Tag: ego

Are We Strong Enough to Give Up?

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What do you think of when you hear “Give up?”

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Do you think that it means to quit trying to do something, like in a prizefight when one contender throws in the towel and by doing so shows that he gives up?

Or do you think of ceding land, as in a war, when one side gives up land to the other?

Or maybe it is when you tell a secret to someone else, and give up the information?

In some cases, giving up shows cowardice; in some cases, giving up shows compromise; in some cases, giving up shows the strength of will and dedication to something greater than yourself.

From a spiritual viewpoint, it could mean to surrender our life, meaning the way we live now, and allow another life to take over, one led by the Ruach HaKodesh, the Holy Spirit. This is the type of giving up I want to talk about today.

Too often I see people who are fighting with each other, verbally, about things of the Bible. The pronunciation of God’s name, the importance of speaking it, the idea of the Trinity, and even arguments about which tribe they are from or what will really happen during the Tribulation.

These topics are really hot buttons, as we say, and it is not much different than when we are in a social group and everyone knows better than to get into a political discussion (especially today) because the emotions are so strained and people are so passionate they end up not discussing as adults but arguing and throwing insults like little children on the school playground.

Frankly, I am surprised I haven’t seen someone react with “Oh Yeah? Well, my Daddy can beat up your Daddy, so there!”

The strength I am talking about is the strength that comes from humility, which allows us to overcome our own prideful need to have people tell us we are right or to know that we were able to change their way of thinking to what we think.

The Prophets of old were instructed by God -actually, they were warned- to tell the people what God wants from them and that they need to do what God says. If the Prophet refused, then the bloodguilt of the people would also be on the head of the prophet; in other words, God would consider the prophet to be as guilty as the people. If, however, the prophet told the people what God instructed him to say, then even if the people failed to listen or change their ways, their bloodguilt would be on them, alone, and the prophet would not be held guilty of their sins.

I would like to point out that as often as we read about the Prophets in the Tanakh being ignored, persecuted and even killed, there is not one reference I can recall where the prophet was insulting or judgmental.

When we discuss topics that are God-related, or what we consider biblical truths (which, if you are willing to admit it, are always going to be what you think is the truth) and the discussion begins to turn heated, do you have the strength to give up? Are you able to say, “I see we are at an impasse, so we will have to agree to disagree” and then move on?  If not, I would ask you to please think about why you can’t give up. Many people use what I consider to be the lame excuse that they are only telling the truth, which (apparently) in their mind gives them the right to be insulting, judgmental, and to badger people with Bible references until the other person blocks them. Then they brag about being blocked.

I don’t know about you, but I would never brag about being blocked because what I am bragging about, in reality, is that I was so stubborn and prideful that I purposefully rejected someone who I could have brought to a better understanding of God. If I am willing to give up this battle, I may be able to win them over in another battle. And, if I can maintain the communication, then maybe if I AM right about the topic I previously gave up on, I may get another chance to help that person see the light.

Now, there are cases when we should block people, or when we should not just stop trying, but ignore them, altogether. Shaul’s letters to Timothy and Titus advise them to stay away from useless arguments and discussions about irrelevant topics. This is something that we should do in discussion groups, as well. People who insist on arguing for the sake of arguing need to be avoided because they are doing the Devil’s work and we shouldn’t encourage that by participating. Also, those who are nasty, judgmental and insulting need to be avoided because they are slaves to their own egos and don’t really care about whether or not you are helped because they only want to hear themselves talk and have people confirm how wonderful and spiritually mature they are.

A meaningful and mature discussion is like walking in a field of flowers, where the more you walk, the more lovely scents you encounter. However, an argument that is a battle of egos is like walking in a field of sheep: no matter where you step you will end up stepping in something that smells terrible and you will wear that smell on you when you leave the field.

We must try to bring people to an understanding of God, an understanding and appreciation of the Messiah and what he did for us, and ultimately to the goal of salvation through Messiah. It is also important to teach the instructions God gave us for worship and treating each other so that we can persevere through tough times. These are important topics because they are eternal topics, and our very salvation is based on these things. Anything else might be edifying, it might educate us, it might even help someone to come to faith, but if it leads to argumentation and division, it is not being used in a godly way.

If you find yourself in an ongoing discussion that is going nowhere, and it is because (now, be honest) you are still trying to change someone’s mind, then you need to give up. Give up your pride, give up your stubbornness, and give up throwing pearls before swine. Yeshua told his Talmudim (students/disciples) that when they entered a town that refused to listen to them, to leave it and shake the dust off their sandals as a warning to that town. When you are in this same situation in a Facebook or internet discussion, other than sending some sandal-shaking emoji to someone just tell them, respectfully, that you will have to agree to disagree. I often use this phrase, “I appreciate your side of this, but we seem to be at an impasse so let God be the judge between us.” Honestly, if someone is going to argue that God should not be the judge, then don’t shake your sandal at them- slap them upside their head with it! (I’m kidding)

Here’s today’s lesson in a nutshell: when you realize the discussion has mutated into an argument, it’s time to flex your spiritual muscles and show that you have the strength to give up.

Thank you for being here and please subscribe if you like what you hear, and share these messages with others. I also welcome your comments, confirmations, and even your disagreements.

My hope is to give people the right information so they can make the right decisions: I never tell anyone what they should think or believe, my ministry is a teaching ministry. I want you to know that whatever you choose to do, you will be held accountable for it, so make sure you are choosing what you want to and not just what someone else told you to choose.

Until next time, L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

 

Parashah Chukkat (Regulations) Numbers 19-22

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This parashah starts with the regulations about the Red Heifer ashes being used to cleanse people defiled by contact with a dead body. We then find ourselves in the 40th year of the desert travels, with Miriam dying, leaving Israel with no water (we will come back to this soon.) Aaron and Moses are told by God to strike the rock to give water, but in his anger Moses strikes it twice, and claims that he and Aaron are the ones giving them water (Numbers 20:10):

He and Aaron gathered the assembly together in front of the rock and Moses said to them, “Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?

This statement made God angry because they did not give the proper credit to God and make Him holy in the sight of the people, and their punishment was severe- Moses and Aaron were prohibited from entering the land of Canaan.

The rest of this parashah tells us of the death of Aaron, describes the sin of rebellion that caused God to send snakes against the people, and the successful military battles of the people against Arad (this battle is out of place, chronologically, as it had preceded the battle referred to in Numbers 14:40-45), ending with their conquering Og, the King of Bashan and Sichon, the king of Heshbon and taking all their lands (which later were the lands in which Reuben, Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh settled.)

As I have complained about so many times…where do I start? There is just so much in this one parashah to talk about. But I did promise to come back to the point about there being no more water after Miriam died, so let’s start there.

Miriam is considered to be one of the three good leaders of Israel and Jewish legend says that due to her merit, the rock which brought forth water accompanied Israel as long as she lived. Reference to this rock is made by Shaul in 1 Corinthians, 10:3-4:

They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was the Messiah.

This is confusing: Jewish legend has it that Miriam was the Rock that produced the water, and here a well-trained, knowledgeable Pharisee is saying that it wasn’t Miriam, but Yeshua who was the Rock travelling with Israel through the desert. The bible isn’t supposed to contradict itself, so what do we make of this seeming contradiction? I looked this up in the Jewish New Testament Commentary, by Dr, Daniel Stern: he related many of the different ways the term “Rock” has been used to describe God and Messiah, both in scripture and in songs, but in the end he confessed he didn’t know why Shaul (Paul) used it this way in his letter. Maybe we will never know what was in Shaul’s mind at the time, just like I don’t think we will ever know what he meant when he wrote about the “Israel of God” at the end of Galatians, either.

But we can say that this is not a biblical contradiction because Miriam being the Rock is not specifically stated in Torah- it is just a legend. And Shaul referring to the Rock as Messiah is nothing more than a descriptive analogy which doesn’t contradict any specific event in Torah.

This issue does present us with a midrash from today’s parashah: do we always need to understand what we read in the bible? The commentary in the Chumash states that the ordinance regarding the Red Heifer is so mysterious that even King Solomon was unable to fathom it’s meaning. In Jewish history, Johanan ben Zakkai told his students, “…but the law concerning the Red Heifer is a decree of the All-holy, Whose reasons for issuing that decree it behoves not mortals to question.”  In other words, God said it is to be that way and that’s all we mere mortals need to know.

And that is, in my opinion, the main reason people reject God and create their own religions: we want to know why. We HAVE to know why! It is a compulsion, and I believe that it is based on the desire for power. As they say, knowledge is power, and people want to be more powerful than the next guy, so if I understand God better than you I am above you, more powerful than you, and deserve to lead you.  Selfish, self-centered, egotistical behavior…all innately human. The good news is that this need to know why drives us to scientific investigation and, thereby, is the root cause of the discovery of useful and wonderful inventions, as well as all the medical and technological advancements we have made over the centuries.

On the other hand, that alone may be reason to question if needing to know the “why” of everything is actually a good thing. Technology has taken us over, medical advancements have cured diseases but the cost of discovery is so high no one can afford the cure! We know how to read the human genome, and how to use stem cell technology, but the more we learn about our genetic make-up, the closer we come to thinking we are like God because we are able to heal, and even create life. That is NOT a good attitude to have.

Maybe we should try to be more humble, less inquisitive and more accepting of God’s omniscience so we can be more obedient? Isn’t it time to redirect our footsteps from the path of discovery to the ways of worship?

I think we should, but I  don’t see it ever happening. Human nature is inquisitive, curious, and we all want to be self-determining. We want to be in charge, we want to know what it is all about, and we want to have control over our lives. It is the reason we were thrown out of Eden; it is the reason we sinned with the Golden Calf; it is what killed Dathan, Abiram and Korach; it has been the bane of humanity and the foundation of sin since humanity was created. And I don’t think it is going to end until humanity ends in the Acharit HaYamim (End Days.) Once we are no longer shackled with this mantle of sinful flesh and are resurrected into our eternal, spiritual bodies will we be able to enjoy and find peace in being humble and obedient to God, constantly worshiping Him. Humility and obedience is just not part of our DNA, and no amount of Recombinant DNA, cloning, stem cell technology or biological research will ever put it there.

We need to work at being humble and accepting what God said to do as simply something we should do. To paraphrase from the great poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson:

Ours not to reason why; ours but to do and live!

So do what God says (that’s the stuff in the Torah, in case you weren’t sure) and do so without asking why, without kvetching about it, and without trying to figure out what it all means.  Really- understanding what God means won’t get you any more “saved” than the next person, and a Gnostic search for meaning just might end up pulling you further from your salvation than bringing you closer to it.

Wanting what I do or doing what I want

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It’s the dilemma that (I believe) all those who are Born Again suffer with: am I doing what I want to do to please God, or am I doing what I want to do because it pleases me?

Shaul (Paul- that nice Jewish boy from Tarsus) had this problem, too. He tells us about it in his letter to the Roman Believers (7:15):

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.

The Talmud tells us we are all born with the yetzer hara (the evil inclination) and only years later does the yetzer hatov (the good inclination) develop. The yetzer hara can, when controlled by the yetzer hatov, be made useful for it is the desire to have things that are pleasing to us, and so having a spouse, a house, a job- all these can be attributed to the yetzer hara and, when controlled by the yetzer tov, these desires of our hedonistic hearts can be channeled into useful and Godly activities.

However, what we really need to do is that which is pleasing to God, and to know what that is is to first learn to not trust ourselves. We are, by nature, self-centered, self-important, self-absorbed and NOT self-controlled. That which is of us is not that which is of God; that which is of God (the Ruach HaKodesh) is in those of us who have accepted Messiah Yeshua and asked for the Spirit, which we must learn to listen to. It is the small, still voice of God that Elijah heard, and not the loud shouting of the yetzer hara that Ahab listened to.

The Ruach tells us what God wants us to do whereas the yetzer hara tells us what we want to do, which is to please our physical bodies, to be the center of all things and to have more toys than everyone else, no matter what it takes to get them.

The yetzer hatov is not, in my opinion, the same as the Ruach HaKodesh. The yetzer hatov is, in Freudian terms, the ego, controlling the basic, animal desire for self-gratification, which is the Id. The Ruach HaKodesh is more like the Superego, which deals with the morality of what we take (Id) or ask for (Ego) from the world.

I am not an expert in the field of  psychology, but I think the above simile is feasible as an example. We all want what we want- that is as primal as the need for self-preservation. Maslow (back to the Psych 101 class) had 10 levels of self actualization, which describes how he believes the human psyche works. We start at the very basic needs- food, water, shelter, and advance from physical needs, to safety, to love, to esteem, and finally to the highest levels where we have morality, understanding and acceptance.

The science of human psychology is fascinating, and having been in sales for a long time, I am glad that I have a fair understanding of human nature- it is essential to being a successful salesperson. But what really helps is to know the Lord, to know what He wants from us (that means to read the bible, duh!) and to have the Ruach HaKodesh to lead us. It’s OK if you have developed your Superego, if you are at the tenth level of self-actualization, if you have studied under the Guru, whatever- it’s all good to be a “humanly” moral and self-actualized person. But that isn’t someone with the spirit of God leading them. The Ruach will never lead you incorrectly, whereas human leadership is more based on what we want and what the world says you should be. It can’t be any other way: social morality is defined by the culture, right? It may be OK to cane a child in the Philippines for breaking the law, but not in the USA. Therefore, to be a morally upright person means to be in accordance with the moral and ethical norms of the society in which you live.

To be a godly person means to be within the moral and ethical norms of God’s word- the Torah. Human morality is based on your social or geographical environment, but God’s morality is based on what God says it is. It is universal. The bible tells us over and over what God wants of us; Old Covenant or New Covenant doesn’t matter- both are based on the Torah. Yeshua (Jesus) taught nothing but what is in the Torah, so the Torah is where we all need to start and where we all need to stay.

Religion is in the same category as social morality- each one is developed by people and each one has it’s own rules about right and wrong. The Torah is the foundation for all the Judeo-Christian religions, but so many different religions have built on the Torah in so many different ways that it is now buried under so many rules and canon that we don’t even see it anymore. Even within Judaism, the one religion that is closest to honoring the Torah as it was given to us by God, has almost over-ridden it with the Talmud, a document made by people. And there are 7 different forms of Judaism today: how can that be? One God, one Torah, but 7 ways to worship?

Oy! No wonder we’re all so screwed up!

The bottom line is the one that counts, right? So, nu? what’s the bottom line? It’s this:

God has no religion.

Read the bible, forget what religion tells you to do, and when you (if you haven’t yet) accept:

  1. that Yeshua is the Messiah God promised us;
  2. accept Him in your heart;
  3. ask God for forgiveness through the sacrificial atonement Yeshua completed for you;
  4. ask that the Comforter, the Ruach HaKodesh, the Holy Spirit, be given to you and indwell within you

then you will have the ability to know what to do and what not to do from God’s perspective (so long as you teach yourself to listen to the  Ruach.) 

In the meantime, try to live by this rule:

If the world likes it, most likely God doesn’t.

That’s easy enough to understand, isn’t it?

Overcoming Sin is a Team Effort

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All who call on the name of the Lord will be saved- Joel (2:32) certainly knew what he was talking about.

Oh, I am sure there are many of you out there who were thinking Romans 10:13- big surprise: there’s nothing “new” in the New Covenant writings. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING in there is from Tanakh. Yeshua quoted Torah, Shaul (Paul) quoted Torah, they all spoke about the writings of the Prophets (Nevi’im) and every law God gave to Moses is validated in the B’rit Chadashah (Good News), so the next time you read your KJV or NIV and it references something said in the letters to the new Messianic synagogues Shaul began with a quote from Yeshua, go further back and you will find that Yeshua quoted it from Torah.

But that’s another Drash. Today I want to talk about the teamwork between God, the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) and me, and you, and all of us who are trying to overcome sin in our lives.

God can and will forgive our sin, but we have to do our part. We have to be willing to follow the guidance of the Ruach. God will forgive sin, but up to a point. I know that sounds against Biblical teaching; after all, there is no sin too big for God to forgive, and the Prophets say (as Joel did) that if we call on God we will be forgiven. The teachings of the Talmudim (Disciples) of Yeshua all point to being able to have every sin forgiven. In light of this, how can I say God will forgive but up to a point?

I look back to Shomron, the Northern Kingdom. And less than two centuries after their destruction I see the nation of Judah, also destroyed and dispersed. God allowed them both to sin and fornicate with other gods for centuries before He finally had enough, at which time His forgiving and compassionate nature had to be overruled by the fact that He is still our Judge. He is a holy and righteous God, who will forgive sinners who wish to repent, and punish sinners who refuse to.

That’s the difference between those forgiven and those punished: when we work with God and the Ruach to overcome our sinful nature we can be forgiven over and over, but when we refuse to work at it, when we simply call out to God to forgive us but do nothing to sin less in our lives, then we will not be forgiven.

God isn’t stupid, and he sees the true desires of the heart. You can lie all you want to people about trying your hardest not to sin, but God knows if you really mean it or not. He is forgiving, He is loving and merciful, and He is also our Judge. When we come before Him, and we all will, He will decide based on His understanding of just how hard we really tried.

I talked with someone yesterday who told me that all who believe in Jesus Christ are saved. I disagree. Think about it: don’t the demons believe in Jesus Christ? Don’t they know that He is the son of God and the Messiah? Aren’t there many people who tell you how they believe in Him, yet you know that they are still living their lives the way they want to? Just saying you believe Jesus Christ is the Messiah and then ask for forgiveness in His name doesn’t mean you have arrived.

Sorry, Pal- it isn’t that easy; but, then again, it is that easy.

What makes your confession meaningful is the testimony to that confession you demonstrate during the rest of your life. It’s a team effort- God forgives, Yeshua’s sacrifice makes that forgiveness available to everyone, everywhere, and always, and when you ask Yeshua to ask God to send the Ruach to dwell within you (which you have to accept), then you have a guide. The Ruach is your ultimate “Life Coach”, your conscience, it’s Jiminy Cricket at your side helping you to realize what you want to do is not what you should be doing. And the final member of this team is you. It’s is up to you to work with the Ruach to overcome the desire to sin, and even if the desire never fully goes away, it’s still no excuse to sin. To get Freudian, your Id wants to sin, your Ego tells you not to, and the Superego is the Ruach haKodesh, keeping you in line morally and helping you to become more holy. But still, when all is said and done, the Id will never go away and you need to overcome it.

That’s how it works- we are all sinners, born into it and it is as basic a part of our psyche as is the desire to survive, the need for food and water, and the drive to eat all the oreo’s that exist in the world (well, maybe that one is more particular to me, alone.) In Judaism it is called the Yetzer Hara- the Evil Inclination. As we grow older, we fight it with the Yetzer Tov, the Good Inclination. When we, individually, realize and accept that God exists, that He has a plan of redemption and that Yeshua ha Maschiach is that plan, we then accept Yeshua as our Messiah, ask for forgiveness of our sins in His name and by His sacrifice we can be saved. Notice I said “can be saved”, not “are saved”- that’s what we all need to realize. It is free, it is true and it is automatic, and it is also on us to do our part to fulfil it.

“Calling on His name” has become a “tag line”, a hyped-up excuse for the real purpose of His sacrifice, which is to give us a means to overcome the result of our sins, namely sheol (hell) and eternal suffering. Yeshua’s sacrificial death atoned for us, but it doesn’t give us Carte Blanche to continue to sin. We are saved not by His sacrifice alone, but by our T’Shuvah, our “turning” from sin along with His sacrifice.

Salvation is not an individual event- it is a team effort. God, to Yeshua, to the Ruach, to you.

Get in the game; play hard; listen to and obey the Coach and win the only thing that is important: eternal peace.

Is It Me or Him?

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I was going to write about Baptism for babies because I find it ridiculous that anyone thinks God will send an infant to hell because they didn’t have a baptism, and because the idea that someone else can make statements of faith for another person, baby or not, is also not something I believe will fly with the Lord.

To get my facts straight I looked up baptism and saw a site that is about clarifying Christian thought. I figured I’d find a lot of good fodder there, but when I read it the statements were all in keeping with what I think.

Needless to say, I was surprised and disappointed, all at the same time. Here I was, ready to stand and defend God’s word and His love, show how baptism was a Jewish thing from the start (it’s called a Tevilah or a Mikvah) and rail against the anti-Semitic Church!

Now, here I am, stuck with nothing but my own preconceived (or, more correctly, ill-conceived) ideas that I can’t use because they are wrong.

That’s when it hit me- who am I really defending?  Am I doing what is right in God’s eyes or just spouting my own personal thoughts, in the name of the Lord?

OUCH! That’s a tough thing to figure: am I talking on behalf of God or on behalf of Steve? Am I feeling a righteous anger at the misuse of God’s word or am I really just exercising my influence to expound on my personal “peeves” and, as such, misusing God’s word myself?

I pray each day when I ‘blog’ that I am saying only what is right in His eyes, making points that lead people to salvation and understanding as God wants, and doing His work. Yet today I am finding myself wondering if that is what I was doing when I decided to bash baptism of babies.

BTW…for the record, baptism is important and it is a Jewish thing. The Tevilah is an outward expression of an inner change. It is a symbol of cleansing oneself, and is an important activity/ritual to go through when accepting Yeshua as your Messiah. It should be done when one has reached the age of understanding and can make one’s own decisions; as such, it cannot be done by proxy.

Back to my confession of pridefulness, which is exactly the right word to use if I am saying things I believe in order to teach people about God that may or may not be what God wants taught. Yeshua tells us that those who teach are held doubly responsible for what they do, and how influential we are and how important it is to do what is right. I don’t want to be one of the blind leading the blind, or one of those who sin and teach others to sin. Yeshua says that person will be least in the Kingdom of God. Teaching is an important responsibility. The Prophets were teachers, in a way, reminding the people of what God said they should do. And how often did God warn the prophets that if they did not tell the people what they need to do then the blood of the people would be on the Prophets own head?

I believe, and it has been confirmed often to me, that God has given me a gift of teaching, but that doesn’t mean I can’t screw things up by my pridefulness and ego. And, trust me on this, I have plenty of both. The only way I control it is by understanding that I have it and owning up to it, so I don’t forget to always be looking for it to rear it’s ugly head. It is sin crouching at my door.

So what lesson is there today from all this soul-searching? The lesson is to remember that old Greek aphorism: “Know Thyself.” When we do things in God’s name, make sure it is for His glory and in accordance with His word and what He stands for. When positive it is from God, preach it; when in doubt, don’t.  You may be doubting something that is from God, but better to not take the chance you are misusing His word or His gift. If God has a word He wants you to preach, He will make sure you get it out. Maybe the word is good but the expression is not, so just wait: if it is from God, I guarantee it will gnaw at you until you finally figure out how it should be taught.

I ask anyone reading these ministry blogs of mine, or my book, to reply and let me know if you think I am off topic, ever. I appreciate your input and ask for guidance. I always pray to God for guidance, and often He answers through the interaction of another person. So, nu… don’t be shy.

Thank you, Abba, for your gifts and your Word which You have provided, and please lead me with your Ruach to do and say only that which pleases You and gives You all the glory. Halleluyah.