Tag: God

Change sucks

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But I do change…every day! I change my socks, my shirts, sometimes I go to work taking a different route. Why, once I even tried a new blend of coffee!

That’s all fine and good, but when was the last time you changed your job? And not because the boss suggested a different career path, but because you wanted to try something new?

When was the last time you decided to try a new food at a restaurant? To try reading a different type of book? To learn a new language?

Or, what I really would like you to try: when was the last time you tried to stop doing something you know you shouldn’t?

AHA!! Now we’re getting somewhere. AHA!! Now we’re hitting close to the mark. AHA!! Now we’re breaking a sweat just thinking about it! AHA!! Now we’re……Okay, okay, I get it: enough with the “AHA! Now we’re…” stuff.

Change does suck, mainly because we all get comfortable, even when we are talking about the miraculous workings of the Lord, God Almighty. The Israelites walked through the desert with a cloud to lead by day and a column of fire at night, and after a while all they saw was the cloud and the fire; they lost the “feeling” of wonder at what God was doing. Not only did God miraculously feed them good tasting manna every morning, but He provided water and food in the desert. And eventually they complained about how boring the manna was and how they wanted vegetables.

What has God done in your life that you have become inured to?  As for me, I miss the sense of His presence I used to feel when I was first saved. I miss His touch, which I haven’t really felt for years. That’s not His fault- His hands are always reaching out to me. It’s my fault because I am taking for granted what He has done, and what He still does. I am thankful that, every once in a while, I still get teary-eyed when I think of the moment the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) first entered me. I am thankful for the way God has protected me and Donna, and how He is answering my prayers to reconcile me to my children. Slowly, all too slowly for me, but I trust in His timing more than in my own understanding.

We come to trust God, to feel comfortable with our salvation, and to take advantage of His protection. Even David, a man after God’s own heart, said in Psalm 51, verses 10-12:

Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.  Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

Restore to me the joy of your salvation; oh, how many times have I asked that from Thee, Oh Lord? As if You should do that, when it is really my responsibility, it is my job, my actions that will restore the joy. The joy You gave me is still there, deep inside, covered with dust from all the times I left it sitting and unused, hidden under the moss that grew as I did not move myself, spiritually, farther along the path of righteousness You have laid out before me, and rusted from my lack of care and maintenance.

I started this message with nothing, and look what You have given me, given us…a message that is straight from Your heart, Lord: “Come closer to me and I will come closer to you” We need to move, we need to change, we need to break out of our comfort zone and push the envelope, and we need to stop using so many cliches and just do it!

I must try to identify something that will please the Lord and work it into my life. I must try to pray to God to remind me of His wonderful gifts that He provides, every day, and thank Him constantly. I must try to see, what I have gotten used to seeing, in a new light, and I must commit myself to doing more in His name; at home, at work, at worship, and even at play.

This is what I must do, and I will try to do it for the rest of my life. There is nothing wrong with being comfortable, and everyone needs to take a breather, now and then, to enjoy what they have. I ask you all to recognize, right at this moment, what God has given you and thank Him, reach out to Him and ask for His touch and open your heart to receive it. Even if you don’t get that sensation, that tingling all over, that sense of relief that causes you to cry tears of joy …wait for it. We are not supposed to test God, but He is right and just in testing us, After all, He never goes back on His word and we do so often it almost seems silly to even promise anything. So keep asking, as the woman asked the unrighteous judge for justice (Luke 18), because whereas even sinners will do what is right for their own sake, how much more so will God do what is right because He is righteous?

Just keep at it, keep asking, keep working towards being a little different every day, doing something a little differently now and then. Be comforted by God’s gifts and protection, but don’t get too comfortable.

Will Rogers once said that even if you are on the right track, you will get run over if you just sit there. So, get off your tuchas, get moving and change into what God wants you to become.

Change sucks, and it is scary, and it is disquieting, and it is hard. However, stagnation is worse.

 

 

Parashah Noach (Noah) Genesis 6:9 – 11:32

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No, I am not going to review the story- who doesn’t know about “The Flood”?

Some interesting points:

  • Noah did not bring in all the animals two-by-two: he brought in the clean animals seven-by-seven, and the unclean two-by-two;
  • He first sent out a raven, which could have fed on any carrion left but not indicate if it was safe for them to leave the Ark, so later he sent a dove which only would feed on vegetation, indicating the waters had receded;
  • the rainbow wasn’t necessarily created after the flood, but it was now used to signify the covenant that God made with Noah;
  • before the Flood mankind ate only fruits and vegetables, but now mankind is allowed to eat meat, so long as there is no blood in the meat;
  • this was (probably) the very first time that rain fell on the earth, as we are told that the garden and the earth was watered by a mist in the morning.

When Noah was lying drunk and uncovered (Gen. 9:20-28), Ham (as described in the Chumash)  laughed about it with his brothers (was disrespectful) instead of covering his father, as his brothers did. The result is that Noah curses Canaan, the son of Ham, to be a slave to his brothers.

God, on the other hand, swore (Gen. 8:21-22) that He would never again hold the entire human race guilty of the sins of the individuals. Noah cursed Ham by cursing Ham’s son, and that curse was for all the generations of Ham. In a way, God relented of cursing the multitude for the sins of the individuals, but Noah cursed the multitude (all descendants) for the curse of an individual. To me, this shows that even a righteous man, which Noah was, will be less generous and merciful than God in his actions towards his fellow man (and woman.)

The final story of this parashah is the Tower of Babel, again a story that almost everyone knows. Just a single thought today on this: if the tower had been built as an alter to God, and not a means to show mankind’s strength, maybe God would have allowed it. The tower was built so that people could show their power and authority, and because it was a monument to mankind and not to God, that is the reason God did not allow it to be completed. If the tower had been built for the right reasons, and we continued to work together, a single humanity with a single voice and a single purpose that pleased the Lord, who knows what could have happened? Maybe there would not have been need for Messiah because we could have made our own paradise?

Naaahhhhh!! Couldn’t be- God tells us, in Gen. 8:21, that the heart of every man is evil from the start (it is called the Yetzer Hara, which means the evil inclination) and so God will just deal with each person in accordance to what they deserve.

It is a nice thought though, isn’t it? That of the world coming together, everyone working in unity for a common goal that is pleasing to the Lord, if only I could buy the world a Coke, and we could all sing in perfect harmony? Well, ….don’t hold your breath!

We are what we are, and during our life the goal should be to end up a better person than the one we started out as. We start off as sinners, born into a sinful world controlled by sinful people, and we have the one lifetime God gives us to get our act together. Shakespeare was right when he said all the world is a stage, and we are merely players; what you need to understand, what we all need to understand, is that the bible is the script God wrote for us, and we really need to read it if we want to know our lines!

Life is a dress rehearsal for eternity. We have seen God create mankind, destroy all of it (except for a remnant) and build an entire civilization, for a second chance. There will be one more great destruction, with one final rebuilding from the remnant that survive.

This play is almost ready for the opening night: we’ve had our read-through, we’ve been rehearsing for hundreds of generations, and who knows whether or not our generation will be the ones who get the curtain call?

Are you prepared to go on stage?

Satan doesn’t make you sin

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Remember Flip Wilson? Remember his femme-fatale, Geraldine? Whenever she had to explain her actions, she would say, “Thah devil made me do it! Whoo!!”

Well, Geraldine, and everyone else, that just ain’t so.

Yes, the Devil is the Prince of Lies and the Ruler of the Earth (at least, for a while longer.) And yes, Ha Satan (the Accuser) will tell you things that can lead you to sinful actions, but the devil did not make you do it- you did it because you wanted to.

And I did it because I wanted to.

Let’s go all the way back to the first time we meet this baddie, Genesis 3:2-6, in the Garden of Eden:

The woman said to the serpent, “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.’” The serpent said to the woman, “You surely will not die! “For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.

So, did Satan cause her to eat the fruit? Not really. He did give her a reason to disobey, though. He is the accuser, and he accused God of telling a lie when He said they would die- the serpent said surely she would not die. But he NEVER said it was OK to eat the fruit! That would have then given us some justification to say Satan made her do it. But that wasn’t the case: Satan told her she would not die, but God had told her not to eat the fruit. And as we read, she chose to eat from her own desire to do so.

For the record, what would have happened if she hadn’t eaten? I think that Adam and Eve would have been allowed to eat, sooner or later, and if I am right, they would still be alive today…maybe?  In any event, there was no talk at that point of lifespans, only after, so it is clear (to me) that because she ate, and subsequently was thrown out of the garden,  what resulted from eating the fruit is that they would eventually die. So God did not lie, did he?

Look, here’s how it works: the Devil will not make you sin- you cannot use his lies or deceptive talk as an excuse for your sin. The desire to sin is already in us- all the Devil does is help us to justify and rationalize what we do of our own free will! He is an instigator, he is a deceiver, and he is a catalyst to perform sin, but he is not the cause.

When we realize this and come to confess ownership of our sins, only then can we truly begin to do T’shuvah, to turn from our sin and repent of it… and mean it.

We often hear that we should “give our sins to God”; there is sometimes a problem with this, though- you cannot give away what you do not own. There are people who blame the devil or always have some excuse for their sinful actions, and these people do not “own” their sin. As such, since they do not own it, they cannot give it away, so it sticks to them like peanut butter to the top of your palette. Only when we recognize and accept the sinfulness of our actions and desires can we even start to control them, and then we can give them to God. He is very willing to take them from us, to delete the “Steven’s Sins” file, to erase the mark of Cain from our souls. And he is able to do it, too! Through Yeshua’s sacrifice, we have an intercessor who will never go away, a Cohen HaGadol (High Priest) who will always provide the pathway back to God we need by means of His sacrificial death and the power behind His resurrection.

But until we are willing to confess our sinfulness, we can ask all we want to have forgiveness and what will be given will not last: not because of anything on God’s side, but because until we “own” our sin we can’t give it away. And if you are the type of person who finds yourself making excuses for your sin, it’s time to: “Wake up! Wake up! For your light has come!” (Isaiah), and that light is able to expose the truth of your sinfulness. It is also able to cleanse you of it.

George Carlin used to say that it’s funny how everyone thinks their own farts don’t smell that bad.  When your sin doesn’t seem to be that bad, when you tell yourself it wasn’t really your fault- someone else made you do that, or someone else should have stopped you- the truth is that your farts do stink just as bad as everyone else’s!

We all need to stop blaming the Devil for what we do and take responsibility for our actions. True repentance cannot come from blaming someone else, and true repentance is the only way that God will be able to take the sin away, once and for all. Not because God is limited, but because when you truly repent you will give it away and not take it back.

We can never be sinless, but we can always sin less.

Start sinning less today; when you hear that little voice tell you why it will be OK to do what the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) tells you will not be OK, tell that little voice it’s farts stink to high heaven!

How to eat an elephant

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Have any of you heard this question before? It is similar to the statement about the elephant in the boardroom, meaning that both situations seem overwhelming. Eating an elephant and having one in your boardroom? Impossible, right?

Not impossible. Not when you understand the meanings. The elephant in the boardroom is a figure of speech alluding to a major issue that no one really wants to face, and eating an elephant is a major issue that no one wants to undertake.

In relation to today’s message, the elephant in our boardroom that we all need to eat is sin. We all are sinful, both in action and in nature. That is why God had to provide a Messiah, one anointed to lead us into communion with the Almighty Father, but first charged with bringing us back from sinfulness to righteousness. Yeshua (Jesus) was that Messiah, and He still is; having saved us all by providing the pathway back to God through His sacrificial death.

I call our sin an elephant in the boardroom because even though we all are willing to admit we are sinful, too often we don’t really “feel” it. Even those people who have no fear of the Lord and don’t care about Him at all, are open to the fact that they do things some sections of society and the “religious people” think are wrong. They are just used to rationalizing their actions, so they don’t even see the elephant.

But for Believers, the elephant is the sin we don’t want to “own”- it’s one thing to say, “Yes, we are all sinners and Jesus died for our sins”, but if the underlying feeling when you repeat that (often from rote) is that you don’t really want to “own up” to your own sin, then don’t look now, but there’s an elephant in the room! No one really wants to be “bad”, so we thank Jesus for all He has done and say we are saved. Hallelujah!

But being saved isn’t enough: too many times being saved is thought to be the end of the trail, the 19th hole, the No More Worries Inn. Sorry- that’s not how it works. Being saved is just the beginning, and the trip isn’t easy. Calling on the name of the Lord is how you start, but following the pathway of righteousness is how you travel, and eating that elephant is what you survive on.

Eating the elephant called sin, in truth, is no different than eating one in real life. The answer to the question, “How do you eat an elephant?” is: one bite at a time.

And that is the way we turn from sinfulness to travel the path of righteousness: one bite (step) at a time. We walk a white line throughout our lives, with sin on the one side and righteousness on the other; we are constantly stepping on one side or the other. There are other lines running alongside the white line we first follow, paths that veer off to different directions. When we step too often on the side of sin, we tend to get farther and farther away from the line leading to God, and we end up on a pathway leading to damnation. But, when we walk on the side of righteousness, we find roads that all lead to salvation. What I am saying is that the way we walk becomes easier as we walk it, so if we start our trip in the right direction and keep our eyes on the goal, we find the trip easier.

Just like eating the elephant: one bite at a time, one step at a time, keeping our eyes on the elephant on the serving platter but concentrating mostly just on what is on our plate, today. Before you know it, the serving platter will not have so much on it anymore.

Maybe that’s why Yeshua said to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread…”, meaning one bite at a time, one day at a time, one step at a time.

Have you heard this expression: “Slow and steady wins the race.”? It means when you constantly do the right thing the right way, you will achieve what you are trying to do.

So face up to that elephant, sit down at the table with your napkin on your lap and your knife and fork in your hands, and get to work.

Be hungry for righteousness.

(No elephants or other large mammals were hurt in the construction of this message)

Parashah B’resheet (In the Beginning) Genesis 1-6:8

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This past Monday, the 24th, was the celebration of Sh’mini Atzeret, the Eighth Day. This is also called Simchat Torah, or Joy of Torah. The joy is that we read the last sentence or two of D’varim (Deuteronomy) and then, as the congregation sings songs of joy, we turn the Torah back (you can get real “Popeye” arms from doing this!) to the start, and read the first sentence or two of B’resheet (Genesis.) The Parashot readings are usually over a one year cycle, but some synagogues will read the Torah over a three year cycle. In either case, Simchat Torah will always be on the eighth day of Sukkot.

This first parashah takes us from nothingness to just before God causes the flood. Of course, even in the nothingness of a universal void, God already was there. What was for Mankind the very beginning of everything was just another eon for God.

For the Jewish people, reading the Torah is joy, and the Haftorah portions and traditional Holy Day readings incorporate most of the rest of the Tanakh. But for many Christian people, they never get to know who Yeshua (Jesus) really is because they separate the Torah and the Old Covenant writings from the New Covenant. This is mainly because we are all taught, both Jews and Gentiles, that these books represent two separate religions. Of course, nothing could be farther from the truth.

Traditional teaching is that the “God” of the Old Covenant is vengeful, violent and strict, whereas the “God” of the New Covenant is, essentially, Jesus (real name- Yeshua), and I say that because whereas the O.C. is all about the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the N.C. talks about God only as “the Father”, and He gets second billing to Jesus. The O.C. God has the Jews kill nations and depopulate Canaan, He kills His own people, He is strict, He has all these rules and laws and commandments, He requires sacrifices, He has His prophets call fire from heaven on people, yadda-yadda-yadda. That O.C. God is a real meanie. Oh, but the N.C. God, this nice, quiet, calm and totally loving Jesus is nothing like that. He is all about love, He is all about forgiveness, and acceptance, and peace. He cried at Lazarus’s tomb. He is such a nice boy, to make His mother proud.

Get real, people- Jesus was (and still is) His Father’s son! Did Jesus ever say anything nice, loving, compassionate or forgiving about the Pharisees? As I recall, He called them white-washed sepulchers, full of dead man’s bones. And what about those quiet, society-serving businessmen that were helping people to buy sacrificial animals and exchanging monies in the Temple courts? They were serving the people, and Jesus whipped them, over-turned their tables and (without using bad language) cursed them out. He told His followers they had to eat His flesh and drink His blood; He told His followers that He came to separate families and turn fathers against sons, and mothers against daughters; He said people had to crucify themselves if they wanted to follow Him. He even called-out one of His best friends: when Kefa (Peter) voiced how upset he would be if anything bad happened to Jesus, instead of lovingly hugging him for being so concerned, Jesus called him Satan- He said, “Get thee behind me, Satan!” He didn’t say, “C’mon, Pete- get with the program” or “Thank you, Brother, for the kind concern but I must do my Father’s work.” No- Jesus chewed Peter out, in front of everyone!

As we start to read the O.C.  again, let’s remember (and if you never learned this before, then learn it now) that these are NOT separate stories about two separate religions: it is the same story, the same religion, the same God and the same Messiah.

  • The O.C. starts with absolutely nothing in existence. It then tells how God created everything, chose a people, developed them, grew them despite everyone else in the world trying to kill them; gave them His rules for how to worship and honor Him, and how to treat each other. It tells how He set them up in their own land so that from there He could rule them, and they were to be an example and a blessing to the world. Finally, through His chosen people, His Torah (which means teachings, not laws) and His Messiah, the entire world would find salvation from their sins and have eternal communion with Him. It ends with the overthrow of Jerusalem, destruction of the Temple, and the dispersion of the Jewish people throughout the known world.
  • The N.C. is the continuation, taking over where the O.C. left off, with the coming of the promised Messiah who taught the Jews the hidden meanings of the Torah that they had not discovered. Jesus taught them how to live the Torah to it’s fullest, both physically and spiritually, and that He was there to finalize the Almighty’s plan of salvation by becoming the ultimate and final sacrifice for sin. Because we all failed to live in accordance with Torah, Yeshua ha Maschiach (Yeshua the Messiah) completed God’s plan of salvation by overcoming, with His own blood, those sins that we could not overcome on our own. We then read how His story spread and how salvation came to both Jews and Gentiles. The N.C. ends as the O.C. began,  with a brand new beginning.

If I was to write a dust jacket for the (entire) Bible, it would be something like this:

A wonderful love story of the one and only God and how He fulfilled His plan to create Mankind and provide an eternal paradise for them. There is action, death, rebellion, supernatural events, romance, treachery and despite what seems to be the total destruction of God’s plan, there is a happy ending for those that find the truth and accept the salvation provided for them. It can be hard to understand in parts, and sometimes the story line drags a little, but it delivers a satisfying read with many messages that are appropriate for both the individual and the society. Overall, I give it two thumbs up! (Available in both paper and digital format.) 

If you think that the O.C. is for Jews and the N.C. is all Christians really need to know, try reading the second book in a series without reading the first one. After you do that, then read the first book, and you will see how much you were missing. It is the same with the Old and New Covenants- please believe me when I tell you these are one book, one story, one God (the same one in both) and one Messiah, promised in the first book and delivered in the second. With one beginning and one ending, which is a new beginning.

That new beginning at the end of the bible is when the new heaven and the new earth are created for the survivors of the destruction of the old earth; it is a new paradise.

Start your year right now, with a new beginning of understanding and a new realization of the symmetry and synergy between the Old and New Covenants. Read from Genesis all the way through Revelations, and see how it all fits perfectly. If you are Jewish and have never read the New Covenant, invest in your eternity and buy a Messianic version just so that you can get passed some of the subtle anti-Semitic intonations of the King James and NIV versions. However, even those versions will give you an idea, if you are willing to look, of the Jewishness of the New Covenant. Jesus’s real name is Yeshua, meaning God’s Salvation, and He was, is and always will be identified as a Jewish man, the Son of the God of the Jews. That is an unfortunate label, because God is not the God of the Jews, He is God- the one and only God, and the God of everyone and everything. He has no religion, He has His commandments, rules and regulations for worshiping Him and treating each other.

That’s all there is- worship God and treat each other as you would want to be treated. All the rest falls into place if you do those two things.

Chag Sameach! (Happy Holidays) and may God bless you in your endeavor to know Him better, to serve Him with love and faithful obedience, and may you be a blessing to others.

fear abounds where faith is not found

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Has a nice, catchy “ring” to it, doesn’t it?

Fear abounds, where faith is not found…..I would expect to see that on a marquee outside a synagogue or a church.

But what is the “fear” I am talking about? Is it fear of loss? Fear of death? Fear of going hungry? Fear of being unpopular? Fear of success? Fear of failure?

Yes. It is all those fears, and (just about) every other fear you can think of. And the cornerstone of fear is the lack of faith. Of all the things to be afraid of, I think the only thing that faith will not help with is fear of pain. No matter how faithful or spiritual you are, if someone kicks you in the groin, it’s going to hurt.

I know people who have been so controlled by fear that their lives have not changed for years. I know one person who has held the same, low-level position in a firm for over 30 years. I know another who refuses to drive; another who will not see a doctor. Another who hasn’t held a steady job, ever.  And when you talk to them, they have their prepared answers rationalizing why they can’t, but it is clear that they are just plain afraid of change and of trying something new.

You all know someone like this, too- it is an epidemic, this fear of something that we can’t even justify being afraid of. They say, “Oh, I could never do that- I’d be too afraid.” It doesn’t really matter why they are afraid, the problem is that it controls them.

I am afraid of many things, but I do not let that control me. Fear of death keeps me from doing things that are foolish, fear of pain keeps me from doing things that might result in my breaking a bone (although I do like physical challenges and often play on the Treetop Trek at the Brevard Zoo), and I am afraid that one day I may go blind or be crippled from arthritis (I already have some). These are normal fears, and although I don’t like the idea of these things happening, the difference is that my faith in God allows me to overcome these fears.

Yes, I may go blind, but I know that God will provide someone to help me. You know, when I think about it, by not seeing people with my eyes I will be better able to see them as God does, without first judging by their appearance (this would actually be a good thing for me because I do judge by appearance); and if I am crippled and cannot do the physical things I love to do, I will have more time to read, write and study- nothing wrong with that.

Fear is healthy when it is used to remind us to be cautious in dangerous situations. Courage is not the absence of fear, but the strength to overcome it, and the best way to gain that strength is to have faith. You need to have faith in God that He can, and will, make all things better and that He has nothing but the best in store for you.

What God wants to do for you may not be what you think is best, but you need to absolutely accept and trust that He knows better than you do what you really need.

I am a little ashamed to say I have very little patience with people who live in fear of everything, who have no ambition to improve themselves or help others, and who always have tsouris (troubles) in their life. Have you ever noticed how people who live in fear always have more things go wrong with them that they can’t get passed? Maybe it’s because fear causes problems and that is why the enemy uses it to control us? If so, then courage is what God gives us when we trust in Him, and those who are faithful may still have troubles but they overcome them. Living in fear is allowing the enemy to use you and control you, which can only separate you from God. But faith and trust that God is in control (which, BTW, is absolutely true) will allow you to overcome the fear.

In 2 Corinthians 12:8-10, Shaul (Paul) tells us of a “thorn in his side”, some weakness or issue that Shaul couldn’t overcome:

Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is perfected in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest on me. That is why, for the sake of Christ, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.…

This is what faith overcoming weakness and fear is all about: God’s Grace is all we need to know. When we allow the Ruach HaKodesh, the Holy Spirit, to come into us and to rule over us, we then are inside a protective barrier that will reflect the arrows of the enemy, quench the fire of disillusionment, and block the attacks of the world that come against us.

I “googled” fear in the bible and found at least 40 different verses about how we can overcome fear through faith. Here are just a few of them:

Isaiah 35:4:

Joshua 1:9;

Psalm 23:4;

Psalm 94:19;

Romans 8:38-39 (this is a really good one!);

Psalm 27:1 (this one just about says it all)

and there are many more.

Fear is not the enemy, but the enemy uses fear. God is not fearlessness, but courage to overcome fear. Only the foolish have no fear; the brave have courage to overcome fear and do what is right. Righteousness takes strength: strength of character, strength of conviction, and strength of will. These are things that are weak in humans, but strong in the Lord. As Shaul told us (above), we can be strong in our weakness when we allow the Lord to be our strength.

David was a man of great courage, a man of many battles, a fierce warrior and the one who set the standard for how a King should rule. And yet, when you read the Psalms, he was fearful on a regular basis, and he always found his strength and courage in God.

In Psalm 18 David says:

The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, My God, my rock,in whom I take refuge; My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. I call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised, And I am saved from my enemies.…

If you feel fearful, are unsure of yourself, and find that what you want and need to do is beyond your ability to try because you are afraid, then trust in God and give up relying on yourself. Let God’s strength and awesomeness be manifested through your weakness, and allow the Lord to be your power.

The Green Lantern recharged his ring from his lantern, and recited the oath:

In brightest day, in blackest night, no evil shall escape my sight. Let those who worship evil’s might, beware my power… Green Lantern’s light!

It’s important to note that his power didn’t come from himself, or even from the ring, but from his lantern:  you can be just like a superhero yourself, and you already know where you get the light that is your power:

Psalm 119:105– Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.

The light that powers us is the Light of the World, Messiah Yeshua (Jesus), and the strength we need to overcome evil comes directly from the Word that is within us, the Ruach HaKodesh.

Don’t be afraid anymore- you are a superhero! You are the lantern of truth, justice and you have divine protection! You are the sidekick of the Almighty, El Elyon, The Lord of lords and the King of kings; you are Robin to God’s Batman, you are Bucky to God’s Captain America, and you can be even more because with God, there are no limits.

Just remember this: when you are feeling inadequate to the job and fearful, don’t trust in yourself but put your trust in God, ask for His favor and walk in faith, because…

If God is for us, who can be against us? (Romans 8:31)

The answer is: no one!

if only i knew then what i know now….

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I would guess that everyone, at one time or another, has thought to themself, “What if….?” What if I had known that was going to happen? What if I hadn’t said that? What if I had said that?

What if I had met my wife earlier? I can tell you, for myself, if I had met Donna when I was in my twenties neither one of us would have had any use for the other. She was different and I was very different, and I doubt she would have given me a second look.

The problem with thinking about what would have been different is that it represents a level of dissatisfaction with the way things are now. Just wondering what it would be like if you had taken that job or if you had met someone sooner doesn’t mean you are unhappy; however, if you really wish things had been different there is no way to deny you are unhappy with how things are now.

The question is: are you where you are because you listened to God’s plan for your life, or are you where you are because you rejected God’s plan for your life?

Personally, I didn’t care what God wanted for me until I was in my 40’s. Thinking about what would have been different if I had cared before then would drive me crazy…OK, you’re right. It would make me crazier than I am now.

If I was to allow myself to think about “if only I had…” I can go back over thousands of things I did that I would like to change. But then I remember something that stops me in my tracks- I like the way things are now.

“The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence” and “Be careful what you wish for because you just may get it“: two very wise warnings about what happens when you start to relive the past and wish that it had been different.  The bottom line is that we, as humans, will make mistakes. When we do make a mistake we have two choices: we can dwell on it, or we can overcome it.

If I had known the Lord when I was a kid, my entire life would have been different. The experiences that have made me what I am today would not have happened: my friends, my wife, children, parents, everything- everything would not be what it is now. And there is no way I can be sure it would be better. It could have been much worse; in fact, I could be dead. If I had stayed in the Marine Corps I would have been in the Gulf War (both of them) and who knows who I would have married, if I ever married at all. If I had not left the jobs I did when I did, I might have been a block away from the World Trade Center when it collapsed, or maybe even in it.

The point is we need to accept that God is doing what He does- helping us to have the best life we can. We are the ones who screw it up, and we are the ones who make it better. Do you want to be happy? Then just accept that where you are today is where you should be, and there is nowhere else you could be. And more than anything else, do not allow yourself to regret what you have done (or not done) because regret is a tool of the enemy.

I looked at my Strong’s Concordance for how many times the word “regret” is used in the bible, and would you like to know how many times I found it?

Not once.

Not once does the word “regret” show itself in the bible (well, at least, not according to Strong’s interpretation) so if no one anywhere in the entire Word of God has had any regrets for what has happened in their life, then neither should I. And neither should you.

Where we are now is where we have been led; yes, there have been times (I am sure) that God was directing us elsewhere and we went off on our own, but that only meant God had to create a detour. Maybe we would have done what He wanted earlier, but God will always have His way. Mordecai told Esther (Hadassah) that if she didn’t go before the king, salvation for the Jews would come from somewhere else, but perhaps she was where she was for such a time as this. We are all in that very same spot: maybe what we do or don’t do will be in God’s will, or out of it, but God’s will will succeed. If we believe we hear God’s call on our life and we try to run to Tarshish (as Jonah did), if God really wants us to do this thing He will make events happen that will bring us into alignment with His will. And if He doesn’t really want you or me to do whatever it is, He will choose someone else.

Sometimes I find it interesting to think, when reading about the people in the Bible, how many others would have been there if they had been more open to God’s calling? But, again, it is a useless endeavor to think about that because what really matters is what God wants from me. And what He wants from you.

So, don’t waste your emotional energy or bring yourself “down” by thinking, “What if…?” It is a waste of time, a waste of effort and a disrespect for God’s intercession in your life. God is in charge, and even though we are allowed to go where we want to go, God will always find a short cut back to the path He wants you to take, so long as you are willing to set your spiritual GPS to Him.

 

Parashah Chol HaMo’ed Sukkot (Intermediate Day of Tabernacles) Exodus 33:12 – 34:26

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This parashah is the one between the end and start of the Torah reading schedule. On the eighth day of Sukkot, called Sh’mini Atzeret (also called Simchat Torah, Joy of Torah) we celebrate turning the Torah back from the end of Deuteronomy to the beginning of Genesis. Today’s parashah is the intermediate parashah, and (I think) very apt for both ending and starting the Torah reading cycle because this parashah is, to me, the essence of Torah.

Moses has already broken the first tablets (with the commandments) and asked God to forgive the sins of the Golden Calf incident. He is talking with God, and asks that God remain with the people as they travel, or not send them anywhere at all. He asks to know God’s ways, meaning how he, Moses, is to rule in a way that will always be within God’s will. He asks to see God.

Moses wants to know God intimately; he wants to know God better and more fully than any human, ever, because he wants to lead the people in the way that will always please God. In this parashah we see the true nature of Moses, a man who is humble and fearless, almost demanding of God that He stay with the people, arguing that His divine presence is the only real sign to the other nations that Israel truly is God’s chosen people.

God agrees with all Moses asks, and we have in 34:6-7 the 13 Attributes of God, the Divine nature identified for all to know. Most every prayer in Judaism is based on, repeats and acknowledges God with these attributes.

God is “the Lord, the Lord”: the Talmudic “take” on this is that this repetition means that God is the same God before we sin and after we sin, defining His attribute of mercy; he is the all-mighty Lord of the Universe, Ruler of Nature and Mankind; He is merciful; He is gracious; long-suffering; abundant in goodness; abundant in truth; keeping mercy to the thousandth generation; forgiving of iniquity; forgiving of transgression; forgiving of sin; not allowing the guilty to remain unpunished; visiting the iniquity of the of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation.

The last aspect is meant to identify that although forgiveness of sin is available, it is the spiritual forgiveness that we receive: the physical consequence of sin in the real world will still be felt, down as far as the 4th generation. However, mercy will be given to the 1,000th generation.

The end of this parashah is the repetition of the Covenant God made with the children of Israel at Mt. Sinai. I would think that these conditions God identifies here must be the ones that are really important to Him, since we know there are many more laws, rules, regulations and commandments than the handful given here.

The reason I stated above that I feel this parashah is so appropriate between the end and beginning of the Torah reading cycle is because we have it all here: the proof of the Jewish people being God’s chosen people is by His presence, and that presence will be with us as long as we act as he requires. His divine attributes identify who and what God is; the requirements of the covenant are that God will do marvelous things, we are to worship only God and not the idols of the Gentile people, we are not to intermarry so as to have the pagan’s influence us to turn from God to idols, we shall keep the feasts of the Lord as He decreed us to, especially the Shabbat, and all the first born belong to God, of both animal and man. No blood is to be offered with the sacrifice and we should not do as the other nations do in how we eat (I get this from the restriction of boiling a lamb in it’s mother’s milk. I don’t think anyone really knows why this law was given, but it must be important because it is repeated three times in the Torah.)

Here we have it all: who God is, how we are to worship Him, and the promise that when we do as He says He will do wonderful and marvelous things for us. Really, isn’t that all we need to know?

God’s presence goes with His people, and who are His people? The ones who worship Him as he says they should. Throughout the Tanach we read how those sojourning with the Israelites are to be considered as natural-born Jews when they do as the Israelites do. Having the same rights as the people, they also have the same obligations, meaning to fulfill the requirements in the Torah just as the Jews do.

What I am getting at here is that everyone is a child of God physically, but only a child of God, spiritually, when they do as God says. That means if you are a Catholic, but you respect and honor the Torah, you don’t bow down to the statues in the church and you ask forgiveness from God and not the Priest, praying not to Jesus but in His name to God, then you are one of God’s chosen people.

On the other hand, if you were baptized, had your Holy Communion, answered all the questions correctly at your Confirmation, studied the Sacraments and went to church every Sunday, but you don’t honor God’s Torah and you bow to statues, pray to saints (ignoring God) and generally reject the Torah as valid, don’t expect to be welcomed with open arms when you go before the Lord.

When Jesus died for our sins He did so to make up for the fact that no matter how hard we try, we cannot live up to Torah’s standards of behavior. His death was to cover the sins we can’t stop doing, but it was not license to continue to sin. Ignoring the Torah and the requirements that God gave us to show that we are His people was not done away with when Yeshua died; in fact, they were confirmed as necessary because He was resurrected!

Read this parashah, and read it as someone who knows nothing about religion or God. Look at it fresh, anew, and ignorant of whatever you have been told by your religious leadership; allow your heart to be open to what it says and your ears to hear the Holy Spirit. It tells us who God is, it tells us what he requires, and it tells us that He is there as long as we walk with Him.

God is the leader, He knows the way, and He desperately wants us to walk with Him. In fact, God so desires that we walk with Him that He is willing to walk with us, so long as we walk correctly. God led the people through the desert, but this parashah says that He went with them: in other words, when we walk the way God wants us to walk, He will be with us. I believe we are being told that where we walk is our decision, our choice, and that we are always walking to our eternal destination. We are on the way, whether or not we want to be, and we are all walking along a path that leads to eternal joy (this is the one that God is on) or to eternal damnation.

The question to ask yourself is: which path will you choose?

Finally! The long awaited sequel is out, “Son of…..

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If you are a Baby-Boomer like me, you remember the great movies that had sequels. For my younger readers, that’s when you find out what happened after what you are watching. Today they’re all about prequels, finding out what happened before what you are watching occurred.

We had “Son of Kong”, “Son of Paleface”, “Son of Zorn”, “Tarzan Finds a Son”…movies that took the popularity of the original and continued the story line.

To me, that’s exactly what the New Covenant writings are all about. Growing up Jewish, all I ever heard about Jesus and the New Covenant was that Jesus was Jewish, a Rabbi, and he started a new religion called Catholicism. I was also told that the New Covenant is their bible, not ours. Oh, yes- and all the other Gentile religions came out of Catholicism.

Now I know the truth is very, very different. Nearly 20 years ago, when I first started to look for God and wanted to finally decide about what relationship, if any, I was going to have with Him, I researched for myself; I read the New Covenant (a Messianic version, which bold printed everything that was directly from the Old Covenant, so nearly every page had 1/3-1/2 of it bold printed), I talked to mature Christians who were open and knowledgeable about their Hebraic roots (thank the Lord He directed them to me), and eventually (after I decided to believe before I actually did believe) I learned the truth about who Jesus (His real name is Yeshua) was, and is, and who is the real creator of modern day Christianity.

Oh, in case you’re interested, Christianity as it is known and practiced today did not come from Jesus- it came from Constantine and the Council of Nicene.

The Old Covenant is all about God, really. Yes, we learn of the Jewish people, their good times and their bad; we also learn of the other people of those days. We read about the events that happened to both Jews and Gentiles, the destruction of the Northern kingdom of Shomron (Israel), the destruction of the first temple, exile to Babylon and the last king, Zedekiah, which was about 570 some-odd years before Yeshua. After him the only other major event, before the New Covenant events, was the Maccabees and the story of Hanukkah, about 400 years before Yeshua. This is where the OC ends, still waiting for the Messiah to come.

Despite all the events, peoples and kings, the one character in the Old Covenant that is steadily seen and heard throughout the book, who is the progenitor, hero, and star of the show, is God.

The New Covenant also mentions God throughout it, but the real star is Yeshua. Therefore, we could call the Old Covenant the “Story of God” and the New Covenant, “Son of God.”

Now the title to today’s post seems to make sense, doesn’t it?

Just like the old sequels, the first book introduces the hero and leaves us with a promise of more to come. The Messiah never appeared, although He had been mentioned and prophesied about throughout the book. With the NC, we have a culmination of writings about this guy Jesus who claimed to be the Messiah, and also said He was the Son of God.

And if you ask me, He did a pretty good job of proving that what He said was true!

“Jesus” was used for His name because the Greek’s had no reference for a name which meant “God’s salvation”, so they used Jesu, which means nothing in and of itself, but sounds like “Yeshua.” That’s right- “Jesus” is a Latin-ized version of a transliteration that has no etymological root.

The OC promised a Messiah to bring the Jewish people back to God, and also that the Jewish people would be a blessing to the world; eventually, the final promise is of paradise with all the nations of the world worshiping God. That is, worshiping God as He told us we should in the Torah. The NC is the continuation of that story, introducing the promised Messiah, showing how He proved who He was/is, and ending with a number of epilogues (the Epistles) that showed how the truth of Messiah was spread throughout the world. This book has no sequel because the end is eternity with God and Yeshua. All the bad guys are destroyed, the world is created anew, and those that have been faithful to the King have been rewarded with eternal peace and life forever in the presence of the King.

Nice ending; nice “Son of” sequel; all-around nice story. The best part of the whole thing is that it is real-life, and those who accept the truth of it are also part of the story, along with the Father and the Son, and we all end up in Paradise together.

 

 

Don’t fence me in

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Anyone remember that old song? It was actually the title song to a Roy Rogers movie from the 1940’s.

Basically, it tells of a man who doesn’t want to be restricted, a man who wants to be free to choose what he does and where he does it.

God is like that, too: He doesn’t want to be restricted into doing or being what others think He should be. Yet, we do that to Him- especially within many religions. Some teach only of His loving kindness and the salvation He provides, and that He is all about love. That’s true, God is love, but He is also justice, and He is demanding, and He is definitely willing and able to punish. If God will not punish the sinner as He promises He will, then His promises aren’t trustworthy. Yet, many religions don’t even like to mention that. They work on your emotional need to be unconditionally loved, and ignore the other aspects of God and (especially) His requirements for worship. Basically, they only want you to know the New Covenant writings and teach the Old Covenant is really just for the Jews.

Wrong!

Let’s be clear about what I mean when I say “punishing the sinner”: we all are sinners, who are sinful (meaning it is our nature to sin), but when those who truly fear the Lord sin, they are rueful and repentant. That is not the sinner who will be punished. A rueful and repentant person, one who goes before God with a contrite and humble heart and asks forgiveness, will be forgiven.

The sinners who will be punished are the ones who are unrepentant, the ones who reject God, willfully and obstinately, and who do whatever they want to do and justify doing so using worldly ethics and morals.

It seems funny using the words “ethic” and “moral” when talking about the world, doesn’t it?

So, sinners who will be punished are the ones who do what they want to do and reject God.

But, what is “rejecting God”? Is it simply to say He doesn’t exist? Is it to admit He may exist? Is it to worship Him and say you are a “Believer” but only do what you want to do and make excuses to ignore what you don’t want to do?

WHOAAAAHH, NELLIE!!!  Steve: are you implying that a Believer, someone who has accepted Messiah Yeshua as their personal Savior and fears the Lord, who goes to church every Sunday and tithes, and makes cakes for the fund-raisers, and doesn’t cheat at Bingo….are you saying this person, this godly, wonderful, angelic representative of the Almighty is rejecting God because he or she doesn’t do everything God says we should?

In a word…yes.

And to add to that, I also confess that I am one of those people. I don’t wear Tzit-Tzit, even though it is a commandment (Number 15: 38-40);often on Saturday I will do work around the house and I will spend money shopping or getting a haircut, and I also do other things I shouldn’t regarding speech and jokes and ….well, I could go on. I am sure everyone reading this could go on, as well. So I am not preaching to you as much as I am preaching to myself.

We are all guilty of not performing all the commandments God gave us, and that is why He needed to provide Yeshua (Jesus) as our “Get out of Hell” card so that when we do T’shuvah (repentance) and try (note I am saying try) to do better, I believe that God, in His mercy and compassion, sees our attempts to do better and our heartfelt desire to obey Him, as the next best thing to actually living a sinless life.

As I often say: we can never be sinless, but we can always sin less.

But what about religions that teach you don’t have to do what God commands? Religions that teach Torah is just for Jews and Christians have the Blood of Christ, and that is all they need. What about a religion that tells you you have to be totally abstinent if you want to be a spiritual leader? What about a religion that teaches you drinking and dancing are sins? What about a religion that tells you it is a sin to eat a cheeseburger? What about a religion that teaches you the Jewish people have been rejected forever by God and that Christians are now the Chosen people of God (Replacement Theology)?

Aren’t they rejecting God when they reject what He has said?  God gave the Torah to the Jewish people not for them exclusively, but for them to learn to live the way God wants us to live, and then teach the rest of the world by example. The fact that (in Acts) the Jewish Elders were amazed when God’s Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) came to the Gentiles shows that they didn’t understand this, either. God gave the Torah to the Jews so that they could bring it to the world.

Which means that Torah is what God wants us to do, how He wants us to worship Him, and to teach us all that we need to know.

God has no religion. He has Torah, and His Torah took on flesh and lived among us to demonstrate what the Jewish people were supposed to be demonstrating all along. Jesus showed the Jews in Israel how to live as a God-fearing person. Not as a “Jew”, but as someone who wants to obey the Lord. He was obedient to the Father, and (as John describes Him in the Gospel of John), Jesus was the Word of God become flesh.

Well, what was the “Word of God” in the First Century? It was the Torah.

If you are being taught that the Torah is for Jews and you, as a Gentile, are not subject to it, you had better start stocking up on Coppertone. I mean it- you need to read the bible, you need to read my book, and you need to make up your own mind about what God wants you to do.

I can help here: God wants you to do as He says you should and the world wants you to do what it says you should. In the end, there will be a fight between God and the world (Satan’s realm), and only one wins.

I’ll give you three guesses to tell me who wins, and your first two guesses don’t count.

I would love to be able to do everything in the Torah that God tells us to do, but I can’t. And, yes, I confess (and ask forgiveness) for the things I am too weak to control and discipline myself to do, such as wearing Tzit-tzit and observing the Shabbat fully. In fact, today I am going to work and it is the first day of Sukkot- I should be celebrating a Sabbath rest. But I’m not doing that, by choice. I have no vacation or personal days left, and already have taken two days without pay for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

I am sinning, I am rejecting God, and I know I am doing it. And, I really feel lower than whale poop. I pray God will forgive me, and strengthen me to do better in the future.

That’s the difference between who I was and who I am: I used to be a sinner that rationalized my sins, and now I am a sinner who regrets my sins.

Please read the word of God and let Him guide your understanding: don’t be lazy and just take what you are told as God’s truth. Religion is not for God, it is for itself, and teaches you what it wants you to do. Not all the time, and not all the commandments, but all religions teach something that is against what God wants. And when you face Him at Judgment Day, He will hold you responsible for what you have done or failed to do, and the reasons for it will be yours. That old cop-out, “But that’s what they told me to do!” won’t hold water with the Big Guy upstairs.

So, do what you do, don’t do what you don’t do, but (at least) know what the rules are before you decide what choice to make.

Because it is your choice to make, and you will be held accountable for making it. .