Assured of His Love

Could it be that the way you believe God to have been with Israel affects whether or not you can rest in His love for you? 

 

      Contrary to the general Christian idea that Jews kept the laws of Torah under duress and stress in an exhaustive and futile attempt to gain God's favor, most of time Jews rested in the full assurance that God had chosen them for His very own people over all the others of the earth. They rested in His care and obeyed His Word out of affection and love for Him.  Aside from when a generation, as the Bible stories tell us, forgot about Him and was wooed away to worship other gods, Israel remained secure in God's care for them. When walking with God, Israel did not fear loosing His favor or His presence with them, but carried out His Word with hearts appreciative of His goodness and protection and provision to them. They weren't trying to be "saved" because their idea of salvation was that God's protection and favor was already theirs as a nation. And they didn't constantly fear displeasing Him as Christians often expect they did.  For the most part, Jews enjoyed God, loved Him and lived their lives entirely around Him in celebrations of Him and His bounty to them throughout the year.  

     For those who have thought of Torah as God's way of teaching mankind (Israel) that they can't keep His commandments, that would not have occurred to any Hebrew man or woman. Nor did God give them the Torah to keep Israel in a constant state of frustration and failure for two thousand years, generation after generation.  God gave them ways to be forgiven when they failed, just as He has given us Yeshua's gift of forgiveness and salvation. Theirs was much more complicated from the human standpoint - of having to take an animal for the sacrifice to the temple to have it slaughtered, but the goal is the same, forgiveness.   The difference is that when we accept Yeshua's forgiveness it is complete and total and eternal. The curse of the Fall of mankind is no longer upon us. We have been redeemed and restored to a place before Almighty God, a privilege Israel did not have under Torah alone.

       But God is "the same yesterday, today and forever."  Grace may be realized through Yeshua but it doesn't mean grace wasn't there before Yeshua. Read through David's psalms and make note of his security in God, and even when he sinned God forgave him. David speaks of his security in God, his love for His presence, and where he expected God's protection against his enemies. His assurance in God has been a great comfort to millions as they find that same assurance through David's faith in God. I suggest that his faith was more akin to how Israel saw God on their behalf than the idea that Christians often have of Israel struggling to keep laws to gain God's favor but never really getting there. This idea not only distorts God's ways with Israel, thereby affecting how many view God's attitude toward Israel even today, but more importantly, it distorts our understanding of God.  If we think God rejected Israel after all His promises to them, it may set up even an unconscious expectation that He might reject believers if we fail to meet His standards. 

    


     Note: "Replacement Theology" says that God's promises to Israel were revoked as no longer being God's promises to Israel and the Gentile believers then "replaced" Israel as the recipients of all those promises. Promises of the Land to Israel were supposedly replaced as promises of spiritual land, or the Kingdom of God. This goes against the very character of God's love and faithfulness and against His Word being true and immutable.  

      Please give the following statement some thought and don't dismiss it as unsound.  Could it be that if we think God turned away from Israel, it sets up somewhat of an insecurity in us that we could perhaps be rejected too if we don't make the grade? It could be one of those "Judge not lest you be judged" kind of things. Often when we judge someone else, we may not be judged by another person but rather we judge ourselves. (Selah.) Could this be a another key to unlocking why some of us struggle?  Do we see the Jews as trying to earn God's favor while we fear losing His favor ourselves. If this is the case, then we are living under a law of performances, thinking our own salvation is based on what we do, on maintaining a certain standard of behavior which we fear violating and therefore fear coming under God's disfavor. 



This is not only not a New Testament way to live with God, it's not even an Old Testament way to live with God. God did not give the teachings of Torah to Israel to make them stressed and under pressure all the time to be sure they were "doing it right" - of course not. And Yeshua certainly didn't die so we would remain stressed out and worried that we have to earn His favor either. Yeshua said, "Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you...."  We receive His peace by giving up trying to get it, by allowing ourselves to accept that we're made acceptable to God by His doing, not ours. We live the same way, by "leaning the weight of our personality on Him" as the Amplified version of the Bible translates faith. You may feel like you're backsliding when you give up worrying, if that's how you've been living. But be assured, He will bring you through to peace.  






As Israel rested in God's choice of them as a nation, we can rest in His choice of each of us, having been chosen before the foundation of the world.  As Israel served Him with affection and gratefulness for His care and provision for them, so can we.  Israel's salvation was limited compared to ours but they didn't know it. Israel received forgiveness of the guilt of their sins through the blood of animals. They didn't know there was more, until Yeshua came. For those who have received Him, Jew or Gentile, ours is complete, entire, whole and eternal. We receive release from not only our sins but our sin nature by the holy blood of Yeshua!  The sacrifices for forgiveness of sins in Torah was the shadow or a type (prediction) of the forgiveness God would ultimately bring through His Son's sacrifice. We live in Yeshua in the completeness of what Torah was as a promise - all based on the goodness and mercy of God.