Tag: Torah

Parashah Terumah (donation), Exodus 25 – 27:19)

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From this point on, except for Chapters 32 through 34 (the sin of the Golden Calf) the remaining chapters of this book deal with the construction of the Tabernacle and the articles in it.

The Tabernacle is where God talks to Moses. His instructions were first to built the Ark, after the Ark (which is the holiest of all the items) the rest of the construction was done from that point outwards: the Ark, then the Holy of Holies, then the articles in the area where only the priests were allowed (only the Cohen haGadol, the High Priest, was allowed in the Holy of Holies, and only once a year on Yom Kippur), then the Court, etc., all the way to the main entrance at the far end of the court.

The materials used were of dyed linens, tanned hides, acacia wood, gold, silver and bronze. The people were asked to contribute from their personal stores, much of which they received from the Egyptians when they left Egypt (Exodus 12:36); so, in a way, Egypt helped make building the Tabernacle possible. The most valuable materials were the ones closest to the Holy of Holies, with the less valuable materials being used as the Tabernacle was being built outwards.

We have all heard or used the expressions, “Closer to God” and “Farther from God”, representing, clearly enough, one’s spiritual maturity and faithful obedience to God’s commands. When I think of how the Tabernacle was built, with the purest items items being closest to the center of the Tabernacle (where God was present), I see this as representing how we need to be in our worship life: in order for us to come closer to God, we must first become purer.

Gold and silver are metals unto themselves, bronze is an alloy of copper and tin, and each one needs to go through a firing process in order to remove the dross so it can be in it’s purest state; gold is purified using temperatures in excess of 1000 degrees Celsius, silver at about 800 degrees Celsius and bronze at a temperature between 230 and 630 degrees Celsius. The purer the metal, the higher the heat used to purify it.

I see people and their relationship to God similar to the way these metals are forged: the closer we want to come to God, the hotter the fire of purification will have to be. Yeshua tells us this when He tells us that anyone who wants to be His Disciple will have to carry His execution stake to follow Him (Matthew 16:24; Luke 9:23), so we are adequately warned that getting closer to God will not be easy. Consequently, as we are further from faithful obedience and fear of the Lord, we are more like the less pure metals- we will be forged, but at a lower heat. For those who may be no more spiritual than having some recognition of God, such as type who go to services during the High Holy Days only, or at Christmas and Easter, their “spiritual purity” is still full of dross and slag.

The dross is the sin inside of us: that is why, since sin is part of our nature and formed when we are formed, it must be burned out for us to be purified, separated from the world (sin) and brought closer to God.

Oy! That is a very hard word to hear. Basically, what I am saying is that the Tabernacle represents what we need to go through, spiritually and physically, when we decide to worship God as He wants us to do. We are all built with some copper, tin, silver and gold inside of us, and as we approach God, we will have the base metals separated, and the fine metals purified. This is done through Tsouris (suffering) in our lives. It sounds unfair, but that is what is needed. You can’t get rid of the dross without going through the fire, and the reason we do this is to be closer to God.

Even after we have been purified, we will still have Tsouris in our life. But as we become more purified we will be able to abide the suffering and stay focused on the reward we are all striving to receive: eternal joy and peace in the presence of God, Almighty.

I don’t mind going through the fire because I know what is on the other side.

What metal are you? Have you accepted your level of purity? Realistically, everyone wants to be gold but very few are willing to go through the fire, so if you really, really want to be gold, then here is what you need to do:

  1. Prepare yourself for troubles
  2. Read the entire bible (Genesis through Revelations) and accept that it is all one book, one God, one way to worship Him (His way) and that all the commandments, from beginning to end, are valid
  3. Accept that Yeshua is the Messiah God promised and ask for forgiveness of sin on your own, meaning that you ask for forgiveness from your heart and not because your Priest or your parents said you had to.
  4. Prepare for even more troubles and steel yourself (gird your loins) for a lifetime of rejection, problems, harassment and persecution.

Read Matthew 5:10, 1 Peter 4:12-19 and James 1:2– all of these verses warn us that we will be persecuted in Messiah’s name, but that it is a blessing we should all strive to achieve.

Doesn’t this sound crazy? I want to have the joy and peace of spirit that worshiping God can bring, which it does, but to get that I have to suffer. Sounds like the ultimate oxymoron- suffer persecution and hatred to have peace of mind and spirit. Huh?!?

But that’s how it works, and it does work. Ask anyone who you know to be devoted to God and they will tell you of all the problems they have had to undergo, but also of all the joy they have felt and blessings they have received from God. It sounds crazy, but that which the world thinks is right is usually the exact opposite of what is acceptable to God.

It’s all up to you- do you want to be bronze or gold? Your choice, your decision, your eternal future.

forgiveness is only for the past

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Huh? Whaddaya mean, “Forgiveness is only for the past?” Can’t I be forgiven for what I might do tomorrow? Am I s’posed to be perfect from this moment on?

The answer is “Yes” to the first, and “No” to the second.

The real question should be, “Am I forgiven automatically?” The answer to that, from what I read in the Bible, is that we are not automatically forgiven. Forgiveness is something we have to ask for in order to receive. It is available, God is always willing to give it, but it is something we must ask for in order to actually receive.

And more than that, when we ask for it the asking must be genuine- it must be a true T’shuvah (turning from sin) that comes from our heart and soul. We must be more than sorry that we sinned, we must be rueful, regretful, and so upset that we did this to God (for every sin we commit is, first and foremost, against God- read what David said in Psalm 51) that we shouldn’t just ask for forgiveness, but also ask that the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) strengthen and convict us in the future so that we can recognize, and overcome, the sinful desire before it becomes a sin.

Forgiveness, the Kingdom of God, Salvation: they are all here, now, and waiting for us. We are all pre-qualified and able to receive these wonderful gifts from God, the results of Messiah Yeshua’s (Jesus) sacrificial death: all we need to do is ask for them.

Where’s the catch? What do we have to give in order to receive? That’s a worldly view, isn’t it? The world doesn’t give without expecting something back, but God…..wait a minute! God does expect something back from us! After all, He’s made covenants with us. Each covenant (despite what you may have been taught) doesn’t annul the previous covenant, but instead is appended, adding to it, building upon it, so that every covenant God has made with us is still valid. From the rainbow of the Noahdic Covenant to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit through the New Covenant (Jeremiah 31:31): every covenant is still valid in God’s eyes, and we are expected, as with any covenant, to fulfill our side of the deal. What is our side? To fear God, honor His word (Torah), accept Messiah Yeshua as our Savior and do T’shuvah in our hearts, which should then translate to a change in our actions.

Your forgiveness is already accomplished, but you have to ask for it. Every day, every moment, when you know you have sinned and even if you don’t think you have sinned. Don’t believe for a second that just because you think you are blameless that you are- God knew our nature well enough that He even commanded there be a sacrifice for the sins we commit unintentionally (Leviticus 4.)

We all sin, we all will continue to sin, we all are born into sinfulness, we all have iniquity in our very nature, and the only humans who don’t have to worry about sinning are the dead ones. But we can overcome our nature, we can be more than just what we are; thanks be to God (and to Yeshua) for the Grace provided which will save us, and for the Holy Spirit which can guide and help us overcome who and what we are, so that we can be more of who and what God wants us to be.

We are told that if we ask, we shall receive, so, then…ask! Ask for forgiveness often, ask for yourself, ask for others, and ask with reverent thankfulness.

Is there a Salvation gene?

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If you are asking yourself, “What the heck is a ‘salvation gene?'”, I have to admit that I wonder about that, myself. And I’m the one who came up with the idea!

The other day I was thinking (yes, it hurts when I do that) about what it means to be made in God’s likeness, and how everyone has a soul. As I thought more on the matter, I wondered if the soul isn’t the only thing we get from God when He forms us in the womb: maybe being made in His image, whatever that entails, includes recognition, at the genetic level, of God. A gene that is a “salvation gene”- one designed to give us a subconscious, deep-in-the-bones knowledge of God’s existence: knowing God exists because it is something that we have built in to our physical make-up.

I thought of this when I was considering why so many people just hate to hear about God’s word. Especially those people who do not believe in God, or who constantly make up their own rules and “understanding” of God’s word (so that it fits into their lifestyle.) I wondered why they are so unwilling to even discuss it; after all, they are willing to argue, ad-infinitum, about politics, sports figures, or almost anything else, but talk about God?- the moment you start they raise shields faster than Captain Kirk seeing a Romulan war bird de-cloak in front of him!

Why? If they don’t believe in God, why be so adamant about not talking about Him? If they think that they are properly following God’s commands (mainly because they have been taught that), why be so afraid to hear a different viewpoint? The answer came to me that maybe, just maybe, it’s because we all have a little bit of God’s Ruach haKodesh (Holy Spirit) in us from birth, even from the moment of conception! When we received a soul, we received also (in God’s image) an innate understanding and recognition of God’s presence in the universe, and what He wants from us.

I once read about what geneticists call a “Hidden Gene”- a gene that might have been active at one time, maybe elongating life, that a mutation reduced to being physically present but no longer functioning. It sits dormant and inert, waiting for a matching gene to find it or some mutative event to allow it to do what it is designed to do.

That is what I am calling the salvation gene. It is there, in our very DNA, recognizing God’s existence and making us know of Him, but it is not fully active. When we accept God’s Messiah, Yeshua (Jesus), and He delivers the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) to us, that is the match, so to speak, for this gene to re-enable it. Our very DNA is changed so that the spiritual becomes more important to us than the worldly. We get more pleasure from doing what is right in God’s eyes, and we “mutate” into a better person, slowly, but surely.

Just as God told us He would do, it literally writes His Torah on our hearts.

Doesn’t that make sense? Doesn’t that explain why everyone has some sense of God, even if he or she is absolutely confident, sometimes zealous, that God doesn’t exist? It would explain why people who do not have the Holy Spirit hate to talk about God. They know, deep in their DNA, in their very essence, that God does exist and that they are in rebellion and fighting a lost battle- not a losing battle, not a battle that they have any chance of winning, but a lost battle where their loss is devastating.  I believe that everyone knows when you fight against God, you have no chance of winning. Consequently, they don’t want to hear about their sinfulness and how they are killing themselves; they don’t want to hear about a better way because they know, intrinsically, that it means they have to give up their sin; they don’t want to discuss anything that is different than what they are used to, or what they have convinced themselves is all they need to do, because it means they have to leave their comfort zone.

They are being led by blind leaders who are walking not into a hole, but directly to the edge of a high cliff over a deep ravine!

So, what do we do? Those of us who have the completed gene, we are the ones God wants to save these people. But, we can’t do it by directly telling them how much trouble they are getting themselves into because that won’t work. When I was in sales I learned that people believe no more than half of what you will say, but they believe everything they say: the trick is to get them to say what you want them to say so they will believe it. You can’t do that by telling them what they know is wrong, you do it by asking them questions that will make them doubt their own position.

In other words, ask them the questions they should be asking you, and gently and calmly point out to them that their answers make no sense. Before they will start to hear the truth of what you say, you need to get them to doubt what they are saying.

Maybe this entire lesson is baseless- maybe there isn’t any such thing as a “salvation gene”; maybe what I am thinking is wrong or just fantasy. Then again, maybe it isn’t. Does it really matter?

If you know people who have rejected God and/or Yeshua, whether Jewish or Gentile, or (even worse) people who have been raised as Christians and think they are saved (but have never really accepted Jesus on their own), then it is up to you to try to get them to realize that what they think is the truth is not the truth. You have to try because we who have heard God’s true word are obligated to spread that word. God constantly told the Prophets that if they did not spread His word to the people then the blood of the sinners would be on the Prophet’s head; but, after preaching His message, if the sinner still rejected it then their blood would be on their own head, and the Prophet would be held blameless for their death.

I don’t want to have anyone’s blood on my hands when I meet the Lord- do you?

Glitter Ash Wednesday- really?

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There was an article in our Florida Today newspaper the other day about churches adding purple glitter to the ashes for use on Ash Wednesday. Why? To show support for LGBT Christians.

LGBT Christians- that sounds like an oxymoron, doesn’t it? According to the word of God, homosexuality and cross-dressing is an abomination.

Now, don’t go flying off the handle at me if you are an LGBT person- I am NOT homophobic: I have family members and friends who are Lesbian and Gay, and I love them, accept what they are doing as their choice (note that I say accept what they do as their choice, not that I accept what they do) and I have nothing against anyone who has that type of sexual preference. I just agree with God that it is not right.

Actually, because God sees any and all sin as sin, homosexuality is no different than lying, murder, adultery, etc., right? So, if we are going to show support for LGBT Christians (and the Jews are no different in this- there are relatively as many LGBT synagogues as there as churches), why not support murderers, rapists, child molesters, crooks, adulterers, embezzlers, and all people who perform any one of the plethora of sinful activities that humans do to each other?

What I believe is this: churches and synagogues should not demonstrate any kind of support for any sinful activity. For me, to add glitter to ashes to show support for homosexuality is no different than throwing those ashes back in God’s face and telling Him that what He says we should do is less important to us than what the world says we should do.

The two greatest commandments are to love God and love each other- it should be in that order! When we do things to be “politically correct” instead of to follow God’s commandments, we have already taken the first step to accepting the mark of the Beast. That’s right- when you start to act in ways that honor the opinion of this fallen and sinful world instead of standing against it and acting the way God said we should, then you have bowed to the enemy of God and are rebelling against the Almighty.

If you don’t like the sound of that- tough! The truth is there is no middle of the road with God: you are with Him or against Him, there is only black or white, evil or good, with no in-between. Again, if you don’t like that, tough luck, Buddy- that’s the way it is!

So if you do Ash Wednesday and your church has added glitter to some of the ashes, I suggest you find another church because when Yeshua returns, that place is going to be in trouble. The leadership of any church or synagogue that is openly accepting of any sinful activity is leading you away from proper worship of God and will be marked for destruction.

Strong words, I know, but I am for God and not for the world. To paraphrase a godly and righteous man, “As for me, I will serve the Lord ” (Joshua 24:15), and if that means any of my friends or family members will no longer have anything to do with me because I reject some of their lifestyle choices, then so be it (although I know that won’t happen because we have been through this already, and we respect each other’s right to an opinion, and we love each other even when we disagree- that is the correct way we serve God.)

No one who worships God is perfect;  we are all sinners who continue to sin. The real issue isn’t what that sin is, but whether or not we are repentant of it and wish to overcome it. I believe that is what separates the sinners who are forgiven from the sinners who aren’t forgiven- the ones who ask for forgiveness receive it. That is the simple and direct  way God works. If you are sinning (any sin) and you repent of it, then clearly you would not want to do that sin anymore because when we sin, it hurts God. Yes, it does- when you see someone you care for doing something that is hurtful to themself, don’t you feel bad?

If not, you’ve got bigger problems than I can help you with!

So, then, when God sees us hurting ourselves by rejecting His rules and commandments (which provide immortality and eternal joy), He is hurting, too. God is a better parent than any human could ever be, so if we are hurt seeing loved ones suffer, imagine how much more painful it must be to God to see us (literally and spiritually) killing ourselves.

Let me bring this down to a simple statement: if your place of worship supports sinfulness, leave it! If you don’t then you are the blind man being led by another blind man, and you will both fall into a hole (that leads directly to Sheol.)

 

Parashah Yitro (Jethro) Exodus 18-20

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This parashah starts with the reunion of Moses to his wife and children, whom he had sent away while still in Egypt to be with her father, Jethro, the Priest of Midian. Now in the desert and with Egypt no longer a threat of any kind, Jethro brings Moses’ family back to him.

The next day, while watching Moses dispense justice all day long, Jethro suggests that Moses delegate his authority so that he, alone, doesn’t have to hear every single case. Moses accepts this advice and does as Jethro suggested.

Proverbs 12:1– “Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but whoever hates correction is stupid.”

The rest of this section of Torah takes us to the mountain of God, Sinai (also known as Horeb) and the people are told to prepare to meet the Lord, who came down to the mountain in fire and smoke and gave us the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments.

Before reading the Torah, we recite this prayer:

Blessed art thou, oh Lord, our God, king of the Universe, who has chosen us from all peoples and given to us his Torah. Blessed art thou, oh Lord, giver of the Torah. 

And after we read from the Torah, we recite this prayer:

Blessed are thou, oh Lord our God, king of the universe, who has given us the Torah of truth, and placed everlasting life in our midst. Blessed art thou, oh Lord, giver of the Torah.

Why were the Jewish people granted this wonderful election- to be given the Torah, which provides everlasting life? The answer is simple: God loved Abraham, who was a righteous and faithful servant, and since one of the 13 Attributes of God is to bless those who love him to the thousandth generation (Exodus 20:6): that is why the descendants of Abraham were chosen, and blessed with receiving and being the guardians of the Torah.

Notice I said “descendants of Abraham” and not “the Jewish people”: I did that because once someone accepts the God of Abraham as their God, that person is considered by God’s commandment to be an adopted child of Abraham (Romans 9:8 and Galatians 3:29), and as such is afforded all the rights and privileges under the Torah (as well as the obligation to obey the Torah) as any “natural born” descendant.

The Torah was given to those who are descendants of Abraham: the purpose not being for their use only, but to show the world how God wants us to worship Him and treat each other (Exodus 19:6.)

Christians are descendants of Abraham because they accept Yeshua (Jesus) as their Messiah, and so through that relationship are worshiping the same God who sent Yeshua. That means they are adopted sons and daughters of Abraham, and as such, have also been given the Torah to provide them everlasting life.

Why then do so many Christian organizations teach that the Torah is (essentially) dead, and the laws and commandments in the Torah (which God said to obey) are not binding on Christians?  It’s like they want to have their cake and eat it, too- give us the everlasting life that Torah provides, but don’t expect us to obey the Torah.

Huh? Really?

I use this analogy when teaching about the split between Christianity and Judaism:

Remember the Bugs Bunny cartoon where Elmer chases Bugs into a tree? Bugs is sitting on a branch, and Elmer is on the tree sawing the branch, laughing derisively as he knows Bugs will fall to the ground. But when the branch is cut through, it is the tree that falls to the ground while the branch remains suspended in air. That’s what Christianity thinks is possible when they teach that they can ignore the Torah.

The Torah is what God gave to the world– the Jews are nothing more than the first ones to learn the lessons. God’s commandment to the Jewish people is to follow, then teach others to follow. That is how the descendants of Abraham are to be a blessing to the world (Genesis 22:18), and why it is so important to realize that accepting Yeshua means becoming a descendant of Abraham, which carries the obligation (even the commandment) to teach the nations and the peoples of the world about the Torah, which was, and is, part of God’s plan of salvation.

To put it more succinctly: if you teach that the Torah is not necessary, you are working against God’s plan of salvation. If you think faith is all you need to be saved, you are right, but without obedience then your faith is empty; everything (EVERYTHING) Yeshua taught us to do is directly from the Torah. Everything His Talmudim (Disciples) taught the newly grafted branches onto the Tree of Life to do was directly from the Torah.

I am not saying to be a Christian you have to convert to Judaism, and because I am Born Again that doesn’t make me a Christian- I am a Jew. But everyone who accepts Yeshua (Jesus) as their Messiah and Savior becomes a descendant of Abraham and, as such, is required to obey the commandments God gave to the descendants of Abraham- the same ones we read in the Torah, starting with this parashah and the Ten Commandments.

The Ten Commandments is the “Reader’s Digest” version of the entire Tanakh, the first 5 dealing with our duties to God and the next 5 with our duties to each other. As Yeshua said, the most important commandments are to love God and love each other, and on those two commandments pivot all the writings and the Prophets (Matthew 22:36-40.) These 10 commandments teach us how to love God and each other, but neither God nor Yeshua ever meant that we should exclude all the other commandments found in the Torah. That is what Yeshua meant when He said that the writings and the Prophets pivot on, or are contained, in these two things. He wasn’t saying we can ignore the rest, He was saying that the rest will come more naturally from doing these two things.

We need to get back on line, back in the proper groove, which is to honor the Torah, which honors God, and try to obey all that God said we should do. There shouldn’t be differences in religions, in fact, there shouldn’t be different religions, at all! There should only be God and each other- that is the game plan He gave us to follow. Apparently, we didn’t like a lot of God’s rules, so we’ve made up a bunch of our own, from Talmudic laws of Halakha (Way to Walk) to Christian Canons and rites. And whom do these rules honor?  Not God, because they are man-made and their main purpose is to provide a few with power over the others.

Anything different from what God told us to do is not from God- think about that.

Salvation comes from faith, but faith without works is dead, so prove your faithfulness by your works: the works God, Himself, gave us in His Torah.

is willing to obey enough?

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Why do we obey? When we are told to do something, we always have the choice to obey or refuse. There is a middle course- obey the order but don’t do it the way we were told. That isn’t really refusing, but it’s pretty darn close to it.

In the military you obey for one of two reasons: the first reason is if you don’t, you get in trouble, which can mean anything from losing free time to losing money to going to the Brig. The second reason is that you trust the officer giving the order and do what he or she says out of respect, and knowing that what they are asking you to do is for a good reason. You don’t have to know their reason, you just have to trust that they have a good one.

At the workplace (I think) most obey in order to keep their job- obedience from desire to remain out of trouble. And yet, as above, obedience does often come from knowing the manager has a good reason, respect for the person and trust that they know things need to be done in a certain way because that is the best way to do it.

We obey traffic laws so we don’t get a ticket, but overall we recognize that when everyone drives lawfully we protect ourselves and others. This obedience comes more from a desire for self-preservation than from respect for the Department of Motor Vehicles.

However, whether in the military, at the workplace, or even within a family unit, some people will refuse to do what they have been told to do and make excuses, saying someone else told them a different way, they didn’t understand, they got bogged down with other work and will get to it soon, yadda-yadda-yadda. Nearly everyone can find an excuse for not doing what they were told that will not result in them getting into too much trouble.

If you have been agreeing with me so far, I hope we can agree that when it comes down to it, there are two different motivations for obedience:

  1. To prevent getting into trouble; and
  2. Obedience that comes from respect and trust for (maybe we can add desire to please) the one telling you what to do, whether or not you understand why.

Now….what about obedience to God? What is the main motivation for that? As we said above, it is either because we fear retaliation (going to hell) or because we trust in God that what He tells us to do is for our benefit and that He knows what He is doing.

Oh, wait! Let’s not forget those “middle-of-the-road” types that will do what they want to do and refuse to do what they don’t want to do, then find excuses for disobedience. Such as, “My Rabbi/Priest/Pastor/Minister told me I don’t have to do that anymore”, or “That was just because of health reasons, but we have better medicine today and things are cleaner”, or “The men who wrote the bible are chauvinists”, or the the one I really can’t stand,”That’s for Jews only; we are Christians and don’t need to do that because Jesus overcame it.”

Oy!! I really can’t stand that excuse, which is totally man-made by people who refuse to do what God says simply because they don’t want to, then use Jesus (real name- Yeshua) as their excuse, ignoring the truth that He did those things, Himself, and preached that everyone should.

When you obey God’s word, do you obey what He told Moses or what the Elders (in Acts) said Gentiles need to do? If you read the entire bible, you will see that everything the Apostles (in Hebrew they are called “Talmudim”) did and preached is all based on the Old Covenant writings, including the laws of Moses, and they never, ever said that Gentiles accepting Yeshua (Jesus) as their Messiah don’t have to follow the same rules and regulations as the Jews. That’s because there were no other religions that worshiped the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (BTW- He’s the same God of Jesus) that weren’t pagan. There were Pagans, and there were Jews, and the Jews worshiped God as God said they were supposed to. The same rules He gave Moses are the rules we are ALL told to obey.

God has no religion, only rules, regulations and commandments that are designed for our good. OUR good- not His. I mean, really- He’s God, the All Powerful, the Creator of Everything, the One and Only Almighty: do you really think there is anything, anywhere, that we humans could do or give Him that He can’t get anywhere except from us?

There is something God can only get from us: our worship, devotion and love.

I don’t obey every commandment, neither do you. None of us can, which is why Yeshua had to sacrifice not just His life on earth, but His divinity, too. But I try to obey, and more than that, I really, really want to be as obedient as I can simply because God asks me to do these things, and I trust God to know more than I do what is best for me. I also respect God, and as such want to do what he says I should out of respect for His justifiably absolute authority. Don’t think I am bragging- I try, but I fail, much more often than I succeed, but what I can boast about is that because of God’s Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit), which leads me, I can obey more often than I ever did. I’m still not very good at obeying, but I am getting better at it, and that is not from fear of reprisal, but from fear of the Lord (in the biblical sense, which means to have an awesome reverence for God.)

Obeying just to avoid going to hell is better than not obeying, but it is like the good seed falling on the poor soil, which never takes root deep enough to last during tribulations. If you obey only what is easy to obey, only what you don’t mind obeying, and only because you don’t want to go to hell, then your obedience is probably not going to be enough when the fecal matter hits the air circulation unit. The enemy will offer you a much better program, one that will let you pick and choose what you want to do and promise eternal reward for it. Trust me- it’s a lie; anything worth having is worth working for, and if you are promised great rewards for doing nothing hard, you are going to be very, very disappointed.

Think of all the wonderful things God has done for you- and even if you are homeless, sickly, distraught, lonely, whatever- even in those sad and unhappy conditions, God has made sure that you are still here: you still have hope for things getting better and you can always turn your life around. God will help if you ask for it, but you need to get off your tuchas and work at it. The bible tells us that salvation is not easy, that obedience is possible but very hard, and that suffering will ensue as you strengthen your relationship with God. It only makes sense- the world we live in is cursed and under the authority of the enemy, so anything ‘Godly” is out of place. So what? God is more powerful than the enemy, and even if the enemy attacks you and destroys everything you have (as he did with Job), God can replace it, easily, and give you even more than you had. And what God can do for you eternally the enemy can’t even come close to doing.

Obey from love, obey from respect, obey from desire to please God (a labor of love, so to speak) and obey every commandment you can. Do all that God said we should do (which is every commandment and regulation found between Genesis and Revelations) and never give up trying to do better.

That kind of obedience will be more than enough.

Science is the antithesis of faith

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What is faith?

When I want to know the meaning of something that matters to me, on both an eternal and spiritual level, rather than what Mr. Webster or Wikipedia may think, I like to go to the Manual (my ‘manual’ is the bible because I think it is the best User’s Manual ever created.)

So, to find the meaning of “faith”, the place I go to is Hebrews 11, verse 1:

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.

In other words, faith is believing absolutely in what has not been proven.

In science, things work a little differently; we start with an observation of an event, form a theory about why it happens, test our theory in a laboratory, and when we can manually recreate the event by doing what we theorized would cause that event, then the theory is considered scientific fact.

In other words, in science it is not considered to be true until such time as you can, in a controlled environment, create the event at will.

Therefore, since faith is believing in what we haven’t seen, and science doesn’t believe in anything it can’t see, you can “see” why I say they are the antithesis of each other.

If anyone wants to dispute the above by saying no one has seen quarks, or sub-atomic particles, or a  Worm Hole, yet science accepts their existence, that’s because their existence is accepted based upon the visible effect they have on their immediate environment; whereas they are not visible, they can still be “seen” through their effect on what is visible.

What is interesting is that although science cannot accept the existence of God as fact, a form of science (archaeology) is providing, on a constant basis, evidence that the bible is historically accurate and verifiable. Archaeological findings have constantly demonstrated the biblical stories we hear of are true, therefore it is reasonable to accept that if the historical accounts are true, then the reasons given for their occurrence might be accurate, as well.

In other words, if the eye-witnessed description of an event happened as described, then the reason given why or how it happened should be just as believable.

The problem is this: God will never provide absolute, irrefutable evidence of His existence until it is all over. Why? Because salvation comes from faith, not from a test tube. Scientific “proof” of God’s existence works against faith, because faith is believing in what can’t been seen and science only believes in what can be seen. If we can “see” God, if we can “prove” His existence absolutely, then faith is not needed.

For me, faith is stronger than fact. After all, how many “facts” over the millennia have proven to be wrong? The earth isn’t flat, the moon isn’t made of cheese, cigarettes are not good for you, and because it is on the Internet it doesn’t have to be true.

I love science, I love knowing how things work and being able to make things happen. Even just adding alkaline powder to my hot tub to watch the water color change from an acidic yellowish to clear blue is really cool, but science is not my religion. Unfortunately, it has become a religion to many people. They use scientific theory as fact (evolution is the best example) and work under the system where if something isn’t palpable and repeatable then it isn’t real. God is real, all right, and can be palpable (if He chooses to be so), but we can’t make that happen. That’s totally up to Him, so to those who believe only what they can make happen, God is an unknown.

I wish I could find this book: I was once told Og Mandino compiled a book of essays by famous scientists, of all areas in science, that found the more they understood how things worked, the more they realized there had to be an intelligence that made it all happen. That is how science can become faithful, by understanding enough to realize that this all isn’t just an accident. There may be some level of happenstance, such as how quarks move at the sub-atomic level, but life didn’t happen by some quirk: God created everything. He designed it, He changed it, He let some die out and He let some survive. The DNA molecule is the very backbone of creation, yet it is made up of only 5 chemicals, and how they are combined in different chains of different sequences is what makes a snail a snail and a human being a human being (even though some human beings I have known are as slow as a snail.)  Therefore, it only makes sense that when you have that strong a foundation to build from, you would find similarity in everything that exists based on that foundation. What I am saying is that just because the chimpanzee genome is nearly 99% the same as a human genome, it doesn’t mean we came from apes. The only conclusion science can accurately state is that humans and apes are closely related biological entities, but there is nothing to prove that chimps evolved into humans.

If you are confused about God and want some “sign” of His existence, keep asking for it in prayer, but also remember what Yeshua (Jesus) said about those that asked for a sign:

Matthew 12:39– “He answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign!””

Even so, Yeshua told them a sign would be given, which (even to this day) millions upon millions have rejected. So, ask and if God wills it to be done, you will receive a sign. The onus is on you to look for it and to accept it when you see it.

There are signs of God’s existence everywhere;  we only need to accept them for what they are to substantiate our faith.

Parashah Bo (come) Exodus 10 – 13:16

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The plagues continue, with locusts, darkness and the final plague, the death of the firstborn of Egypt.

Moses is instructed by God what the Israelites must do to be protected from the angel of death, for even though Goshen had been protected from the other plagues, it seems that the angel of death was over everyone and everything, and only the blood of the Passover Lamb would protect you from death. They are also told to sacrifice the lamb, and to make sure that the sacrifice is eaten in the prescribed manner, with nothing left over, and only those who are Israelites, or slaves and sojourners with Israel who have been circumcised may eat of this meal.

After the death of all the firstborn, both men and animals, Pharaoh lets the people go. They plunder the Egyptians, who give willingly, and leave the very next day. Moses reminds the people of the Passover regulations, commanding them to teach this story throughout all their generations and to eat the Passover meal (Seder) every year according to the way it should be done, with no leavened products for a week.

The term “The Passover Lamb” is first introduced to us in this parashah. To the Jewish people, the Passover Lamb represents freedom from slavery to Egypt, and is a very important part of our history. Because the Temple no longer exists, and the Torah specifies that the Passover Lamb had to be sacrificed at the Temple, we do not eat lamb at Passover; the usual dish chosen is chicken.

I have this great recipe for baked chicken: grease a pan, place the cleaned chicken pieces in the pan and spread butter over them. Sprinkle on salt, pepper, garlic powder and fresh parsley flakes. Bake at 375 for 45-60 minutes, or until the skin is browned and bubbling. YUM!!

The Passover Lamb means freedom from slavery to Jews, and to Christians it is a reference to Yeshua, who sacrificed Himself to free us from a different form of slavery: slavery to sin.

Now here is the interesting part: the Passover sacrifice was not a sin sacrifice- it was a thanksgiving sacrifice. There are 5 types of sacrifices:

  1. Whole Burnt Offering
  2. Meal Offering
  3. Peace Offering
  4. Sin Offering
  5. Guilt/Trespass Offering

The first three offerings are voluntary, and the last two are mandatory for atonement from sin. The main difference is that of all 5 sacrifices, the only one where both God and the person sacrificing shared of the meat was for the Peace, or Thanksgiving sacrifice. This was representative of the communion between man and God.

Yeshua’s sacrifice was clearly one made for the atonement of sin- it was most representative of the wholly burnt sacrifice, since His entire body was given to God. But wait! If the sacrifice Yeshua (Jesus) made was a sin sacrifice, why is He called the Passover Lamb? The Passover Lamb sacrifice was a peace offering, a Thanksgiving sacrifice, and not a sacrifice to atone from sin. So, then, is calling Yeshua the Passover Lamb really accurate?

Not from a human timeline, but since God is not subject to any timeline, we need to look at another specific sacrifice to find the complete relationship opportunity that Yeshua’s sacrifice made possible. That sacrifice is described to us in Leviticus 16- it is the Yom Kippur sacrifice. We are told to have 2 goats (not lambs)- one to be sacrificed and one to be released into the desert after the people have placed upon it’s head their sins. The goat that was chosen by lot to be sacrificed had it’s blood used to atone the alter and the Most Holy Place, and the rest of it was a burnt sacrifice. I checked the Chumash and did not see specifically where it mentioned if any portion of the Yom Kippur lamb was to be given to the Priests, but since God says that we are all to afflict our souls ( fast), clearly this had to be a wholly burnt sacrifice, with no parts being eaten by the Priests.

As we can see, Yeshua’s sacrifice was more like the Yom Kippur goat, not the Passover Lamb, so which is it? Did Yeshua’s sacrifice cleanse us of our sins, or bring us into communion with God?

The answer is: it has done both of these things at one time.

The way I see this working is that Yeshua took on our sins, as the Yom Kippur goat does, and freed us from sin when He sacrificed Himself on Passover. The Passover Lamb sacrifice was a Thanksgiving, or Peace offering which allowed us to commune with God. But, communion with God is not possible when we are covered in sin, so first we must have the sin removed. Only after we have been cleansed of our sins can we have complete communion with God and come into His presence. Under the Sacrificial System one had to perform two, separate sacrifices to attain this state of communion, but with Yeshua’s sacrifice both were accomplished, at once.

Yeshua is the Passover Lamb, which was a lamb chosen by man whose blood would protect them from death, and He is also the the Lamb of God, the Yom Kippur lamb chosen by God (through throwing lots) to atone for the sins of the people. He is both of these: God chose Yeshua to atone for the sins of the people, and when you choose Yeshua as your Passover Lamb, then you have both atonement of your sins and protection from death (not the first death, of course, but the second death, which is for all eternity.)

PS: Next week Donna and I will be on our annual anniversary cruise so I will not be blogging. Have a great week, and I will be back on February 13. 

Backsliding isn’t failing

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Have you ever felt like you are backsliding? Have you wished you could have taken back something you said that wasn’t what a “real” Believer would have said, or not done what you did because it was the wrong thing to have done?

Welcome to the club.

Everyone backslides, everyone does or says something wrong- EVERYONE!  Don’t let it phase you or discourage you because then you really have backslid (is that a word?); when we think that we are unable to work God’s purpose for our life and begin to feel it is all a waste of time, we are doing what the enemy wants us to do.

Backsliding is NOT failing- it is just making a mistake, and we all make mistakes. Remember that old saw: “To err is human; to forgive, divine”? Well, forgive yourself and move on. Backsliding is not a failure, it is a delay; it is a momentary detour from the path you wanted to be on and, as such, can be repaired so you can get back on the right path.

If you want to be successful, do what the successful people do. So, with that in mind, here are some quotes from successful people who know what they are talking about:

“Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.” – Robert F. Kennedy

“Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead end. Failure is something we can avoid only by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.” – Denis Waitley

“Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill

“You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on the past. You don’t try to forget the mistakes, but you don’t dwell on it. You don’t let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space.” – Johnny Cash

“It’s not how far you fall, but how high you bounce that counts.” – Zig Ziglar

“There is no failure except in no longer trying.” – Chris Bradford

Every one of these people have been “successful” in what they tried to accomplish during their lifetimes, and every one of them made mistakes and had what can be called a “failure”- but it didn’t stop them from continuing to try. Where Churchill calls it “enthusiasm” we can substitute the word “faithfulness”; the point is that we fail only when we stop trying.

Did you know that Abraham Lincoln, unquestionably one of the greatest Presidents any country has ever known, failed to be elected some 16 times during his lifetime? He constantly ran for office, and before being elected President had only been successful once, becoming a Congressman and then losing re-election just 2 years later.

One of my favorite success stories is about the invention of the light bulb. Thomas Edison suffered about 1,000 different failures as he tried to find which material would make a good filament. He finally came up with the correct answer, and when asked how he felt about failing a thousand times, he answered that he didn’t fail a thousand times, he found one thousand ways that didn’t work.

Now there’s a man who knows how to handle failure- by seeing it not as a failure but as one step bringing him closer to a successful end.

I have said many times, and will continue to say, that three steps forward and two steps backwards is still one step closer to the goal.

Our successful end, so to speak, won’t come until we have been called to the Lord, so until then we need to continue to keep walking the path to God, whether we are walking a straight path or going from one side to the other. Each time we backslide it gives us an opportunity to improve: when we make an error we now know what to look out for in the future, and so what was an error is now a learning experience.

Reading the bible we see that from the very beginning, God has told us how to live and given us exactly what we need to do so. We, on our part, have constantly screwed it up and God, on His part, has constantly done what was necessary to get us back on the proper path. Making mistakes, backsliding and screwing up are as natural to us as breathing. Unlike breathing, however, it is better for us when we stop making mistakes. So, breathe easier knowing that your mistakes are not failures, your failures are just mistakes, and mistakes can be fixed. OK- there are some mistakes that cannot be fixed, so if you do something that can’t be repaired, you need to follow Johnny Cash’s advise (above) and keep going, anyway.

The bible is full of encouraging words about God’s promises of correction followed by reconciliation- He always, always, always tells us through the Prophets that there will be a time when He will bring us together again, forgive and forget our sins, and we will live in peace and joy. That is what we aim for and that is what we need to keep focused on.

Don’t worry about making mistakes- it only proves you are human. God knows this will happen and has provided for you to help you keep going. Maybe my pathway is straighter than yours, or yours may be straighter than mine, but that isn’t important: how we get there doesn’t count as much as where we end up.

Parashah Va-ayrah (and I Appeared) Exodus 6:2 – 9

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And so it begins: Moses and Aaron go before Pharaoh and tell him (it seems Moses is not requesting anymore, but demanding) to let the people go. Pharaoh refuses, and God pummels Egypt with miraculous events to convince Pharaoh to obey God. The rod to snake, the water to blood, and the frogs from the river are all miracles that the Egyptian magicians can duplicate. But the next plague, the plague of gnats, the magicians are helpless to create or stop. This is the first sign that demonstrates God’s absolute preeminence over the magicians and gods of Egypt.

Next the plague of flies is sent, and God “ups the stakes” with this plague by not only doing something that the Egyptian magicians and gods cannot duplicate or control, but God sends this plague against all of Egypt except in the land of Goshen, where His people live.

Pharaoh begins to weaken a little, setting conditions on the release of the Israelites to go into the desert and worship, but Moses holds fast to God’s command that everyone and every animal go forth; all of Israel and all of Israel’s possessions. Pharaoh refuses, and the next plagues attack that which Pharaoh refused to allow Israel to take: all the people (men, women and children) and their cattle. But only the people and cattle of the Egyptians. The next plague was against the produce of Egypt, with the hail destroying the flax crops, but again, none of these plagues affect the Israelites in Goshen.

I saw one commentary on this, in which the author was giving a drash on the idea of bondage; he showed the relationship between how God was freeing the Israelites from human bondage to the Egyptians in the same way that Yeshua (Jesus) has freed humans from spiritual bondage to sin. I thought that was a good message, which is why I mention it here, but it’s not the message I will bring today.

I feel that what we need to talk about is how Pharaoh, in spite of the absolutely undeniable proof of God’s existence and power over him, his magicians and his gods, still chose to defy God. When you’re reading this, aren’t you asking yourself, “What is it with this guy? Hello! Anyone home? Think, McFly, think! C’mon- get with the program, already!”? I know I do. I can’t believe how anyone, even the Pharaoh, could be so stubborn in the face of overwhelming power. Yes, this is a new one for the Pharaoh- I mean, in all fairness to him, the Pharaoh has grown up in a world where he is the all-powerful one, himself, and has never had to move over and make room for someone greater than him. He probably isn’t really believing this, and maybe, even, thinks that after Moses entreats God to stop each plague, that he, Pharaoh, commanded Moses to make it stop. Who knows for sure?

The bible tells us that God hardened Pharaoh’s, heart, but could that have been through a lifetime of being an absolute ruler? Maybe the hardening God did of Pharaoh’s heart was not just there and then, but had been part of God’s plan from before that Pharaoh was even born?  Maybe, but it doesn’t really matter, does it?

The lesson for us, I would like to offer, is that we need to help others see the power and glory of God in everything that happens. I would guess that most everyone reading this (especially those who have blessed me by being a follower of this blog-ministry) know the Lord, or at least recognize His existence and influence, but what about the rest of the world?

What I am trying to say (and not doing a good job of) is that people need to see the wonder, power and proof of God’s existence in everyday miracles, which happen all the time. I am not talking about hail from a clear sky, or rivers being split open, but about events that happen every day . For instance, what about a Tsunami? Isn’t that a force to be reckoned with? Sure, scientists will tell us it is the natural result of an underwater earthquake, but doesn’t God use the natural to show His supernatural power? That is what the world fails to recognize, just as Pharaoh failed to recognize (and accept)- God uses the natural to show that He is supernatural. We have fallen into a sort of ennui when we see supernatural occurrences because, I believe, when we can explain how something happens we think that it can’t be a miracle anymore. Yeah, I watched that Tsunami, I see that volcanic eruption, I lived through a hurricane…so what? It’s nature, it’s based on coincidental weather manifestations, it’s not a miracle.

My Webster’s Dictionary (1993) defines a miracle as, “A supernatural event or happening regarded as an act of God.”  What it doesn’t define is, what is an ‘Act of God’?

As far as I’m concerned, when I breathe that is an act of God. When I eat something and it gets broken down to it’s molecular level in my stomach and intestines, then is distributed to each and every one of the mitochondria in each and every one of the billions of cells in my body so that I can move, walk, talk, act, think…that is an act of God.

When my heart beats and the blood carries life to my body, which is why God said never to eat the blood (Leviticus 17:11), that is a miracle, a divine intervention by God, an act of God that continues to occur. From you and I being able to breathe, to everything else that happens in the universe, every moment of every day, all are a miracle that God has made happen. He has set the ball rolling, and whether He controls which way it goes or just lets it roll whichever way it wants to for a while, it is still an act of God that made it go and keeps it going.

Miracles are all around us and we, as Believers, need to explain to people that even a natural occurrence is something God has caused or allowed to happen. God is in charge of everything, and just because we can duplicate what He does or because we can explain in scientific terms the mechanics of the occurrence, doesn’t mean it isn’t a miracle.

The only thing that can’t be explained is how people can deny God’s existence, power and influence in the world. That is what I cannot explain; this is what I consider something that has no explanation in the natural, that there are still people who refuse to believe in God.

What’s the “take-away” today? This: look for the miracles, show the miracles to others, and proclaim God’s power and glory in every little miraculous thing you see to everyone you talk with. Hit them between the eyes with it (I am talking figuratively) by explaining that that just because we can explain how something happens doesn’t mean it isn’t a miracle.

Let me leave you with this little joke:

Scientists can now read the complete human genome, and in a meeting of the great scientists of the world they decided that with this knowledge they will soon be able to cure any disease or malformation, so God isn’t really necessary anymore. God asks them, “Can you make a living human being from a handful of clay?” The scientists gather and confer, then tell God they believe they can. God says to them, “Show me.” They go out and get a large clump of clay, and when they bring it into the laboratory God says to them, “Oh, no! That’s my clay- you have to make your own clay.”

If a miracle can be defined as an act of God, and we know God created the universe and how it all works, then everything that happens in the universe is, by definition, a miracle. Our job is to teach this to those that refuse to see and accept the truth of it.