Tag: christianity

Called or Commanded

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Is there a difference? If God commands us to do something, or not do something, that is pretty clear. And if we disobey, we are in sin and must atone.

But what if God only calls us to do something? Technically, I guess, we have an option to refuse without really being in sin. I am pretty sure what will happen is that God will raise up someone else to do what He needs done, and we will have been guilty, not so much of a direct sin against God, but of failing to faithfully obey Him.

Wait a minute! Isn’t refusing to obey God a sin? If He commands or if He requests, shouldn’t we obey either way?

I believe the answer is that we should obey, either way, but I also believe there is a difference between commanded and called. It’s subtle, it’s a technicality, but there is a difference.

Remember that person in the bible whom God called to perform a great act and refused to do it? I’m not talking about Jonah, because he did (eventually) go to Nineveh. I’m talking about the man that God called to perform a wondrous act in His name and never did it. Do you remember reading about him?

No? That’s because he never did what God asked of him, so he never made it into the bible. Sometimes I wonder, especially after reading the book of Jonah, how many people has God called to do things that seem little at the time but, from the view of history, might have been great- but they failed to do it. Or maybe they just never got around to it. How many?

What really scares me is that I might be one of them, one day. I felt called to write my book, and I know I should do much more to sell it- if I think it is truly honoring to God and important, then I should do more than just write it. I keep telling myself next year, after I’m retired, I will have time. Am I just putting off the calling God gave me? Was it really God calling me to write it or am I just being myself: self-centered and self-important, thinking I am someone who has the right to tell others what God wants from them?

Self-evaluation is important, since it keeps us humble, but too much of it can do more harm than good. I want to keep a healthy view on myself to make sure I listen to God when He talks to me. I want to be like the people we read about in the bible, not like the ones that never made it. And I do believe that there are many who never made it. I can’t give you any definitive reason why: let’s just say from my experience with people and from a sense of human nature I feel certain there have been people God has called to do something for Him, and have been too afraid, too choked by the tares of this world, or just too stubborn to accept God’s call.

I also believe there are, and have been, many who are just the opposite- doing what they believe to be God’s calling in their life, but it is really what they want to do and they are using God as an excuse for doing it.

What about you? Do you feel you have a calling from God to do something with your life? If so, don’t over-evaluate it, don’t spend time thinking about it, but right now pray for confirmation (God is good at doing that.) Really- if you think or feel you have a calling, then go do it! Don’t think too much on it and don’t worry about how it will get done (God is good at making things happen, too)- just get started!

Abraham didn’t check out MapQuest or go to AAA for a trip ticket when God told him to leave Ur- he just left. Moses was really unsure of himself at first, but he eventually took the call and ran with it. Gideon tested that the call was really from God, and after receiving confirmation he performed his calling with a passion. We can be the same as these people- maybe not as great, maybe not as influential, maybe even just as scared (at first), but we can be like them.

I believe God has a job for everyone who calls on His name: you know, God never hesitates, He never thinks it over; if anything, He might wait until the time is perfect but God hears us when we call to Him and He is faithful to answer our prayers for help.

Don’t you think it is only right that He deserves for us to do what He asks when He calls?

The 3 Biggest Lies about Jesus

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Third Biggest Lie: If you are Jewish and you believe Jesus is the Messiah then you can’t be Jewish anymore.

That’s what I have been told, and not just by Jews but the Christian world teaches that, also. They don’t come right out and say it, but the teachings are based on misunderstanding of the letters from Paul (Shaul) to the Romans and Galatians, which have been used as a polemic against following the Torah when they are really an apologetic explaining why it is still absolutely necessary to follow the Torah. There are also many subtle anti-Semitic terms in the New Covenant writings, no matter whether it is King James, NIV, or whatever. Unless you have a Messianic New Covenant, the First Century Jews and Pagans who accepted Yeshua as the Messiah God promised are called the “Church”- that is just not right. There was no “church”, at least not as we know the word to be used today. There were Jews and pagans becoming Jews. They met in groups and homes, and if we need to label them in any way, the best term would be Kahillot, the plural of the Hebrew word Kahal, which means congregation. The first century Jews who accepted Yeshua to be the true Messiah remained (and worshiped as) Jews. The pagans who accepted Yeshua as the Messiah of the Jews began to become Jewish, since there were no other religions. You were either a pagan of one sort or another, or a Jew. When you stopped being a pagan, you had no choice but to be a Jew. Duh! So, where did we go wrong? When did accepting the Jewish Messiah require converting to Christianity?  Sometime around the time when the second biggest lie started.

Second Biggest Lie: Jesus founded Christianity.

Jesus never founded Christianity. He preached only to Jews and used Torah as His only source. After the resurrection and the inclusion of the Gentiles into salvation (Acts 10) , as more and more Gentiles joined the movement it became (I believe) less and less attractive to the “everyday” Jewish person. After the suppression by Emperor Hadrian of the Bar Kochba revolt (132-136 AD) being Jewish meant being subject to persecution. If you were a Jew who accepted Yeshua or a Gentile who did the same thing, it was less “dangerous” to be Christian than Jewish.  Frankly speaking, the more Gentiles that accepted Yeshua the less appealing it became to Jews (my opinion) and the further from Torah they traveled (historical fact.) By the Third Century when Emperor Constantine had “legitimatized” Christianity (as it was being called then) and began to form doctrine and canon at the Council of Nicene, the schism was complete and Christianity was totally different from Judaism. The apple had fallen far from the tree.

Biggest Lie about Jesus: If you are a Christian the Torah is not applicable to you.

Acts, Galatians, and Romans are the three Epistles that (I believe) have damaged the truth about being a follower of Yeshua with regard to being responsible to follow the commandments and regulations found in the Torah. As we saw in the lie above, as more and more Gentiles entered the group of Jewish Believers, the Mosaic law became not a means of worshiping but a stumbling block. I mean, really- I want to be saved by this Yeshua you have told me about, but I have to let you cut what off my what? I would certainly have to think twice about that one. Especially because no one had invented Novocaine yet! Also, I have been eating anything I wanted to eat, and now I can’t eat any shellfish or pork?

I separate biblical Kosher from Rabbinical- biblical Kosher, as I call it, means essentially no pork or shellfish, but Rabbinical Kosher is keeping in alignment with what the Rabbi’s say: different dishes, no meat and dairy at all, and an entire host of rules and regulations that are hard and complicated to follow, even back then.

Even to be biblically Kosher was a big move and (again, this is just what I believe) these requirements were, for many, a deal-breaker. Clearly, strict and immediate adherence to Torah was a significant barrier, which is why in Acts 15 they reduced the requirements to be a new Believer to just the 4 rules about food and fornication. What people miss, though, is that they say these are just the initial requirements, and the next sentence states that they will be seeing the laws of Moses every day in the Temple. The clear meaning of that is that Torah will be taught to them, eventually. The “Christian world” has conveniently failed to mention that part.  Yeshua said, in Matthew 5:17, he did not come to change the laws. And when He said He came to fulfill them that meant, in the language of the day, that He was interpreting them correctly. Fulfilling a law doesn’t mean doing away with it: if that was true, when you next come to a stop sign or a red light and the car ahead of you comes to a full stop, you don’t need to. That car fulfilled the law so it is no longer valid.

Yeah, right- try that one on the cop when he is writing the ticket.

The truth is simple: Jesus, Yeshua, was Jewish and lived a Jewish lifestyle. In fact, His “claim to fame” is that He lived Torah exactly, perfectly, and as the sinless Lamb of God was acceptable as the sacrifice for sin for all mankind. If Yeshua did not live Torah perfectly, He was not sinless and was not an acceptable sacrifice. Simple. However, since He was raised, then He did live Torah perfectly.

The Christian world asks that the followers of Jesus live as Jesus lived and do as Jesus did. Then they tell you that Torah is only for Jews because Christians have Grace. Grace came from Torah, so without Torah there can be no Grace- that is the message Shaul was trying to get across in Romans.

What Jesus taught was to worship God not just in action but in mind and heart. Jesus was the living Word, and the only word was Torah- reject the Torah and you reject Jesus.

Stop living a lie and get with the program.

Parashah Ki Thissa (When you take) Exodus 30:11 – 34

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Big stuff in here: the sin of the Golden Calf and the 13 Divine Attributes of God (announced when He passes by Moshe), which make up the major restrains of almost every Jewish prayer of repentance. Also we are told what spices to use for anointing oil and incense before the Lord, and it ends with Moses coming down (the second time) from the mountain with the Ten Words, his face beaming so much that from then on he wears a veil, except when he goes in the Tabernacle to talk to the Lord.

I asked myself why this time?  Why didn’t his face beam after being 40 days on the mountain the first time? My answer to myself was that there was one major difference between the first meeting with God and the second one: the second time Moses saw the Glory of God. In Exodus 34:5-7 God walks by Moses, covering Moses’ face as He passes so Moses can only see His back. God actually, physically was there, close enough to cover the face of Moses. I believe that Moses’ face shone from that day on because he was so close to the Glory of the Lord that the Shekinah glory infused his body. That’s why his face shone, and from what I read it sounds like his face shone for the rest of his life.

What I find of interest is not the great story of the Golden Calf- there is so much for us to learn there. What I want to talk about today is much simpler, much “smaller”, but no less important.

The parashah starts out with God telling Moses that everyone who is called up to fight in a war must pay a ransom for their soul of a 1/2 Shekel. Now the word of God is very clear that there shall be no ransom for a murderer, that is, someone who has committed murder purposefully. But this ransom is for those who have murdered during a war. Even though the wars the people of Israel performed were not just sanctioned  by God, but actually commanded by Him in many cases, they were still guilty of murder.

This shows us that God is true to His word, that His laws are always laws, that forgiveness is possible but only with real repentance. Those who go to a “holy” war for God and kill those God says should die (effectively being the executioner of the Lord) are still murderers. They have killed, and God said we shall not kill, but unlike the murderer who kills for passion or gain, and does so on purpose, this “murder” is different, so a ransom is acceptable. Again, even though this form of murder is commanded by God, we must ransom our soul to the Lord. The monies were to be used exclusively for the maintenance of the Tabernacle, so that this ransom did go, wholly, to the Lord.

God is always willing to forgive a repentant sinner, but He is also more than willing, and frighteningly able, to punish those who are unrepentant. And God must punish the wrongdoer. If God doesn’t punish those who do wrong and do not repent, then His promise of salvation is empty. God said that the guilty will be punished- He says it over and over throughout the Tanakh; He has the Prophets tell us over and over that we shall suffer if we do not obey the Lord (and we did, too!), and Yeshua also tells us this. At the end of the Lord’s Prayer, Matthew 6:14, Yeshua tells us that if we do not forgive on Earth, then we will not be forgiven by God in heaven.

Torah is valid: it was valid when God gave it to us, it was valid when David was king, it was valid when Herod ruled, it was valid during and after Yeshua’s ministry, and it is valid, today. Not just to Jews, but to everyone.  Just because we can be forgiven doesn’t mean we can ignore God’s word: God told us to ransom our soul even though we were doing what He commanded, so even when we obey Him we can still be guilty! His laws are absolute.

Christianity has been teaching for centuries that the Jews have Torah and Christians have the blood of Christ. That is totally wrong- everyone has Torah, and everyone has the blood of Christ! The Torah was given to the Jewish people so they could live it as an example for everyone else to learn from, and follow. The blood of Messiah was shed so that everyone could have salvation because no one can live perfectly in accordance to Torah. How absolutely inane to say that Christians have the blood of Christ, as if they were the only ones He died for! He died for Jews, He died for Buddhists, He died for Muslims, He died for Devil worshipers, He died for E-V-E-R-Y-O-N-E!!!   

And Torah was given to the Jews, but Torah is also for everyone. Torah tells us how God wants us to worship Him and treat each other, Yeshua told us the deeper meanings of the Torah and that we shouldn’t try to just follow it legalistically (i.e., just obey the letter of the law), but that we need to follow it spiritually. Jeremiah 31:31 tells us that the New Covenant will be that God will write His Torah on our hearts, which is exactly what Yeshua was telling us to do! It will be more than words to follow, it will be the very thing we are!

The Torah was given to guide us, Yeshua died for us because we can’t follow Torah perfectly (but NOT in place of the Torah) and the blood of Christ is for everyone to be able to have their sins washed away and be reconciled to God. God isn’t stupid- if you call upon His name and hold up the blood of Christ as your means of forgiveness, but you are unrepentant, you will not be accepted. And the proof that you are repentant, or that you are not repentant, will be by your fruits, by how you act towards others and towards God.

The Torah tells us how to show our repentance, so to refuse to follow Torah is to refuse to be repentant.

Look…no one can obey Torah completely, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t supposed to try.

You don’t have to believe to like the bible

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Before I was saved I didn’t know the bible, at all. I knew what I had been told, or what I thought they had said, and that was it.

And that was not always correct, either. How many people do you think would say yes if you asked them, “Does the bible say, ‘God helps those that help themselves.'”?

We who know the bible know that this is not said anywhere in the bible; the truth we learn from the bible is that God helps those that ask Him for help.

So, what brought me to the Word of God? It wasn’t the spiritual stuff, it was the social stuff. It was the fact that I realized (and we have to make others realize this by exposing them to these facts) the bible held many wise sayings and useful rules for how to act in society. I realized that there was wisdom that was available for me without having to believe in God. There was truth and understanding about people and how they treated each other in the stories it has, and there is history (I am a lifelong student of history) that is fascinating. It is very hard to argue, with all the archeological evidence and artifacts found over the centuries, that the bible is not an accurate historical document.

All of these things got me interested in the bible as a book. I read it as I would any other saga, and I recognized it as a history of the human experience.

But then the Word of God got into me. The bible does say, in Isaiah 55:11:

“…so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.”

The purpose of God’s word is to save us from ourselves, and it did that for me. I didn’t understand a lot of it, and what really helped me was to get my hands on a special type of bible- a messianic one. Being Jewish, the New Covenant writings were an anathema to me- I had been told by every Jew I ever knew, even ones that didn’t know the first thing about the bible, that Jesus was a Jew that turned against Judaism and created Christianity (what a crock that is, but even today it is accepted by most Jews as the truth.) And, as a student of history, I knew how well Christianity had treated the Jewish people over the millennia, so (naturally) I had no interest in anything Christian. However, the messianic version bold-printed every New Covenant reference to the Tanakh, and when I saw, page after page after page, that most of everything in the New Covenant came directly from the Old Covenant, I realized that (you’ve heard me say this before) there is nothing “new” in the New Covenant. It is a Jewish book!

So, nu? Let’s read our audience and ask only the questions we already know the answers to: let’s sell salvation the right way. If you are finding that your efforts to interest non-Believers is not working , stop telling them what you think is important and ask them what they think is important.  People only want to know what interests them, so with all there is in the bible you just have to be able to find something that is relevant to their interests.

That is how you get people to read the bible, or (at least) know something about it that is accurate. Just help them to understand that the bible is not just for believers, it is for everyone. The stories are the best stories that have ever been told (isn’t the Gospel called “The Greatest Story Ever Told?”), the wisdom of Solomon in Proverbs is easy to read and necessary for any and all aspects of life, the mitzvot regarding how to treat each other in a society are the foundation for most every civilized country in the world. The history is fascinating.

All of this is in there, and you don’t need to believe in God to enjoy and learn from it. Even within the bible there is a book that never once mentions God. Not a word about Him, not even His name, only a reference to His ability to achieve His goals (if you aren’t sure which book, it’s the Book of Esther {Hadassah}.)

People are afraid of the bible, and I don’t blame them-after all, it does tell us that if we reject God we go to hell. But, other than that, as a book it makes you think, it is a real “page-turner” (in most places- I will admit that the genealogies and the first 8 chapters or so of Numbers is a drag) and it can be read only a chapter or two a day.

Get people to see the bible as more than a religious book, teach them that there is more to the bible than God-related things, and get them just interested enough to read it. Even just one book, or a story. Get their face in the book, and leave the rest to the book.

Isaiah knew what he was talking about. All we need to do is get someone curious enough to read something in the bible.

If you can do just that one thing, God will take it from there.

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.

Christ isn’t a Christian

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Jewish Side of Why They Just Refuse to Believe

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One of the hardest things for a Jewish person to do, especially one who practices the religion (they say practice makes perfect but after a lifetime of practicing we still don’t get it right), is to accept that Jesus is the Messiah. In fact, you can barely even get anyone who is Jewish to talk with you about Him.

Maybe there’s a good reason, or even a few good reasons: the persecution that started after Rome accepted (what had become) Christianity, separated now from it’s Jewish roots and forcing Jewish people to convert or die, then there’s the Crusades (nearly as many Jews were forced to convert or be killed as Muslims were), the Inquisition, the Holocaust (the Nazi’s, believe it or not, had the saying “Gott mit uns” [God is with us] on their belt buckles)…just to name a few. All of these historical atrocities were perpetrated by “Christians” trying to get Jews to give up the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and convert to Christianity so they could worship Jesus.

I know, I know…Christians worship God. Well, sit down and hear this word: Christianity teaches idolatry. Many Christians will pray to Jesus instead of praying to God (Jesus is supposed to intercede for our prayers, not intercept them), and the Replacement Theologists say that Jews have been rejected by God because they rejected Jesus. The “Born Again” crowd often tells us that the Old Covenant is no longer valid, and I have personally heard from people who tried to be more Torah observant but their fellow Christians scolded them, accusing them of now being “under the law” instead of being “under the blood.” And just walk into any Roman Catholic church and count the graven images people bow down and pray to. To a Jewish person, all Gentile religions are “Christianity.”

If a Gentile in the 1st Century wanted to accept Yeshua as his or her Messiah, they would start to live as Yeshua did, which meant observing Torah; in other words, 1st century Gentiles (who were all Pagans) who accepted Yeshua were becoming Jewish. Nowadays, if a Torah observant Jewish person wants to accept Yeshua as his or her Messiah, they are told they can no longer be Jewish and have to become Christian, worship in a church and forget all that “Jewish” stuff. They are told, essentially, that they have to stop being a Jew to believe in the Jewish Messiah.

How stupid is that? And some people wonder why it is so hard for Jews to even listen to the truth about Messiah Yeshua!

If I hadn’t discovered Messianic Judaism, I don’t think I would have remained saved. If I had to stop being a Jew (and remember- I was not even a ‘practicing’ Jew) in order to accept Yeshua as my Messiah, I don’t think I would have lasted. Praise God that He directed me to mature Christians and a Messianic Synagogue. And a real Jewish Rabbi to show me how to be a Jewish Believer.

Jewish people have been the subject of persecution and hatred pretty much since the days of Goshen, even before they left Egypt. We’re almost used to it, although that doesn’t mean we like it. It’s easier to accept such treatment when you think you’re on the winning side, although it is a shame that many, actually most, Jews don’t realize that that isn’t going to happen without first accepting Yeshua, their true Messiah, for themselves.

That’s why it is so important to help Jewish people know the truth, and consequently so hard to get them to accept it. History is against us because history proves that accepting Jesus means giving up being Jewish. Although that is not the truth, and shouldn’t be the truth, it is a fact.

If you want to approach  a Jewish person with the truth of their Messiah, let me make a few suggestions:

1. Never use the name Jesus- His name is, was and always will be Yeshua, so use that name;

2. If you, yourself, do not believe that the Torah is valid and all who accept Yeshua should live a Torah observant life, then don’t ever talk to a Jew about Yeshua. And get your head into the game- Yeshua IS the living Torah and anyone who thinks Torah is dead might as well say Yeshua is dead;

3. Understand and emphasize with thousands of years of history which has shown for a Jew to believe in Yeshua means converting to a different religion and no longer being Jewish. You need to show that believing in Yeshua means they can stay Jewish, and is the most “Jewish’ thing they can do;

4. Introduce them to a Messianic Synagogue instead of a church- they will feel much more comfortable;

5. If you aren’t fully familiar with the Old Covenant writings, especially the predictions about the Messiah, then don’t ever talk to a Jew about Yeshua. Jews do NOT accept that the New Covenant is scripture.  In fact, they give it as much credibility as they give to the Quran or the Bhagavad Gita. You won’t get anywhere quoting the New Covenant as proof that Yeshua is the Messiah. You need to use Tanakh, and only Tanakh;

6. Once you have proven you know about Judaism, that you respect their Jewish heritage and do not want to take that away, then you might be able to talk to them about the B’rit Chadasha. And call it that- use all the Hebraic terminology you know so that everything you talk about “sounds” Jewish. To talk to a Jew about Messiah, you need to talk about His Jewishness, the Torah He taught, and that He did not create a new religion;

7. Last and most important: You cannot convince someone to listen to you by telling them they are wrong. If you want to start to get the interest of a Jewish person, you start by asking them questions why they believe what they believe. Don’t try to force your beliefs down their throat- simply ask them why they believe. Most people, Jewish or Gentile, who believe something probably do so because someone told them that’s what to believe. Most people are too lazy or unconcerned to study and try to determine the truth of something for themselves. So, if you want to get a Jewish person (or anyone, for that matter) to believe in what you have to say, you first have to get them to doubt what they already know. You do that by asking questions, as simple as , ” I know the reasons why I believe Yeshua is the Messiah God promised, please tell me why you don’t?”  Most likely it will be somewhere between “That’s what I’ve always been taught” to “Because He isn’t, that’s all.”

Jewish people have good reasons for not even wanting to hear about this guy Jesus. It is our responsibility to be understanding, patient and deliver a very “soft” sell when talking about Messiah Yeshua to them. They need to hear it, and Yeshua Himself said in Mattitayu 23:39 that He will not return until Jerusalem (i.e., the Jewish people) say “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord”, so it is really important for Jewish people to learn about and accept their own Messiah, Yeshua.

It will take a lot of courage to talk to a Jewish person about Yeshua. But that’s what we need to do. Just follow the rules above and you will be OK. Remember: we can only plant the seeds, God is the one who makes them grow. So have good seed to spread around, and throw it everywhere.

The good soil is out there, you never know where, so disperse the seed of truth and salvation everywhere you go, to everyone, in the way they can receive it.

Why Predestination Doesn’t Work

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The answer is found in Ezekiel 33. This chapter, similar to Ezekiel 18, is where God tells Ezekiel that he, Ezekiel, is like a watchman on a tower. When God tells Ezekiel of upcoming doom for the sinful, like a watchman blowing the shofar to warn people when the enemy approaches , he is to tell them what God says so they have warning and time to turn from their sins. If Ezekiel warns them, he is free of their blood. Therefore, God is saying that people can choose to turn from their sin, or choose to die in it.

God tells us that He takes no pleasure in the death of a sinner while still in his sin:

11 Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?

The gist of predestination is that the elect are chosen already, and we don’t have any choice. God has designed and determined everything that will happen. There are some things in the Bible that can be used to make this argument; for instance, God told Jeremiah he was chosen to be a prophet and that God knew Jeremiah when he was still in the womb, Moses being chosen, Gideon, Samson, and there are others. All of these Prophets, Judges, and Saviors of Israel (oh, yeah- don’t forget Esther, who was where she was “for such a time as this”) were determined by God to do His will.

Does that mean they didn’t have a choice? Jonah had a choice, and even though he did get a lot of “encouragement” to turn back to Nineveh when he ran away, he still could have fought off the calling. He probably would have died, and we would not read the Book of Jonah at Yom Kippur services; maybe it would be the Book of Bob, or the Megillah of Myron? In any event, if Jonah had turned from his calling, or Gideon, or even Moses (remember that God almost killed Moses as he was first going back to Egypt), God would have still raised someone up to do His bidding. Even Yeshua, when He was praying before capture, asked if the cup could pass from Him let that be so. Even the Messiah clearly could have changed His mind about what He was to do. That’s not predestination, that’s free will in action.

You can’t make an argument from nothing (this is a very important lesson to remember when interpreting the Bible) but we can never know how many babies were pulled form the Nile. Perhaps there were more than just one baby saved during the Pharaoh’s decree, so if Moses hadn’t chosen to fulfill the role God had for him, there might have been others available to God to serve His purpose.

Ezekiel isn’t the only place where we can see people have had choices, and God has given them that right. We do have free will, we do have the opportunity to chose God. Really, when you think about it (something most religions seem to want you to avoid doing), predestination can’t be God’s plan because if the Lord already chose what and who, then why bother allowing evil in the world? If God knows who will be in heaven, then why put billions of people through the Tribulation, or make innocent people die? Why even tell Ezekiel to warn the sinners? Why send the Prophets? If God has determined, ahead of time, who will live and who will die, why even give those destined to die life?

None of it makes any sense. Not that we can be expected to understand God, but really? God making billions of people go through life for what is, essentially, no reason other than to die is… ridiculous. That makes God out to be a young boy with a magnifying glass digging up ants just to incinerate them. Or creating the ants to watch them die (Oy- that’s even worse!)

God is the captain of our lives, and His ship will sail from Creation all the way to Salvation on Earth, a new Earth, where the people who have chosen to choose God (through Messiah Yeshua) will live in eternal joy and peace.

Those who have chosen to ignore God’s existence and choose sin will suffer eternal damnation.

The bottom line is that it is a choice, and it is our choice. It is your choice, and you are the only one responsible for that decision. You can’t blame your parents, your Priest, Rabbi or Pastor. You can’t say your favorite teacher taught you that God is dead, or that you just don’t know what to believe.

Not believing is a choice. And, take it from me, it’s the WRONG choice!!

Yeshua said that those who are not against Him are with Him. Not accepting or believing is being against Him.

Also, accepting what others say without confirming the truth for yourself is, well, it’s just plain stupid! You are going to have to answer to God, and He will not give you a break because you were too lazy to read the Bible and ask for the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) to lead your understanding so that you can make up your own mind. And he won’t buy the, “But that’s what I was taught” line, either.

I will talk about God with anyone, believer or atheist, and if I don’t respect their choice, I respect their God-given right to make that choice.

Make your own choice, and do that with the knowledge that comes from reading the Bible for yourself. There are some parts that are boring and tough to get through, but get through it. Please- at least once in your life do this so that you  have a real chance at having life eternal. It may take a few days or weeks, or even months to get through it- the whole thing, from Genesis through to the end of Revelations. If you are Jewish, read the New Covenant writings, also (it will help if you get a Messianic version of the Bible) and if you are Gentile, read the Old Covenant writings first. You may be surprised at the fact that Jesus did not say anything new. Same thing for the Jewish readers of the B’rit Chadashah: Yeshua taught Judaism, He did NOT invent a new religion.

God has determined what will happen to mankind- no one who says the Bible is true can argue that point. However, because the fate of mankind is settled and already determined, that doesn’t mean the fate of any individual man (or woman) is already determined. The ship is sailing, it will reach it’s final port, and we all have the right and the freedom to decide if we will sail with this ship or not.

It is your choice, so make it a good one.

Parashah Naso (Numbers 4:21-7:89) “Take”

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This reading starts with a census of the Levitical clans so that the number of those who are able to do service in the Tent of Meeting can be counted. The age range for service is from 30 to 50 years old.

It also outlines the regulations about restitution for sin against each other, the Water of Jealousy and the Nazarite vows. It finishes with the tabernacle being completed, and the gifts bestowed by the 12 tribes, which were exactly the same gifts from each tribe. The Chumash says the gifts were exactly the same so that no one tribe would outrival the other.

Verses 6:23-28 is the only place in the entire bible where God specifically tells us how we are to be blessed. No where else are we told exactly what to pray (the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew is really more of a template describing the manner in which we are to pray than an actual prayer, although on it’s own it is a really good prayer) or how to bless someone. These three sentences, which God told Moses to have Aaron use when blessing the people, are God’s own words that we are to use when placing His name on the people.

The Talmud goes into detail about the underlying meaning of each of these three blessings. If I may shorten the commentary a bit, the first line is in the singular to represent that the entire nation of Israel is one in the eyes of God, and we are to feel that we are a single entity. God’s face shining upon us is a symbol of not just happiness and purity (light) but friendship, as well. Yeshua also uses light this way, in telling us that those full of light have compassion and charity.  When God’s face is turned towards us He is showing and pouring out to us His love and salvation. The bible talks much, especially in the books of the Prophets, about how when God turns His face away from us we are left on our own and unprotected by  Him. So, to turn His face , to shine it upon us, is a symbol of His protection, love and divine intervention for our good. And to be gracious unto us is to provide in abundance both our physical and spiritual needs. Finally, to give us peace means more than relaxation: it is peace for us and peace from us to others, it is individual, familial and national. It means to be healthy, financially secure, without fear and tranquil.

God said this is how the Kohanim are to place His name upon the people; the Talmud is clear that even though it is the Kohen who pronounces the blessing, it is God who does the blessing. The Priests are only the channel through which God’s word and blessings are conveyed to the people.

The majority of religions I have studied and experienced, including Judaism, have forgotten this fact, i.e. that God is the one who we worship and God is the one who forgives and God is the one who is the origin and source of our blessings. How many religions have made God secondary to the Priests (or Saints) when it comes to asking for forgiveness, blessings or help? The Rabbi’s are the ones who decree what the bible means in the Orthodox and Chasidic religions, with the Talmud often taking precedence over the Tanakh; in Catholicism the Priests forgive sins and the Pope is the one who determines what God’s will is for the church. In the other Christian religions Yeshua/Jesus has been lifted up (just like He said He would be) like the serpent in the desert to where He is prayed to, and He is asked for forgiveness from sin instead of God. Yeshua never said to pray to Him, but to pray to God in His name- meaning to invoke His righteousness as our intercessor, not as the source and origin of our salvation. Yeshua is to be a Kohen like Melchizedek- not in place of God but as intercessor to God on our behalf.

Christianity and Judaism have placed their Priests and Rabbis in a position of status higher than God- the people go to the priest for forgiveness and they pray to Jesus, and the Rabbis quote Talmud instead of Torah. We are to pray to God, and not to anyone else. We pray to God, we ask for God’s favor and for God’s forgiveness, and we invoke the name of the Messiah as our mediator and as our intercessor. We should NOT pray to Jesus instead of God; we should pray to God in Jesus’s name , which means to have Jesus bring our requests to God; praying this way it will be Yeshua’s righteousness God sees when our request is before Him, and not our own sinfulness.

Don’t pray ‘retail’:  get factory-direct blessings and forgiveness. No one can do for you what God can do for you, so why ask anyone else?

What Now?

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This week I seem to be on a pathway leading to somewhere; where, I don’t know.

Monday I felt led to write about building our belief system  in something (hopefully God), and yesterday it was about telling people what our beliefs are without forcing it down their throat because, ultimately, it is between each one of us and God. So we have chosen what to believe, and we are open to telling others what we believe for their sakes, but respectfully remembering it is their choice.

I guess today the next thing to discuss is: what do we do when they don’t want to believe what we do? How do we live with this? How do we change their minds, for their sakes?

That’s an important point: it has to be for their sake, not for our pridefulness, that we talk to people. I know I am prideful- I confess it, I admit it, and I deserve to be (that last part is just a joke, really.) We need to put our own need to be believed and listened to behind us when we are talking about God because it is all about God and not about us; it is OK to present ourselves as an example of what we are talking about, but we shouldn’t be the main topic (especially not in our own minds.)

I have been “in charge” for a good part of my career, and now that I am approaching the age where social security is going to be more of an income producer than a salary reducer, I feel that even if I am not in charge, my experience is useful. As such, I will offer my advice now and then, especially when it is asked for.

BTW…your opinion may be of great intrinsic value, but it has no perceived value at all until someone asks for it.

What I have learned from being in management is that just because someone thinks they have a great idea, even if it is a great idea, it may not be appropriate to the situation. In many cases, the person offering the advice is not aware of all the factors, so even when what they offer is good it will not work because of things they are unaware of. Even so, often people will become upset or angry when they offer their advice and it is not taken. That is pridefulness, and actually disrespectful to the person who has to make the decision.

Yeshua said that we should always respect those in charge because God put them there. Even when the person in charge is a total jerk, and every good and appropriate piece of advice you give is ignored, it is that person’s responsibility to make the final decision. So, if you give really good advice and he or she ignores it, just wait. Sooner or later things that go around will come around, and sometimes God, in His infinite mercy, will actually let us see that happen.

Most of the time we don’t see it, but we can trust in the Lord that it will happen. Just like I talked about yesterday, everyone gets their comeuppance, good or bad.

This holds true when we give advice about salvation and talk about the Lord. We have formed our beliefs, and we have offered them to people to help that person come to the truth. After we have had our say, we wait to see if the seed of salvation is absorbed by good soil, or if it has no more effect than shouting into the wind.

Now comes the hard part- being totally ignored, maybe even having our beliefs insulted, and not being offended. We can be a little miffed if we are insulted, and if so, there is nothing wrong with gently saying, “I allow you to believe what you want to without insulting you, and if you can’t be as respectful to me as I have been to you, then I don’t want to talk to you anymore about this.” Let’s assume that we are talking with someone who is not insulting, just not accepting what we say as valid for them. It’s hard to see someone rush headlong into what we know, absolutely, is death and eternal suffering. It is much, much harder when it is someone we love or care about. But we have to hold firm; we have to respect their right to decide for themselves, and we have to show them in our compassionate reply that we are not Bible-thumpers who can only preach fire and brimstone. We need to say, gently, lovingly and painfully (without trying to lay some guilt trip on them) that we respect their right to choose, and we hope they don’t mind too much if we continue to pray for them.

I usually like to include in my discussion, somewhere, that I know why I believe what I do, but can they tell me why they believe what they do, and they cannot say it is because that’s what they’ve been told or “just because”- those are not acceptable reasons.

From years in the sales business I learned the best way to make someone change their mind is not to point out where they are wrong, but simply to get them to question themselves. People only believe half of what you tell them, but they believe 100% of what they say. When we ask the right questions, and they realize they don’t have a “real” answer, they start to doubt themselves. Questioning ourselves is the first step to coming to the truth. If what we believe stands up to our own cross-examination, we are standing on a solid foundation. If we can’t answer our own questions with certainty, then we need to re-evaluate what we believe.

It is hard to see those we love and care about walk headlong to destruction, smiling and joking all the way to the end of the cliff, along with all the other Lemmings. It hurts, and we just want to smack ’em upside their head…but we can’t. It won’t do any good to kick against the goads (as Yeshua said), or throw pearls before swine (He said that, too.) All we can do is make them question themselves, offer the answers we know are true, and let them decide what they will believe.  Oh, I almost forgot- we need to show them what we are talking about by demonstrating it in our life. It’s one thing to talk the talk, but if we don’t walk the walk they will not see any reason to change. It has to be “Do as I say, and watch me do as I say” or it means nothing. No one will go to a restaurant you recommend if you say you would never eat there, right?

I think I have come to the place I didn’t know where I was heading to when I started writing this morning.

Here is my “A-B-C’s” for missionary work:

A– form your belief system;

B– share your beliefs and why you believe, respectfully understanding everyone has a right to make their own choice; and

C– humbly allow others to ignore you, but continue to pray for them and let them see your belief system at work in you.

I think that’s all we need; at least, it’s a good start. Don’t you think so?