Marinating in Messiah for a Year–Week 1

This year I decided to do something a bit different with my Bible reading. In years past, I would always read the Bible from front to back but in honor of my Savior I have decided to spend my twentieth year as a believer reading the Gospels and the Epistles over and over again. I am still maintaining my daily focus on the Gospel of Matthew, as I have spent the last six months in an in-depth study of the text, but I wanted to go back and immerse myself completely in what I call the Kingdom manifesto–literally marinating myself in the goodness of Yeshua/Jesus, the perfect image of the unseen Father and our black and white, flesh and blood example of how to love God and one another. This is simply a compilation of the social media posts I have made during the first week.

Marinating in Messiah for a Year–Day 1–John 15:4 and 6a

I am starting where I am currently reading because I didn’t quite get through the Scriptures twice this year. Bear with me. 🙂

“If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away like a branch and is dried up” (John 15:6a)

This was me, five years ago. I had been neglecting my Savior for a couple of years and nearly fell prey to the fruit of my own foolish ingratitude. I was focusing on Torah as though it was everything, as though I could get everything I needed there. Even when I did read the Gospels and epistles, it was with an eye towards the agenda of proving that Torah is for today. Isn’t that just amazing? I was reading the words and deeds of the One who died for me, who rescued me out of the filth of my life, and it was with an agenda. I had boiled Yeshua/Jesus down to an intellectual exercise–as a means to an end instead of the goal of our faith. How dare I do such a thing? It still boggles my mind.

God didn’t throw me away, however–I just got too far away from the vine to thrive.

“Abide in Me, and I will abide in you. The branch cannot itself produce fruit, unless it abides on the vine. Likewise, you cannot produce fruit unless you abide in Me.” (John 15:4)

I wasn’t abiding in my Savior, my Redeemer–I had wandered off to learn Torah, without Him. It’s a common mistake we tend to make whenever we grasp on to something new and exciting. I am grateful that God has shown me how to have both, and to produce fruit worthy of repentance again. But it took a drastic wake-up call.

Five years ago, last week of December 2013, the anti-missionaries almost got me. Unbeknownst to me, they had recently converted an acquaintance away from Messiah and into traditional Judaism. I had no idea he had denied my Master, and so when he came to me asking “innocent” questions and wanting my input on a video, I was like a lamb being led to the slaughter. Something was off in the conversation and so I didn’t watch the video, but his questions bugged me and I had wandered so far from the True Vine that I had lost touch with reality, to a degree.

I began to contemplate his questions and I found myself defenseless because I had stopped listening to the voice of my Savior. The doubts were loud in my ears. Even though I would roll my eyes at the same questions today, I had not fed myself on the bread of life, or the blood of the new covenant in so long that I was too weak to resist. I read the Bible all the time, but there was no communion with the One to whom I owed my very salvation.

I remember, for an instant, believing that it all might be a lie and that Yeshua might not be the Messiah when I heard that voice of mercy:

“What will you have to choose to forget in order to deny Me?”

Memories began flooding back. I was filled with shame, and relief. I remembered my Lord. I remembered everything He ever did for me. I remembered Yeshua. I remembered Jesus. I remembered who I was in January of 1999 without Him, and I remembered the difference between knowing Him and not knowing Him.

I had dried up because I, a lowly branch, strayed from the Vine that gave me life because I thought I found a better way. But without Yeshua as my cornerstone, it was just empty. With Yeshua, it is life.

Yes, the commandments are important, but without Yeshua they are just words on paper for me–exercises in self-control that gave me no life; Rules without the inner transformation that comes from a life lived in the shadow of the Cross.

Marinating in Messiah for a Year–Day 2–John 18:4

“Then Jesus, knowing all that would happen to him, came forward and said to them, “Whom do you seek?” (John 18:4)

This is a sorrowful section of Scripture and more profound than it would appear at first glance (and not just because of the “I am” in the next verse–I think everyone gets that), but there is also a bit of irony here that is easy to miss.

Now there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. (Luke 2:25)

Simeon wasn’t alone–the entire Jewish nation was seeking the One who would lead the second exodus out of oppression. That’s why people got so excited about John the Baptist, who proclaimed himself to be preparing the way for the Messiah, who would “forgive sins.” To the Jews, who had the Temple service in place, there was no need to be concerned with what could be remedied through repentance and the shed blood of animals. No, they wanted their collective slates to be wiped clean by God so that the Roman occupation, their over 600 years of slavery to foreign powers both in exile and at “home,” would finally be over. They wanted safety, autonomy, and the constitutional theocracy under a Davidic king back in place. But, until God finally forgave the nation and wiped their slates totally clean, they were stuck with the latest in a long line of foreign oppressors. But they were waiting, as they paid heavy taxes and tribute not only to Rome in the form of crops and cash but also to the corrupt High priesthood in league with Rome, leaving even most land-owning families with barely enough to live on.

The Jews were seeking Messiah. Desperately waiting for the deliverance that John had heralded and Daniel and the prophets had foretold.

So when Yeshua/Jesus asked the question, “Who do you seek?” It was rather ironic. They were seeking Him, to kill Him, certainly, but the entire nation was seeking Him as well, the Messiah who was about to deliver a second and greater exodus, during the Passover, that none of them saw coming. The world was about to begin to know freedom from the oppression of Caesar, but in an unexpected way–because of the defeat of the powers of sin and death. Even more ironically, these were the very people who would get the ball rolling.

But it is a good question for all of us. Who do we seek?

Am I the only one who really, REALLY wants the Savior as MY personal ally? Vindicating me? Defending me? Avenging me? Showing everyone that I am worthy and not a total loser by giving me superpowers? (preferably ones not gained by coming into contact with a vat of toxic waste or spider venom)

And yet, do I also want Him to spare me and be patient as I grow and learn to be a better person? Do I want Him to give me a chance to learn to regret my past actions towards others, even if it takes a decade–despite wanting my vindication and vengeance against others NOW?

I guess what I am saying is, “Am I seeking who He actually is or who I think I need Him to be?”

I don’t need Him to be my ally, I just want that. I want Him to vindicate me, but I don’t need it. I want Him to defend me, but I don’t need that. If I truly needed it, He would do it. But He is working in the lives of others too, not just me, and they need mercy too.

I need Him to be exactly who He is. If I needed something different, He would have come as that, because He is perfect and everything we actually need, as is. We only want more, for ourselves. We want a personal healer so that we don’t have to learn humility, perspective, and compassion in disease and disability. We want a personal bodyguard so we don’t really have to pick up that cross and risk life and limb like they do in other countries. We want immediate vindication so we do not have to share in His humiliation and sufferings. And if we aren’t willing to partake in those things, then we don’t really want Him. We can’t be like Him if we don’t know those experiences that He knew. We can’t say we love others if we are not willing to endure those things in order to better serve their needs.

We have to come to terms with who it is that we are really seeking and ask ourselves if we are following a mythological Messiah to satisfy our wants, or the real Messiah as He revealed Himself. You see, we aren’t all that different from the first century Jews who had their own wants in mind, and believe me, their need for deliverance from Rome was very, very real. But that wasn’t exactly what Yeshua/Jesus came to do as He had something bigger and more profound in mind. We have to learn to wrap our minds around that in the midst of our own sufferings, big or small, that God has something bigger and more profound in mind than simple deliverance from the here and now of our troubles. He is preparing us to be eternal people, and maybe even more importantly, He is preparing us to get over ourselves and to look at what we can be to others–but we can’t deliver a message of salvation via the Cross if we have never tasted the bitterness of it. Frankly, unless we can relate to the suffering of others, we won’t even want to bother–and we won’t be safe voices. We are more likely to be tyrants.

Let’s face it, there are enough tyrants out there. As our Messiah braced the suffering servant role, so must we–skipping ahead to the “Lion of Judah” coming in victory part just isn’t realistic. We haven’t earned that sort of easy walk, and such a walk has no need of real disciples.

Marinating in Messiah for a Year–Day 3–Acts 2:1-12

I just love this.

Yeshua/Jesus said that once He was gone to the Father, that He would ask for the Comforter/Advocate/Helper/Counselor (depending on your translation) to be sent (John 14:16).

What is the very first thing that the Holy Spirit did for the world on the Day of Pentecost, after filling the 120 believers gathered in the Temple?

Did the Spirit enable everyone gathered to understand Hebrew? Not at all.

Now there were Jews gathered from all over the known world–from the Roman, Parthian, and Scythian Empires, as well as from Africa. It was a once in a lifetime, insanely expensive and time consuming trip for such Jews to make the pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem–some of them had traveled for weeks and others for months in caravans in order to see the Temple just once and to present offerings from their fellow Jews in the diaspora. Their native languages were not Hebrew. It is possible that some, many, of them spoke none of it at all, or at least not fluently.

“How is it that we each hear our own birth language?” (Acts 2:8)

Hebrew, in the dispersion, was not the mother tongue.

“We hear them declaring in our own tongues the mighty deeds of God!” (Acts 2:11)

Why didn’t the Spirit simply enable everyone to understand Hebrew? That would have been just as easy, and they would have marveled that they all understood what some later Rabbinic commentators designated “the holy tongue.” They might have gone back to their countries teaching it to others!

This is the part that I love.

God is so humble and so kind, as we see in the words and actions of Yeshua, that He deigns to come to where we are. Can you imagine? Yesterday He created the universe and today He is approaching sinners in order to save them? In order to pour out His extravagant love on them? It boggles the mind.

He doesn’t flaunt His superior knowledge. He doesn’t require us to understand science at His level. He reveals His truths to us as we can understand them, and graciously and mercifully not all at once. Is there anyone who would not have committed suicide long ago if they truly knew how much of their character needed to be fixed? We serve a God who is Great because of His restraint, not because of His impatience. An impatient God would have killed me long ago.

His first act through the 120, through the medium of the Spirit, is typical of one of the great hallmarks of His nature, His character. God speaks to us where we are now, occasionally challenging us and educating us forward towards where He wants us to eventually be, then strengthening and solidifying our growing foundation before challenging us again. But He always speaks to us where we are, according to our flawed understandings. He doesn’t come speaking Hebrew, or half-Hebrew and half English, when we do not understand it. His purpose is to parent us, not to discourage us or to cause us to feel like hopeless outsiders, even if we should be, by all worldly standards. He leads us along like a Shepherd and again, we saw this in Yeshua/Jesus throughout His ministry.

Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? (John 14:9)

Everyone at the Temple on that Pentecost/Shavuot was a Jew or a proselyte, as were all the disciples at the Last Supper. These were people who knew the law inside and out. Didn’t matter–God still went to them where they were, because we never really arrive. We worship a God who will even communicate truths through our cultural misconceptions and Biblical misunderstandings (of which we have a multitude). The disciples knew the commandments, but they still needed to see that what they had experienced daily from our Savior, was the very character of the Father.

Messiah, the perfect image-bearer, gives us as perfect picture of who God is as we can understand at this point. As we are too small to understand great matters, it is a great comfort that God knows that full well and doesn’t hold it against us–as we must not hold it against others.

A God who does not exalt Himself over us needlessly, represented on earth by His one unique Son who humbled Himself even to death on a cross, now revealed to us through His Word and via the guidance of the Spirit.

If God comes to us where we are and that is love, then what reason do we have to be exclusionary and create artificial barriers to understanding? Let us all endeavor to speak to people in their own language and at their own level, because they are precious–and if God called them in that language and has them at that level, who are we to demand otherwise? We must not exclude on the basis of knowledge and falsely call it outreach.

Marinating in Messiah for a Year–Day 4–Acts 8:3

Consumed by Zeal–Messiah vs Saul (Paul).

There are so many ways to meditate on the works of Messiah, but one of the best ways (for me) is in terms of compare and contrast. How did our Savior handle situations and people versus how others in the Bible chose to deal with their situations and the people around them. Yeshua/Jesus could take the same exact emotion or mindset as someone else, yet execute it sinlessly, whereas others–not so much. Today I want to talk about zeal.

Acts 8:3 But Saul was ravaging the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison.

Paul (as he as later called) would eventually, throughout Acts and the Epistles, attribute his actions to a zeal for God and none of us should doubt him. He was zealous in the extreme for God and the sanctity of the faith. Who else was zealous? Yeshua in the Temple!

John 2:17 His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”

So zeal can be a positive or a negative–it all depends on how, when and where (and how often) it is administrated. Zeal can be pure or it can be contaminated.

Paul took his zeal violently into other people’s homes, arresting men and women whom he later learned to be entirely innocent. Our Savior limited this shockingly confrontational manifestation of His devotion to one house, His Father’s House in Jerusalem, and only when it was being overrun with corruption. Who else was overtly zealous? How about the “sons of thunder?”

Luke 9:54-55 And when his disciples James and John saw it, they said, “Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” But he turned and rebuked them.

Evidently, zeal can be a deceptively dangerous emotion when pointed in the wrong direction–it is an emotion that needs to be rebuked, disciplined, and tamed before it can be of any use to God.

We should all be zealous for God, certainly, but we must not fool ourselves into thinking that all displays of zeal are righteous–quite the contrary. There is an appropriate time and place for zeal–and even then only once our own offense is mastered. That was Paul’s issue as well as James and John. Paul was offended on behalf of his faith, believing with his whole heart that he was doing God’s work, only to find himself tragically wrong. James and John, well, we don’t know if they were offended for their Master’s sake or for their own when Yeshua was not welcomed back to Samaria. I think it was probably a bit of both, “How dare they reject us!” But see, the Samaritans were being zealous too. They had their own Torah telling them, in black and white, that Yeshua and His disciples were sinning grievously by spending the upcoming Feast worshiping in Jerusalem instead of on Mt Gerazim. They wanted no part of that “sin”–they were zealous. Perhaps they hearkened back to the words of Moses telling them not to listen to anyone who subverted worship, no matter how amazing his works are.

Zeal. Nothing makes us more deadly as when our zeal lacks knowledge–but we never truly understand or appreciate that we really are lacking in knowledge. We believe that we have a pretty good bead on things–and so we pull the trigger on others while feeling pretty good about ourselves. Even when we are the villains in the situation.

Yeshua knew the thoughts of every man. He knew what they were really saying, and really thinking. On social media, we oftentimes don’t even know what a person’s real name is–much less what they are thinking and believing. It isn’t a holy thing when we go off on someone just because we suspect what they might be thinking, as though we were our Master. We must be humble and realize that we, unlike Him, are still getting it very wrong. Paul, James, and John knew the commandments of God better than we do. I guarantee it because they lived in a time and place where as a Nation could collectively keep almost all of them (Roman interference excluding a few). But knowing the commandments and keeping them on the outside doesn’t mean that our zeal is pure either–

after all, Paul by his own words reminds us that he was faultless concerning the Law, even as measured by the Pharisees, and yet he was still a self-professed murderer both in heart and actions.

How much more should we guard ourselves and others from our unbroken zeal?

May your Sabbath be restful.

Day 5–Taking a Sabbath Break from writing

Marinating in Messiah for a Year–Day 6–Phil 4:11-13

I don’t have to be a slave to what I do and do not like and do and do not want to do.

“Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.”

It is no secret that I am no fan of memory verses because they often become trite little platitudes and Phil 4:13 is probably one of the worst victims of this phenomenon.

While my sons (almost 18 now) were in their toddler years, we spent many happy hours watching Veggie Tales together and I can sing every song by heart. In one episode, Phil 4:13 was Qwerty’s memory verse and, as I recall, Larry was happy that he was going to be able to fly, or something (I am better with the songs). Bob cautioned him that the verse just meant that we could do whatever God wanted us to do.

That is how this verse is taught, and it is not the wrong interpretation. But it is so much bigger than that.

I have spent the last couple of weeks doing unexpected and uncomfortable things that I hate doing, and yet I knew I had to do them because God was obviously training me. In fact, the last three Sabbaths I have had to do this, my most hated thing–if only it was work, that would have been easier. Little did I know that a breakthrough was coming and Messiah was about to show me how He could live among us, despite the fact that He must have hated a lot of what He had to do. Love does not enjoy being in the presence of hatred. Love can’t even want to be there, but love is stronger than hate, and so love can do anything it needs to do. Yeshua/Jesus is love, just as God is love, because Yeshua is the very image of the unseen Father.

And so while praying (being an insomniac helps), that verse just smacked me across the face. It goes far beyond being enabled, through the New Covenant transformation bought by Messiah’s blood shed on our behalf, to perform a difficult calling like Paul’s. God showed me that this truth allows me to be a different sort of slave, in a much deeper and more meaningful and honest way. Let me explain.

I don’t know about you, but I very much spend time thinking about what I do and don’t like, and do and don’t want to do. In fact, when a situation occurs, the first thing I think about is how I feel about the situation itself. LOL. Normally you guys don’t hear those thoughts as I keep them to myself. Inside, I am whining. Why do I have to do this? Why can’t I do that? I hate having to do this! I really want to do that! WHEN CAN I GO HOME?

My wants and my feelings, my desires and my apprehensions–they all come out to let me know exactly what they think and oftentimes, they drive me–sometimes my actions but, more often than not, my thoughts. Not so long ago, before God removed my cynicism, I could barely hear myself talking out loud over my cynical judgments about what was probably going to happen, or not happen. That was a great bit of freedom right there. I had no idea, back in the fall, how cynical I even was towards God–the thoughts were just natural for me, didn’t even realize the sin I was committing towards Him as I prayed and cynically expected nothing in return. *sigh*

(Before standing in judgment of that, it is a very common thing for parents of disabled kids to pray with walls up, not daring to hope anymore for a miracle. It’s a learned defense mechanism against hopelessness and I had to learn a new way to think about prayer, which I wrote about in the fall)

But back to the story–when God opened up this verse for me, I realize the “all things” that I “can” do:

I can do the things that my mind screams against doing, because He strengthens me. His love strengthens me to do what is necessary, no matter how much I want to dig in my heels; no matter how uncomfortable it makes me.

I also can resist doing the destructive things that I want to do, because He strengthens me. I have been learning for the last three years not to lash out and retaliate, and I can only do it because love gives me the strength.

I can do without the things I want, because He strengthens me.

I can live with conditions that I don’t want, because He strengthens me.

In other words, I can be ruled by God’s love, in service of His Kingdom, instead of by my own preferences, for the sake of sanity in my own little world.

We Westerners are too comfortable. We have everything we need, and even more stuff that we don’t need. We have become incapable of dealing even with basic stress, or a headache, or even bad smells or bland foods, without popping pills, inhaling or applying oils, or gorging ourselves with whatever our taste buds demand (I do not want to hear a defense of oils or meds, okay? It was just an example, no need to get defensive–I have both). We listen very closely to our wants, mistaking them for our needs, and to our fears and preferences, mistaking them for divine leading. We have a lot of excuses for what we do and what we don’t do, but the only needful thing is what God needs and where He is leading.

I can do without this and live with that, and I don’t have to like what I am doing and I don’t have to do what I like. I can. I can because Messiah gives me the strength to do and to endure whatever He needs me to do and to endure whatever He needs me to endure. I can live His life through me, instead of demanding that He direct the minutiae my life according to my liking.

I can do all things through Him who strengthens me–and I can especially do the stuff I hate.

Marinating in Messiah for a Year–Day 7–Acts 13:38

Greater than the Torah–read it all before commenting.

“Therefore, let it be known to you, brothers, that through this One is proclaimed to you the removal of sins, including all those from which you could not be set right by the Torah of Moses.”

I really like this version of the Bible (Tree of Life Version), translated by the Messianic Jewish Family Bible Society. I bought it a year ago and I am on my second way through it. So there is my plug for my current favorite Bible translation.

Throughout the Gospels, Yeshua/Jesus is proclaimed to be greater than David, Moses, the Temple, Jonah, the Sabbath–all authority in Heaven and on Earth is given to Him. In fact, this is one of the main themes of the Gospel of Matthew. We see Him going about doing what Torah, in and of itself, never could–casting out demons healing the sick, raising the dead, and providing a living, breathing example of God’s true image in a way that words on scrolls never could, no matter how divinely ordained. On the Cross, Yeshua did what Torah never could–setting us right with God by removing sins in a way that the Torah itself could not.

There are people who get angry when I say this, that Yeshua is greater than the Torah (the first five books of the Bible), but the Word itself says it! Here in Acts 13:38, Luke records Torah-observant Paul the devoted Pharisee’s words to the synagogue in Antioch of Pisidia. By Paul’s own words, he loved and observed the Torah throughout his entire life, but in Yeshua he saw the fulfillment of something even greater–God dwelling among men, delivering men personally from demonic possession, healing the sick, feeding the impoverished and disenfranchised, rebuking the corrupt leadership, forgiving sin, and raising the dead. Paul saw not just the Laws of Heaven come to Earth, but the Kingdom of Heaven itself invading Earth at the Cross–one believer at a time.

Whereas Torah changes behavior, Yeshua transforms men and women to the very core of their being. While Torah inspires zeal towards God and a way of life, Yeshua inspired the most costly forms of self-sacrificial love on behalf of others. Torah is great, and anyone who thinks otherwise has never seen the law codes of the ancient world. Torah is an awe-inspiring invasion of the basic values of Heaven into the realm of Earth, but Yeshua showed us something greater still.

There are some who might protest that I am demeaning Torah by elevating Yeshua, but I would never demean Torah. When I say that Yeshua is greater than myself, or you, I am not demeaning either one of us–but simply stating the fact of His supremacy over us both. I was praying this morning about how to explain this and the most surprising example popped into my mind.

In the movie It’s a Wonderful Life, one of earliest scenes shows us a young George Bailey rescuing his younger brother Harry from a fall through the ice. The movie takes us through the life of this decent, self-sacrificing man as he struggles to do what is right despite the odds. As we go through the rest of the movie, the incident with his brother is almost forgotten, until near the end when George, having decided that the world is better off without him, is treated to a view of what the world around him would be like if he had never been born.

His brother, who had just been honored by the President for saving every man on his WWII transport, died as a child because George wasn’t there to save him. And every man on that transport died as well, because Harry wasn’t there to save them.

Harry was a hero, but George was greater than Harry–for a multitude of reasons. Do we demean Harry by saying that George is greater? After all, that is the point of the movie, to show the greatness of George, who was always sacrificing himself for others. Not at all. George’s greatness is such that it demeans nothing, it simply is a fact of life.

In the same way, the Giver of the Law is greater than the Law. Torah could not die for us. Torah never healed anyone, raised the dead, cast out demons or inaugurated the New Covenant in its blood because it had none to shed. If Torah was enough, then Yeshua would have never been needed and the bitter cup of suffering could have passed from Him. If Torah was enough, then the nations would have come to God solely by its merits, but Yeshua had to draw all men to Him by being lifted up.

I keep the commandments of God, to the best of my ability and according to my understanding, because of my relationship with Yeshua, who died for me. I don’t have a relationship with Yeshua because I kept the commandments of God. Quite the contrary, I needed Yeshua because I wasn’t living in such a way as to be pleasing to God. Yeshua was and is my salvation, and not the Torah. No amount of commandment keeping saves me, and yet I strive to follow the commandments as He did while on earth.

We don’t need to fear giving Yeshua the supremacy in position over the Torah itself, we need to fear witholding that supremacy from Him. He died for us. Torah cannot die. Not one jot or tittle. Yeshua is greater than the Torah because He died, not in spite of the fact. We needed a Savior, and the Torah–as wonderful as it is–can never be that.