fully agree!), but the flesh is our humanity. It is our physical presence in a physical world, one which resents and rejects the very Ruach (spirit) that is what we really need to survive being “in the flesh.”

The flesh is what causes us to not just sin, but want to sin.  Our nature is sinful, in that we are drawn to hedonistic opportunities. The little red guy with the horns and pitchfork on our left shoulder usually beats the stuffing out of the little white-robed guy with the harp and the halo on our right shoulder. If that little angel really wanted to, he could knock the red guy into the next century, but that’s not in his nature. Yeshua was led like a lamb to slaughter, not saying anything. He was humble, even to death. We are told that the proud will be humiliated, and the humble raised. That’s the reason, I believe, the little guy with the harp gets the short end of the stick most of the time. However, when we work with that guy, we can overcome our nature. With the spirit, our flesh can be subdued and the spirit can be the stronger. When we partner with the Holy Spirit (Ruach HaKodesh) it will help us to overcome the Yetzer Hara, which is the Evil Inclination that we are all born with; in Judaism it is the Yetzer Hara, in Christianity it is called Original Sin- either way, we are born into sinfulness and must spend our entire life overcoming it.

When Yeshua said the flesh is weak, what He really meant is that the human ability to overcome our nature is very weak. The “flesh” Yeshua was talking about was our self-discipline, our desire to do good, our ability to overcome ourselves. That is weak because the sinful nature of our flesh, the self-absorbed, hedonistic and undisciplined mindset we all have hard-wired into our very psyche is humanly impossible to get past.

But with God, all things are possible. And that means that even the meek, humble and forgiving little angle on our shoulder can rip the horns off that little devil and stick them where only a proctologist will be able to recover them. He can do that, with our help, with our support and with our desire to obey the Torah.

As a human I love, first and foremost, myself. To some degree it is a necessary thing- self-preservation is the most basic instinct of any living creature. However, God teaches us that to give one’s life for a friend is the epitome of love, and we all know at least one person whose self-love is so out of control that they live an unhappy, solitary and depressed life. I don’t want to end up like that, do you?

We can’t weaken the flesh, but we can strengthen the spirit. I have asked God to take a certain desire from me, I have lifted it up to Him and said, which I really, really feel, that I can’t do it and I need Him to just excise this desire and these thoughts from my mind. You know what His answer was? He told me, “It doesn’t work that way.”  He showed me that I need to work with His Ruach, I need to strengthen my ability to draw on His spirit for strength, He showed me why Shaul (Paul) said in 2 Corinthians 12:9:

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.

The flesh is strong and the spirit is weak in each of us, but the flesh is as strong as it is ever going to be, whereas the spirit can grow stronger every day until we die. As I try to obey God’s word (that means the Torah) more and more, I strengthen the indwelling spirit simply by getting myself out of the way so that the spirit can fill me. In other words, each day I try more and more to die to self.  The more I die to self, the more the spirit will fill me, the stronger it becomes until it rules my every action, and even though I will always have sinful thoughts, the spirit will be speaking to me louder than the flesh can. My flesh will whisper and God’s Ruach will shout, so all I will hear is God.

We are told that God’s Word never returns void, so here’s an easy way to strengthen your spirit: read a chapter of the Bible every day.

That’s a spiritual exercise everyone can do.

Another day closer, another day further away

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Four days left for 2015. Today we go back to work (most of us), Thursday we get off early, and Friday is 2016.

Thursday will be 2015, Friday will be 2016: on Friday we will be one year closer to the salvation we look forward to, and one year further away from the opportunities we had to be more the way God wants us to be. But yet, Friday is only one day away from Thursday.

Before we know it, the time to do something we want to do has come and gone. Shaul (Paul) of Tarsus tells us to run the good race (Acts 20:23) , to keep our eyes on the prize (Philippians 3:14) and we are told, from Genesis through Revelations, to look forward to salvation; to await eagerly for the Acharit HaYamim (End Days) when the Olam Hazeh (current world) will pass and the Olam Haba (world to come) will arrive.

Paul also tells us that we are constantly being formed into a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17) as long as we are in Messiah, as long as we have the Holy Spirit (Ruach HaKodesh) living in us. We get that by asking and then accepting Messiah Yeshua to save us from ourselves. To save you from yourself. To save me from myself.  Salvation is a very personal thing: it is between me and God, and the only thing that comes between me and God that is not an idol is when I have to face Him at Judgement Day and Yeshua, my Messiah, my defense attorney (it’s always best to have a Jewish lawyer) and my intercessor comes between me and the Throne of Judgement and says, “This one is mine, Father.”

That is the moment I look forward to. Until then, I want to make every moment I have one where I can do more to glorify God. It’s hard to do because I am so self-centered, so prideful and so world-weary. And when I say “world weary”,  I mean that I am so often wearied by fighting against what the world says I should do that I come to a point where I succumb to it’s temptations. I’m not talking about doing drugs, drinking, cavorting and such; I am talking about simple things, things that no one even notices because they are what the world does. Things like cursing, getting angry at people because they don’t do what I think they should, and complaining about other people. Not so much gossip, but just talking about them and identifying things that I don’t like that they do. These, and other things, are what the world does, but they have no place in God’s kingdom.

This is a time when the world says we should make New Year’s resolutions. That’s not a bad idea, and here’s one I would like us all to make: make every day a new year. Why try to better ourselves only one day of the year? We make these resolutions, usually with the intention of doing them but knowing in our hearts there isn’t a snowballs’ chance in heck that we will live up to the standard we are setting.  So, if we have a “New Year” every day, we can “adjust” that resolution until it becomes something we can do. Just as Paul said, we can start our life anew, every day.

To run a good race, you need to run smart. Any experienced runner will tell you when running a race you need to pace yourself. Don’t make resolutions that are so much beyond your ability to accomplish it is like trying to run a marathon by sprinting the whole way. Goals (I learned while getting my MBA) have to be reasonable and attainable. You can set your goals high, but they must be realistic.

And when you make these resolutions, remember that with God, all things are possible (Matthew 19:26), so work hard and discipline yourself to attain your goals this coming year. Forget the past failures so you can strive to be more of what God wants you to be; ask Him for guidance, let the Ruach fill you by allowing more of yourself to get out of the way. Look to the future, get over the past (it is an anchor that keeps you from moving forward) and make every day a new year, every day a step closer to the salvation we are promised, and every day a new hope for entering into Paradise.

It will come like a thief in the night, it will be here before you know it, and when it arrives there will be no going back to make amends or try again.

When is the best day to start over? Yeshua tells us (in Luke 12:20) that no one can look forward to having tomorrow, so get off your tuchas and start TODAY!!

A modern day Christmas Message from the past: Isaiah 29:13

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I am going to skip the Parashah teaching today because , it being Christmas Day, I feel there is a more important message the Lord would have me deliver.

Isaiah was a Prophet to the Southern Kingdom of Judah and tried to help the people realize the hypocrisy of their worship. He lived during the reign of 4 kings of Judah and within 100 years or so of his ministry, the Southern Kingdom of Judah was destroyed.

Isaiah was telling the people that their worship was useless because they were only paying lip service to God. The above-referenced passage says it all:

The Lord says: “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught.

This message was about how sacrifice had become corrupted and polluted into a meaningless rote activity that had no real love or worship of God attached to it.

Sounds exactly like what Christmas is today, doesn’t it?

Look at what Christmas is today: there is nothing “godly” about it anymore, except the occasional bumper sticker that says, “Keep Christ in Christmas.” Even that has become passe and meaningless to most- it’s something akin to the beauty pageant answer, “What I would like most is to have world peace.”

Most of us know that Christmas is not a Holy Day, nor is it a biblically commanded festival to God; it is a celebratory event created by Constantine in the Third Century (or thereabouts) to help rebrand the pagan celebration of the Solstice to a more “Christian” event.

That doesn’t mean it can’t be a wonderful thing. The music of Christmas is some of the most beautiful and heartfelt devotion to God I have heard from any religion, and the spirit of goodwill that comes on people during this season is unique, and refreshing. There is a magic to Christmas.

Unfortunately, even that is more from social conditioning than a desire to be closer to God, and how many of us really feel the impact of what Christmas means? Heck, if we really thought about what Christmas is supposed to stand for, celebration and thankfulness for the birth of the Messiah, we should all feel sad and dejected that someone was born into this world to suffer for us, to accept the blame and physical abuse that our sins deserved, and that this miraculous birth, this proof of prophecy, this wonderful and merciful living gift of salvation would have to die a horribly painful and lingering death because of what we have done.  That’s really what Christmas is about: thankfulness for the Messiah coming into the world, but tempered with the sadness of knowing what this tender, innocent baby would have to endure. Christmas should make me feel remorse and repentance that this baby had to live the life He lived because of what I have done.

Personally, I don’t think Christmas s such a happy time when you think about what will happen to Yeshua. Yes, I am thankful for His birth, and I am disgusted with myself for causing His death. It’s true: I killed Yeshua. In fact, you killed Yeshua. Each and every one of us killed Yeshua because if there had been but one sinner in all the world, Yeshua would have done what He did for the sake of that one person. His parables about finding the one lost sheep, the woman who found the missing coin, the statement that there is no greater love than that one will give his life for a friend (note that He didn’t say for many, or for friends, but for a friend- even saving one life is worth dying for); all the teachings Yeshua gave us, all of which are directly from the Torah, teach us that it is what we do and what we feel that add up to who we truly are.

I hope that you all have a merry and joyful Christmas- the birth of the Messiah is truly a wonderful event, the fulfilment of God’s promise of salvation for the world, and the proof that biblical prophecy is valid and trustworthy. The fact that it is not a biblical Holy Day, that Yeshua was probably born during Sukkot, that Constantine created it as a theo-political event, and that it has become totally corrupted in modern society is something we can get past. If we worship God from our hearts, if we ignore the retail sales events, the presents to each other and all the schmaltz, and instead concentrate on thanking God for His Son, and thanking His Son for all He suffered for us, then…just maybe then…Christmas can be the joyful and penitent celebration it should be.

Yeshua said that we should give to Caesar that which belongs to Caesar, and to God that which belongs to God. Thankfulness and worship from the heart belongs to God, sacrifice belongs to God, honor and glory belong to God. Give each other niceties, sure, but first give to God that which He is entitled to. Celebrate Christmas with heartfelt thankfulness to God and conscious recognition of how far short we come to measuring up to what God expects of us.

If you really want to show God that you are thankful for the birth of the Messiah, than go visit the sick, help the needy, dress the naked, feed the hungry. Instead of spending thousands of dollars at Kohl’s and Walmart and Macy’s, spend a few hundred at the soup kitchens and food pantries, give your time to bring food to the hungry, give to charities you know are doing good for people.

Today Christmas is all about what I get from you; let’s make Christmas all about what I can give to those who are in need.

That would be a Christmas present to God and Yeshua that I just know they would love to receive. Remember that Yeshua told us in Mattitayu 25:40:

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

Why we don’t start a new tradition of giving Christmas presents to God instead of each other?

 

If you don’t believe , why get so mad?

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Have you had the same experience I have had when talking to people about God who say they don’t believe in Him? I have found that they first get very edgy, and most of the time they will tell me they don’t want to talk about God, and sometimes they even get downright rude about it and verbally attack me as weak and foolish because I do believe.

Isn’t it strange? If you don’t believe in God, why be so defensive because I do? Why get stressed out and angry that someone else does believe? If I said my favorite baseball team was better than yours, you would argue for hours with all the stats and achievements of your team and it’s stars. You would argue all about how well the team works, it’s accomplishments, and maybe you would attack some of the people on my team, but mostly it’s all about why you love your team.

Yet when I tell you I believe in God, you attack me, you attack God, the bible, et.al..  But do you tell me why you don’t believe? Not a chance. The best I get is, “I just don’t believe, that’s all.”

So, again I ask, if you don’t believe, why get so hot about it?

The answer is simple and the non-believer (alleged, that is) will never admit why: it’s because, deep-down, they do believe. They are scared that God does exist, that what He says is true, that they are sinners, that what they have been told about God being the final judge and about Sheol (hell) is all true. They don’t want to go to hell, and they don’t want to change how they live, so they just stick their head in the sand and say it doesn’t exist.

Then, like someone putting ice down their back, we come along telling them about how God has shown Himself to be real and to exist through the many ways He has acted in our lives, and giving not just our testimony but the testimony of many others we have heard and seen. The truth about God is an attack against their fantasy, their protective wall that blocks out the truth of their sinfulness, lack of control, and the hopelessness of the fact that they are headed for destruction.

When you think about it, no wonder they attack us: professing our belief in God, or any reference to God that so much as implies He might exist, is a direct attack against their protective wall of lies, so it is only natural they would defend themselves by attacking us back.

These are the people living in the dark to whom we are supposed to be a light. The problem is when we start to show that light it hurts their eyes and makes them see, as the little child called out from the crowd, “But the Emperor has no clothes on!”

And they know they are the Emperor.

When we strip bare their lies and ignorance, what can they do other than attack us? In truth, we are attacking them and their beliefs  by professing our love and commitment to God.  Not that we do it on purpose, but from their point of view that’s exactly what we are doing. And so many Believers who try to minister to people don’t have the slightest idea of how to make an argument or sell anything, and they make it even harder for spiritually mature ministers to talk to these people. And yes, we are selling God. We are trying to get the world to invest in it’s own salvation when it rejects the idea that there is any need for salvation.

People only believe half of what you say, but they believe everything that they say. If you want to be a light to those in the darkness, you will never succeed by telling them how dark they are. You need to get them to tell you how dark they are. You need to get them to realize their system of beliefs, which is (basically) not to believe, is not justified. They won’t believe what you tell them so you need to get them to say it, themselves.

“How the heck can I do that?”, you may ask (I just did!): you do it by asking questions. Don’t tell them why you believe in God, ask them why they don’t. And when you get the answers, which are always (trust me, they always are) weak and unsupported by much more than “just because “,  you keep asking why. For instance:

“I know why I believe in God, would you tell me why you don’t?”

“I just don’t.”

“Then if I understand you correctly, you are saying  you don’t believe in God because you don’t want to?”

“Yes. I have the right to my opinion, don’t I?”

“Absolutely, everyone does. So, then, you don’t believe pretty much because you choose not to, right?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, so if you don’t believe because you choose not to, then God very well could exist, but you choose to reject that idea for yourself.”

“Yes, that’s it.”

“So you say God doesn’t exist but only because you don’t want to believe, which means you have no proof  that God doesn’t exist. I have no proof that He does, so  when it comes dowm to it, you say He doesn’t and I say He does, but neither of us can prove our point. Do you agree?”

“Yes.”

That puts us on equal footing, and the next step is to ask:

“If we both believe just because we choose to, doesn’t it make more sense to believe in something that is wonderful and has hope for the future than something that has no hope and can lead to nothing but living your whole life just to die?”

Silence.

That’s scripted, of course, and a real conversation may not take that exact course, but I hope you get the idea. We need to show that their rejection of the existence of God is not based on anything other than opinion, and opinions should be based on facts, yet there aren’t any. Just as we cannot prove, scientifically, that God does exist, they can’t prove He doesn’t. And accepting that there is a chance God does exist puts a little hole in their protective wall.

Once they admit their reason for not believing is based only on their choice not to believe, then you can offer, gently, why you do believe. One or two examples, something that made you absolutely certain God exists.

As for me, I tell how I felt His Ruach (Spirit) literally coming into my body when it happened. I had a totally physical and real-life experience. I have seen answers to prayers that are hard to explain away. I have heard the testimony of many people of miraculous events, healings, release from addictions, all very hard to explain away as just coincidence.

You can’t tell someone what they should believe, but you can tell them why you do. First, though, you have to get them to see their own reasons as weak and unsupported. And that has to be done patiently, gently and compassionately.

In the sales world, we learn that you never sell the quality of the steak: you sell the sizzle! Looking at a steak, reading the nutritional value, getting a good deal- none of that is why people buy a steak. They buy a steak because it tastes great and even more, because it sounds and smells absolutely wonderful when it is cooking. Just picture a steak on the grill, the browning of the fat as it is gently melting, the flames coming up around the edges, the aroma of the steak as it broils….

That’s what sells the steak- not how good it is, but how good it makes you feel.

God is good (all the time) and we love Him for who and what He is as much as what He has done for us. Well, maybe more for what He has done for us. That is why we need to get people who don’t believe to realize that their belief system has done absolutely nothing for them except suck out all the hope they could ever have in their life, and leave no hope for anything better after this life.

That is the selling point, that is what you need to bring them to realize: they choose to have no hope for no reason other than that’s what they choose. We choose to have hope in the resurrection and eternal joy, and if we want to believe that for no other reason that that’s what we choose to believe, then our belief that God exists is just as justified as their belief He doesn’t exist.

So the question is now, “Why would anyone choose to have no hope for anything wonderful in their life?”

If they don’t have a snappy comeback for that one, you are on your way to saving a soul.