Tag: ruach hakodesh

Hate is Easy and Love is Hard

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That isn’t so much of a revelation, is it?

How many of us have had a “falling out” with someone? Usually it’s over something that isn’t really that important, but was at the time we had the falling out. And how much easier is it to just accept that relationship is over than it is to make contact and try to revive that friendship? Hating is easier, hating is what comes natural to sinful beings (like all of us, myself included) and hating is safer.

Yes, safer. Safer because when we try to mend a hurt, we take the chance that we will be hurt again. At Rosh HaShanah it is a tradition to go to one you may have sinned against or hurt and ask forgiveness. I did this, once, to the mother of my children about two years after we had separated. I apologized for any hurtful things I had done and asked forgiveness. What I got was an earful of hatred, spite and anger. She yelled at me, withholding her forgiveness from me as if it was necessary for my salvation. She never knew that the forgiveness she could have given to me would have made her more right with God and had nothing to do with me and God.

Forgiveness doesn’t have anything to do, really, with the person who hurt you and their relationship to God, but it has everything to do with your relationship with God. We are not commanded to ask for forgiveness- we are commanded to forgive (see Matthew 6:14-16); forgiveness of someone else makes us right with God, not them. They have to make themselves right with God.

Hatefulness comes easy to humans for all the reasons I stated above, and for one more: it just feels better. Yes, I admit that and confess it, as well. I have some family members and friends that I need to keep in touch with or they will never call me, visit me or even send me a text. If I am not on Facebook (which, by the way, I am not) then I will never know what is happening in their lives. That knowledge hurts. I love them and miss them and want to be with them, yet they don’t give a hoot about staying in touch with me. I am the one always reaching out to them, and sometimes I just feel like if I never, ever have anything else to do with them I won’t be missing anything at all. If they can’t take a few minutes out of their oh-so-very-important lives to say “Hi” or drop me a line, give me a call or even just leave me a voice mail, then screw them and the white horse they rode in on!!

That’s why love is so much harder- it takes sacrifice, it takes compassion (not one of my strong points) and it takes a high tolerance to emotional pain. Loving is giving, loving is being there when you don’t want to be, and loving is accepting the stripes that someone else deserves. And more than that! Love is doing all that and doing it willingly, without allowing yourself to feel regret you did the “right” thing or to feel animosity against the one you suffered over.

This is the kind of love Yeshua has for all of us. This is the kind of love that God has for you, right now. And it is the kind of love that they both expect you to show to others. More than expect- they require it! If you have known the loving forgiveness of God and understand the depth of the sacrifice Yeshua made so you can be forgiven, and yet you do not show (or at least try to show)  that same love to others, then you are the man Yeshua tells us about in the parable of the unforgiving servant (Matthew 18:21-35).

In Matthew 16:24 Yeshua tells us how hard it is to love. He says:

“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

This isn’t easy, this isn’t something that comes naturally to us, and this isn’t fun. We get a sense of peace and joy from the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) when we are deep in worship, but what we get from the world is a load of crap, hatred, and persecution. Many churches teach all about God’s love, and paint a pretty picture of salvation. In the meantime, they aren’t preparing their flock for the wolves. Yeshua told His Talmudim (students) that they would be sheep among wolves, that they are to be as gentle as doves but as crafty as snakes.

There is an old saying, I am sure you have heard it, that goes, “Time heals all wounds.” I don’t think time alone heals wounds, but with proper care of the wound, putting the balm of God’s love and compassion on it daily, time will eventually overcome the pain and the wound will heal. There is another saying that is similar: it goes, “Time wounds all heels.”  Those who are not forgiving, those who hate and persecute, bully and confound, will eventually be wounded. They will feel God’s arrow of justice pierce their liver.

And if the thought that those who have sinned against you makes you feel somewhat avenged, you need top pick up that cross because you aren’t carrying it! I have been hated, and that hatred has poisoned my own children to the point where despite all the sacrifices I made to be with them and try to show them how to be self-sufficient and succeed in the world, they have rejected me and abandoned me. They hate me because they were fed the hatred and spite their mother had against me when I left the marriage (which at that time was a marriage in name only.) And when I think of the suffering they will have to go through, for all eternity, if they don’t do T’Shuvah before they die, I can’t possibly feel anything but sadness and remorse for them. It kills me that they will have to face God without Yeshua in their corner. And not just the kids, but their mother, too. Sure, I have every reason in the world to be glad that she will get what she deserves for doing what she did to me and to our children.  All the reason in the world!

But we’re not supposed to be of the world, are we?

Parashah Beshallach (It came to pass) Exodus 13:17 – 17

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The Israelites are in the desert, free from Egyptian slavery. However, now the Egyptians (mainly Pharaoh) have realized what they did, and are regretting their letting the Israelites go. So Pharaoh gets all his chariots together and rides out. I don’t believe he wanted to  kill them all, for what good would that do? He wanted to bring them back.

In any event, the Israelites thought he wanted to kill them all, and they were stuck: the Red Sea on one side and Pharaoh’s chariots on the other. And now we see the salvation of the Lord, one of the most well-known stories of the bible, come to pass. God miraculously keeps the army at bay with the pillar of cloud and fire, while he lights the way for the Israelites to walk through the now separated waters of the sea. Pharaoh is allowed to follow as the Israelites are just getting through, and God leaves them stranded in the midst of the waters, which He then brings back down upon them, totally destroying the army of Pharaoh.

The rest of this parashah is like an outline of how God provided for the people all through their desert travels, against their kvetching and whining: He gave them meat, he gave them bread, He gave them water. When they came to water that was not safe, He made it safe. When they were attacked, He fought for them.

This small parashah tells us that everything we need, God provides for us. And more than that, it demonstrates God’s love for His children, even in the wake of their distrust. Despite seeing the most marvelous and unbelievable miracles anyone could ever see, when some problem arose the people immediately complained and totally forgot the wondrous and miraculous things that God had done so far that proved He could provide. It’s like saying, “OK. You’ve destroyed Egypt, you’ve split the sea, you provided bread in the morning and meat at night, you’ve brought forth water from the rock, BUT WHAT HAVE YOU DONE FOR ME TODAY?”

Oy! What a bunch of nudniks!

It’s an easy lesson to learn today, easily understood, and almost impossible for us to remember when some “disaster” befalls us: God is able. God is able to provide our needs: God is able to rescue us: God is able to protect us: God is able to keep His promises: God is able!!

So when you have tsouris, when you feel let down by others, when you doubt that God is with you, get real! Get your head back on straight and remember what God has done for you in your life so far. Really- if you are that weak in faith and trust that one little thing goes wrong and you think God has abandoned you, you don’t deserve His blessings!

Lucky for you, and for me, too, that God is more forgiving and compassionate to us than we are to each other. I truly believe, and I tell Him, that if I lived a thousand years and never received another blessing, I have already received more than I could ever deserve. It’s true, and that is why I keep getting blessed: not because I deserve it (although when we obey God and His Torah, He does bless us) but because God is a God who loves to bless His children. He is a God who protects us, He is a God who loves us enough to chide and punish us when what we do is dangerous to our salvation, and He is a God who will deliver on His promises.

The problem is not with God, it is with us: He keeps covenant, we break it. He deserves worship and honor, we deserve death. He protects and provides, we don’t appreciate it. He is faithful, we are not.

The good news is we can change, and when we allow the Ruach HaKodesh (the Holy Spirit) to lead us we do change. Little by little, step by step, we make progress spiritually. And it shows in our daily activities. We are all going though the desert, and we all look forward to the Promised Land at the end of our journey. Just like the Israelites, when we allow God to lead us and follow His path, we will be protected, provided for, and will eventually arrive at our (eternal) land of milk and honey.

Don’t kvetch, don’t think the grass is greener on the other side (trust me, it isn’t), and don’t hold on to the past. When all looked lost with the sea ahead of them and death behind them, God asked Moses (Exodus 14:15), “Wherefore criest thou unto me? speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward.” I believe God was telling Moses (as well as you and me) to walk in faith and watch what happens. God is a God of action, not sitting around and waiting. When we walk in faith, even into the sea, or into the burning furnace, God will provide and protect. We need to move, we need to demonstrate our faithfulness; and when we do, God will be there.

God is able.

Respectfully, Yeshua, I disagree

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In each of the Gospels (B’rit Chadashah) when Yeshua is praying before His arrest, He asks the Talmudim (Disciples) with Him to stay awake, but they are sleeping when He returns from praying. He says, “the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.”

Respectfully, Yeshua, I disagree.

The problem we have as human beings is that the flesh is strong, often stronger than the spirit. Now, nothing is more powerful than God, and when we call on His spirit all things are possible (Yeshua says that, too, and I fully agree!), but the flesh is our humanity. It is our physical presence in a physical world, one which resents and rejects the very Ruach (spirit) that is what we really need to survive being “in the flesh.”

The flesh is what causes us to not just sin, but want to sin.  Our nature is sinful, in that we are drawn to hedonistic opportunities. The little red guy with the horns and pitchfork on our left shoulder usually beats the stuffing out of the little white-robed guy with the harp and the halo on our right shoulder. If that little angel really wanted to, he could knock the red guy into the next century, but that’s not in his nature. Yeshua was led like a lamb to slaughter, not saying anything. He was humble, even to death. We are told that the proud will be humiliated, and the humble raised. That’s the reason, I believe, the little guy with the harp gets the short end of the stick most of the time. However, when we work with that guy, we can overcome our nature. With the spirit, our flesh can be subdued and the spirit can be the stronger. When we partner with the Holy Spirit (Ruach HaKodesh) it will help us to overcome the Yetzer Hara, which is the Evil Inclination that we are all born with; in Judaism it is the Yetzer Hara, in Christianity it is called Original Sin- either way, we are born into sinfulness and must spend our entire life overcoming it.

When Yeshua said the flesh is weak, what He really meant is that the human ability to overcome our nature is very weak. The “flesh” Yeshua was talking about was our self-discipline, our desire to do good, our ability to overcome ourselves. That is weak because the sinful nature of our flesh, the self-absorbed, hedonistic and undisciplined mindset we all have hard-wired into our very psyche is humanly impossible to get past.

But with God, all things are possible. And that means that even the meek, humble and forgiving little angle on our shoulder can rip the horns off that little devil and stick them where only a proctologist will be able to recover them. He can do that, with our help, with our support and with our desire to obey the Torah.

As a human I love, first and foremost, myself. To some degree it is a necessary thing- self-preservation is the most basic instinct of any living creature. However, God teaches us that to give one’s life for a friend is the epitome of love, and we all know at least one person whose self-love is so out of control that they live an unhappy, solitary and depressed life. I don’t want to end up like that, do you?

We can’t weaken the flesh, but we can strengthen the spirit. I have asked God to take a certain desire from me, I have lifted it up to Him and said, which I really, really feel, that I can’t do it and I need Him to just excise this desire and these thoughts from my mind. You know what His answer was? He told me, “It doesn’t work that way.”  He showed me that I need to work with His Ruach, I need to strengthen my ability to draw on His spirit for strength, He showed me why Shaul (Paul) said in 2 Corinthians 12:9:

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.

The flesh is strong and the spirit is weak in each of us, but the flesh is as strong as it is ever going to be, whereas the spirit can grow stronger every day until we die. As I try to obey God’s word (that means the Torah) more and more, I strengthen the indwelling spirit simply by getting myself out of the way so that the spirit can fill me. In other words, each day I try more and more to die to self.  The more I die to self, the more the spirit will fill me, the stronger it becomes until it rules my every action, and even though I will always have sinful thoughts, the spirit will be speaking to me louder than the flesh can. My flesh will whisper and God’s Ruach will shout, so all I will hear is God.

We are told that God’s Word never returns void, so here’s an easy way to strengthen your spirit: read a chapter of the Bible every day.

That’s a spiritual exercise everyone can do.

That’s Not My Job

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In the Gospels Yeshua tells us that if we so much as lust after someone with our eyes we have already committed adultery. That’s a tough lesson to listen to, especially in a world where we are constantly bombarded by sexual commercials and ads telling us how to be more attractive and showing off how attractive others are.

But there is a difference between looking at someone who you recognize as beautiful/handsome, and stripping them down with your eyes while imagining how the rest of it could go.

I thought I would try to do as Job said he did, i.e. make a covenant with my eyes not to look at any young girls. I asked God to help me overcome what I am as much conditioned to do as (maybe) sinfully want to do, and I asked Him again, and again, and again. I asked him to keep me from staring at beautiful women; in fact, I asked Him to take all sexual thoughts from me, completely.

Here is the answer He gave me:  “Not my job.”

HUH? Not your job? But, but, but…we are told that whatever we ask for we will receive, and that you answer prayers, and, and, and ..uh…uh…that when we ask in Yeshua’s name we will receive what we ask for. I want you to take this from me! I want to have clean thoughts only, I want to be acceptable before you always. You know, like David prayed in the Psalms: create in me a clean heart, renew a right spirit in me, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart always be acceptable before thee.  Aren’t these good things to ask of you? Isn’t this the kind of prayer you will not just acknowledge but one that you want to hear? Whassup with this, “Not my job” thing?

That’s when God answered me, again. I didn’t hear some majestic voice thundering, and it wasn’t even a still, quiet voice. It was a thought that just came into my head: one so simple, one so truthful, and one so significant and demonstrative of God’s ways that I knew it wasn’t from my brain. God made me to understand His answer.

“It doesn’t work that way. I won’t just take this from you because then when you need to learn how to call on My Spirit to help you, you won’t know how to. Spiritual strength is like any other strength- it needs to be exercised to reach it’s full potential. If I just take away sin from someone, they won’t have the spiritual strength to stand up against the enemy when he comes at them.”

It’s like the parable Yeshua tells about the man cleansed of a demon, and after the demon roamed the earth he came back into the very same man because the house had been cleaned, but it was empty. The lesson is that when the man was made clean, he didn’t do anything to fill himself with God. He was cleansed without any actions of his own, and when the demon came back he had no defence against it. Similarly, just being made pure in thought by having God “rewire” my CPU won’t help me to keep it that way.

We all, each of us, have to go through the fire of purification. We have God there to help and guide us, and His Ruach haKodesh (Holy Spirit) to comfort us as we struggle with ourselves, but in the end, it must be us, it must be you, it must be me who overcome the sin in ourselves.

Didn’t God tell Cain that sin crouches at his door and is waiting for him? And more than just that warning, God told Cain that he-Cain- must conquer it!

Right from the start we are told that we must conquer the sinfulness in us. God will help us, God will guide us, God will provide (and already has, in Messiah Yeshua) the means for us to be acceptable when we fail to overcome our sin. But, day to day, we each must work at strengthening our spiritual muscles so that we can overcome the sin in our lives and stand up to the enemy when he comes at us.

Ask God to strengthen you, to guide you, to send His Ruach to comfort and ease your pain, and continually thank him for Messiah Yeshua, who is the ultimate Get-Out-Of-Jail card for everyone who does T’shuvah in his or her own heart, then asks forgiveness from God in Yeshua’s name.

That is how it works.  We must first want to turn from our sins, then accept the grace God gave through His Messiah (Yeshua/Jesus) so we have forgiveness despite our own failure to be sinless, then after accepting Yeshua as our Messiah we can be given the Ruach HaKodesh to comfort, guide and help us through knowledge and understanding of God’s ways so that even though the journey is difficult, we will know the way to walk.

God will answer prayers, God is always there, and God wants us all to turn from our sin and live. He is clear about that throughout the bible. With God we are able to do this, but God is not an enabler- He will always help us, but we have to do it. He will guide us, but we have to walk. He will lift us up when we fall and help direct us to the right path, but we need to keep going.

When it comes to salvation, God has provided it.

When it comes to forgiveness of sins, Yeshua has provided it.

When it comes to overcoming the sin in ourselves, that’s not His job- it’s ours.

Parashah V’Yishlach (and he sent to him) Genesis 32:4 – 36

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Jacob comes back to the land he left, and hears that Esau is coming out to meet him with 400 men. Frightened for his family, he splits the camp, sends them ahead and stays behind the Jabbok River that night by himself. That night he wrestles with an angel, who (in order to be released by Jacob, who has prevailed against the angel even after the angel damages his hip) gives Jacob the name “Israel” and blesses him. Jacob limps across the river, then decides to send gifts to Esau to appease him before the camp even gets close. As he gets closer, he sends his favorite wife and her child  (Rachel and Joseph) to the very rear, then next closest is Leah and her children, and right behind Jacob are the handmaidens of his wives and their children. It is obvious that the least favored of his children’s mothers were to be closest so if Esau killed Jacob and the family, these would be next, and hopefully Esau’s anger would not reach all the way to the end to find Rebekah and Joseph. However, Jacob’s prayers are answered when Esau embraces and cries over reuniting with his brother, and that is about all the lovey-dovey they do. Esau goes back to his family and life in Seir, and Jacob ends up settling at that time in Shechem, in the land of Canaan.

In this land Jacob’s daughter, Dinah, is raped by the son of Hamor, the king of Shechem. After doing so, however, the prince falls for her and asks a bride price. The sons of Jacob (interesting that Jacob is not in this discussion) state that the men of the city, all the men, must be circumcised before Dinah can marry even one of them. Then when the men are recovering, Levi and Simeon attack the men, kill all the adult men and take the women, children and possessions as spoil. Jacob is enraged about this, and (reasonably) concerned for his welfare and that of all his family. God tells Jacob to get to Beth-el. Jacob sets up a standing stone there, an altar to God, and as they continue to travel towards Bethlehem, Rachel dies in childbirth as Benjamin in born. She is buried there, and they continue to Bethlehem. One other major event is that Reuben sleeps with his father’s concubine, and this is an affront for which he is not forgiven, even unto Israel’s dying blessing on him, and Reuben also loses the rights of the firstborn (which go to Joseph and his sons.)

The parashah ends with a brief review of the sons of Jacob, and then an entire chapter to cover the descendants of Esau. From this point forward we don’t really hear that much about Esau and his relationship to Jacob, and the storyline shifts starting with the next parashah further away from Jacob and into the life of Joseph.

I could write a book on this parashah: there is so much in the telling of the brotherly love-hate relationships we’ve seen so far in the bible. Cain and Abel, Ishmael and Isaac, Jacob and Esau: each set of brothers had strife between them. Cain and Abel strove over the acceptance of God, Ishmael and Isaac strove over the acceptance of Abraham, and Esau and Isaac strove over the rights of the firstborn. From God’s acceptance, to their fathers acceptance, to receiving the blessings for themself.  We see the relationship deteriorate from between me and God (accepting my sacrifice), to me and Dad (Abraham sending Ishmael out on his own with no real inheritance), to pretty much me and me (Jacob and Esau struggling over the blessing and rights of the firstborn.) There’s plenty of juice in this orange we could squeeze out.

There’s also the changing of Jacob’s name, his wrestling not just with an angel, but with his (or mankind’s) desire to use deviousness over doing what is righteous. The name change is more than just that- The Chumash indicates that it represents a change in his entire viewpoint and actions from one of being the “supplanter” to one of being the “champion of God.” We see this change somewhat in how Jacob despises the deviousness of Levi and Simeon.

So, nu?  With all this good stuff to talk about, what do I talk about? Actually, as I am writing this I am not sure. But I think I know where to go, and it isn’t from the storyline. It’s from the comments I read in the Chumash.

The “Rabbis” who contributed to the Chumash, even though they were learned and godly men in many ways, just had to find something deep and studious in the word of God. For instance, at the very beginning of this portion we are told that Rashi takes the term, “I have sojourned” to mean that Jacob is telling Esau that although he has become as rich as a prince, he really was never more than a humble wanderer, a sojourner, and that the blessing he received from Isaac saying  Jacob would be greater than Esau has not been fulfilled, therefore Esau has no reason to be angry with Jacob. The Midrash states that the letters used in the word “גרתי” (sojourned) has the numerical value of 613, the exact number of commandments in the Torah, and it uses that to demonstrate that even though Jacob dwelt in a land that was not the one promised to him by God, he still remained subject to and obedient to the Torah- an exhortation to his descendants to do the same. Honestly, and with all due respect, to me that seems to be stretching it a bit; I mean, the Torah wasn’t even given to us yet.

Throughout the Chumash one can read many of these interpretations, and they do make sense in many ways, yet I was taught that you can’t make an argument from nothing. The fact that Hebrew letters have a numerical value and that it is part of interpreting the bible is valid- I have no problem with gimel (ג), or 8, representing a new beginning,  7 is completion,  3 is the godhead, and 4 for man and God. Yet, I can’t forget that old expression I learned when in banking: “Figures don’t lie, but liars figure.”  If we look deep enough, and manipulate things enough, eventually you can get blood from a stone.

When we read the bible the best way to interpret it is to let God, who wrote it, tell you what it means. The way that is done is through the Ruach HaKodesh, the Holy Spirit. I do not, in any way, feel that what I am writing now is spirit-led. I think it is more my own feelings, and experiences, and not some divine revelation. Still, I think it is valid ( or I wouldn’t write it) and ask that you think it over for yourself. Whether I tell you something, or your Rabbi/Pastor/Priest/Minister/whatever tells you something, you need to verify it for yourself by asking God to tell you what it really means. Of course, the spirit will only indwell when you ask for it.

The bible is, even for someone who doesn’t believe in God, a wonderful book, a valuable lesson in human relations, and a history of more than just the Jewish people (and every day it is proven more and more to be an accurate historical document.)  It has wisdom, poetry, substance, and value to everyone and anyone who has to survive in this world. To those who do believe in God, and who have accepted the Ruach HaKodesh, they will read all that the non-believers will read but get so much more out of it.

I give to you today a blessing and a curse regarding the Word of God: the blessing is that if you allow the Ruach HaKodesh to be your ultimate interpreter when you read the bible you will receive wonderful, life-changing, and eternal understanding of God and His kingdom. The curse is this: if you only listen to others, you accept what you like and reject what you don’t like, and never ask God to lead your understanding, then the bible will become a trap and a snare for you and you will be led not to eternal joy but placed on a direct path to the Lake of Fire!

The bible is like fire: when handled with respect and awe it can warm you, save your life and provide protection; but, when not respected, understood or treated with concern it will turn on you, destroying you and everything you have.

God is just so much so! He is so far above us and so much holier than we can even imagine that He must be treated with the ultimate level of respect. He is the One, He is all there is, He is everything (and I mean, E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G) and the only thing that matters. As humans, we want to have the world revolve around us, but we need to revolve around God. He should be the center of our universe, and His word should be treated with total respect and awe. It is like dynamite- when you use it respecting it’s power, you get tremendous benefit from it. When you treat it casually and without respect, you get blown to bits!

Look for what God has in the bible for you, but make sure that no matter what you hear from humans, you always test it against what God tells you through the Ruach HaKodesh.

 

Empty Joy

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David tells us, over and over in the psalms he wrote, that the joy of the Lord is wonderful. When we think of God we think of love, peace, joy and salvation.

It is true that knowing the Lord has given me a sense of peace I never had before, and it is true that I find joy in His word, comfort in trusting faithfulness that His promises are solid and completely trustworthy, and spiritual completion in knowing that I can be a “born again believer” and still be Jewish.

I feel bad for those people that don’t understand that being a Believer is not easy. There are so many people, “born again” people, that I have met along the way who only want to hear about God’s love and compassion. They want to know His Grace, they cry and scream, “I love you, Lord!” But I wonder if they really do. I believe they think they do, but do they, really? If all they know is love and forgiveness, they don’t know all about God. He is all about judgement and punishment, too. He gave us laws and regulations to live by…commandments. His commandments are not a buffet for us to pick and choose which we like and which we don’t, and expect that God will accept us, anyway. His commandments are mandatory, they are what He says we should do and be. If we ignore what God says to do, then we are ignoring God, and that is not the way to get to know Him. You can’t really love someone without knowing all about them- that isn’t love, it’s infatuation. It is superficial, and that is why so many people fall away and keep going from one church to another, one synagogue to another, this week they’re Baptist, next week they’re Episcopalian, and by this time next year they’re probably going to be Methodists. They bounce between religions and places of worship because they only want the surface, they want to hear about the love and compassion and forgiveness, and don’t want to know about the laws, commandments and judgements that come from disobeying.

If God doesn’t judge against those who do not truly do T’Shuva (turning from sin) then we cannot trust His promise of salvation. It’s that easy, and that basic, and (should be) that frightening for those who think they can be loved and forgiven but they don’t have to obey His Torah. God gave us Torah as our guidelines, the way to know right from wrong, and the way He says we should live and worship Him. We all fall short, but how many times do we read in His word that God sees the heart? That means that what we do or don’t do is less important than what we want to be doing. If I sin but in my heart I hate the sin I do and want desperately to sin less, God knows. God also knows if I don’t care about what His Torah says, if I am more than happy to let someone in a religious position of authority tell me I am saved by God’s love and forgiveness, and if in my heart that’s all I want. I don’t want to do as He says, I don’t want to change what I do or what I like, I just want to be loved and forgiven. If that is in my heart, that all I want is God’s forgiveness and don’t want to  do anything He says I must, do you really think that will please God? Do you really think that God will accept me into His salvation if my heart doesn’t care about Him?

Do you really think God is that gullible?  That God doesn’t care if we obey Him or not?

Torah, according to Shaul (Paul), created sin. He said that because without knowing what is right and how God wants us to act (Torah), we can’t know that to disobey those laws and regulations is what God defines as sin. Actions are, in and of themselves, neither right nor wrong- there has to be a comparison, a Yin and a Yang, some rating system to allow us to weigh one against the other.  There is plenty of joyfulness in the world, and plenty of sadness, so we all, whether we are believers, pagans, atheists or whatever, feel joy and sadness.

But to really experience the joy of the Lord, we need to know the Lord. And to know the Lord, we have to know who He is and know all He has done. That’s all in the bible.

I was asked the other day by someone about how Christians could act a certain way. The person thought that arguing against allowing Syrian refugees into the USA was not a “Christian” thing to do. The issue wasn’t really whether Christians should allow refugees in or not- the real issue was that this person didn’t know what being a “Christian” was all about. The assumption this person had was that all “good Christians” should love and forgive and do what they can to help people. I explained that wanting to help others doesn’t mean being a naive idiot and endangering yourself. Yeshua told His disciples to be as gentle as doves and as wise as snakes.

To define a “Christian” person as one who tries to do as God wants is a good definition.  The next step is to understand what God wants so that one can then properly identify a “Believer/Christian” from others.

The only way to know what God wants is to know God; to read the User Manual He gave us through Moshe (Moses), the Prophets, and the writers of the New Covenant Gospels and Epistles. Until you read the bible, and more than just once or twice, you can’t really know anything about God. And if you don’t know anything about God, then you can’t say anything about when someone is a “good Christian” or not.

It’s like trying to identify a good wine from a bad wine- if you don’t know anything about wine, how can you say one is better or worse than another?

That’s why I say the joy people feel when they do not know God is empty- it is not anywhere near what they could feel, if they were able to have the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) fill them with joy.  Not that people who don’t believe in God cannot feel any joy at all- that isn’t what I am trying to say. What I am trying to say (I hope I am succeeding) is that once someone knows the joy we can feel only from God, everything else is substandard and empty.

I have felt God’s joy- I have been brought to tears of joy praying to Him, worshipping Him in song, and often just thinking about what He has done for me. When I watch the testimony I gave years ago (there is a link to it in my bio) I still get wet-eyed because I still feel the joy that came at that moment, when the Ruach HaKodesh entered me.

It was life-changing.

I wish everyone could know the fullness of joy that we can have when we allow God to fill us. What the world offers is dreck, useless and momentary because it is really a false sense of joy. It has the emotional kick of a small firecracker, whereas the joy of the Lord is an atom bomb! There is no comparison.

If you wonder why you aren’t as happy as you think you should be, or you feel you really aren’t happy at all, read the bible, get to know who God is through what He has done, and then make up your mind to accept and embrace Him, according to the way He says we should, or continue to wander through life feeling like there should be more, but never really getting it.

Real joy is here, right in front of you, within grasp, and God’s hand is reaching out to you. You need to reach back.

 

Disposable Everything

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Changing the baby’s diaper? The old one can be thrown away. Not to mention the food container you got from the Chinese restaurant. Also the napkins, the paper towels, and even some of the camera’s you buy on vacation.

That’s all OK, so long as you recycle the ones that can be recycled.

The problem starts when we start to have disposable relationships.

I have a relative whom I love, and I know she loves me, but I chewed her out for something on Face Book (my error) and she unfriended me. When the relationship we have is mostly digital, to just turn it off is easy. I apologized on Face Book, and in person when I saw her recently, but she still hasn’t made me her FB friend again. She didn’t see the apology because she cut me off from her (digital) life. Just like that- 26 years gone in a click.

My kids lived in NY while I lived in PA, so I saw them on weekends when I went out there: 4-5 hours of driving for 4-5 hours of being with them. Unfortunately, this was tough and my hours usually made it hard for me to call all the time. Besides, in my own defense, when I did call their mother listened in, or she took over the call and started to berate me (she never was forgiving or even willing to try and eventually turned the kids totally against me) or stood by so the kids couldn’t talk to me freely;  so, I stopped calling.  Now they have cut me off totally, another result of what is (partly) from having a disposable relationship, one that isn’t face-to-face and physically close.

The digital world has distanced us even more than the cocooning of the world that first started when the Internet took over. Now we unfriend people, we block their phone number, we can even block their email. If you’re mad at someone (and we all get mad at each other, sooner or later) it is so much easier to block them, unfriend them, and delete their contact information. A few seconds and a couple of clicks and that relationship is not just over, it is lost.

The Internet is transmitted through the air, and what is the description Shaul (Paul) gives of the enemy- isn’t he called the “Prince of the Air?”

The most important relationship anyone can have is with God, right? Oh, yeah- Mom, Dad, siblings, friends, etc. are all important- that’s why I am rambling on about how much I can’t stand the easily dismissed and immediately destroyed digital relationships we keep today- but (ultimately) they can’t save your soul. Only Yeshua’s sacrifice, and the relationship He makes possible with God Almighty, can save your soul for all Eternity. And this is the hardest relationship to keep because it is not digital, and it is not physical- it is faith based.

I have felt the presence of God, I have felt His touch, I have known the joy and the peace that His Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) has given me, so there is some level of physicality in my relationship with God. But not everyone has that, and for those that hear the word and are strangled by the weeds, or are poor soil, the relationship is easily broken.

That’s my concern, that’s why I am writing this today- we need to be able to maintain our relationship with God but if we can’t even keep a close relationship during hard times with family and friends, how can we learn to have the humility and maturity to keep a relationship with an unseen and untouchable God? Especially when the tribulation starts and the enemy comes in with promises, blaming God for everything wrong in our lives, and telling us all we need to do to get happy is to unfriend the Lord, and friend the enemy. If something goes terribly wrong in our lives, we just have to blame someone or something, and it is easier to blame God (since he won’t usually speak up in His own defense) than someone else because they might defend themselves and the blame won’t “stick” to them. People defend themselves, God waits for you to get real and wake up to the true cause of the problems in your life, which is YOU! Just as in my life the true cause of all my problems is ME!

For the sake of your soul, and maybe to help others save their soul, get off the stupid computer and get on the stinking phone.  Not texting, but calling. Use Skype or Face Time- that’s even better than a call. You can see each other, that will bring back many more feelings and memories than even just hearing their voice. But make the effort to be human! Talk to each other, look at each other, be people talking to people.

In the olden days they had to travel many days just to get to the next city, so letters were the main form of communication. And the letters people wrote back then, even just catching up letters, were beautiful. Well composed, thought through, and almost poetic. They never LOL’d or BTW’d each other. And they never LMAO’d, either.

Next time you want to catch up or touch base with people, call them. Talk with them, make real, human contact. Learn to work through the problems and don’t have disposable relationships. Relationships shouldn’t be disposable- they should be like a tattoo on the heart. They should be written with indelible ink on your hand and they should be fought for. They are worth keeping.

Pride, anger and lack of forgiveness destroy you from the inside out, and we all need to overcome this.

You will never be able to have a meaningful relationship with God if you can’t have a meaningful relationship with a human being.

Without Faith There is Only Fear

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Scientists who claim that all life was formed by an accident, some coincidence of a random mixing of elements and environment, believe they are right. And, as we have accidentally became more physiologically advanced, we have also been told there is no guidance to the Universe, only the random interactions of different events. Now, as a result of believing that our entire existence is random and accidental, despite being at our highest level of intellectual power, we treat the theory of evolution as a fact, we worship not the God who created us but the science He created, and we wonder why there is so much fear ,discomfort, depression, anxiety, feelings of uselessness and lack of hope in the world.

How can we be so smart, and so stupid, at the same time?

There is a simple, obvious and understandable reason for the fear so many people feel, along with the insatiable need to be in control: it’s because we, as a species, need to know there is someone in charge who can manage this thing we call “life” better than we can, and we are told that He doesn’t exist.

Growing up as children, we tested the limits of our acceptable behavior and the limits of our bodies. We intrinsically trusted our parents to watch over us and keep us from going too far. As a baby we would fall right off our father’s shoulders, and never think for a second about harming ourselves because there was no doubt he would catch us. That’s what is missing in the world today- no one trusts God to catch them. In fact, too many people don’t even think God is in charge, or even that He exists.

And way too many people just don’t care.

It comes down to this: if there is no control in the Universe, if God is not the designer, creator, ultimately in control and able to save us whatever happens, then all we have left is ourselves to fight the world. Alone, empty-handed, and incompetent. No wonder people all so scared they soil themselves. Or smoke, or drink to excess, or do drugs, and practice any and all forms of hedonism.

If you don’t know the Lord and you want to, He is waiting for you. God wants to forgive you but you have to want it, too. You have to be willing to stop trying to control the world around you and let God take control of you. Fight the world from inside out, not the other way around, and that means you need armor and guidance. Our perfect coach is the Comforter, the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) that you will receive when you truly ask for it and are willing to accept it. And once you have this, you will be able to use the armor against the world that God provides for you (the inventory list is in Ephesians 6:10.)

President Roosevelt (Franklin, not Teddy) said that only thing we need to fear is fear, itself. That is one way of looking at it, and it makes sense in a world without God. But in my world, God is the one I look to for protection and guidance and salvation, and He is more powerful than anything, so I am not afraid of “fear” because He gives me a spirit of victory.

We all know someone (probably a lot of someones) who are ruled by fear- fear of loss, fear of the world, fear of  terrorism, fear of the weather, fear of the stock market, fear of change…they run their lives not by going forth boldly in trust and faithfulness, but by tip-toeing around every little thing that happens. And running scared whenever they hear a noise.

Fear of harming ourselves is instinctive, and it can be a healthy constraint that shows respect for the one who made us and gave us life, which is too precious to throw away foolishly.  However, fear should be used constructively, it should help us maintain a healthy lifestyle and we must control it. We should not let it control us.

God is in charge: He will make sure that you don’t have to deal with anything that you cannot handle, and even if you fall, He is there to catch you and help you get back on track. I always believed that failing is necessary to succeed, and if someone has never failed or never fallen on their face, then they have never tried to be better.

When we have accepted God’s grace, know His Messiah, and am empowered by the Ruach living inside of us, we can face the world confidently knowing that the one who formed it is on our side.

Hey, it’s easy to win when you are on the side of the one who makes the rules.

Parashah Ki Thetze (Go Forth) Deuteronomy 21:10 – 25

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In this parashah there are many seemingly miscellaneous laws, dealing with everything from marrying a captured slave woman to how to divorce her, rights of the criminal, OSHA regulations (must have a parapet on the roof), mixing of different things (animals that are yoked, seeds in the field, cloths), what to wear, what not to wear, sparing the mother bird, adultery, tzitzis, holiness of the camp, kindness to animals, excessive punishment, providing for the poor and needy, accountability for sin, kidnapping, pledges, charging of interest, business dealings, and others.

Most of these laws are easy to understand, and some don’t seem to make sense. This parashah seems to have a little of all three types of laws: Miztvot (commandments), Mishpatim (regulations) and Chukkim (laws we don’t understand the reason or meaning of.)

The message I would like to get across today is this: let the Holy Spirit guide your interpretation.  We may not be able to understand all that we read in the Bible; in fact, we can’t understand all that we read in the Bible! That’s one of the things that is so great about reading it every day! No matter how many times I read it, I always find something new in there, something I have seen a hundred times but never understood before that reading.

And that is not of my doing- it comes from the understanding I receive through the Ruach HaKodesh, the Holy Spirit.

When I want to know what message God has for me, I “un-focus” my brain and leave it open to the Holy Spirit. It’s like when you find yourself staring directly at something but you don’t really see it because you haven’t focused your stare. I do that with my brain (most people who know me will tell you I do that a lot) and sort of open it up to the Holy Spirit to place what it wants in there. I am sure there are people who hear God talking to them, audibly, but I don’t. I get this little, still voice in the back of my head that just sort of “pops” something in there. And when it goes against what I was thinking I should do or say, or against what I thought I wanted, I can be certain that it is God. Especially because when I get that thought, it’s different from what I thought it should be and yet I know in my spirit that it is right, well…that’s gotta be the Big Guy leading me.

Today what I have for you is a short and simple lesson: let God’s spirit lead your interpretation and understanding when you read His word.

After all, who is better to explain what He means than the author, Himself?

See Today Through Tomorrow’s Eyes

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This morning’s Drash falls somewhere between spiritual maturity and anger management.

The other day I was praying and began to wonder why I, a person who knows Messiah, who knows God’s plan, and who knows the wonderful future I have to look forward to basking in the glory and love of the Lord, get mad at anything. Especially the stupid, little things that get under my skin, like, oh, let’s say, USERS!!!!

Sorry. If anyone reading this is one of the people my company supports, it’s not you I’m talking about.  🙂

So, as I was thinking about the future, I also started to think about how it always seems to take forever when looking forward to something, but when you look back it seems that life happened at supersonic speed.

That’s when it hit me- stop looking forward and only look backwards.

I don’t mean we should ignore the future, or never plan for anything- that’s silly. We all need to have something to look forward to because without a future there’s no hope. What I mean is that we need to look at what is happening to us today with tomorrow’s eyes, as if we were remembering this current event instead of living through it. That way the immediacy of the emotional impact is lessened to a large degree.

It does take practice, it takes retraining your own reactions, and it ain’t easy. I have not mastered it…not by a long shot!

But I am certain that if I can just stop for a second, remove myself from this moment’s feelings just long enough to force myself to believe it is days or years later, and I am looking back on what is happening at this very instant, what memory of this event would I want?

I truly believe that if I can do that, I will not react but will act; I will be able to do what I would have wanted to do, that so many times I wish, looking back, I had done.

This simple, but not so simple, thing is what can make a difference in one’s life. It can help us to be more like what God wants us to be, and less like what the world has trained us to be.

God’s time is not like ours- I think that is often why He can be so wonderfully compassionate and understanding, and also so angry at us when we don’t think we are doing anything that bad. It’s because God sees what is happening and what will happen, whereas we can barely look beyond the end of the nose on our own face!

That is what looking with tomorrow’s eyes allows us to do- see past our noses. It takes work, and as I’ve said, it isn’t easy. That’s where the spiritual maturity part comes in. With a powerful prayer life, and constantly dying to self to allow more room for the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) to fill us, we can call on God’s Comforter to help us overcome our emotional, fleshly reactions so that we can look at what is happening this very second as if it were a memory.

And when you learn to see now as if it were long ago, your emotions will slow down, your anger will abate, and you will be able to make what you do now the memory you want it to be later.

Try it! After all, what have you got to lose except unpleasant memories and people being angry at you?