Tag: jesus

Parashah Kedoshim (Holy) Leviticus 19 – 20

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“Ye shall be holy; for I, the Lord thy God, am holy”

Powerful words, and the first words of this week’s Torah reading (parashah.) It is not a command to be as holy as God is, but to be holy because God is our God and He is holy.

To be holy doesn’t mean to be better, as a better person or a better Believer, but to be separated. To not do what others do, which may end up making us better, in a way. Better at being kind, better at being forgiving, better at being compassionate. Those are things which we should be ‘better’ at doing than others, and as such, we will be separated from the world.

The world is a cursed place, and those that live in it cannot avoid it. Just like walking through a field of sheep- no matter how carefully you step, eventually you will step into something. Living in the world, and having the Yetzer Hara (Evil Inclination) from birth, we will step in more than just one something during our lifetime. We will wallow in it, at one time or another. That’s part of living, and even though we may be covered in dirt, we don’t have to be dirty. We can have dirt on our bodies but not be thinking dirty thoughts; we can carry the smell of the world on us but not be of the world.

It’s a tough balancing act, and we have God’s word and the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) as our balancing pole to keep us on that high wire.

This parashah is all about being holy- it is the User’s Manual for holiness. Leviticus 19:18 is what Yeshua based His entire ministry on: love your neighbor as you love yourself. Yeshua said that on this commandment, and also on the commandment to love God, pivot all the rest of the commandments and the lessons from the Prophets. If we truly love God, then we have no choice but to love each other, and when you love someone you do whatever you can to make them happy, to not hurt them (although we end up doing that anyway, don’t we?) and to forgive them.

To err is human; to forgive, divine. You’ve heard that, and I’m sure often, but did you ever think about how biblically accurate it is? It is, in essence, what we learn from the Torah- we are sinners who are sinful, but we also have the ability to rise above our nature and be more like God than like other people.

These chapters instruct us in moral laws, ritual laws, duties towards others, consideration for the needy, and prohibitions against hatred and violence towards each other.

Even the Christians who teach that ‘Jews have Torah and Christians have the Blood of Christ’ (who, by the way, taught everyone to obey the Torah) can agree that the laws in this part of Leviticus are still valid for everyone.

If you haven’t read these last chapters of Leviticus, please do so! Start in 18 and go to the end. It isn’t that hard to do, and if you have to miss one of your TV shows, tape the show or let it go. This IS more important.

The parashot from here to the end of this book tell us how to treat each other and how to act as God acts, which is all He wants from us. As Moshe said, it isn’t too hard to do, it isn’t so far away we can’t get to it or need to send someone to bring it to us; it is right here, within reach.

God’s hand is always stretched out to meet our hand when we stretch our hand out to Him, and the means to reach God is to read and honor His Torah. When I say to honor the Torah, I don’t mean to just recognize it as a wonderful thing;  when I say to honor the Torah, I mean you must obey it to the best of your ability. No!- not to the best of your ability, beyond your best! Too often saying ,”To the best of my ability” is already admitting failure. You need to live beyond what you are able to do: that is why we have been given the Ruach HaKodesh.

Humanly it is impossible to live beyond what we are, but with God, all things are possible. The Ruach is from and of God, and it lives in you, in me, and in all those who profess Yeshua is the Messiah and accept Him as their Savior. That is the only way to get past the flesh, and it is only available to those that do T’shuvah (turning from sin) and ask for it with a broken spirit and a contrite heart.

Everything you need to be happy is here, in the Torah, and especially (I believe) in these few chapters, which form the very foundation of Yeshua’s ministry. If you want to be happy, these chapters tell you how.

 

Without Tsouris we wouldn’t know joy

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As lousy a situation as it is, the absence of tsouris (troubles) in our lives results in the absence of joy.

Joy is what we feel when we are relieved of stress, there are no problems, no “issues” to overcome…complete relaxation, physical, mental and spiritual.

But if we didn’t know about stress, if we never had “issues” to worry about and overcome, and if we never were sad, downtrodden, upset or stressed-out, then how would we be able to feel joy? It wouldn’t be anything other than the same old, same old. And even joy can be boring and useless if that’s all there is.

When a woman gives birth, the pains are remarkable (so I’ve heard- not being able to tell you from experience, of course) and the total joy after, when the baby has come out, is just as overwhelming. Not just because of the birth of your child, but because there is no more pain. The cessation of pain is, in and of itself, a joyful feeling.

We go through the fire to remove the slag, and we must be melted down to our basic elements for that to happen. We must be destroyed, so that we can congeal into a more pure form of ourselves. This is what Tsouris is all about- getting rid of the dross so that the purity can be realized. We need to call on the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) during these times to help us die to self so that God can more completely live in us.

The problem is, despite how wonderful the result, going through the process sucks! It sucks in every way: painfully, emotionally, physically, spiritually- every bad “ly” you can think of happens to us when going through the tsouris of life. And there isn’t much to do about it- you can’t run away from it, you can’t avoid it, and you have to wait until it runs it’s course. You are stuck between a rock and a hard place, and calling out to God may not help because God may be behind it.

Not always. Remember, we live in a cursed world, and sometimes that means having to deal with it. God isn’t always to blame. In fact, my personal opinion from reading about God all these years, is that He isn’t so petty as to cause your car to break down if you sinned, or the ladder to fall if you are working on the Sabbath, or have you suffer through “Montezuma’s Revenge” because you ate a ham sandwich for lunch when you knew you shouldn’t have. Maybe, sometimes, little things will happen that (as we look back later) we can see led us to something that was a Godly blessing or prevented us from tsouris, and yes- maybe, just maybe, God did make sure that little thing happened to protect us. Maybe the car did break down so that we didn’t get stuck in that 10 car pile-up on Interstate 95 that we would have been in. But, then again, maybe it just happened.

I don’t drive myself crazy (which, in my case, is a very short ride) with thinking about these things. God is very busy running the Universe, and although I know He happily makes time to hear my prayers, He is multi-tasking all the time. And I just don’t see Him going out of His way to cause something small to happen to me as a punishment for a sin. If that was true, at the rate I sin, He would have a full-time job.

Tsouris sucks- there’s no doubt about it. The only way to get through it is to understand it. By that I mean we need to remember we live in a cursed world, that we are separated from it, that the enemy does make time to do many, small annoying things to get us to curse the world and to curse God, and the enemy runs the world. He wasn’t thrown down to hell, but to the Earth, and he is the Prince of the Air (Ephesians 2:2.) What goes through the air? TV, radio, advertising, cell phone usage, Internet-all of these are controlled by the enemy, by definition of his kingdom, and we are bombarded by it constantly, day after day, year after year, until we think that, just like Mick Jagger says in that famous song, “He can’t be a man ’cause he doesn’t smoke the same cigarette as me!”  We compare ourselves to others instead of to what God says we should be. And often it seems, just like the song says, we can’t get no satisfaction.

But you can get satisfaction! The satisfaction of knowing that the tsouris is temporary and the joy tsouris allows us to feel will be eternal! I wrote a blog about SWISH– So What, I‘m Saved, Halleluyah! We need to remember not just that tsouris happens, but that it makes us better and that it is part of being alive. And more than that, we need to remember that the pain we feel now will allow us to feel the total and pure joy of salvation when that time comes.

Shaul tells us in Philippians 3:14:

“Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have laid hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,  I press on toward the goal to win the prize of God’s heavenly calling in Messiah Yeshua.”

We need to keep our gaze focused not on what is behind, or even what is here now, but on what is coming. That is how we get through tsouris- not concerning ourselves with what is happening as much as looking forward to when it is over. Things always seem so far away when we wait for them, and when we look back it all seems to have happened so quickly. Keep focused on the future, remind yourself that this is going to be over and think about the joy you will have when that happens.

We need to make our own time machine, but one that only works in one direction- the future. When in the midst of tsouris, get into your time machine and travel to the future; don’t look back, just wait there. Before you know it, the present will be with you in the future and the tsouris will be over.

When the tsouris of life is over, your joy in salvation will be complete! That is a promise from God.

Keep that in mind when you feel down and you will be uplifted.

Parashah Acarey Mot (After the death) Leviticus 16 – 18

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After the death, as in, after the death of Aaron’s two sons, who came before the Lord with unknown fire, drunk and ambitious. They learned the hard way you shouldn’t “Drink and Daven!”

Chapter 16 deals with the preparation and ceremonies for Yom Kippur, specifically regarding the preparations and duties of the High Priest (Cohen HaGadol.) The other chapters deal with slaying of animals and improper relationships, specifically improper sexual relationships.

From Chapter 18 to the end of Leviticus must be read to understand the origins of all that Yeshua taught us. These chapters deal with relationships between each other, which (ultimately) affect our relationship with God, and cover both familial and social relationships.

Chapter 16 teaches us that we must prepare ourselves before coming to God by cleansing our own sin, and the sin within our household. Many, if not most, Believing families aren’t composed of generations of Believers on both sides, so (in reality) I feel safe in saying that we all have close family members and friends that do not share our beliefs. Maybe they go to church or synagogue every week, and observe their holidays, but they haven’t really accepted Yeshua as their Messiah or really done T’shuvah. Although we must clean ourselves of sin, we can’t just destroy every relationship we have with an unbelieving person; in fact, we should not disown them because they are living in darkness and we are supposed to be the light for them.

We can ‘clean our house’ by not condoning or enabling sin. If we have a child that rejects God, when in your house he or she must not blaspheme or insult God, and the rules you live by as a God-fearing person must be obeyed by everyone in your house. What someone does on their own, outside of your home, is their business; but, if they live in your house, while they are there they will honor your beliefs and not sin.

You want to do drugs, fornicate, drink to excess?  Go somewhere else to do it, and I refuse to help. If you get stuck somewhere, find your own way home. When you are in this house I will treat you well, but if you leave it to sin then find your own way back or sleep on the street.

This isn’t mamby-pampy love; if you are the type of parent who says about your child, “Not my Baby! My Baby is a good boy/girl” as the cops drag them away, you need to clean your house! Actually, you need to wake up and clean the sin out of your own heart!

Yeshua tells us, clearly, that family can get in the way of having a clean heart and house:

Luke 9:62-“No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”

Luke 14:26- “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.”

Matthew 10:34-37- “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to turn ‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—36   a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’ 37 “Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”

These are tough lessons for us, but necessary ones.

Look, I’m not telling you to divorce your spouse and kick your child out into the streets, then quit your job, tell all your non-Believing friends to hit the road and ask the Pastor if you can sleep in the sanctuary from now on. What I am saying is that you need to recognize the sin in yourself and your “house”, meaning the relationships in your life, whether they are intimate, familial or public and keep them as clean as you can. Do not sin, hate the sin but love the sinner, and make sure that everyone you know knows where you stand, which is on God’s side.

Joshua told the Israelites that he and his family will serve the Lord. Can you say the same thing? Maybe you can’t because not all of your family are saved, but you can keep your house clean by being the example that God wants you to be and not enabling or condoning sinfulness.

I lost my children to their mother’s unforgiveness, hatred and spite because I refused to allow my children (whether I was visiting them or they were visiting me) to do what was wrong, to be disrespectful to adults or God, and to act sinfully. Their mother didn’t care, and that didn’t make it any easier for me. I lost my children because of what she has done, and also because of what I did. But I know that what I did was right in God’s eyes, and although it hurts today (and always will) I can suffer with the loss because I want to be what God says we should be. I pray that one day God will send angels to show my children the truth and we will be reconciled, to each other and to God, so that we can be Mishpocha (family) centered on Adonai.

Being right is never easy and, since the world is wrong, being right also means being separated from the world.

You know what? Being holy also means to be separated from the world, so although it is tough, often lonely, usually persecuted one way or another, being holy is what we are supposed to be, and these chapters in Leviticus, from 18 to the end, tell us how to be holy.

If you think that the Old Covenant is not needed anymore because Yeshua is all we need, think again- these next chapters are, essentially, the main lessons that Yeshua taught.

John said that the Word became flesh- the only “word” was Torah, and the flesh it became is Yeshua. So, if Yeshua, being the Living Torah, is still alive then Torah is still alive.

Think about that the next time someone says the Old Covenant is only for Jews.

 

Knowledge isn’t wisdom

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You’ve all heard people say that too much information is dangerous, right? Or maybe when talking about someone else, they’ll be referred to as having just enough knowledge to be dangerous?

I know the bible pretty well- I am familiar with most of what is in there, and can remember what has been said, but not always by whom and not always where. But if I know something is in there, I know it is in there.

Just as important, maybe even more so, I know what is NOT in there.

However, I never want to be a bible “scholar” because I feel that knowing every single aspect and part of it prevents one from appreciating the unity of the whole thing. Sort of like seeing a completed jigsaw puzzle but only recognizing the individual pieces.

I have the highest respect for true scholars, and I may be totally off-base thinking that when someone knows the bible extremely well that they (may) lose sight of the overall message because they become so focused on every single word, and with the processes and inter-relationships and order of books, and time of the writing, and who really wrote what, etc. I believe when you get that deeply involved in the minutiae that you can’t “see the forest for the trees” anymore.

I also don’t care much for numerology. I recognize (especially with Hebrew, where the letters of the alphabet are also numbers) that what appears to be a numerical anomaly may represent a coded message. I get that, but when I read that nuts aren’t to be eaten at Rosh Hashannah because the numerical value of the Hebrew word for nuts has the same numerical value as the Hebrew word for sin, well I think that’s just….nuts!

How many people have you met that know something but don’t understand it? For instance, there is a religious group whose members are very dedicated, respectfully so, about ministering to people. They go door-to-door with tracts and pamphlets, and one thing about them is that they know their bible! They can give you a bible quote for anything you ask about. But when you listen to them, and when you also know the quote, you realize how often they take these quotes out of context and , sometimes, use them in a totally wrong way. Here is where knowledge is not wisdom, or understanding. It amazes me, in a bad way, that people who know their bible so well have totally missed the truth of what it is saying.

It’s similar to the adage that goes, “Figures don’t lie, but liars figure.” I am not calling these people liars, per se, but I am saying that their lack of understand about what they are talking about makes them tell lies. They misinterpret the bible because they are using what is in there to justify what they want to say, instead of saying what is in there.

This is why I want to know the bible as a friend, as a close accomplice and soul-mate, but not the way a doctor knows a cadaver. I want to have an intimate knowledge of the ins and outs of what God is telling us in His word; I want to be able to connect the dots where they exist, and know enough to recognize when these dots aren’t connected.

But above all, I want to stay innocently unaware of the letters, the number relationships and the many “secret” messages. Abraham didn’t ask God to explain anything, did he? He just did what God told him to do. I don’t want to know about that one word in Revelations which, when the numerical value is added to itself three times (once each for the Father, Son and Holy Spirit), then divided by 5 (the number of books in the Torah) and then multiplied by 12 (once for each tribe of Israel) tells us the name of the Anti-Christ.

By the way, I just made all that up so don’t go looking for it.

The enemy knows the word of God better than anyone, and will use it against you. He even tried to use it against Yeshua, who probably helped write the thing! That is why I want you, also, to know it well: well enough to know what is in there, well enough to know what is not in there, and well enough to know when someone is misusing it.

Having too much knowledge can be dangerous, so have just enough knowledge to remain safe.

Empowerment or Excuse

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Shabbat Shalom. I usually have a Parashah message on Friday but I glanced at an article in the morning paper and feel so strongly about what it said to my spirit that I am going to rant and rave today.

The article was about a group of women who wanted to protest the backing by the Governor of Florida of a law that will remove a lot of funding for abortion clinics by forcing the doctors to have stricter regulations on their licensing, as well as stricter demands for inspections of clinics and restrictions on how fetal remains are handled. The government says this law is to improve the quality of the existing clinics and protect the health of the women using them; the protesters say it will just close more clinics and that the Governor is a hypocrite.

It came to me, after all these years of Roe vs. Wade conflicts, that the real reason women who choose to have sex outside of marriage want abortion clinics has nothing at all to do with their empowerment or rights regarding how they treat their body.

Let me say this, first, about right to life: I do not believe anyone should have sex if they are not married (and I mean to each other- sex between married people is still wrong if they are each married to someone else.) Let me also say that I was just as guilty of this sin, called fornication, as anyone else ever has been or will be. Before I was saved I had no problem with it, at all; in fact, when I was single (and before I knew the Lord) I not only was interesting in nailing anyone who was willing, but their marriage status was not a concern. That is different now, of course.

The bible is absolutely clear that fornication is a sin- it is not implied, or hinted at, or hidden in between the lines- according to Strong’s Concordance there are some 36 references throughout the bible against fornication. It’s a sin, plain and simple. What I really can’t stand to hear is the childish and irresponsible whining of people who choose to commit a sin and then say that it isn’t really a sin.

DUH!! If the bible says it is a sin, it is a S-I-N; what part of , “This is a sin” don’t you understand? Yet those who do what they want, feeling (to some degree, to their credit) a level of remorse, will not admit to their sinfulness and weakness but instead will rationalize it away by saying that what they did is not really a sin. At least, it shouldn’t be.

I took your possessions but that isn’t really stealing. I hit you in the face five times but that isn’t really assault. I shot you thirty-five times times in the head, but it was an accident.

Oy!

Fornication is a sin, and the abortion clinic argument is not about empowerment- it is about excuses. Abortion does not support a woman’s right to control her own body- it is a way to avoid the accountability of making a mistake. It is her “get out of jail (pregnancy) card” that she can throw on the table when her sinful actions have resulted in a new life that she is not willing to be responsible for.

The demand to allow abortion is, at it’s core, the demand for the right to commit murder and thereby avoid the consequences of a sin.

How can you avoid the consequence of a sin by committing another one? Any sin, no matter how “big” or how “small”, is a sin in God’s eyes. Fornication (from a human viewpoint) is less of a sin than murder;  murder made it to the Top Ten Hit list of sins, whereas fornication is low on the charts. That said, abortion clinics are the way that someone who chooses to fornicate can avoid the consequence of that action.

I do not want you to think that I am judging those who have sex outside of marriage- as I said, I was as guilty in my youth as anyone today. I am not judging people who fornicate when I call it a sin: I am simply defining what the bible says their actions are.

What I am ranting about is the irresponsibility and immaturity, both emotionally and spiritually, of people who demand to be allowed to have an abortion when they have failed to take the proper precautions or who become pregnant and don’t want to deal with it.

Didn’t your mother ever tell you when you first learned the attraction of matches: “If you play with fire you will get burned.”

Sin is a fire: it burns us, it consumes everything it touches, and it leaves scars. Yeshua can remove the scars and without Him, we have no hope. Abortion cannot remove the scars.

What this boils down to is sin if you want to- that is your choice. But stop trying to cover it up and excuse it away. If you fornicate and get pregnant, then deal with what you have done. I have heard from people that have had that “accident” and found they love that child as much, if not more so, than the “planned” ones. If you want to fornicate, do so- you were given, by God, free will to choose to commit sin. And you were also given, by God, the sacrificial death of His son to let you escape the eternal consequences of your sin. Mind you- I said the eternal consequences, not the physical, current consequences. A murderer can be forgiven murder through Yeshua, but he or she will still have to go to jail. Sin always has consequences on Earth which we cannot avoid.

I believe that abortion clinics are wrong and should be outlawed; not as a means of denying women the right to control what they do with their own body, but because they represent an escape from accountability. And, yes, I also believe that legal abortion is state-authorized murder.

We purposefully sin but don’t want to be held accountable. Fine. Live that way, make your excuses, use science or philosophy, make arguments about rights to control your body and empowerment, but it is all a smoke screen and misdirection. Abortion has nothing to do with empowerment or rights- it is all about lack of accountability and escaping the consequences of one’s actions.

If you fornicate and get pregnant, do your duty to the life you created and then give the baby up for adoption so someone who is not blessed with fertility can raise the child with the love you don’t have for it. Abortion is wrong, adding sin upon sin, and abortion clinics are state-authorized slaughterhouses. It’s that simple, it’s that easy to understand, and it’s that terrible.

Stop rationalizing your sin and own up to it, people! At least have the guts to admit you made a mistake and then show the maturity and strength of character to finish what you started.

Real empowerment doesn’t come from excuses- real empowerment comes from personal accountability.

Will I or Won’t I?

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Will I or won’t I …what? What is this thing I am supposed to do or not supposed to do?

That thing is: make a choice.

We are all given free will so that we can make our own choices, yet we abrogate that right, over and over. How? By allowing others to make that choice for us.

Do you read the entire bible? I mean, from Genesis all the way through to Revelations? And if you do, that’s good, because like it or not, you are going to be held responsible for everything that is in that book, from Genesis through Revelations.

In the bible God tells us what He wants from us: how to worship Him and how to treat each other. Yeshua said on these two laws, to love God and to love each other, rest the entire meaning of the bible.

Yet, how many people accept what they are told they should do without reading it for themselves? How many people (maybe you, too?) accept from “learned” men and women what the bible means, and what God wants you to do?

Wait a minute! Didn’t I just say God told us how to worship Him and treat each other? If God has said what we should do, then why is someone else telling me something different? If we all worship the same God, then why are there so many ways to worship Him? Why do some religions say drinking is OK and others call it a sin? Why do some people only eat what God said to eat and others ignore it? Why do some people think that it is OK to do some things and others say it is a sin?

The answer is: God has no religion, but people do. People created religion in order to further their own goals, to make you do what they want you to do, and to gain power and authority over you that they should not have.

Will I or won’t I? Will you or won’t you? That’s the question: will you accept what you are told to do and follow whatever form of worship you have been raised with, or will you read the word of God, the ENTIRE word of God, and accept only that whatever God said, in the old and the new, is what He wants from us. If you can start with this, just make a choice to read what God says and willfully accept that His words are just as valid today as they were that day when the Israelites heard Him on the mountain, then you are beginning a journey that will bring you closer to God, gain you more blessings on Earth (when you start to obey all His commands) and help to secure your salvation.

I am not saying to disrespect your spiritual leaders, but I do ask that you remember they are human, and just as full of human weaknesses as we all are. They are also just as willing to accept what they have been told (or maybe I should say, just as unwilling to question what they have been told) as you are.

The people who worship the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob have been led astray from the pure word of God. When God showed Himself to the Israelites, and (consequently) the world, there was only God’s laws or paganism. That was it. And for the next 1600-1700 years or so, there were Jews that worshiped God and there were the pagans. After the resurrection of Messiah Yeshua (Jesus) and the giving of the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit), the pagans began to convert. Not to Christianity- there wasn’t any such thing then. They were converting to Judaism, or more accurately, they were converting to the belief in a single, all -powerful God whose commandments about how to live were in the Torah. They were learning how to worship God as He said to.

Then all heck broke loose- the government took over the religion. The Jews became separated from the converting pagans, and out of the midst of that confusion came Christianity. Government regulated, government decreed and government ran. Worship of God became state-run religions: Italy and Spain are Catholic, Great Britain is Protestant, Germany is Lutheran, …must I go on?  Yes, and Israel is Jewish, but there is a difference- Israel has always been Jewish because that is where Judaism began and because that is what God decreed. God didn’t come down from the mountain and tell Henry VIII to separate from the Roman Catholic Church, Henry did that so he could divorce his wife.

I could go on, but the point is being lost in the history- you have to make a choice. Like it or not, you are going to be held accountable for how you worship God, and that will be weighed against is what is in the Torah. It is not going to be based on what your Priest, Minister, or Rabbi told you is allowed, and when you try to use that lame, childish excuse, “But that’s what they told me to do” you will not get very far with that, at all.

I am very concerned for people. I am intolerant of what I call “Programmed Stupidity”, which is people misusing their gift of free will to freely choose to not choose but be told. Faith is all about making a choice. We all choose what we will believe, and that choice will follow us not to the grave, but beyond the grave to the Throne of Judgment.

They say you can’t take it with you, and they are right, except for one thing: the choice we make about God. That will follow us past this life into the next. You can’t tell me I am wrong, anymore than I can tell you you are wrong, because neither of us has died and come back from beyond the grave. However, I respect your right to make your own choices and you should, at least, respect my right to do the same.

Will we or won’t we? We are all in this together- there is only one planet, only one species dominating the planet (the different colors and facial formations don’t matter- they are only skin deep), and there are many, many different religions, each with it’s own god. Even within Judeo-Christian religions, each religion has it’s own god, because the god of Lutherans says to do things differently than the god of Jews, than the god of Western Orthodox, than the god of Latter Day Saints, then the god of….well, you get the picture.

One God, one way to worship, one way to treat each other- what God told Moses, Yeshua told His disciples- nothing new, nothing different, just a more detailed and thorough explanation of the same thing. God told us what do do, Yeshua showed us how to do it.

That is what I have chosen to believe, and that is what I will take past the grave. When I present myself to God, I will be able to say, if nothing else, that I tried to follow what He told me to do from the commands He gave us.

Will you be able to say the same thing?

Everyday Faith

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We talk about having faith in God, but what does that really mean?  Does it mean believing God exists? Yes. Does it mean accepting that He has created everything and is who and what we hear about him? Yes, it does. Does it mean accepting that His promises of salvation are true and trustworthy? Absolutely!

But how do we show our faith? In the book of James we are told that faith without works is dead, so one way to show our faith is to do those things that please God (He is very clear about what pleases Him throughout the bible) and to use those talents and gifts He has given us to give Him glory.

We minister to others; we become missionaries for God and His Messiah (for those that have accepted Yeshua as their Messiah), whether in the Third World or our own backyard, or we just live simple lives demonstrating our trust and faith to all we meet and know.

That is the topic for today- whether or not our everyday life demonstrates true faith in God.

Do you worry about things? Do you show one line of the bible to be not exactly true? Which line? The one about how we cannot make even one hair on our head black or white (Matthew 5:36.) If we go through life worrying about everything we will not only have gray hairs, we may make them fall out, altogether! (I know- it’s just an Old Wives tale.)

I rear-ended someone last week because I didn’t watch the road carefully enough. No one was hurt, her car has little damage (it will still cost a lot to replace her bumper) and my car may actually be totaled because of all the front end parts that are busted- I will find out this morning. Am I upset?- you bet I am! I am mad at myself for being careless (of course, that’s why they call it an “accident”, isn’t it?) and upset about the damage I can’t fix. I am also concerned that my rates might go up. All justifiable and understandable concerns, but am I worried about it?

No. I am not. I know that whether or not the car can be repaired or whether or not I have to get another car, or whether or not the insurance company will raise my rates is going to happen whether or not I worry about it. And if I dwell on it, I am not just worrying for no good, but I am demonstrating my lack of faith in God.

I gave this all to God the other day. I know that from my past I can trust God to handle it, to provide transportation if I need it or to give me a way to resolve my immediate and temporary problem. By the end of this year whatever the solution will be to this it will be old hat and I will be so used to it that this event will be forgotten.

That’s what everyday faith looks like.

It doesn’t mean I am not concerned, it doesn’t mean I am not upset that I may have to take on more debt or spend savings, and it doesn’t mean I am preaching fatalism or apathy. In fact, I fully trust God to make whatever I need available, and the only thing I am “worried” about, if I may use the term, is my ability to properly hear what God is telling me to do.

This morning I take the car to the body shop to find out what the story is, and then I either make arrangements to rent one while this one gets fixed or I look for another car.

Did you see the movie, “Bridge of Spies?” In this movie, the spy that was captured by America and was being traded for Capt. Gary Powers had a very calm, almost fatalistic attitude. I took it to be the quiet, professional resignation any spy should show, once captured, to the inevitability of their situation. Every time Tom Hank’s character asked the spy if he was worried or scared, the answer was something like, “Would it make any difference?” I thought that was more than just quiet resignation- I saw that as the ultimate indication of faith.

Of course, a Russian spy during the Cold War wouldn’t be a faithful follower of God, but we are. We should have that same trust and faith in our everyday lives to show everyone else the inner peace that comes from knowing God is on our side, that He is more than able to handle anything, and that no matter what happens we can remain calm and comforted because we know that all things work to the good for those that are called in His name (Romans 8:28.)

That is everyday faith. Do you show that to others? Do people ask you how you can remain so calm in the midst of certain destruction? Are people amazed, maybe even a little angry with you, because you are always sure that things will work out?

If you can’t answer that with a “yes”, then you need to work on your everyday faith. I know I do.

Making a big show of how much we love the Lord by dancing in the aisles, going to synagogue or church every Sabbath, volunteering, ministering on the streets- all that is good; there is nothing wrong with it at all. But if you worry about every little detail, if you are upset when things go wrong to the point of crying out, “What do we do now?” and if people do not see you as having a calming effect on everyone, then you are not showing faith in God to those who desperately need to see how wonderful that faith can make us feel in the midst of Tsouris.

Everyday faith is one of the best ways to demonstrate to others your faith in God, which will also bring glory to Him. It might even make them jealous of what you have to the point they start to wonder if this is something they should have, for themselves. I know people can come to faith that way, because my journey to finding God started by seeing the calm and peaceful attitude of Believers that God placed in my life, and I wanted to feel that way.

Yeshua tells us in Matthew 6:24, “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

How about we think of it this way: today was tomorrow, yesterday, and we are told not to worry about tomorrow, therefor since every day is (yesterday’s) tomorrow, just don’t worry, period.

God can handle it, no matter what it is, and even if we feel we can’t handle the Tsouris we are going through, our everyday faith in God will show others that we know it will be alright, eventually.

And that everyday faith in God is what will allow us to handle it, too.

 

Walking or Wavering?

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In the letter Yakov (James) wrote to the Jewish Believers (not Christians, mind you, but Jewish Believers) in Jerusalem, he was talking about asking for things from God, and how we must be faithful when we ask. In James 1:5-7 he says:

But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But he must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord,…

Wow! Here is the brother of Yeshua (Jesus) saying that if we falter or are unsure of ourselves when we pray to God we shouldn’t expect that God will take that into account and still answer our prayers.

Heavy, Man!

Heavy? Yes. Unfair? No, well…to humans it may seem unfair, but God’s way is not our way.

Think about it from His perspective: if He enables us to be weak and unfaithful in what we do then how will we be able to stand against the attacks from the enemy of God?  Satan knows our weaknesses and our doubts- he works with them. God will strengthen us but the enemy works the opposite way, in that the enemy will weaken our faith by placing doubt in our minds. He will attack God by creating events that make us feel God is ignoring us, that God lies to us and that God doesn’t love us. The enemy will attack God by attacking our faith in God.

The enemy wants us to doubt that God will deliver on His promises.

That’s why God has to strengthen our faith by making us work at it. We are, by nature, lazy and we want to be led, that is what the enemy works with when steering us away from God. God, on the other hand, is trying to get us to work towards Him. He makes us exercise our spiritual muscles by forcing us to work at being faithful.

The Greek mythical hero, Theseus, recovered his fathers sword and shield by constantly trying to lift a large rock they had been buried under. Once he was strong enough to move the rock, he recovered these things, which were proof of his parentage and right to the throne.

We have a similar task: the large rock we need to lift is our doubts and our faithlessness, which we need to move out of our way in order to receive what our Father (in heaven) has placed there for us: salvation.

We talk about those who will take the mark and those who will not, but we forget to think about the ones who will turn from the faith in the tribulation. Revelations tells us that many, in some texts it says most (meaning more than 50%) will turn from their faith in God to take the mark of the enemy.

That scares the heck out of me! It should scare you, too, because if you are saying to yourself, “That’s not me- I will never take the mark!”  I am right there with you. Except that I am not so sure of myself because I know my faith needs more strengthening, I know I can’t move that rock, not yet, and I need to be able to. It’s my fear of my weakness that keeps me alert and aware.

God will turn us from base metal, slag even, into beautifully refined gold. But we need to go through the fire to get there. The enemy will not do that- he will give us whatever we want, make our lives easy, peaceful, joyful, a hedonists’ wonderland and grant us (initially) everything and anything we want.

This is why Yakov tells us that we shouldn’t expect anything from God if we are unsure of His faithfulness, which is what our faithlessness reveals about us. That is a little hard to understand, so let me rephrase it:

When we are not sure God will do as He says, it means we think God is not able to deliver on His promises. That is what the enemy wants us to think, and it is easier for humans, self-absorbed and egocentric as we are, to believe that God is at fault for not answering prayers than it is to think that it is because of our unfaithful attitude that we don’t receive.

Faith is hard…very hard….to achieve, and even harder to maintain. It is by faith alone we are saved, and it is our faith that gives us the strength and perseverance to maintain our belief and trust in God. And when the fecal matter comes into contact with the air circulation unit, we better have strong and dependable faith.

It isn’t God’s responsibility to answer prayers as much as it is our responsibility to ask faithfully believing that He can answer them. Not that He will, but that He can. God always has the right to say, “No.” to a request from Him. Just because He decides that prayer is not going to be answered doesn’t mean He won’t answer other prayers.

That’s what it means to not waver, to keep walking even if the ground slants, or gets rocky, or we aren’t sure why we have to go this way and not that way. We need to walk with a sure step, with our eyes on the finish line, and not waver from this side to that side.  We will probably slip and fall along the way; in fact, more than just once or twice, but God will always be there to pick us up. All the time, so long as we reach out to Him and ask for help. That is one prayer I believe He will always answer- a prayer for help.

All prayers should be submitted to God with the total belief that He is able to answer, even if He doesn’t. Even if His answer is, “Not yet”; even if His answer is, “Maybe later”; even if His answer is, “No way, Jose!”

It’s not about whether or not God answers your prayers, it’s all about believing that He can. If you can handle that truth without being upset or feeling that it is unfair, then you have proper faith and a properly respectful and humble attitude. That’s a good start, but it’s just a start. Very few of us can really lift that rock yet.

I know I can’t lift the rock, not all the way: I need to get back to that rock and keep trying.

We each of us have to work at “lifting the rock” of our faithfully believing in God’s ability to do what he says He will do. We need to walk, not waver, we need to stand firm, not bend in the wind, and we need to trust God, no matter what anyone else tells us or what happens to us.

It’s a big rock that hides our crown of victory, but it can be moved. We just need to keep at it.

Parashah Metzora (Leper) Leviticus 14 and 15

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Continuing the laws of cleanliness, Chapter 14 deals with leprosy of the body and any infectious contamination that spreads to the plastering on the walls of the house.  Chapter 15 deals with bodily secretions, such as when a woman has a discharge during her menstrual cycle or a man with a seminal secretion.

You would think, this being the Bible and all, you wouldn’t find mention of such graphic and disgusting things. Yet, having read through the Bible many times, there isn’t a part of the body, and I mean ANY part of the body, that isn’t mentioned or referred to very specifically in the Bible, somewhere.

So, you have a skin disease, your house has mold or something similar, you are bleeding or exuding some liquid from your body- you are unclean. Whether it is contagious or not, you are unclean. Everything you touch becomes unclean, and anyone who touches what you touched or is touched by you becomes unclean. The only difference is that the clean who touched the unclean must wash themselves and their clothes, and after doing so at evening (meaning the start of the next day) they are clean. When you become unclean by association you wash and for the rest of that day you are unclean, but then you are clean (mostly meaning ceremonial, or having to do with entering the Sanctuary area) the next day. If you are the source of the uncleanliness, you are always unclean until, according to the rules stipulated in these chapters, the Cohen declares you no longer unclean, you make the appropriate sacrifice, and then you are accepted back into the camp and the Sanctuary.

The simple truth is that these laws deal with outward evidence of being physically unclean- we are, all of us, unclean in our hearts. We are born with the Yetzer Hara, the Evil Inclination, and we have to overcome this. As Yeshua said, with man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible; hence, we have a Messiah to be the ultimate soap, if you will, to cleanse us spiritually so that we can come before God, tabernacle notwithstanding, and be clean before Him.

The warning in today’s Parashah is about not dying in one’s uncleanness by entering the Sanctuary when unclean. The intimation is that if you enter the Sanctuary unclean, you will be killed, and thus not just die, but die unclean. Not what you want, really. When we accept Yeshua as Messiah and ask forgiveness of our sins in His name, it is His righteousness that cleanses us so we can come before God clean. The cleanliness of our bodies is still important: when they say cleanliness is close to godliness, these chapters about clean and unclean should dispel any doubts about the accuracy and biblical confirmation of that old saw. But, yet, more than physically, or even ceremonially, clean, we need to be spiritually clean. We need to be more than clean outside, we need to be clean inside. Didn’t Yeshua tell us that it isn’t what goes into us that makes us unclean, but what comes out of our hearts?  Read Matthew 15:11 and Mark 7:15 to see what He said.

The Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) is what cleans us, inside and spiritually, and to receive it we have to ask. But we won’t want to ask until we are ready to be clean, until we want to wash our hearts and minds of the dirt that we are born into because of this cursed world we exist in. We have to do T’shuvah before we can really clean up our act (pun intended) and want to ask for the Ruach.

No one would go to the Cohen to get diagnosed until they saw the evidence of their disease, and wanted to be clean. We need to see the evidence of our disease, our sinful nature and accept what we do as truly being wrong; we need to stop rationalizing what we do as acceptable and start realizing what we do as wrong. That’s the first step. Next we have to truly want to stop doing wrong, that’s called T’shuvah, or turning from sin. Now we can come to the Cohen, either a religious leader as a Rabbi or Minister or Pastor or Priest, and ask them for help.

In truth, even a good friend can do the same- you need to find a spiritually mature person who can help you to be cleansed and then you clean yourself with water; not water from a sink but the everlasting water that we only get from Yeshua ha Maschiach.

The best thing is that once cleansed by Yeshua’s blood, you don’t have to wait until evening to be clean.

This is a simple lesson- to be clean forever the steps are:

  1. Confess that you are dirty
  2. Do T’shuvah
  3. Accept Yeshua as your Messiah and ask for His intercession before God
  4. Pray to God for forgiveness, calling on the name of Yeshua (not praying to Yeshua, but praying to God and asking that God accept you as one of the sheep that Yeshua owns)
  5. Ask for the gift of the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) and accept it
  6. Be prepared to fight against your nature for the rest of your life.

And remember: you can be strengthened in that fight knowing you now have the hope of eternal joy and peace, which you can also find here on Earth, through the Ruach HaKodesh.

can’t we all just get along?

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No. No, we can’t. We never have, we don’t, and we never will. Not even after Yeshua comes down from heaven, riding on the clouds, will we be able to get along with each other. Even after 1,000 years of Yeshua’s rule on Earth, we still won’t be able to get along with each other, as evidenced by the fact that after the 1,000 years the enemy will be freed from the pit and he (or she- let’s not be sexist about this) will be able to convince the majority of the world to battle against Yeshua.

Let’s get real, Folks- people have never gotten along. Cain killed Abel and there were only 4 people in the world! At the very beginning of mankind, 25% of the total population was murdered. Not the best way to start, wouldn’t you agree?  We have always been in conflict with each other- Ishmael was a man who would always be against other men, and have other men against him.

Genesis 16:12 – “He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers.”

What if that scripture verse means more than just being about Ishmael? What if Ishmael, a son of Abraham but not the son of the promise, represents the world, and Isaac, the one who is the son of the promise, represents those who accept God and His Messiah? Then we could say that the world of non-Believers (Ishmael and his brothers) will never be at peace or be able to “get along.” History has certainly proven that to be true.

The Lord has always commanded us to be holy, as He is holy, and to be holy means to be separated from the rest of the world. If we are to be separated, then (by definition) we cannot all get along with each other. We are not to intermarry, we are not to “hang out” together, we are not to allow their beliefs to influence ours.

Now, this doesn’t mean we can’t tolerate each other, or abide with each other, or even just not hate each other. We can deal with that- the love and compassion that we learn from God is what allows us to remain separated from non-Believers but still able to have relationships that are not aggressive. Love the sinner but hate the sin- that’s what we are taught, and to do that we need to be patient, understanding, and (for many of us) we need to remember that we were like them, once, too.

But we are not to be unevenly yoked. What does that mean, really? If someone is a Believer and married to another Believer, they are evenly yoked, right? Maybe not- what if one is walking the walk and the other is a professed Believer, but really doesn’t walk the walk, or live like a Believer should live? They are both “Believers”, in name, but not in real life. To me, that is unevenly yoked.

On the other hand, what if a Believer is married to someone who has not gotten down on their knees and said the “sinners prayer” thing- what if the other person has not read the bible or gone to “church” or do any of the normal things a “real” Believer does. Yet, that person is honest, does believe in God, does believe Yeshua (or Jesus) is the Messiah and died for their sins, and does, albeit reluctantly, recognize that he or she is a sinner and needs to be saved. What if that non-professed Believer, married to a professed Believer, lives the life a Believer should live? I would say they are evenly yoked.

Of course we can’t all get along. Sheesh! What if my god says to kill anyone who doesn’t believe in him? What if your god says that it doesn’t matter what anyone else believes? What if I don’t believe in any god or spiritual being, at all? What if I really just don’t care- my religion is hedonism, or evolution (that’s become almost a religion, hasn’t it?), or I’m some nut-case like Jim Jones or Father Divine? Can you get along with someone like that?

We are not meant to get along. Remember the story of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9)? God purposefully confused the language and spread people all over the Earth so that they would not be able to get along. We are not meant to get along- it is evident throughout the bible and throughout history. We are a warring, prideful, selfish, grabbing and never-satisfied species. We were given the duty and the honor to tend for God’s creation and look what we’ve done to it- we’ve enslaved our fellow humans, hunted thousands of species to extinction, and are destroying the very planet we need to live on.

Man! This post is a real downer! Yes, it is- it is sad, it is depressing, and it is a real shame that it is also the truth.

So, nu? What do we do?  We find a Doctor of Proctology to extract our heads from where they are and place them back where they belong so we can start to do what is right for ourselves, our animals and our planet. We also wait: we wait for Yeshua to return. And while we’re waiting, we who are separated must stay separated, but also be very visible. We should continue to preach the Word, we should continue to be “fishers of men”, we must go into the darkness because we are the light (light is definitely separated from darkness) and we should continue to pray for strength and guidance from God, through His Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit.)

We can’t all get along; no matter what, there will always be one who just can’t handle peaceful relationships. It’s like a perfect Democracy- it can’t exist with more than 1 person. So we do the next best thing, we work with what we have as best as we can.

We will never be able to all get along, but each of us can try to be patient and understanding of others. Don’t hate because someone is different, don’t deny justice or opportunity because someone is different, and accept people for what and who they are, even if they are sinful. You can work with someone who is totally different than you are, so long as both of you are willing to put up with the other and both work to attain a similar goal. If that isn’t possible, then get away and try with someone or somewhere else.

We can’t all get along, but that doesn’t mean we can’t all work together. Accept differences, respect people’s right (God given right, that is) to make up their own minds, tell them what you believe but don’t try to ram it down their throat, and more than anything else show them what you believe by how you live your life.

We who are “Born Again” must live in the world, but we are no longer part of it. We are in a crowd of people yet separate from them, and we will not all get along with each other.

But living as God tells us to live, we can get along with most.