slvation – Messianic Moment

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About a month ago, when I began the Kickstarter campaign to sell my newest (third) book I was feeling rather low. I have had this online ministry for about 6 years, and only have about 70 followers. I am a member of half a dozen discussion groups (Christian and Messianic) but still haven’t made book sales or even gained subscribers. My other two books are very dear to me and writing them was a cleansing for me, similar (I suspect) to how Jeremiah felt when he gave God’s word.

Of course, we know Jeremiah wasn’t the happiest of prophets, and I felt the same way he did. I couldn’t figure out why so few people were interested in what I have to say and began to think that I wasn’t treating God’s Word, or God, with the honor he deserves. Maybe I thought I was preaching truth but I wasn’t…could that be why God hasn’t blessed this blog/ministry with more followers?

So I sent out a post (maybe some of you remember it?) asking for confirmation. This wasn’t an Ego Trip…not at all! I wasn’t asking or fishing for compliments- I wanted to know, really, if I was doing anything that edified or helped anyone. If what I do is useless to people, why should I continue to go through the time and financial expense of doing it? Right?

I did receive some confirmation from people, and again, felt bad that I only had one or two people answer. None of my own friends and most of my family did not reply, either (then again, we all know a prophet has no honor in his home town), so even though I was somewhat uplifted by the couple of confirmations I received, I didn’t feel useful.

The Pity Party was well underway and I was praying to God (as I rode my bike to the gym) asking why he wasn’t helping me. And he answered me: I felt him telling me to look at the “popular” sites to see why they are so popular. So I did, and I also recalled many of the postings from people with many followers. And you know what I realized?

I wasn’t a “happy” site. I don’t constantly post messages about the love of God and the forgiveness of Messiah. I don’t constantly post quotations from the Bible that relate how God saved me, how God has helped me, how God has been my shield and my salvation. I have never implied or stated that salvation is a “Come as you are” party (although, in a way, it is.) These are the types of things the “popular” sites post, and when I thought about it, it was also the type of messages you hear from the mega-churches.

I don’t do that. Oh, well, every once in a while I do post about forgiveness, but it is mostly how God requires us to forgive others, not how he has forgiven us. I do post about God’s love, but it isn’t about how he loves us but how we should work to love others as he tells us we should. In fact, I rarely post about what God does for us and almost always post about what we are supposed to do for God.

And that is what God was telling me: I am not popular because the messages I post aren’t about how God does things for people; I post about what people are supposed to do for God.

In other words, I am preaching about what God wants from us instead of what God does for us.

Yes-salvation is a “Come as you are” party, but it is NOT a “Stay as you were” party. The popular messages are all about how Yeshua did away with the law, all food is good to eat, and you are forgiven now and always, known as “Once saved, always saved.” The messages that are popular are the ones that tell you all about how God loves you and you don’t have to do anything different, just call on his name and be saved. Don’t worry about changing your lifestyle or your desires, and when you make a mistake God will forgive you because Jesus loves you and died for your sins, so you are cleared for life.

You will not hear any of that dribble from me. What I preach is what people need to know to continue in their salvation: the Torah is valid, God’s commandments are still necessary to obey, and salvation is given for free but costs a lot to keep. You must change, you must truly do T’shuvah (repent), and you must be an example to others of how God has changed you through your actions and your words. You are commanded to forgive or you will not be forgiven: how you judge will be the way you are judged: if you really want to follow Yeshua, you must pick up your execution stake and walk as he walked, which means in accordance with the Torah.

“Hey- this isn’t fun! Are you really telling me I can’t be forgiven unless I change? You’re saying that if I ask for forgiveness but I don’t change I won’t be ‘saved’ anymore? I can lose my salvation? You say I have to obey the Torah? Well, if that’s what you preach, forget you, Pal! I am going to listen to the other people who tell me how wonderful I am, how I am saved forever and no one can take it away from me. I want to hear how much God loves me just as I am; I want to be told I don’t have to do that ‘Jewish’ stuff because Jesus nailed it to the cross. I want to be assured that I will be in heaven for eternity no matter what I do because I called on Jesus’s name once.”

Yes, that is what I am telling you. And I will take my lead from Hosea 4:6: “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.”

That is how God crashed my Pity Party, and am I ever glad he did. I realize now that I may never be “popular” because I speak the hard truth that most people don’t want to hear. When I trained people (in the corporate world and as a mentor to volunteers) I did not hold back from telling the truth, even when it wasn’t pleasant for them to hear. I didn’t do that to hurt them but to help them become better. If everyone that takes a class passes, then the class work was too easy, and the students probably didn’t learn what they really needed to know. Just like when preachers tell all about the goodness of God and what he does for you- yes, God does much for you but he expects you to do much for him. And that is what people, who are naturally self-absorbed and selfish, do not want to hear.

So I will remain unpopular. I will continue to speak the truth that God has, through his Ruach HaKodesh, inspired me to teach. I will not sugarcoat salvation or preach all about God’s love and forgiveness as a one-way street, only traveling from God to you.

Salvation is free to have but hard to keep. God says we are to be holy as he is holy, which means we are not to do as the world does. We are to separate ourselves from the world, spiritually and actively, so that when people see us they see what God wants us to be. Not what we want to be, but what God wants us to be. That is a message that will be popular only to the truly spiritual mature person, to the one who is humble before God, to the one who is here to serve and not to be served.

My Pity Party was all about the fact that I wasn’t “popular” and because I didn’t have so many followers on my website and FaceBook that they were coming out of my ears. God crashed that party by showing me I would never be popular preaching the hard truths of salvation and T’shuvah. He showed me that, like Jeremiah, like Elijah, like Elisha, and like most every single prophet we read about in the Bible, I was not going to be asked to the A-List parties.

I was looking for human confirmation but God stepped in and took over, showing me that I was in good company by being unpopular.
And you know what? I felt G-R-E-A-T when he did that!

How many of you go to your place of worship and get told, over and over and over, how much God loves you? Just the way you are? And that Jesus loves you, and died for you so that you can be with Him and the Father in heaven, forever? And that your sins are forgiven the moment you call on the Name of the Lord? Forever and ever. All you need to do is call on His name and you are saved! Hallelujah!!

That’s all true, of course; God does love you, and Yeshua died for you so that you have a chance to be with Him.

But not in heaven- that is not where the bible says we will be.

And when you call on the Name of the Lord for salvation, it only works if you really mean it, and that requires you to change your ways for the rest of your life. And if you think that is hard to do, you’re right!

And when you go to a place to worship, you must tithe to that place. And not just the loose change you happen to have, but 10%! Too often people argue: 10% of gross? 10% of net? of expendable? Why not just give what you want to give, no matter what percent it represents? That’s up to you, but you must tithe, and that tithe should be, at the very least, a significant amount of your income.

And you need to participate. You need to help clean up after an Oneg Shabbat (snacks after the services- it means ‘Joy of Sabbath’), or clean up the property, or help vacuum the sanctuary: whatever it is, you need to participate in congregational activities.

These are things that are biblically required, but how often does a Minister, Priest or Rabbi talk about tithing? Or tell you that calling on God’s name is only the start, because you have to work at it. Constantly. And how often does someone tell their congregation they need to get more people to come because we need more people to do the work?

Yes, we hear leaders pray for Yeshua (Jesus) to send more harvesters to the field, and we pray for God’s divine guidance and help to fulfill our mission, but that’s not enough. There is nothing in the bible that says we should sit around and pray, and not do anything. All the people in the bible God called, He called to DO something.

God didn’t tell Abraham to stay in Ur; God didn’t tell Jacob to stay with Laban; God didn’t tell Moses to hang around Mt. Sinai; God didn’t tell the Prophets to stay at home and pray; God didn’t tell Yeshua to stay in Bethlehem; Yeshua didn’t tell Shaul to stay at home, and God will never tell you to sit around, pray for something and wait for Him to make it happen for you. God wants you to look to Him for guidance, for help, for strength and for leadership, but He expects that you will do something with it when He gives it to you!

(Read the parable of the Talents- Matthew 25:14)

I am blessed and honored to give the message about once a month, and we usually follow the parashot in the Torah, but this year I think I need to expand that to tell people they need to get off their tuchas and do something. We need to stop going to church or synagogue on Sabbath Day and pray, sing, and kibbutz, then forget about it all until next weekend. We need to be challenging ourselves to do more during the week, as well. Bring God into conversation, ask people you know to visit with you at the next service, ask your religious leader what you can do to help him or her to accomplish the mission of your place of worship. Volunteer somewhere that does God’s work, with humans or with animals- it doesn’t matter. God likes animals, too.

And if you are a leader in your religious community, a Pastor, a Rabbi, a Council member, an Elder…whatever you are, if you are in ministry leadership, don’t be afraid to tell your congregation what they need to know. If you don’t feel comfortable talking about tithing because it is, after all, your salary, well…get over it! God commands people to tithe, and if you don’t keep on them about it, then you aren’t spreading God’s word, and (worse than that) your fear or discomfort may be causing some to stumble into sin.

If you don’t like to talk about the hard work and suffering it takes to remain a faithful servant of God, and all you want to do is tell people the “Happy-Happy” stuff because then they tell you how much they liked the sermon, and you get more people coming in to hear about how they are OK just as they are, then you are failing to tell the truth. You are recruiting people for battle without showing them how to defend themselves or even giving them any battle armor.

If you are in leadership you need to lead. You cannot be afraid to tell the truth about salvation, that truth being that it is hard: Yeshua said we need to leave everything behind, which includes our comfort zone, and carry our own execution stake to follow Him. People need to be prepared for the fact that they will be ridiculed, excluded from friends, (maybe even) excluded from family, talked about as prudish and “holier-than-thou” by other people. They need to know they will be required to give their time and money to the place where they worship, and expected to participate in activities there.

If someone is unevenly yoked, meaning that their spouse doesn’t believe the same way they do, or maybe is just a member of a different place of worship, they need to be told that there will have to be compromise- but never compromise to the point where you do not tithe or participate. Two people who love the Lord and believe in Yeshua as their Messiah can still be unevenly yoked. Dealing with that situation ain’t gonna be easy, take it from me, but if you also show your spouse the the love, patience and understanding that God shows to you, you will make it that much easier to deal with.

Salvation is easy to get, and hard to keep. If we don’t let people know that, up front, then the good seed will not be able to take root. Living for God is living against the world, and there’s a lot more world out there than there is you, or me. But we have God on our side, so the bottom line is that, as Shaul (Paul) says in 2 Corinthians 4:8-9:

We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.

And in Romans 8:31, Shaul also gives this word of encouragement regarding our struggle against the world:

If God is for us, who can be against us?

So be prepared to prepare yourself, and your congregation, for what is to come. Yes, preach about God’s love and forgiveness- please don’t ever let up on that, for it is an encouraging and edifying word. But also let people know what they will be up against, and what they need to do to maintain a proper attitude of faithfulness- not just in their spirit, but from their pocket and from their sweat.

It is because God’s love for you and me is so great that it resulted in God sending His only son to die, which required Yeshua to give up His divinity in order to take on flesh, so that He could die. We often hear that God is all about love, but God isn’t all about love; He is also about sacrifice, hard work, justice, diligence, and perseverance. Don’t ever forget that.

Look at all He did for you, all He gave up, forever: is what He asks back from us so much?

Tag: slvation

God Crashed My Pity Party

Too afraid to preach what we need to hear?