Marinating in Messiah for a Year–Weeks 4&5

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These last two weeks I haven’t written as much as normal and so I combined them into one blogpost. We talked about how Messiah flawlessly discerned when someone was trying to trick or trap Him, and what the “brood of vipers” label meant at that time. I spent a lot of time addressing a lot of the petty arguments people have online and elsewhere about the letter J, how Bible translations actually aren’t as important as we think they are, and I addressed exactly how much emphasis Yeshua/Jesus placed on Bible study (you might be surprised). I also talked a lot about the dangers of bragging and boasting and how they often lead to our downfall.

Day 22

Don’t ever make the mistake of questioning someone’s passion for, and service towards God and others simply because they aren’t making a needless stench of themselves in people’s nostrils. That’s just what people with no self-control say in order to excuse their bad behavior as somehow actually being godly–but nothing could be farther from the truth. There is a big difference between a zealousness for God and a zeal for one’s own pet doctrines.

People-pleasing has a couple of different faces, and one of the best hidden is when people berate, bully, manipulate, and badger others in the desperate attempt to gain allies who will approve of and ultimately parrot their beliefs. It’s just a more self-centered and egotistical form of people pleasing than when someone will just go along with anything for the sake of being approved of–and hence the more dangerous form of the two extremes.

*****

Perhaps our biggest stumbling block towards becoming image-bearers is that everyone loves to hate, even if it is just a little bit. And what’s more, what we really love to hate most are the people calling us out on it. It’s offensive to our flesh when people refuse to accept our hatred and just turn a blind eye to it. Perhaps the most ear-tickling messages of all are those that justify the very hatred that should instead be shamed and condemned. We don’t want to change in general, but most of all we sure don’t want to stop hating.

Marinating in Messiah for a Year–Day 23–Questions and Traps

I am just in awe of our Savior’s discernment.

I am a literalist. That means it is hard for me to accurately determine a person’s online intentions without emojis, or unless I really know them well. When a person asks a question, I assume they are looking for information. I take the question seriously and I answer it–and so I am a prime target for people who are trolls, who are setting traps, or who just don’t really want an answer and will lash out if they get one. FYI, I can’t read microexpressions in person either, so unless a person is openly hostile, I can’t even tell when face to face.

I’d like to think that I am just helpful and assuming the best of people, but the truth is probably more that I am simply undiscerning when it comes to the actual spirit a person is operating in. Oh well, we all have our gifts and that is not one of mine.

You know who doesn’t have that problem? The Messiah! Yeshua/Jesus–man oh man people would ask Him questions and He knew what was in their heart. He knew if their question was genuine, like the question posed by one of the Torah scholars in Mark 12:28:

One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”

Or a trap, like the question posed by the Herodians and Pharisees in Matt 12:16-17:

“Teacher, we know that You are honest and teach the way of God in truth. And what others think doesn’t concern You, for You do not look at men’s appearance. Tell us therefore, what do You think? Is it permitted to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?”

Now me, I would take both questions seriously, assuming good intentions. The first-century would have chewed me up and spit me out. On those occasions when I do assume that a question is disingenuous and snap back, I am almost always wrong and have to apologize. I suppose it is better to look kind and naive than to be a jerk who wanted to look wise but wasn’t!

Everything that Yeshua did perfectly, the stuff that we lack the discernment to carry out with a perfect track record, should serve not just to inspire us but to humble us. It ought to remind us that we do not have the discernment required to say and do everything that Yeshua said and did, exactly how He said and did it, and therefore we must be wise as serpents while not neglecting the admonishment to be gentle as doves. It is our gentleness that will protect people from our lack of wisdom, for we all fall short of the example of Yeshua. There is not one of us who knows the hearts of all men–or even most of them. We are more likely to be led astray by our emotions, our past experiences, and psychological triggers.

Perhaps that is the reason that gentleness is one of the fruits of the Spirit, because we lack the discernment to be proper ambassadors without a hefty dose of it.

Marinating in Messiah for a Year–Day 24

The Power of the Word to Transform. If…

Over the years, I have seen people angrily defending one translation over another. I have seen others claim that if you can’t understand Hebrew and Greek that you really can’t understand what the Word says. I have witnessed angry verbal altercations over a few “missing” verses that can sometimes just be found in the Latin transcripts but not in the Greek.

Here’s the rock bottom deal. If your goal is to become conformed to the image of Messiah/Christ, to follow in the footsteps of the type of radical character that He showed us–to be generous, meek, kind, humble, peaceable, loving, patient, enduring, joyful, just, faithful and self-controlled (especially in the use of one’s tongue)–

then it doesn’t matter in the slightest what translation you use. It doesn’t matter if you only ever read a paraphrase because everything you need to know to love one’s neighbor and God is in whatever translation you have.

We get hung up on knowledge, but I don’t serve a God who only calls scholars (both real and self-imagined). I serve a God who calls the educated as well as the simple. Frankly, I serve a God who calls people who do and do not have access to Bibles, or Bibles in a language they can read or speak, or whether they can read at all! Or speak, or hear, or see for that matter.

Having a Bible is a treasure, but anyone who has read up on the history of the great saints of our faith can tell you about the great works done by people who got their butts out of their reading chair and actually lived Yeshua/Jesus in their communities. They were concerned with souls lost and saved because they were transformed by the New Creation at the Cross. They largely had no time for academics because they were too busy living the life we are called to live. And yet their lives bear the evidence of being transformed from glory to glory.

It’s really plainly there in the cry of the Torah to do justice and righteousness for the least of these–the poor, widowed, orphaned, oppressed, and stranger. It’s also plainly there in the teachings of the prophets–to do the exact same thing. And Yeshua, again, the same–only inside and out, in thought and intention as well as in deed. And the Epistles…you get the drift.

Do these things and you will be a walking, talking representation of God’s core values upon the earth. And a person who has never seen a Bible can achieve it, through the constant surrender of self. The Spirit really does teach us all things whatsoever about being conformed to the image of Christ, but when all we do is preen and posture and fight over side issues, the Spirit can hardly get in a word edgewise. We need to be yielded vessels who are willing to see how far short we fall–and not have that “for all have fallen short” verse to just be a mantra that theoretically applies to us but seemingly reall only applies to other people.

I was in a car once with a fellow believer and we were talking about sin. Probably a decade ago and they were talking about stuff that “other people do” under the banner of “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God,” and I mentioned that they probably did horrid things when they were young to their brothers and sisters or whatever, and their parents–as we all do. Suddenly, the look on that person’s face altered and they got really angry with me and said the conversation was over. I was actually shocked. Although they would often remark about being a sinner, when push came to shove, they got really angry if any specifics were attached to it that might make them personally culpable.

We can’t be theoretical sinners like that–we’re sinners, saved by grace. The Spirit can’t do much with people whose own sins are denied or just a theoretical construct of the mind. Yes, sinners. We did it. We need to own it. We need to own that our character still isn’t good enough and that we still transgress in our thoughts and actions.

And that right there is what you can get from any Bible on earth–perspective and humility before God that will lead to the Spirit being able to convict us and shape us into who we are called to be–humbled, broken slaves of God here to serve the people of the world through the forfeit of our very lives.

Marinating in the Messiah–Day 25

This will be short and sweet.

Because God, through the Savior, has been so patient with me, I know that I can trust and depend on Him to be just as kind and patient with others–even when I don’t want Him to be.

I think we overemphasize the wrath of God because we forget how much evil garbage He puts up with from us. We take a few accounts from the Hebrew Scriptures out of context and without paying attention to the actual timeline and decide that He has an itchy trigger finger when obviously He does not.

And so we may want immediate justice against our enemies, but that isn’t how God usually works. He has a larger plan for us all, and that means patience. After all, we don’t want Him to enact immediate justice against us when we do something awful, right? Or our kids? Lord help my kids if God ever loses His patience as much as I do.

In short, we can trust God because even villains can trust God–and how many of us were villains at some point? And if not in our own eyes at the time, at least we were villains in the eyes of others.

Shabbat Shalom.

****

Getting smacked down publicly when you smack someone down publicly isn’t oppression, it’s a consequence. Too many folks think they can post self-exalting attacks about other people and then the moment someone calls them on it, or dares to disagree, they are having a hissy fit. And when people who are believers do it under the auspices of being a guide to the blind and can’t take it the same treatment–it looks like a total double standard.

Not everyone who claims to be picked on is really being picked on. Sometimes they are just thin-skinned bullies who enjoy treating people the way they hate to be treated, which is the opposite of the golden rule.

Day 26

God has spent the last two nights working with me to deliver me from an incredibly primal fear I have carried for so long. Isn’t he just so wonderful as to not to burden us with things before He and we are able to deal with it as a team? Imagine if we were as kind with others, where we wouldn’t saddle them with our criticisms over things they do not yet have the maturity or strength to fix.

Yes, strength. I wasn’t strong enough until now to face, fight and overcome this fear–and He knew it. It was too powerful and too deep, and He had to work on too many other areas of my life first. He had to be a good Father and build me up to where I could resist it once I was fully made aware of it. he didn’t mock that fear, even though it was undermining my relationship with Him on a certain level–even though some of my prayers must have sounded like insults to Him because of it. He saw me where I was. He knew what I was and was not capable of and consciously aware of. At just the right time, He stepped in.

Oh if only I had that discernment with others! Thank God for God and how I wish that everyone could know His transforming touch. I don’t know how I survived for 29 1/2 years without Him. Over half my life, not having Him and I would rather die in a thousand horrible ways than go back to what and who I was.

Thank God for God. He is working on you too. I pray that you always recognize when He is doing a new thing in you so that you won’t fight it–like I sometimes do in mistaking the source of the pressure and rise in temperature.

Shabbat Shalom!

***

It is disturbing me that, more and more lately, I am seeing people read academic, theological, or book quote posts on ministry walls with the clear intention not to learn anything, but to find something to correct. I am not certain why people seek to make themselves great by pointing out the one thing they figure the author got wrong instead of measuring what was said as a whole. When I see such things, I perceive their actual meaning as, “that person, that PhD, that university professor, that archaeologist–they may have spent their life studying and researching, but since I can find fault, something wrong, that makes me more knowledgable than they are. I am actually greater because I know something he/she does not.”

It’s every bit as much a form of self-promotion as someone who is constantly listing their accomplishments, or who only seem to contribute on the posts of others in order to point out what they are doing–effectively acting as a billboard in their own honor.

I appreciate it when people highlight the works of others, as no one fulfills the sum and total of ministry. We are all brothers and sisters, are we not? Shouldn’t we promote someone else when they have something right, and their expression of it is superior to our own, or preceded our own understanding, or contributed to our understanding? Even if we happen to disagree with this or that other thing? So someone may be wrong about X–does that mean we ignore their contributions to and their understanding of A through W? Is X more significant than the rest? Would we want to be held to such a tyrannical standard? Is the world so desperately in need of us coming to the rescue?

And who is truly less than the one who continually paints himself as great only through the critique of others?

Render honor–it should be a joy to us when a brother or sister is honored.

***

So, what is the importance of kindness on social media? A fb friend of mine who would comment and respond here killed herself. She was always very kind but a lot of people didn’t know that she was dying of cancer. Her son killed himself ten days ago. I daresay we cannot imagine that kind of despair and hopelessness.

We are surrounded by people like this on social media, and yet treat them like they are irrelevant. Ever wonder how many people in crisis we interact with daily, and how cheap the cost is to just be decent and kind?

How many burdens could we lighten just by never being dismissive, petty, cross, or whatever?

Marinating in Messiah for a Year–Day 27–Brood of Vipers

“You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.”

This is a much misunderstood and misused insult, so I want to set the record straight on it. People see John the Baptist and Yeshua/Jesus both use it and so folks like to pull it out as a general insult instead of realizing that this was a labeling of specific behavior, behavior that meant something in context. As many people use this in order to justify the bad behavior of mocking and insulting others willy nilly, I want to defend my Master’s honor, and the honor of His prophet, and talk about what they were really saying.

If you are talking about snakes in this region of the world, you are pretty much talking about vipers. Vipers are poisonous and they can attack without warning (except rattlers, thank goodness). But in ancient Israel, they were tied to the first smooth talking deceiver–the serpent who said one thing but meant another. It meant the one looking to entrap Adam and Eve with its words–the original adversary of Scripture.

Last week I talked about how discerning Yeshua was, not falling for the old, “Oh Teacher, you are so awesome and you only teach the truth, please bless us with your wisdom,” routine that has historically preceded a great many honor/shame challenge mind games. Well, John knew which end was up as well, and when the Pharisees and Sadducees came to his baptism, he saw right through them

But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” (Matt 3:7)

Luke records him as saying it to the crowds in his accounting, which suggests that many of them had come under false pretenses–however, in the case with the Pharisees and Sadducees, they had undoubtedly made the trek down from Jerusalem to check up on him. As they would later do this with Yeshua, this is almost definitely what they were doing with John. This coupled with the fact that they would not, when Yeshua asked them where John’s baptism came from, give him an answer. They were coming as part of the crowd, seemingly as spectators and possible participants, and potentially asking questions as they did with Yeshua, but they were not sincere. John was becoming greatly esteemed, and they wondered if he was the Messiah (as per Luke 3).

Yeshua called them the same thing, a brood of vipers–calling out their behavior of coming to Him under the auspices of asking Him genuine questions, “Is it lawful to pay taxes,” and “Can a man divorce for any cause.” But in reality they were setting traps for him–they were behaving in a deceptive and undermining way. They were behaving like–you guessed it–the children (brood) of the serpent (viper) instead of acting like they were the children of Abraham.

Two verses later, we have the confirmation:

“And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.”

They weren’t acting like Abraham, who honored Melchizedek just because he represented God, but they were trying to trick, trap and discredit God’s ambassador. This is why Yeshua is compared with Melchizedek in the allegory in Hebrews because those who are genuinely Abraham’s children will seek to honor Him and those who are the offspring of the serpent will seek to discredit Him through deception. In the middle are a whole bunch of people who really don’t have any idea who He is and mostly just leave Him alone.

We must never make the mistake of using the “brood of serpents” identifier casually. It was specifically calling out calculated, deceptive behavior–claiming to be a friend when one is actually an enemy. It isn’t to be used against people who simply disagree, that would be silly and then anyone could use it whenever they got frustrated in an argument. This should also show us how selectively John and Messiah actually engaged in perceived “name-calling” by showing it to actually be a great example of calling behavior into account through the use of a cultural idiom.

Jan 28

I really wish that folks wouldn’t harp on the letter J just because it is new to the English language, but if they are going to be hardliners about it, I think they need to start being consistent.

Don’t yell at people about the Name Jesus (from Latin IESUS, transliterated from the Greek Iesuos, which was transliterated and masculinized from the Hebrew Yeshua) if you are still talking about Julius Caesar (100-44 BCE), or the months of January, June, and July. If the correct pronunciation and purging of J is really that important, then let’s just do it!

Happy Ianuarius everyone!!! Hope to see you all at the family reunion in Iunius! Did you hear the one about Iulius, Crassus, and Pompey all walking into a bar? They should have been more observant!

But seriously. It is nice to be politely educated about the Hebrew Name of the Messiah, but when we go around making it all about “Hey you ignorant people, don’t you know that the J never appeared in a bible until 1527?” (Of course, they usually say it wasn’t until the 17th century) and continue to use J’s for other Latin words that actually (in some cases) predated Yeshua’s birth, it seems more than a bit nitpicky.

Yes, Jesus is not the actual name of the Messiah, and I think after watching The Passion of the Christ, it isn’t exactly a secret–but the truth is that Jesus is inextricably associated with the Messiah of Israel. It is a cultural reality that when you say Jesus in the western world, everyone knows who you are talking about–and having a word like that is a powerful thing. Talking about Yeshua without the qualifier, without gently explaining why and without all the theatrics and judgy language, is no better than speaking a foreign language LOUDLY, hoping that it will become more understandable to the hearer who doesn’t speak it. It’s no different than mentioning Yirmeyahu 8:6 and having the person you are talking to wonder what the heck is going on. Yerme-whatchamacallit?

If we want to reach English speaking people, then we will speak English. We won’t just use words that they don’t understand, hoping that somehow it will inspire them to listen further, or that they will magically figure it out. I remember the first time someone said to me, “Baruch you, achoti!” You can just imagine what was going through my mind…it took me forever to figure it out. Besides being a completely improper form of the word related to bless, I would have been far more “blessed” to just hear, “Bless you, sister!” It would have been kinder. It would have been the merciful thing to do.

We must be kind, or people will stumble right over us as they head out the door towards someone who will speak a message they can understand–perhaps a message we wouldn’t approve of but is at least coherent. Reaching, preaching and teaching is impossible if we are not understandable–and why would we seek not to be understood? There is no virtue in being obscure and obtuse–there is nothing honorable about making others feel ignorant and small. Teaching is about empowerment.

Discipleship is about equipping people, and that means starting where they are–which means also taking the time to learn where they are before we make assumptions and start spouting off. It’s just as bad to presume to teach someone who knows more than we do, as it is to be completely confusing to people who know less.

I guess, when it really comes down to it, we either want to speak in terms of exclusion–where only insiders are welcome–or inclusion, where people feel welcome to come and learn. But we can’t do both. I know that not everyone does it consciously, but it is the end result–we are excluding or we are including, just by our word choices.

Jan 29

Please. Tell me how much greater your faith and obedience are than that of people who died for the testimony of Messiah with the taste of pork on their lips. Just please. Anybody?

Seriously, I know that you have courageously avoided the dreaded all you can eat seafood buffet, but have you ever refused to deny Yeshua/Jesus when faced with a crucifixion or a knife at your throat or as your church is being burned down around you and your family?

Can we get a little bit humble here and stop with the self-congratulation over keeping the easiest commandments? I mean, it’s like a person who brags about going to three parties a year, and taking a day off of work every week while managing to stay on a diet that still includes loads of carbs, fats, and sugar putting down people who are actually dying on the front lines of a very real war being fought in other areas of the world.

We seriously have zero to be impressed with ourselves about. I am not worthy even to wash the feet of those in the persecuted church–or those who leave our posh existence to go join them in the battle. I pray for people every day who do not know whether they will die tomorrow for their faith, while social media peeps seem to be “suffering” under the delusion that being unfriended, disagreed with, or not listened to is persecution. Frankly, sometimes is it justified, and not about people being unable to handle your version of the truth.

Our brothers and sisters are dying, tortured, imprisoned, and truly shunned out there in the world. We should be ashamed to use the word “crucified” for anything short of actual crucifixion, “rape” for anything short of actual rape, and etc…because people are actually enduring the real thing while we are so proud of not celebrating certain holidays and saying no to certain foods. Aren’t we the special ones?? NO, we should instead be the servants of these great saints, praying for them night and day and not daring to forget what they do with what they know versus the very little we accomplish with the overabundance of material resources, safety and freedoms that we have.

Marinating in Messiah for a Year–Day 31–Encouragement for caregivers/changing the Lord’s diapers

I write this from the vantage point of a special needs mom, but it also “counts” for special ed teachers, nurses, foster parents, those who care for people at the end of their lives, etc.

I am actually robbing someone whose name I can no longer remember for this–it’s their revelation and I have just taken incredible comfort in it over the years, and I might butcher some of the details but I will give you the heart of it. But, um, I was reading an article once, I believe it was in Christianity today or some other magazine, and it was written by a special needs dad. He was talking about how hard it is to change the diapers of someone who was profoundly disabled and would be for life. As they got older, they got heavier, and the care they needed increased instead of decreased. As with most special needs families, they had zero support system. Extended family was far away, and no one ever offered to babysit. They were exhausted beyond belief. (This is the norm rather than the exception)

One day, the man had a dream or a vision in which he saw the Lord. What he heard changed my life as a new special needs mom who was myself incredibly weary physically, emotionally, and mentally.

His attention was directed to the parable of the Sheep and the Goats in Matthew 25:37-40.

“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

His response was, “What does this have to do with me, Lord?”

The Lord told him, “Don’t you understand that it’s My diapers, and not just your son’s, that you are changing every day?”

I am just going to leave it at that, and if you are a special needs caregiver, it needs no lengthy elaboration. We are serving the Lord, with a very personal and direct service, as we labor night and day, day and night, to care for those who oftentimes cannot care for themselves. If you feel as though you are called to a higher work–you are dead wrong. There is no higher work. We might as well be in the throne room of God ministering to Yeshua/Jesus personally.

Feb 1

Was up last night with God again, dealing with issues. You know, it is frustrating to everyone, I imagine, when we see people getting away with stuff that God doesn’t allow us to get away with. I was brooding last night about someone who is somewhat in the public eye (if social media counts as actually being in the public eye) in a small way, and their horrible, childish, cruel behavior. And they do it in the name of what they teach in God’s name–and they are waaaay more successful than I am. (I blush admitting that was part of the issue, but oh well)

And I was like, “God, why on earth do you allow them to get away with this stuff when You call me on the carpet when I even think, for a moment, about doing stuff like it? And I hate to think of what You would do if I ever called them out publicly on it.”

And I was getting all resentful (not for the first time either). But when I calmed down, I realized that I wouldn’t want to be someone whom God allows to get away with cruel behavior. I want to have a healthy conscience. I don’t want to hurt people just because they make me uncomfortable. I want to have healthy boundaries, but I don’t want to be dangerous. I don’t want to go back to when I had very little self-control, or when I mistook a lack of kindness, patience, peacefulness, and gentleness for zeal.

I don’t want to be how I really, in my heart of hearts, sometimes want to be. I want to be like Yeshua, for His sake, my sake, and your sake. I don’t want to harm people simply because my pride is smarting, or I am in pain, or in a bad mood. Even though sometimes I do want to lash out, and on rare occasions do lash out, that isn’t who I want to become. I know that, if deprived of the Spirit, I would go back to being that person who I couldn’t even stand being in the same room with now. And it’s because God is so hard on me, and I bless Him for it.

Unlike human parents, who sometimes single out a child for more stringent standards and consequences for reasons other than love, God only ever does it out of love. This very treatment that inspires feelings of resentment and bitterness in me from time to time is just proof of my “sonship” through Messiah. Who God disciplines, He loves. I don’t want to be that person “getting away with it” because of what it might mean for that person.

Are they grossly immature, despite being in the public eye? Have they deafened their ear to the conviction of the Spirit? Or, and I pray this is not the case, are they a tare planted in the Body by the enemy?

I am not wise enough to know.

It hurts, and I imagine it always will hurt, to see some believers (real or simply self-professed) getting away with bad (and worsening) fruit year after year when I am all too familiar with the painful application of the pruning shears. But this isn’t like being out in the world where standards can be fickle. God is serious about His kids, and so He matures us the hard way. It isn’t anything to get angry, or resentful about, but something to be grateful for. And so we pray for these people who seemingly are not being disciplined, that they will be refined for their own sake and for the sake of those who come from such darkness that they see the behavior as an accurate reflection of God.

Welcome the discipline. Ask for it. Beg for it. Don’t fight it. Don’t rant and complain about it. It’s how we know that we are sons of the Kingdom instead of the sons of the enemy. It’s a gift.

Marinating in Messiah for a Year–Day 33

Did you ever notice that Yeshua/Jesus deviated from the Pharisees and Scribes in one really huge way?

He never stressed Bible study. Seriously. I am reading a book called Parables of the Sages: Jewish Wisdom from Jesus to Rav Ashi and I had never noticed before that the Savior talked and talked and talked about doing the commandments on steroids (meaning not just in actions while remaining defiled by hatred, lust, and greed on the inside but springing from the heart, out of a genuine selfless love for God and neighbor) but never mentioned Bible study.

In this, He matched up better with the Hasidim of that time period–miracle workers who the Pharisees sometimes hated and at other times went to for their help (not to be confused with the Hasidic Jews of modern times). They stressed relationship and deeds over the study of Torah, and they worked amazing miracles. They were well known for healings and for bringing rain during droughts.

Now, I am not dissing the study of the Word–it’s what I do all day. I am not telling people not to study, either. But I am instead saying that Yeshua spoke about the “doing” of loving one’s neighbor and of loving God and didn’t tell everyone to go to the Beit Midrash for study. He taught people how to do God’s will. He also taught people how not to do God’s will. And then it seems that He just expected them to be able to manage it without becoming scholars and frankly under very trying circumstances under Roman occupation.

Just something to think about–because if our lives are full of study and no good works, when what is the use of all our studies? Most, or all, of our knowledge will die with us, and where is the wisdom in that? Yet, our doing of the Word will always outlive us. Sometimes we forget that the Torah was commanded to be read once every seven years (on the shemittah year) during the Fall Festivals and that the rest of the year no one except the King and the Priests and the Levites and perhaps the incredibly wealthy would have access to them. It’s because the Word was never meant to be simply studied and read–it was made to be done by people working as communities and communities working together as a nation.

Balance requires at least as much doing as studying. Truly loving one another requires more doing than studying.

We see this in the persecuted Church where most do not have Bibles–but they do have the deeds and the love by which Yeshua said we would be known.

By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.–John 13:35

Anyone can study–but not everyone who studies can love.

Shabbat Shalom.

Feb 2

I don’t believe that the words, “I would never…” should be in anyone’s vocabulary.

More accurate is, “I have never…but I really haven’t experienced all temptations yet” or “I hope I would never…” or “God, please don’t let me ever…”

Too many overconfident people have spoken those words, only to live to regret them later. It is like the parable of man who starts to build a tower that he lacks the materials to complete or the King who charges foolishly into battle, presuming victory, only to find himself woefully outnumbered and ill-prepared.

None of us have seen all things. None of us know what we truly are and are not capable of. Humility is required.

Marinating in Messiah for a Year–Day 35

Able to save, but not obligated.

I can just about guarantee you that every person who ever denied Yeshua/Jesus as the Messiah at one time or another said or thought, “I will never deny Him.” In fact, I have heard some of them do it over the years, only to come to be slanderers of His majesty.

I am so not impressed with people’s claims.

I know how many of mine I have had to eat over the years, including this one, well…almost, four years ago. What we are really doing is elevating our own faith over “those people” and presuming that our faith is so great that it will save us. We are placing faith in ourselves despite the clear evidence that some of His seemingly most zealous followers have denied Him. We ought to quake in our boots.

I am thinking this morning about something I read in one of Wurmbrand’s books. He was talking about his time in a Romanian prison, persecuted for his faith, and about the other ministers who were in there with him, of all denominations. He spoke of their steadfastness despite starvation and torture, bitter cold and sweltering heat, disease and even attempts at brainwashing. And these mighty men of faith never denied Jesus nor one another. These men could, more than any of us, claim “I will never deny him,” and would be believed.

But we all succumb to different temptations. It was freedom that did one of these men in. After many years of horrific treatment, he became a monster in the outside world. He divorced the faithful and longsuffering wife who suffered privation all those years of his incarceration and took up with a younger woman. He turned from the faith. Amazing, isn’t it? Torture wouldn’t do it, but freedom did. I wonder how many of us who are used to freedom would buckle under torture, or severe losses–because we have no idea what it is to truly suffer for His Name’s sake.

We would do well not to boast, because God is under no obligation to coddle us in our boasting, in our assurance of the strength of our faith. I have no such illusions about myself–I am only here because He had pity on me twenty years ago, and every day since then. Some days a lot more than others.

Could I deny Him? Possibly, maybe even probably, if subjected to just the right circumstances. I have no idea what that might entail, but I beg Him not to allow me to find out. My flesh is not dead, and I will not brag to Him or anyone else about my faithfulness. I depend on His mercy. He is the only one strong enough to keep me from falling, and He is under no obligation to prop up my arrogance if I dare say that I cannot fall.