THE RESPONSIBILITY OF BEING A BLESSING

SOME OF THE LADIES IN MY BIBLE CLASS

My Bible class and I have been studying Genesis to see what we can learn about God and our relationship with Him through the Patriarchs.  We’ve seen how God promised to bless those who bless Abraham and his descendents but that He also warns that He will “bind in a curse” any who curse Abraham or his descendents. We take this to mean the Jewish people and also those who become Abraham’s children through faith in Israel’s God through Messiah Yeshua.  

Pretty serious matter, cursing someone, or having anyone curse you, don’t you think?  Perhaps Abraham thought that God would take care of his enemies and he didn’t have to worry about them. He would focus on the blessings. They were sure to come about as God promised!  But God seems to be letting Abraham know there will be opposition. Not everyone is going to see these people as God does; not everyone will see them as blessings, but as cause for cursing them. There’s often a balance in the promises God gives.  He will protect us, but there will be cause for Him to protect us.  He will see to it that His people continue to exist, but there will be attempts to destroy them.

Often we look at the positive promises and quickly glance over the rest, the part that implies, “You’re going to really need to hold on to the promises of my goodness and protection and blessings.  You’re going to have to remember that you are Mine and I have set my face toward you to see you through to being the blessings I have ordained you to be. But be aware, there will be those who will not see you as the blessings I intend you to be.”  How are we to feel about those people? 

To reiterate, Abraham was essentially told by God, “I will bless those who bless you and I will curse those who curse you” (Genesis 12:3)  This was meant to include all of Abraham’s descendents from then on. It would be easy to focus only on the blessings but what about those who would bring curses upon Abraham and his progeny?  How was Abraham to relate to them?  How are we to relate to them, as Abraham’s children, whether natural, spiritual, or both (as in Jewish believers)? To take it further and personalize the matter, how do you feel about people who have had a bad attitude about you because you represent God to them?  Or what about if they don’t connect their attitude toward you with God? What’s  your reaction to difficult people? Is your reactions to them, your feelings and intentions toward them what God’s are?

As I looked at Abraham this week, I began to wonder about how he must have felt when God told Him these promises of blessings and curses.   Suddenly, for the first time, I saw this as a great responsibility of God’s people to be, act, live, and speak as people that will not antagonize, or perhaps instigate, those who might be inclined, as a result of our behavior, to speak words of curses about or to us.  As I am seeing it now, this is wrapped up  a good bit with our position in Messiah.  He said, “Love you enemies” and He certainly exemplified that with His whole being.  Most of us were His enemies at one time before Yeshua reached out and brought us to Himself. Thanks be to God who loved us enough to rescue us. 

How we respond to those who act toward us as if they wanted to lay a curse on us, is not just about their behavior, but about ours. If we maintain an attitude, even if only within ourselves, of “God likes me but He sure doesn’t like you,” they are going to know it and it will alienate them further. If we are defensive and try to justify our positions or get “our” truth across, even if we think we’re speaking the  “truth in love” when we’re really judging them, then we are contributing to the atmosphere of antagonism and aiding the potential for curses to take place. 

What does it really mean for someone to curse someone? The word “curse” in this sense in Hebrew is to despise, to bring into contempt, to esteem lightly, to consider someone as insignificant or of small worth. It also means to execrate which is to loathe, detest or deplore. This can apply to the cursing of individuals or even a whole people groups.  Have you ever heard unkind jokes about certain ethnicities or people groups?  Were they being seen as insignificant or of little worth in the eyes of those finding humor in degrading them?  Would Jesus think it was funny? Doubt it?  So should we? The commandments are all about honoring and respecting one another.  Curses certainly don’t fit in there, do they?

I wonder, was the promise God made to Abram also designed to bring a concern for others who might speak with derision to or about them? Or was he, meaning Abraham and then us to just toss them off as the bad guys who came against him and his people and figure they were deserving of God’s wrath?  Knowing God as we do today, which exceeds what Abraham could have known of Him, we know that He sent His Son to die for His enemies, and Yeshua gave His life for those who cursed Him!   He forgave them and petitioned His Father to forgive them as well, saying, “They don’t know what they’re doing.”  No, they couldn’t have.  But neither generally do those who would curse God’s people know all the dynamics involved.  They don’t know that they are striking a pose of opposition against the Almighty, challenging Him who has put His name upon the people whom they are cursing.  Nor are they aware of the potential eternal consequences of hell, unless there is repentance. Most sadly, history is replete with instances of such hatred and curses. Are we, though, like Yeshua,  to forgive in the realization that they do not know what they’re doing, and pray for them for Abba to forgive them as Yeshua did?

Back to Abraham and the second time God confirms His covenant with him.  “When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am Almighty God; walk before Me and be blameless.”  In one sense, in view of the blessings/cursing proclamation I take those words to mean, “ Don’t act in ways that will cause others to not think well of you.” In today’s language, “Don’t be a jerk.”  Sorry, that didn’t sound very holy, did it?  You get my drift.

Yeshua’s half-brother Ya’acov (a.k.a. James) had to deal with his own interpretations of what were  blessings and curses of his Brother being crucified (see previous article on this blog). Likely in remembrance of Yehovah’s words to Abraham, he wrote to the believers, “And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” (James 1:4). Obviously his statement has much further application than the issue we’re discussing, but does it not take endurance to respond with love and forgiveness to those who are triggering the opposite?

With regard to endurance, while this may exceed any call we could possibly experience in comparison, we are “looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God”  (Hebrews 12:2). If we are to follow the author of our faith, then there are times we must endure.  The joy comes when the forgiveness is accomplished and received by those to whom we offer it. And then we have the promise of being “seated with Him at His right hand in heavenly places” (Ephesians 1:20).  When we know those who were our enemies are no longer in the place of potentially being bound in a curse, when we see their freedom from curses, we rejoice!  But if we are to be like Yeshua, sometimes we must endure with a godly attitude toward those who really just tick us off, or who are acting in a way that is so ungodly that we are appalled at their behavior. 

I had opportunity for both this past week. My motivation for writing this article was a personal experience with the need for such endurance when a situation presented itself – one in which I was confronted with forgiving someone, or getting angry in self-justifying retaliation or slithering into self-pity. I vacillated between the three, quite honestly. But when I read these words in Genesis 12:3 for the umpteenth time, this time I saw what I’d never seen before. I had already forgiven him but now I realized what a responsibility it is to have the right attitude toward someone who really could be setting themselves up for what they surely wouldn’t want in their lives, and doing so in response to their perception of you. Or in this case, me. 

My concern for the person then became far greater than my self-absorption and how I was feeling. While I wouldn’t classify him as my enemy, I now had greater insight into what Yeshua meant by loving our enemies. It means to have more concern for their ultimate wellbeing than our own.  As it turns out, while my expectation was that the relationship was broken, I received a phone call from him of reconciliation. HalleluYah!  I do not believe, however, that if I hadn’t released him from my own judgment of him, if I had chosen bitterness rather than forgiveness, I would not have received that phone call. Even though he didn’t know, God knew and He rewarded my willingness to align myself with His higher standard and desire to protect this person from possibly finding himself in difficult circumstances of a curse and not making the connection as to why.

When God curses someone, that is a different Hebrew word than when someone curses another person.  It means to bind (as like a spell), to hem in with obstacles and to render powerless to resist. We’re talking about the Almighty binding this kind of curse here. Not something to take lightly by any means.  The example would be when God cursed the ground because of Adam and Eve’s sin. The soil was condemned; cursed, and never again has the earth been fruitful as it was in Eden where no sweat of man’s brow was required for the bounty that existed. The fertility of Eden was banned when God cursed the ground on account of them. 

A few more Hebrew words come into play here having to do with Who God is. First of all, we use the term God without realizing that our western cultural idea of God is a Greek concept.  In the Hebrew culture, Elohiym actually means Judge or One who judges – in the sense of having great power and authority. So whatever your concept of God is, it needs to be adjusted to realize that Elohiym is the Judge of all that takes place on the earth.  

When we call Him Lord, which in Hebrew is Yehovah (accent on the vah), the word means, “He exists,” or the  (Self)-existent One. It is He who is judge with great power and authority who exists.  He says “I AM” because He “am” Lord of everything that exists within the framework of His existence. One cannot, therefore, have ill feelings even about someone and not have God know about it and hold us  responsible for it.  The Bible tells us that we will be held accountable for every word we speak. Yeshua said, “But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment” (Matthew 12:36). That’s a sobering statement, isn’t it?

 One of the greatest declarations in Judaism begins,  “Sh’ma, hear, listen and understand, O Israel, Yehovah our Elohiym is one.”   In English we are inclined to think this means there is only one God. And this is true, but not true of what this word one means in Hebrew.  In Hebrew the word is ehkad.  In this statement in Hebrew it means that Yehovah is in unity with Himself.  One example would be that He manifested Himself as a pillar of fire at night and a cloud by day, both working together to preserve His people, night and day. Different manifestations but in unity.  We can see the “oneness” of Yehovah’s manifestation as Father, Son and Holy Spirit in that same unity. They are not three persons as has erroneously been believed but God manifesting Himself in different ways, always in unity with Himself.

Have you noticed that when you are holding resentment against someone, to further address our present issue here, we are not “in unity” with ourselves.  We’re out of sorts, we’re at odds in our emotions. There is a sure clue that we’re out of touch with God’s ways. When we are at peace with God, we are at peace with ourselves which means we’re at peace with others. It may take some forgiving, but we’ve been giving the wonderful immeasurably valuable gifts of forgiveness and repentance to maintain His ways in our lives.  I’m often grateful for both.

When we speak of Elohiym as Judge and having all power and authority, it could be very frightening if we didn’t know He was also love – as in “God is love” (1 John 4:8 & 16).  An explanation of the Hebrew sense of love would be helpful here.  The word is Ahav. It is not an emotion but an action.  If you’ve read through 1 Corinthians 13, the love chapter, you’ve seen that it’s about doing or not doing, and not about feelings. We are to “love” God and each other with our actions, not with our emotions.  Emotions might follow but love is about how we treat one another, not how we feel about one another.

Hebrew is about actions, not feelings.  The words are about concrete ideas. The Hebrew culture sees   differently than we do about many things, this being one of them – and a significant issue it is.  If we think love is dependent upon feelings, then so would forgiveness be about feelings. Not so from Yehovah’s perspective, nor from Israel’s as He set the standard for the way they saw all of life when the followed Him. Forgiveness, like love, is a choice of how to relate to someone, and is not dependent upon our emotions toward them. For this reason, we forgive not because we feel like it but because Yeshua died to forgive us all.

Hebrew is much more concerned with function, with actions, with the way things happen, while Greek thought is much more concerned with the way things appear, or look.  For example, a pencil would be described by a Greek by what it looks like: yellow, eraser on one end and a pointed lead on the other, while a Hebrew would be more inclined to say, It writes words or draws pictures. 

The original Hebrew were word pictures and combinations of word pictures. The Hebrew word for father was one of an ox and a tent. Ox represent strength and the tent or a house. Put them together and they represent “the strength of the house.” The father is the one who provides the strength to the home.  He is the provider and protector. You can understand from this concept how fathers were greatly respected in Hebrew culture. Abraham is still considered the father of Judaism and even to the Christians he is the father of faith.  The strength of his faith remains the foundation of the “house” of God’s people.

The opposite of curse, of course, is to bless. Bless too is an action word. It’s not just to say nice things about someone so they’ll be happy and feel good. Bless in Hebrew is barak, which means to kneel down and present a gift in respect or honor to another.  When the Bible says that the Lord “gave gifts to His church,” He bestowed great honor upon us, even respect that we would use the gifts wisely and under His guidance.  To imagine God kneeling before us seems irreverent, but when we consider how Yeshua humbled Himself to become a man, a human being, let alone die, we see the blessings of God in His gift of Yeshua to us.

A part of the blessings of God is to walk in the light as He is the light. That Yeshua is the reflection of the light of His father, the outraying just as the rays of the sun show us the sun we cannot look at,  the word for shine is or, literally to shine.  This word equates with bringing about order because light illuminates or reveals what has been in the dark.  We pray for God to shine His truth into the hearts of those do not understand His ways of love and forgiveness.  We pray they will come to understand to enter into His  graciousness, which is reflected in how His people are to one another just as God intended us to be – in expression of His gracious character.

The word for Gracious will give us another word picture.  The word for gracious is Hannan. The name Hannah comes from this word and also means gracious.  As Abraham’s tents would have been set up in a circle, as all wanderers would, it was considered a place of beauty.  Not just in appearance but in action. It would be a place where love, friendship, community and sustenance existed. The word gracious is a verb, a word of action, a way to be, and to act with one another. Even strangers would find a gracious welcome among other tent dwellers. We see it personified when Eliezer went to cousin Laban to find a wife for Isaac. While admittedly there were tensions amid Abraham’s tents with Sarah and Hagar, the concept of gracious living was this one.

Such a life would be one of peace, of shalom. This word has a root word of shalam, which means to restore in the sense of replacing or providing what is needed in order to make someone or something whole and complete. When used as a noun, shalom is used for one who has or has been provided with whatever is needed to be whole and complete. 

When we forgive someone we restore them to the place of having nothing against them, of being free from any curses that might have come to them.  We release them from any expectations which they have not fulfilled or standards they have violated. Do they always deserve it, or will they always receive it?  It is likely that in many instances, we will not have the opportunity to tell them we forgive them. But in our own eyes and heart, we are seeking to be right with God, and to be His instruments of forgiveness, extending His forgiveness to those in need.

When we are cursed, rejected, even despised, it is the way of God to forgive, and it is the grace and power of God that enables us to do so.   The light of the Lord shining through us will put things in order which will not be in order without His light. We pray that things will fall into the order of Yehovah’s kingdom for them, as we look to the Father in all His strength to bring them into His house.  In chosing to do so, we find that we are in unity with God and with ourselves as well as with others. Why would anyone want less than that?   

CONTRASTING KINGDOMS

Despite being tired and the hour late, I felt drawn to flipping on the TV and seeing what was on. My attention was caught by a PBS special of a gala event taking place at the Kennedy Center for the granting of the 14^th Mark Twain award.  The applause and the enthusiastic support of the audience for the recipient was evident. The winner of the award was Ellen Degeneres. Ellen came out on stage dressed as a man, was very open about being gay, gave recognition to her “wife” whom the camera caught several times and was often, in keeping with what was evidently the reason for granting her the award, funny.  The audiences’ responses to her remarks, which included several with regard to her being gay, were not only of approval but of celebration.  Were they celebrating that she was funny, or that she was gay?  Or both?  Was the enthusiastic applause and laughter partially motivated also by the audience’s self-approval of their liberality and open acceptance of alternative sexual preference?  Or was being funny the cause for such an award at the illustrious Kennedy Center?

I couldn’t help wonder what President Kennedy himself would have thought of this, or even Jackie whose idea the center was. Didn’t she have more honorable things in mind? Even Mark Twain, who despite his less than believe-in-God perspectives was a man of his own times, and who would likely be shocked and disapproving of this particular award being given in his name. 

 Evidently the event was equally applauded by PBS who aired it and American Airlines that sponsored it. Is this what is considered worthy of funding? What happened to honoring people for character, integrity, courage, benevolence, or generosity of heart?  Have we been reduced to celebrating being funny?  Or being a lesbian?

 I then flipped through a few more channels and happened upon Pastor Mark Chirona telling a very personal story. He spoke with humility and authenticity, telling of how his father had come to him and cried, revealing his vulnerability, something Mark had never seen in his father before. He held his dad and cried with him. This experience opened up for Mark an awareness of how guarded and self-protective he was.  He spoke of how when we are afraid of not being accepted or appreciated, when we’re not loved for who we are, we don’t really know how to let God love us.  Mark told of how this experience led him to time alone with God while he let God take down his walls to allow Him to really love him as only God can love. He spoke with such a tenderness and awe of God, and such a respect and love for Him. I was deeply moved by the transparency he revealed, also on television but to a very different audience than those at the Kennedy Center.  I felt as if I was peering into two different kingdoms, and indeed I was.

I was left with a sense of how important it is for us who are Jesus’s to be speaking the truth in love to those who may not know the ways of God. Perhaps many of those people at the Kennedy Center never opened a Bible, or were taught the Ten Commandments, let alone the verses in Leviticus 18:22 or Deuteronomy 22:5 or Romans 1:26.  It’s not that being gay is a sin worse than any other, thought it does go against God’s initial command to “go forth and multiple.” But a people, let alone a nation, that values what God calls an abomination are either in ignorance or rebellion.  Either way, they are outside of the blessings and favor of God.  And what will that allow to come upon us? 

So what are we to do?  Where do we drop the plumb line? Most will do nothing. But is that what God would have us do, nothing?  Perhaps it’s because we don’t know what to do. I suspect that preaching to people that they should or shouldn’t do anything is pretty useless. Even if they stopped doing “it” whatever “it” is, if they don’t come to and give their lives to following Jesus, they’re still as lost as when they were doing “it”.  What is needed is a revelation of Jesus that will make the appeal of anything else pale in comparison. 

Jesus has gotten such bad press that anyone celebrating such shallowness or corruption of God’s intention for humankind has no idea of who He really is.  To know Him in Spirit and in truth is to know the One who is more attractive than anything else that the world or humankind has to offer.  Do we exude His love?  Do we represent His goodness and forgiveness?  Do we reflect His holiness and purity?  Do we know Him as He can be known?  Are we in touch with the fact that He lives within us so that His “rivers of living water” overflow when we interact with others?  Or do we only know about Him? 

Years ago the Lord told me something that has stayed with me.  He said, “The bride I come for will have eyes for no one and nothing else other than Me.”  We want to be worthy of Him. Jesus as our Bridegroom who will come for a bride who can share His heart in every way, one who is suitable to him in all that matters to Him and will have nothing to do with what is not.  When we spend precious time with Him, being vulnerable to Him, letting Him take down the self-protection that keeps us from letting Him love us as only God can love, we will be people who will be able to reach people for Him with His love.  And, by His grace, many will find that what draws them today will become as filthy rags to them in contrast. 

Revelation 19: 7 says “Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready.” As we make ourselves ready, others will be drawn to the glory of God upon us.  Some of those people celebrating uncleanness may well be called to become a part of the bride of Jesus.  Not all, but some. Let’s pray as Abraham did for Sodom, “Lord, if there be thirty righteous, twenty righteous, ten righteous…  save them.” 

THE TRIAL & JOY OF BEING YESHUA'S BROTHER

Icon of James (probably Byzantine) though
obviously he would not have looked like this
with crosses on his garment and a halo
on his head and he would have written
on a scroll, not in a book. Besides he doesn't
appear to be rejoicing much here, does he?

“Rejoice when you encounter various trials…”  These words were written by Yeshua’s biological half-brother Ya’akov who is known to most of us as James (thanks to the translators of the KJV who renamed all the Ya’akov’s in the New Testament after their own King James).  Kind of gives him more of a sense of being Jewish to call him by his real name, doesn’t it?  The same thing happens when we call Jesus Yeshua, His own real name.  It puts the whole story back into a setting more in keeping with who they actually were.

That aside, what kind of trials do you think Ya’akov went through to cause him to write such words about rejoicing? Knowing something of what the early believers suffered, that’s quite a statement, isn’t it? Let me say it again: “Rejoice when you encounter various trials…”   This isn’t just a nice encouragement, this is powerful! This is Kingdom other-world overcoming thinking.  What did he experience that he wants to be sure his own disciples see in the proper light as believers in Yeshua?  He was the head of the believing community in Jerusalem when he wrote these words so he’s thinking like a leader.  It was Ya’akov who issued the decree in Acts 15: 13-19 as to the inclusion of the Gentiles, that they be accepted into the faith. He used words such as, “Brethren, listen to me…” and “Therefore it is my judgment….”  Obviously he carried a good deal of authority.  

We know little else about him other than that he was one of Yeshua’s four brothers and there were at least two sisters according to Matthew: “Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not His mother called Mary (Miryam), and His brothers, James (Ya’akov) and Joseph (Yossef) and Simon (Shi’mone) and Judas (Judah – he is the writer of the book of Jude)? And His sisters, are they not all with us?” (Matt 13:55, 56). There is no Biblical nor cultural reason to think that Miryam had no other children and that these 'children' were cousins, as some faiths believe.  The only other time Ya’akov might have been there is when it says that Yeshua’s mother and brothers came to fetch him, or at least to speak with Him hoping to get Him to start acting sensibly (Matthew 12:47-50).

 Let’s back up somewhat.  Let’s get back to Ya’akov’s reason for writing what he did. As we know that as Yeshua grew up “He kept increasing in wisdom and stature and in the favor of God and man” (Luke 2:52) He must have been the best big brother in the world. Ya’akov undoubtedly loved his older brother very much, looked up to Him, asked Him for advice, and played with Him as a child and even as teenagers; perhaps they learned together in their father’s shop.  Likely they shared many things together as brothers who loved each other. There was no reason to believe that Yeshua was anything but a normal and godly young man as any young man who was raised in a godly family.

But now suddenly this big brother is traipsing around the country with a bunch of fishermen and, of all people, a tax collector. He’s spending time with demon possessed and blind and lame people, who everyone knows are that way because God is displeased with them somehow.  He’s basically homeless, and He and His band of scoundrels are living off of what others give to them, or feed them.  I can just imagine Ya’akov saying, “We weren’t raised like that. What does He think He’s doing?” Perhaps even Miryam (Mary) thought, “What kind of way is this for the Messiah to act?”  Even if she didn’t tell the rest of the family what she knew, which is probably the case, it seems they all thought He had gone mad. 

Was Ya’akov angry at him when Yeshua refused to even see them when he and his mother and other brothers came to rescue Him, or at least talk with Him and a message comes back that He is not coming out to them and it is reported to have said, “These are my mother and brothers, those who do the will of God” (Matt 12:50).  Were Ya’akov and his family hurt? Or angry by that response? Maybe both.  Did Ya’akov think, “Who does He think He is? Does He think He’s some super spiritual healer?  He’s embarrassing the whole family.”  Did he at some point say to Him,   “What in the world do You think You’re doing?”  Did he exhibit anger toward Him in his confusion and concern, while trying to restore some righteous thinking to Yeshua as he raged at Him?  Did Ya’akov think he was the righteous one, and not His brother by all outward appearances?  Did he think that Yeshua was being tempted by evil?  How could He be acting in any godly way with the people he's with?  He even got the priests angry with Him. Who is He to challenge them?  And so much so that eventually they wanted to kill Him.  And kill Him they did.

There could be no greater shame for a Jewish family than to suffer the humiliation and torture of death at the pagan hands of the Romans in such a horrible and degrading manner.  That the Romans would and could take a Jewish life was infuriating and demeaning.  How the Jewish people longed for God to come and redeem them from the hands of the Romans. On a more personal level, can you imagine your favorite sibling or someone you deeply love going through that, and not understanding why He even put Himself in that position when He didn’t have to?  Oh, the confusion… the rage… the fear…  the despondency.  

Where was Ya’akov all during Yeshua’s ministry? Was he uninvolved entirely or on the sidelines hoping for some sanity to come to all this?  Where was he from the time of His arrest forward?  Did he know what took place? Did he only hear of it after? There’s no mention of him being there, though His mother was.  She had remained faithful to Him, but evidently Ya’akov had not.  Did that cause a rift between Ya’akov and his mother when she followed Yeshua around like the other crazy people?  This was all insane, in Ya’akov’s mind. And now Yeshua is dead.  Horribly crucified like a common criminal. 

What anguish did Ya’akov experience thinking of the torment of his own brother – not understanding why Yeshua seemed to have had such a change of personality, going off and leaving the family and causing riots, even in the Temple, with hundreds of people following Him around.  What an ordeal that must have been for Ya’akov to try and make sense out of it all. Perhaps he missed the brother Yeshua used to be a great deal, or perhaps he was angry with Him for the way He was living. Or both. But what did he feel when he heard that He had been crucified?  What sense did he try and make out of it? What words did he utter, or shout, or cry, in his angst, in his shock? How hopeless did he feel when he knew Yeshua was dead and His life had uselessly come to a horrible end?   As many times as I read the stories, I cannot imagine the grief those who loved Him had to have suffered.

But, a few days later while still in his misery over what had happened, thinking he must now be mad, Ya’akov thinks he sees his Brother standing in front of him, talking to him.  Was he going crazy?  But no, He really is there, He really is alive.  How could this be?  How could this happen?   But Yeshua is alive and very alive at that!  He begins to speak to Ya’akov and tell Him what has taken place.  And now Ya’akov has a new trial, but a glorious one – he now has to grasp the reality, the truth that his Brother Yeshua is the Messiah!  When Yeshua leaves him, in his astounding joy and incredible amazement, he now has to make sense of this. 

The Brother he’s lived with all his life is the Son of God!!  How do you wrap your head around that? We do know that he had his brother Judah (Jude 1:1) to share this with. But what is he now to do with everything he’s said against Him, thinking that he was the righteous one and Yeshua wasn’t.  He worries that God is now angry with him and fear grips him for a moment, but then he realizes Yeshua just brought the favor of God and His love and acceptance to him.   

There is so much to speculate, and of course all this is just that, speculation.  But as we know that Ya’akov become the leader in the community of believers in Jerusalem, we wonder what did it take for God to bring him to that place of trusting him with such responsibility?  Likely he now saw that so many things that had happened in his life that had taught him to trust in Yeshua as an older brother were to teach him to trust in God!  No doubt he came to deep repentance and had much to re-evaluate – as relates to what he “valued.” 

When I read Ya’akov’s words, I hear them couched in his life experience, as autobiographical (just as I read some of Paul’s the same way.)  Our experiences in life are what give us the insights we share with others. Our deepest crises are often those that become our life messages.  I offer you an opportunity to read through the book of James, originally written on a scroll as were all the epistles, and consider why he is motivated to write the words he writes, and how he came to these conclusions and values when he writes, “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials” (1:2).  Did God give him the privilege of being a brother to Yeshua who loved Him and knew all his life that he could trust Him, until the three and a half year trial came about, so that, with renewed trust, he could transfer that trust to God and in so doing write the scroll (book) that has imparted this wisdom to Yeshua’s disciples for two thousand years? Did he realize that while he was perhaps boasting (if even only to himself) about his own righteousness, Yeshua was out and about healing the sick, causing the blind to see and the lame to walk and bringing hope to the hopeless while Ya'akov did nothing for anyone except spout a lot of words. Is that what is behind his words, “For just as the body without the spirit is dead, faith without works is dead” (2:26)? 

One wonders what transpired that required significant perseverance before Ya’akov was trusted by God with leadership that caused him to write to the younger talmidim (disciples), “Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.”  Was he remembering his own judgment of Yeshua and realizing that what he saw as the devil’s temptation wasn’t at all evil when he continued to write, “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God’; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone” (1:12).  We can just imagine what might have prompted him to say, “ Everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God” (1:19, 20).  Does that sound like a biographical statement to you?  This was not something he read in a book or learned lightly. It was wrought in the refining fires of sanctification in order to equip him for the task God had for him, despite how he failed to recognize God’s work in his brother’s life earlier. How could he possibly have known? 

What we do know is that all of his trails resulted in Ya'akov coming into the joy of the Lord, so much so that his initial words to all who follow Yeshua are, "Consider it all joy...!" Despite the seriousness of his exhortations, read them as coming from a man who knows the joy of the Lord and consider them as wisdom for living in the fullness of His presence in great joy.   

We often read Scripture as theology, as principles, but these stories and letters were written by real people in real life situations out of their own experiences.  I will leave it to you to read through the rest of the book of James to see what God might show you, or what you might think would cause Ya’akov to want to strengthen other believers through what he wrote to them.  Perhaps it will give you thoughts as to what you would like to impart to others that you have learned through your own fires of sanctification. We all have them somewhere along the line. But oh, the ways of God that we learn through them!  Consider when you read through the Bible that these are our brothers and sisters who went through trails in order that we might glean wisdom and knowledge of God’s ways through what they tell us of their experiences.  May God bless you and strengthen you and turn all of your weaknesses to opportunities to strengthen others, in Yeshua’s name. 

                           

LET HIM CARRY YOU.

 I have a friend who is presently homeless, jobless and seemingly hopeless – except for God that might be the whole story.  Not to belittle the severity of my friend’s situation with platitudes and a nice little Bible study, but there is a greater aspect of this than just the circumstances.  As I write this it is Passover, the season of deliverance, of redemption, of new beginnings.  Israel too was homeless when they left Egypt. All they had were promises of a land somewhere they had to journey to.  It wasn’t as if they just left Egypt and after a rather long hike, Tada!  - they were there and just entered in.  It should only have taken eleven days to walk that distance, but it took forty years – all because of unbelief.  It wasn’t until the older generation, the ones who didn’t know how to think, expect, or act in faith, were gone that they had the faith and took action to make the land their own, just as God had promised. 

Israel’s forty year journey is a picture of our own journey in the Lord. Just as He led them through what must have seemed like an endless trek through the sand, so He carries each of us through the deserts in our own lives. Like Israel's with older generation, we must allow our old man, our old unbelieving natural self, to die off so that we are no longer ruled by unbelief and fear, and instead, we learn to think, expect and act according to the word and the promises of God.  We learn through our experiences that God has been right there with us – all the time, in every circumstance, even when things don’t go as we prefer or expect.  We come to understand that “God works all things together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purposes” (Romans 8:28).  If you’re His, you are a part of His purposes in the earth. You are “called” by Him to affect the world around you.  We can all be as He is to others around us, spreading hope and His love, making people aware that God is with them too.  We can all be what we would not likely be on our own without Him.

I had a chance to experience this at a new level this week.  I was recognized for having what was a good idea that turned out to bless many people.  It was a nice feeling to be appreciated like that.  Once alone with the Lord though I quickly told Him, “Kol haKavode, Adonai Yeshua” – All of the Glory goes to You, Lord Yeshua!   The whole thing had to be from Him, from start to finish.  This isn’t false modesty, this is the truth. What have we that we have not received?  Billy Graham, I understand, has a plaque on his desk that says, “TOUCH NOT THE GLORY.”   I’ve tried to always remember that.   

The next morning I awoke with a huge sense of how much God has taught me, of how much my life is affected by what I know of His word and His ways, of the way He has crafted my character over the years through one experience, one trial, and one blessing after another.  Patience, kindness, mercy, hope and faith are the works of God; they are not ours naturally.  Even good ideas are from God.  I once had someone prophesy over me in front of a room full of 500 people (embarrassing), “Lonnie, you have a lot of good ideas; some of them are even from the Lord.”  So I put them out there as they occur to me and see which ones take root and bear fruit. Those are the ones that are from God. I couldn’t possibly have the stuff to make them come to pass on my own.  Like the one that just happened.  About the other ones, sometimes I have to smile a bit embarrassed again and say, “Oh well.” 

 This all seems quite petty compared to being homeless, I realize. One of the pains of my friend is that she feels purposeless. She is a faithful servant of the Lord, always ready to be of help to others and a giver – of her time, of her love, of her finances – not to mention great pot luck dinners.  She has a lot of good ideas that bear fruit for the kingdom and bring blessings to others.  But now with no job and no home, among other things, she feels she is without purpose.   My experience, such as it has been, is that God never wastes anything but uses all of our situations, mistakes, bad judgments or abuses whether from something we’ve done or was done to us, whether in word or act, He will use it all to bring us to greater fellowship with Himself, and to form us into people He can trust with purpose for His Kingdom.  He gives purpose even to our worst pains and losses. This isn’t about theology, this is about relationship with the greatest Lover of all times – God!  

He’s never asked us to go through anything Yeshua hasn’t experienced.  “For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15).  Ever think about that?  What in your life have you suffered that somehow, in some way, Yeshua didn’t suffer too.  Really, give that some thought. It will bring you closer to Him as you share in “the fellowship of His suffering” (Phil. 3:10) and to realize it's always too soon to give up or to stop trusting in HIm.

We know that God has told us that “faith without works is hopeless… is dead” (James  2:20 & 26 ).  So there is the doing in our faith. But sometimes we find ourselves on the receiving end, rather than the doing or giving end.  God ordained in His word to Israel in the Torah to make provision for those in need.   Remember Ruth?  She was gleaning based on the words in Torah to leave some of the gatherings for those in need.  “And you shall not glean your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather its fallen grapes; you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger. I am the Lord your God,“ (Leviticus 19:10) and, “When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you shall not glean it afterward; it shall be for the stranger and the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow” (Deut. 24:21).  Jews tend to be benevolent based on this principal in Torah.  The generosity of the church is based on these same words to Israel. The early church, you recall, were Torah-observant Jews which is where it is derived. And so we take care of those in need.

A woman who was in the same church as my friend was in Walmart this week when she suddenly got the urge to call my friend.  They were not particularly close and my friend had even moved out of the area and so they hadn’t seen each other for months.  Suddenly she feels she must call her. So she did and that’s how I found out she is homeless.  As it happens this woman was going away for a while and asked my homeless friend if she would come and house sit for her – which gave her a place to be for a time while God weaves things together for her, and opens some doors to get her out of this situation.  So you see, God was at work already, putting things in place for her when he had the woman in Walmart feel to call her. He will not forget her or forsake her.  We often quote those words as coming from Yeshua, but they ring out clearly throughout all of Israel’s history:   

Moses said, “Be strong and courageous, do not be afraid or tremble at them, for the Lord your God is the one who goes with you. He will not fail you or forsake you.” (Deut. 3:16).

Moses said it again years later having walked out his trust in God. “The Lord is the one who goes ahead of you; He will be with you. He will not fail you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.” (Deut. 31:8).  Dismayed, incidentally, means to be paralyzed by a real or imagined fear. 

God Himself said to Joshua:  “I will not fail you or forsake you” (Joshua 1:5).

“Then David said to his son Solomon, “Be strong and courageous, and act; do not fear nor be dismayed, for the Lord God, my God, is with you. He will not fail you nor forsake you until all the work for the service of the house of the Lord is finished”  (1 Chron. 28:20). David was speaking from his years of living with the Lord.

And from Yeshua, “…He Himself has said, “I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5). 

There we have it in the mouths of four credible witnesses.  We have the choice before us all the time, in small things or great consequential things – to believe that  God is good and He is with us at all times to bring about good in our lives - no matter what it looks like at times.  Our choice is to believe God or not believe God.  Eve had the same choice when presented with an alternative to trusting God. She made the wrong choice, but we don’t have to. We’ve learned from her mistake. Each of us is faced with the same challenge she was: To believe God is good and that He has only our best interest at heart (His heart).

When we go through times of great stress upon our faith, and through it all we find we are still His, we come out the other end finding out He is above all faithful and trustworthy. He will keep His word.  King David had to learn this also through being homeless – for many years, while being hunted down by Saul.  Seminary would have been much easier if that’s how God prepared David for leadership, but it wouldn’t have created a man whose songs to God have sustained millions for thousands of years because of his faith in Him and the love of God he came to through his trials.

I have faith, even if my friend’s is weak right now, that God will bring much purpose out of this time in her life. She’s exhausted from the battle and doesn’t know where to turn next. But God does.  He told someone in Walmart to call her so He could get her to their house where she’d be safe and warm and could rest.  Perhaps some of you reading this are in your own trial.  Or know of others who are caught in a web of some debilitating circumstances. There are too many who are homeless or jobless or both today.  There are situations that cause people’s faith to become weak.  Others may have been trekking through their journey for so long that they feel like it’s been forty years in the desert.  But that’s never the end of the story. Our faithful Savior is carrying us, and there is a promised land to enter. There are promises yet to be realized. And there are ways to come to know our God at a greater level than any of us do today – there’s always more to know of Him.

Would you take a moment to pray for my friend, for God to rescue her and any others in similar situations who need Him to do a miracle on their behalf.  Let’s consider our prayers as our way of gleaning for the benefit  of those in need. There is much purpose in your prayers.    Bless you!  

TWINKLE, TWINKLE!!

When God’s Word tells us that the magi saw “His star” (Matt 2:2) in the eastern sky, the Holy Spirit is telling us that there is a star in the sky that is His star. It’s there to tell us, or at least it told the magi, about Him. Astronomers (not astrologers) have for millenia told us that there is a story in the skies that reveal God’s hand.  The Almighty has so arranged His creation so that “the heavens declare the glory of God” (Psalm 19:1). What greater glory do we have than Yeshua, than the Son of God who is “the radiance of His (the Father’s) glory” (Heb. 1:3)?  One translation says He is the “outraying” of His Father. Though we cannot look at the sun with our natural eyes because it is brighter than our eyes can endure, we live by the light and the warmth of the rays of the sun that come to us. And so it is with God and His Son. 

Stars are really great suns, not just cute little twinkly things far off in the dark sky, as you know. They are enormous bodies of power, fire and light, some even greater than our sun. While not all stars lead us to Yeshua in the way that “His star” led the magi to Him, such things as the stars can still lead us to Him.  We can be aware that what may appear to be a tiny thing is really a great and significant evidence of God’s power when it becomes to us a revelation of the Son of God.

Stars cause us to look upward if we are to see them. We must look away from what occupies our attention to see them, if even for a moment. The stars can remind us that the glory of God in the heavens has come to earth on our behalf and brought the light of God’s truth and love to us, not just generally but in our own specific and personal situations, which can sometimes seem quite dark, can’t they? 

We only see the stars at night, but the stars are out there in the skies during the day as well. We see the stars most clearly when the sky is the darkest. For many, the dark times in our lives cause us to look up to seek the Lord in our time of need.  The darker our situations, the more we are aware that we need Him. The darker the sky, the more visible the stars are. Isaiah tells us there will come a time of deep spiritual darkness upon the earth, but that is not the whole story. Listen to what happens:  “For behold, darkness will cover the earth and deep darkness the peoples; But the LORD will rise upon you And His glory will appear upon you” (Isaiah 60:2). “His glory,” of course, is Yeshua so this verse applies to those of us who are His. Since it was said to Israel in particular, it means that Israel will become the light in the world in a time of great darkness, as will everyone who believes in Israel’s God and Messiah!! 

Daniel also prophesies about a (spiritual) darkness in “a time of great distress” saying, “Those who have insight will shine brightly like the brightness of the expanse of heaven, and those who lead the many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever” (Daniel 12:1, 3). Consider, if you will, the contrast between the people engulfed in darkness and those who have insight. Insight means knowledge of God and His ways, that is into God’s truth and how to apply it, and into how to love in a time when love is sorely lacking. Insight means to understand and discern and to have the wisdom to know what to do with the knowledge you have in any given circumstance. I want to be one of those people, don’t you? 

 

The darker situations may be, the more we can shine with the light of God because: 1) He is within us so His truth is imputed to us, 2) we are able to come into His presence so that His light is imparted to us, and 3) His love has embraced us so that the sweet aroma of His presence is still with us, like someone’s perfume or shaving lotion that stays with us after a hug. We can say with Paul, “Thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Messiah, and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place” (2 Cor. 2:14). 
 

 

Practically speaking then, when we have His truth, we are not deceived or controlled or intimidated by what is not true. Nor do we believe the lies the enemy who would tell us that our trust must not be in God alone. When we know the Lord's perfect love, it will cast out all fear because when we have confidence in His love for us, we can be confident that He will see us through, whatever the challenge, victoriously. And as for His imparted light, well, His words apply here: “I am the light of the world. The one who follows me will never walk in the dark but will live his life in the light of life” (John 8:12).  

So go ahead and twinkle. Be someone’s star of hope and salvation, lead people to righteousness, and guide them in the way to Him, just as the star led the magi to Yeshua many years ago. In Daniel’s words, so to speak, doing so is a piece of forever.  

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You are (a part of) the Light of the World

This word came to me on the first day of Hanukkah, though I didn't get that connection until later. I believe the message has meaning in its simplicity. I received more emails and responses from this word than I have from most others. I hope you find it as meaningful as others have. 
 

I have been dividing Light from darkness from the beginning. I have continued to do so and will continue until darkness is no more. Do not fear the darkness, neither be intimidated by it.  Just stay in the Light. I AM the Light of the world. My word is Light and I have put My Light, even Myself, within you.  Do not look to find strength in yourself, or goodness or love or wisdom within yourself apart from Me. I AM your strength, your goodness, your wisdom and your love. Trust in Me to be all you need, even from within you. I AM that close to you.

Every time you make a decision to obey My Word, every time you chose to follow My Spirit, you too are dividing the light from the darkness. And each time you do, you are participating in establishing the Kingdom of God in the earth.  Do not think your life is insignificant. You are a part of the vast redemptive plan of God. Do not think that your daily choices do not make any difference. “He who is not with Me is against Me” and when you choose to walk with Me, you make the world around you brighter and cause the darkness to diminish. If you were to see in the spirit realm you would see the reality of this. 

I tell you, child, (to each one of you), you were born for such a time as this to be a part of the great Light of God being established at this time.  

So know that every choice you make, even what seems small or insignificant to you, when it is of My Light and not the darkness, when it is because you love Me more than what is vying for your attention or affection, you are declaring Yeshua ha or ha olam, Yeshua IS the Light of the world! And in doing so, even your smallest decision carries an eternal weight of glory.