Tag: eternity

What Does Created in God’s Image Mean?

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We are told in the very beginning, Genesis 1:27, that we are created in the image of God. But what does that mean?

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Does it mean that we look like God? I know there are many places in the Bible where God appears to people, and his appearance was too much to behold. Most of the descriptions we have, such as from Moses and Daniel, present God as an overwhelming presence.

On the other hand, God told Moses that he could see the back but not the face of God, for anyone who sees the face of God’s will die. That implies that God has a physical body like ours.

By the way, when God said that anyone who sees his face will die, does that mean the sight of God’s face is so emotionally overwhelming that it shocks us to the point of death, or simply that it is forbidden to see his face and if we see it, we must be executed?

After all, he told Adam and Eve if they ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil they would die, but when they ate they didn’t die. At least, not immediately; eventually they did, a few hundred years later. So, if they hadn’t eaten, would they have lived forever?

Who knows? However interesting that answer might be, I am going off on a tangent so let’s get back to today’s message.

I don’t think that we are created looking like God, if for no other reason than this: God is not a physical being. He is spirit, and as such can appear in any form he wishes. So, no, I don’t think God looks like we do or that we look like him, and that whatever form he has taken in the past to appear to people, whether in real life or in visions, is for our benefit.

One thing that might give us a hint to what “in the image of God” means might be found in that fact that of all the millions of different creatures God created, only human beings are created in his image. By identifying what is it that humans have which no other creature has, that might point to the image we are looking for.

So, nu? What’s so different about us?

I think it’s that we have a soul.

Animals have intelligence, they have emotions, they have skills (Jane Goodall turned the anthropological world upside down when she discovered chimpanzee’s had developed tool usage), and they also can learn new skills and pass them down to their progeny. All of these things are exactly the same things that humans have, except that the Bible specifically omits any reference to animals being reborn.

Now, one of the first lessons I learned about proper biblical exegesis is that “You can’t make an argument from nothing”, and just because something is not mentioned in the Bible, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. However, since we are specifically separated from every other living thing by the fact that we alone are created in God’s image, and that we, alone, will be resurrected in the End Days, then I think it makes sense that we have something which is the same thing God has but is not found in any other creature on earth.

And what is that? It’s our soul. I have always heard that the soul is eternal, and if that is true, then it is the one thing that only a human being has in common with God, thereby making us the only creatures in the world that are made in the image, or we could also say similar, to God.

That’s my take on what being made in the image of God means. It means that we have a soul that part of us which is eternal, just as God is eternal, and only human beings can lay claim to this similarity.

The only thing left now is to decide where our souls will go after we die. The answer to how we do that, my friends, is to follow the roadmap to salvation that you find in the Torah.

Thank you for being here and please subscribe and share these messages with others. And remember: I always welcome your comments.

Until next time, L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

Why Must the Righteous Also Die?

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I have often wondered why the innocent have to suffer for the guilty.

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For instance, in the Northern Kingdom of Shomron, God told Elijah that despite Elijah thinking he was the only righteous man left, there were still 7,000 who hadn’t bowed the knee to Ba’al (1 Kings 19:18.) Yet, all the people in the Northern Kingdom were attacked, many slaughtered, and the rest dispersed throughout the known world.

We also read how later, in the Southern Kingdom of Judea, the same thing eventually happened to them, except they weren’t dispersed but taken into slavery, while some of the people remained in the land. And Isaiah prophecized that the young men who were a prince or of nobility were taken into slavery, made into eunuchs and forced to serve the king of Babylon (2 Kings 20:16-18), one of them (most likely) being the prophet Daniel.

I know that we can’t always understand why God does what he does, and he even told us (through Moses) that the secret things belong to him.

In Judaism we believe that the laws God gave fall into one of three categories:

Mitzvot– laws that are self-explanatory;

Mishpatim– laws that are logical and expected to exist in any society; and

Chukkim– laws that seem arbitrary and are without explanation, and no one knows why they exist.

So, I figure the reason the righteous must die is like a Chukkim law, which has a reason but God only knows why they exist. And just because we can’t understand the “why” for them, we still have to accept that God knows what he is doing and we don’t always have the need to know.

I have come to the conclusion that maybe the righteous have to die with the unrighteous because when God judges, we all will be judged, together. If that is correct, then it makes sense that everyone dies when God is ready to judge.
Yeshua gave a drash regarding the tares and the wheat (Matthew 13:24) and it ends with both the wheat (righteous) and the tares (unrighteous) being harvested together, then separated. If this is God’s plan, then the righteous have to die with the unrighteous.

I think the bottom line is that the answer to why the righteous have to die with the unrighteous is not really important because of the answer to the question: “Why are we here?” My answer to that is we are here for as long as we are here for one purpose only, which is to decide where we will spend eternity. What we do in this life determines where we spend eternity, so this current existence, which is mortal and limited, should be less important to us than our eternal existence.

As such, when we die isn’t that important, or even if we die, or who we die with so long as when it happens we are set to go to the right place.

Here is what the angel told Daniel:

Daniel 12:13: But as for you, go your way to the end; then you will enter into rest and rise again for your allotted portion at the end of the age.”

There are a number of places in the Bible where we read about the dying of the righteous, and I believe that this excerpt from the Psalms says it all:

Psalm 49:15:

But God will redeem my soul from the power of Sheol, For He will receive me. 

That is what it really comes down to, doesn’t it? It doesn’t matter when we die, so long as we are in a state of righteousness when we die we will eventually be in God’s presence for all eternity.

And how do we become righteous? By accepting Yeshua as our Messiah so that we can, by reason of his sacrifice, find atonement for our sins and to be repentant, do T’shuvah (turn from sin) and live our lives trying to be as obedient to the instructions God gave us as we can be.

As for me, I live my life always repenting and seeking forgiveness for when I sin, asking for strength to be less sinful, and trying my darndest to live my life as a living testament to God.

So don’t be sad when the good die and the evil survive, because the righteous will be taken into the bosom of Adonai and the unrepentant evil, although they may be having a really good time now, will have only eternal suffering and torment when their life comes to an end.
Thank you for being here and please subscribe and share these messages with others. I always welcome your comments.
Until next time, L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

K.I.S.S.

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Can I assume that most, if not all of you reading this know what K.I.S.S stands for?  If not, I’ll explain: Keep It Simple, Stupid!

Of course, being Messianic I prefer to say: Keep It Simple, Schlemiel!

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As humans, we tend to complicate things that do not need to be complicated. I see this often in the postings that people make on Facebook.  I see constant posts about the “correct” name of God, about the fact that the Sabbath is not on Sunday, about the Christian “church” changing the laws, and many other truths that are stated over and over…and over. These topics are important for people to know, but they are not really that important.

When it comes to deciding what is important and what is not, I have my own “Acid Test” question, which is:

“How does this affect my salvation?”

And here is where many people don’t get it: just because something is important to you doesn’t mean it is important to know. Too many people (and to be truthful, I could also be guilty of this, even as I am writing it) pridefully will present their own idea of what is right (or wrong) with the “church” or a particular tradition, or how to pronounce a name or whatever as being of the highest importance.  And I am not saying these things are not important, but after a while, there has to be something else to write about other than the same topic over and over and over, especially when that topic will not save anyone or bring them into a proper, truthful knowledge of who God is, who Yeshua (Jesus) is, or how they can find peace of mind and heart in this life and complete joy throughout eternity.

If something is going to be repeated, what needs to be repeated is that which brings people into communion with God. We need to repeat the message that sin can only be forgiven through Yeshua; we need to remind people that God will not allow those who sin unrepentantly (whether they know it or not) to be saved; and even something as simple as exclaiming that God does exist, Yeshua is the Messiah God promised to send, and only by faith in them both can anyone have a chance of surviving the first death.

These things definitely affect your salvation, and these are the types of topics we should be concentrating on. Anything beyond or added to this knowledge is good-to-know stuff, but not need-to-know stuff.

Let me state this again- I am NOT against knowing as much as we can about God, Yeshua, the Bible, biblical history, ancient cultures, paleo-Hebrew, …WHATEVER!…so long as it doesn’t lead people into a Gnostic mindset and generate arguments that are useless because, when all is said and done, they won’t save anyone from destruction.  We need to help new and existing Believers in the Lord stay focused on God and Yeshua, and one of the most important things of all: how to properly interpret the Bible.

It isn’t useful to just know what the Bible says, we need to know how to properly interpret what is said in the Bible, to use Circles of Context so that we don’t get stuck on a single sentence. We need to read every sentence as part of the one before and the one after it, as part of the entire thought, as part of the entire chapter, entire book, and the entire Bible. We need to know who was writing to whom, and how it all fits in hermeneutically with the rest of the Bible.

To know the proper way to interpret the Bible ABSOLUTELY will affect your salvation! For example, the typical Christian interpretation of the letter Shaul (Paul) wrote to the Romans is that it is a polemic against the Torah; however, understanding who Shaul was and to whom he was writing this letter (and why), it then becomes clear that he was actually writing an apologetic for the Torah!

This is what I am talking about when I say it is important to know how to properly interpret the Bible because the proper interpretation of Romans will lead you to obedience and salvation and the improper interpretation will lead you to sinfulness and destruction.

The purpose of my ministry is not to change anyone’s mind or to convert people to Judaism or to convince anyone of anything: it is in response to Hosea 4:6:

“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” 

Let me finish today’s message with this: knowledge is useless unless it is used correctly, and when it comes to God, Yeshua and salvation, that means keeping it simple. Stay focused on what edifies, what leads one towards the narrow gate, and what keeps one on the narrow path.

Thank you for being here, and if you haven’t already done so, please subscribe. Also, share this out with friends and family, especially the ones who are looking for answers.

And please help with my campaign to send Bibles and study materials to Ugandans in three Messianic synagogues who subscribe to this ministry and have asked me for help. I can’t afford to send too much to them and need help. Please share this out with your church or synagogue, send it to your contacts and help bless these poor people who don’t even have computers to get closer to God. Here is a link to that campaign:

Help for Messianic Ugandan Synagogues

 

Thank you, again, and until next time…L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

Why I Do This

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In this ministry, I have been posting about 3 times a week for nearly 6 years now. I have added different categories, improved my website, created a Facebook page, purchased a video creation program (so people can either read or watch my messages), and written three books.  I also have started to add personal pictures and videos now and then.

If you prefer to watch a video (which is why I bought the app), click on this link: Watch the video.

I have not made money from any of this. Although the people who have bought and read my books have given me positive feedback, they are not making any professional authors shake in their boots. I doubt Oprah will ever recommend me. I do this because I have the same feeling that Jeremiah had (not that I could ever come close to the class he is in) in that I feel a need to announce to everyone what I believe to be correct information about God and his salvation through the Messiah.

I do not tell anyone what they should believe in or what they should do- that is totally their decision. All I want to do is make sure that whatever decision they make, they make it using good information.

It’s just like when I used to go to people’s homes from telemarketing leads to sell them siding or windows. That type of sale is called a One Call Close, but you actually need to “close” them three times:

  1. your first close is to get the homeowner to buy the idea that they should let you into the house;
  2. the second close is to get them to admit they would like to buy your product; and
  3. the final close is to get them to actually buy it.

When I was working on the first close, I very often was met with the statement,” If you are going to try to sell me something you might as well leave now. No matter what you say I am not buying anything today!” My answer was, “It’s your money- I won’t tell you how to use it. But let me ask you something: when you do buy something, do you buy it without any knowledge of what you are buying, or do you make an informed decision about what you buy?”

The answer was always that they make an informed decision- this is what we call asking a question to which you already know the answer.

So, once they answered me, I would say, “That’s the best way to buy something. All I want to do is give you the information you need to make an informed decision. What you do after that is up to you.”

I am not interested in telling people what to do, only giving them the correct information so they know what they are doing.

When we read the Bible, this is what God has always done. God has never dictated what we must do. What he has done is to tell us IF you do this I will bless you this way, and IF you don’t you will be punished this way. He gives us the information then tells us to choose life or death. He then recommends we choose life, i.e. to obey him.

In Deuteronomy 28, Moses states the blessings God promises for obedience to his instructions, as well as the curses for disobedience, and after telling all these things to the people, in Deuteronomy 30:19-20 Moses says:

This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

I try to teach the truth about who God is and how “salvation” works. Most religions teach that God loves us and wants to bless us (which is all true) and that when we accept Yeshua (Jesus) as the Messiah we are “saved” from hell because he died for our sins. This is all true, but it isn’t the whole truth. They tell you when you faithfully accept Yeshua as your Messiah you are forgiven of your sins, but what they neglect to mention (what Paul Harvey used to call “the rest of the story”) is that without repentance, there cannot be forgiveness. God will not forgive someone who isn’t repentant. They also forget to remind us that the blessings God has for us are dependent upon our obedience-when we reject what God says we should do, we reject the blessings he wants to give us.

Here is what I have found to be a very hard thing for many people to grasp:

we are saved by our faith and not by what we do, but what we do shows how genuine our faith really is.

In other words, you can’t have your cake (constant, unrepentant sin) and eat it, too (still receive forgiveness.)

You can’t be a consistent, unrepentant sinner and receive forgiveness. Unfortunately, this is the message many religions teach.

God has no religion and his commandments, all of them, are for everyone. This is what I announce to the world, in different ways using different stories, so that people have the information they need to make the right decision about where they will spend eternity.

 

Thank you for being here; if you like what you hear please SUBSCRIBE using the button in the right-hand margin, and use the link above to subscribe to my Youtube channel, as well. Share me out, buy my books, help me get the information people need to know out to them.

Until next time, L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

The Meaning of Life in a Nutshell

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There won’t be a video today because coming off a cruise Donna and I were on last week we both got sick, which has left me voiceless. Apparently an answer to someone’s prayer.

 

Today I would like to talk about something that seems complex but is really quite simple: the meaning of life.

This is what we call the “Eternal Question,” one that people have always wondered about and no one has really ever answered to everyone’s satisfaction.

My answer is simple and it is based on my understanding of the instructions God gave to us in the Torah. I also have considered the writings of Moses, the Prophets and especially the teachings of Yeshua. I have studied and thought about these with my focus on what the future holds.

And what the future holds is destruction on a universal scale. It started with the iniquity of Mankind destroying the ideal world God created. He chose the descendants of Abraham (through Isaac, the son of the Promise) to bring order back into the world, but they failed to do the job well. Ultimately, it resulted in the dispersion of God’s people throughout the world. God sent his Messiah to bring us back into communion with him, but (again) people screwed that up and it resulted in man’s creation of many different religions, most of them losing sight of the original instructions God gave us. We are now at the point where the next major step will be the end of everything through the Tribulation, which I believe we are seeing come to fruition today.

What the future holds is death and destruction like no one has ever seen before, not even those in the Flood, which will result with the end of humanity as we know it.

Not too happy a prospect, is it? Well, it’s not my idea- that’s what we are told to expect. So we may also ask what meaning can life have if everything we do is going to be for nothing?

The answer is: we aren’t doing it for this life!

From birth through death the existence we all suffer through is only a “Waiting Room.”

The meaning of life is this: we are given this life to decide where we want to live for eternity. 

That’s it! Like I said from the beginning, it’s simple- what we do while we are alive in this physical plane of existence is going to determine where we spend eternity. God gives us two lives: the one we live for a short period of time and the one we live forever.  What we do during this short life God has given us will determine where we will live for all eternity.

Now all that is left for each of us to ask ourselves is this: Where do I want to spend eternity? The good news is that you have the right to choose: the bad news is you don’t know how much time you are given to make that choice.

My advice is don’t waste whatever time you have thinking about it.

 

The Other Side of the Doom and Gloom

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OK, OK…yes, I have been a little on the “It’s the end of the world” tirade lately. I have been told by my older sister, who one always has to listen to, that I need to “lighten up”, so let’s see what the balance scales have against the doom and gloom of God’s judgement on the nations.

Hey, guess what? It’s pretty good stuff on the other side! Those who have accepted Yeshua (Jesus) as their Messiah; who worship God as He has commanded (that means obeying the Torah); who live their lives always repentant of their sins; who are trying to follow the leading of the Ruach Ha Kodesh (Holy Spirit) which they accepted when they asked God for it as part of their forgiveness prayer…all those people are going to be spending eternity in total joy and peace, basking in the presence of the Almighty.

Now they will have to go through tribulations- not everyone will be lucky enough to escape this. God promises He will judge the nations in the Acharit haYamim (End Dyas) and I DO believe we are in them, now. The astrological signs (4 blood moons in a single year in 2017), the significant climatic changes we are seeing and the world-wide social unrest are all signs that we have been warned about from the Prophets in the Tanakh all the way through the Bible, including the letters from Shaul (Paul) and John’s recording of his vision in the book of Revelation.

It is happening now, it’s going to get worse and it is not going to be fun for anyone.

The good news is that for those of us who are God-fearing and working through our salvation, we will live past this event. We will not suffer the second death or be left in the cold and dark where people gnash their teeth. We will be presented before the Judge of All Things, the Lord, God and have at our side Yeshua HaMashiach (Jesus Christ) to represent us. God will not see our unworthiness but rather Messiah’s righteousness in us. We will be absolved, forgiven and welcomed into the presence of the Lord. Forever.

No more tears, no more sickness, no more disparity, no more suffering. Now that’s what I call a good word!

Going forward let’s recall what every Prophet in the Tanakh did when they spoke God’s warning to repent: they started off relating God’s promises of punishment for those who choose to reject His commandments, specifying the horrors that will befall them (that’s the doom and gloom), then they ended with a word of comfort for those who will choose repentance (REAL repentance), confirming for them that God promises they will have joy and eternal peace.

God tells us in Ezekiel 18:32 what He wants:

For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign Lord. Repent and live!

God’s judgement on those that have rejected Him will be terrible, and His blessings for those that worship Him will be wonderful.

Like the bank commercial that asks, “What’s in your wallet?” I am asking you now: “What’s in your heart?”

Jesus Proves Salvation Comes From Torah

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(If you would prefer to watch a video, please click on this link:  Go to Video )

I know what you’re thinking…”Huh?!? We all know that salvation is from Messiah Yeshua and that we can’t be saved by Torah”

Or maybe you’re thinking that the “cross” is our salvation?

Or maybe you are thinking that salvation is through faith and not through works?

Or maybe you are thinking that Jesus did all we need when He died for us?

If you are thinking any of these, well…you’re right. We are saved by Messiah’s sacrifice, which was proven acceptable to God because He was resurrected.

And you’re right that faith and not works (alone) is the way we are saved, BUT we still need to be obedient. God told us in the Torah how we are to worship Him and treat each other, and we aren’t excused from obedience just because we accepted Yeshua as our Messiah.

So, nu? How does Jesus prove that we can be saved by Torah?

Simple- He was saved by Torah! 

Let’s take this one step at a time:

  1. All mankind is born into the original sin of Adam and Eve.
    1. In Judaism we also believe this: Talmud tells us we are all born with the Yetzer Hara (Evil Inclination.) When we are at the age we are able to study Talmud and Torah, we develop the Yetzer Tov (Good Inclination.)
  2. Mankind was given the Torah by God, through the Jewish people, so that they could act in accordance with God’s will, thus securing eternal life. To obey Torah is to remain sinless, and to do what is forbidden in Torah is to sin- that has never changed.
    1. God tells us throughout the Tanakh, especially by the Prophets, that He wants us to repent and turn from sin so that we can live. God isn’t all that interested with the finite, so when He says “live” He is talking about eternity.
  3. Yeshua was born of a virgin who was impregnated by the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit), so He was born sinless (not having the stain of original sin.)
  4. Because He was sinless when He died, Yeshua was resurrected by God to show that God’s promise of eternity with Him by obeying the Torah was true.
  5. Yeshua’s resurrection can mean only one thing: Yeshua received salvation because He lived His life completely obedient to the Torah.

It is only through Yeshua, because of His righteous life and acceptable sacrifice, that we also can achieve salvation. We cannot be saved by Torah ONLY BECAUSE WE CANNOT OBEY THE TORAH PERFECTLY. 

So you see, because Yeshua obeyed Torah perfectly He was resurrected to eternal life, which we call “salvation.” If He hadn’t obeyed Torah, if He had sinned, then His life would not have been acceptable as a sacrifice for us, just as a lamb with a blemish would not be an acceptable sacrifice. And if you are thinking, “Yeshua is the son of God- He would always have been able to return to God.”, then why bother living a sinless life?  In other words, if Yeshua did not give up His divinity and submit Himself to death (which the bible says He did), then He didn’t risk sinning. But Isaiah tells us (Chapter 53) that Messiah is a man of troubles, who knew illness and suffering- God is above all that.  You see, Yeshua had to be 100% human, with all the human weaknesses and frailties in order to prove that Torah was trustworthy.

In order to be a real sacrifice, He had to be able to die without a guarantee of resurrection.

The mission of the Messiah is to bring God’s people back into communion with God. To do that, because of our iniquity (desire to sin) we all need someone to bridge the gap between us and God. That is what Yeshua did, and He did it by showing us that the Torah is the roadmap to salvation. By living a Torah-perfect life, He was “saved”, and through His salvation we can all come into God’s kingdom.

So, nu?  Does that mean I can be saved by Torah alone? Yes, if you could live it perfectly, but since no one can… NO, it doesn’t mean you can be saved by Torah alone.

Does that mean I don’t need to obey Torah at all?  NO, it doesn’t- we all need to be obedient to the Torah because it is God’s commandment that we must, and to ignore or reject Torah is an unrepentant sin. Unrepentance is a wedge between us and God that even belief in Yeshua will not remove. No one who is unrepentant of their sin can be saved.

So then what is my point? It is this: Torah is still valid, it is still part of God’s plan of salvation, and it is what Yeshua taught us we should obey. We can’t do it as He did, but through His accepted sacrifice (which was because He lived Torah perfectly) we can still be saved even when we fail to obey Torah perfectly.

And through the indwelling of the Ruach haKodesh, we can be strengthened to overcome our iniquity and comforted when we fail to.

As I often say: we can never be sinless, but we can always sin less. Yeshua has saved the world from it’s iniquity, but we still have to have faith in Him and God, do T’shuvah (repent) and live as sinless a life as we can.

The instruction manual for living a sinless life is called the Torah.

 

 

 

 

God Likes Being a Partner

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God is awesome. He is all-powerful, all-knowing, and doesn’t need any help from anyone. Whatever God needs to have or wants to do He can make happen with a thought.

Still and all, throughout the bible we see that God wants companionship with His creation. He wants us to be holy, as He is, so that we can be in His presence. He wants us to obey His commandments so that we can live; not so much in this plane of physical and mortal existence, but more importantly in His plane of existence, which is spiritual and eternal.

That is why He formed covenants with us. A covenant needs (at least) two sides to it. A covenant is, by its very definition, a partnership.

There are some things He has just out-and-out given us: He gave the land of Israel to the Jews, He gave Solomon wisdom, He gave the world His only begotten son, and He gave us all the Torah. These things God gave us, unconditionally, and so that we can partner with Him. Other things God gave us are from His covenants, which are conditional aspects of our partnership: there are the commandments in Torah, which when we obey we receive blessings as a result. God also partners with us through prayer, through family relationships that are centered around God, through community work that helps the poor and widowed, and through fellowship with others which helps to honor and glorify God.

The most important partnership is, of course, the one we form with God through Messiah Yeshua, which grants us forgiveness of sin and eternal life.

It’s true that God wants us to worship Him, and that is evident throughout the bible. But God doesn’t want us just to worship Him from afar or for fear of reprisal- He wants us to worship Him so that we can be with Him.  He wants us to walk in His presence, to talk with Him, and to fellowship with Him through friendship and thanksgiving offerings. These offerings aren’t for His benefit or use- as we said earlier, He doesn’t need anything because He can create whatever He wants. The offerings are for our benefit: they help us to exercise and grow our faithful love for God. Think about it in human terms- when you love someone you want to do things that please them, right? When you perform a “Labor of Love” it mutually strengthens the bonds of affection. The same is true regarding our relationship with God, so when we do what He has told us pleases Him (check it out in Micah 6:8) we are strengthening our partnership with the Almighty.

This is a very easy message to understand: God loves us and wants us to love Him back, of our own free will. He offers us the chance to partner with Him so that we can live eternal lives of joy and peace and does so through His Torah and His son, Yeshua ha Mashiach (Jesus Christ). It is up to each and every one of us to choose life, because the only other choice is death.

I am blessed in that I have the three best partners anyone in the universe could ever want: God, Yeshua and my wife, Donna. I love them all, I want to please them all, and I will continually do my very best to carry my weight in this partnership so that we can all be together, forever.

My partnership with God was formed when I accepted Yeshua as my Messiah, and since then I have done my best to do what pleases God, and in return He “has my back.”  Who’s got your back?

Let’s Talk End Times for a Moment

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Thursday is usually a non-posting day for me, but after I did the Crossword Puzzle, Cryptogram, and finished reading the Comics (the only really worthwhile parts of the newspaper) I decided to check out the article about how some psychiatrists say that President Trump is exhibiting narcissistic, sociopathic behavior.

Last November I didn’t think Clinton or Trump were good choices, and the rest weren’t anything to “write home to Mommy” about, either. But I accepted what the country wanted. Of course, since last November all we have heard is that what we got is not what the country wanted but what Russia wanted. Oh wait! Maybe it isn’t what Russia wanted because both Clinton and Trump had secrets with Russia, or was that Obama? No, he was secretly a terrorist benefactor. Or was it…well, I am all confused now. Seems that the last couple of Presidents and presidential hopefuls are all in cahoots with someone, and all are working against the Constitution one way or another.

So I need to ask you: is this the sign of the times? Yeshua said that we know when the weather will be good or bad but we can’t read the sign of the times.

We have a political civil war raging, and racial hatred is rising at an alarming pace. Some of the country’s professional medical associations are now publicly discussing if the president is a narcissistic sociopath, and some of his own people are publicly saying they are concerned that Trump has full and unrestricted access to the nuclear codes, implying they think he might launch a nuclear attack against another country without consulting his Cabinet or Congress beforehand.

Sign of the times? So nu? … when do we start to hear people accusing Trump of being the Anti-Christ? Or has that already happened and I just haven’t heard it yet?

I have no answers, and I have no opinion on whether or not Trump is the Anti-Christ, or if he even wants to be (I doubt he does because I think he already considers taking that job as a step down from his current position.) I don’t have any answers, but I have absolutely no doubt that we are very close to entering the End Times, if not already in the initial phases.

The world is having climate issues (regardless of one’s position on Global Warming, the climate is worsening for whatever reason), hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, and social unrest globally. Worldwide terrorism is rising at an alarming rate and the worst part of all this is that the world leaders are doing nothing to stop it. In fact, some are encouraging it by allowing immigrants into their country without concern for their own people’s safety!

Everyone today is a victim of one sort or another, and everything that is wrong is wrong because someone else made it that way. We are so irresponsible, individually, that when you buy a radio the warning label has to tell you not to use it in the bath or shower!  What’s up with that?

And the biggest sign I see is that while the world’s country’s are being attacked by Islamic terrorists from the inside, the United Nations constantly holds up Israel as the reason for this unrest. They accuse Israel of violating human rights, while at the same time ignoring the Arab diatribe about how Israel has no right to exist and all Jews should be killed. The world turns a blind eye to how the Arab countries teach their children (from kindergarten age and up) that it is not only legal and useful to kill Jews, but an honor, and the accelerating terrorism attacks throughout Europe and in America by Islamic terrorists is blamed on Israel!

The bible tells us that in the End Days the entire world will come against Israel; sign of the times?

I have to admit that I am scared. I am ready to fight for God, I am ready to suffer when I refuse to take the microchip, and I am ready to die today in order that I may live forever. I am ready, but I don’t want to see this happen to my loved ones. I don’t want to be separated from those I care about because they take the mark, and I know that most everyone in my life that I love or care about will be in that group. Anyone who says otherwise is putting blinders on their eyes. For me, one of the hardest things to live with is the knowledge that I will suffer, not so much physically as emotionally, when I see my loved ones come against me. And I know what they don’t; they are destroying their eternal soul, and while the suffering I go through is temporary, the suffering they will have to endure will be eternal. That tears me up inside, so I repress it and try to go on without thinking about it.

Sign of the times, my Brothers and Sisters…sign of the times.

I call on all Believers to go to Ephesians 6:10-18 and get into the habit of wearing your armor every day. Many are already used to wearing it, and for those that aren’t, it’s time.

Forget about Eschatological studies, forget about arguing who the Anti-Christ is or might be, and give up worrying about the fate of your loved ones because none of that will make any difference or help you. All that is left today, and going forward, is to wear the armor, double your efforts to show people how much better it is when you trust God instead of people (given the current political and social environment, we have a really good chance of people listening to us now) and prepare yourself for suffering.

Protect your heart, prepare your spirit, and toughen up!

Signs of the times.

 

Your Salvation is Not in God’s Hands

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Salvation is provided for you by God, and guaranteed to remain available to you by God, but your personal salvation is not in God’s hands- it is in your hands.

God has provided Messiah, and Messiah provided the means for us to be forgiven without the Temple ( the sin and guilt sacrifices had to be slaughtered in the courtyard of the Temple, so after it was destroyed there was no longer any place for us to sacrifice and be forgiven), so the only thing left with regard to our salvation is now in our hands.

We must be the ones to ask for it; we must do T’shuvah (repentance, literally “to turn” from sin), and we must maintain that attitude and demonstrate our true repentance by producing good fruits, which starts with observance and obedience to God’s will and commandments found in Torah and subsequent scripture. 

Too many people are taught that “once saved, always saved”, which implies that once you ask for forgiveness through Yeshua’s sacrifice, then you have it always. No matter what you do or say or how you act, once saved…well, that ain’t the way it happens, Folks! Once saved, always saved AS LONG AS you continue to repent of your sins (which we will always do, no matter how hard we try not to) and AS LONG AS you continue to study the word, edify each other, love more than you did before and show everyone that God has changed you through the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) by your actions and words. 

We must show that we are able to love more, forgive readily, glorify God, obey His word (all of it, from Genesis through Revelation), maintain an attitude of humility and servitude to God, constantly ask forgiveness in Yeshua’s name, and pray for the strength and guidance of the Holy Spirit to help us sin less. 

Not every one of us is going to be able to do every thing on that list, or all of it all at the same time, consistently, but these are the things we need to do. That’s a lot of things to do, and none of them are easy. It’s all up to you to demonstrate your obedience (to Torah), which includes your repentance (of your sins), through which you gain your justification (by Yeshua’s sacrifice), which provides your salvation (the Grace of God.)

The more you obey, the more blessings you get; the more you “die to self”, the more you can be filled with the Ruach haKodesh; the more you work at it, the more you will get from it. 

Sounds a lot like life, doesn’t it? And why not? Salvation IS life, and our life on earth is designed for one purpose- we spend time here to choose where we spend eternity. 

And that, again, is totally up to you to decide for yourself.