Love all

Romans 12:9-18
Don’t let love be a mere outward show. Recoil from what is evil, and cling to what is good. Love each other devotedly and with brotherly love; and set examples for each other in showing respect. Don’t be lazy when hard work is needed, but serve the Lord with spiritual fervor. Rejoice in your hope, be patient in your troubles, and continue steadfastly in prayer. Share what you have with God’s people, and practice hospitality.
Bless those who persecute you—bless them, don’t curse them! Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep. Be sensitive to each other’s needs—don’t think yourselves better than others, but make humble people your friends. Don’t be conceited. Repay no one evil for evil, but try to do what everyone regards as good. If possible, and to the extent that it depends on you, live in peace with all people.

Sha’ul tells us how we are to live as believers, first and foremost is to be honest about our love for our fellow man and not just faking it. Stand by fellow believers and support them, be respectful of all people. As part of that being respectful bless those people who seek to tear you down in some way, that is a mark of a follower of Yeshua. Don’t give evil for evil because that just makes us like everyone else in the world without God, but do always what is right by the Word that Adonai has given us. Abba help me to be this man. You know I can be quick to anger if offended and even quicker if anyone offends someone I love. Let me be that steady hand that delivers Your Word instead of personal vengeance. I ask this in Yeshua’s name, amen.

One of those days

Romans 11:36

For from him and through him

and to him are all things.

To him be the glory forever!

Amen.

 

I cling to this verse today, because it is one of those days where I don’t know if I am being corrected or goaded into something new.  I just know in this moment I am fully dependent on ADONAI.  Lord hold me close, I ask this in Yeshua’s name, amen.

Make straight through Righteousness

Mishlei (Proverbs) 10: 28, 11:5
What the righteous hope for will end in joy;
what the wicked expect will come to nothing.

The righteousness of the innocent levels their way,
but wickedness of the wicked makes them fall.

It is the trust of the believers that know we are going to heaven; this is the end that we seek. But the wicked only look to their selfishness and immediate reward all of which means nothing when death takes them. So, by placing our trust in ADONAI through accepting the sacrifice of Yeshua our trust, like Avraham’s, becomes our righteousness. It is in that righteousness that we become laser locked on serving ADONAI so our path to our hope becomes that level road that brings us to the presence of ADONAI. When Yochanan the Immerser was preaching in the wilderness, he wasn’t also literally paving a road to Yerushalayim but fulfilling the words given to Yesha’yahu (Isaiah) to remove all the worldly things that keep us from God and open us to accept the sacrifice Yeshua was to make. It is that level way, that narrow straight path that lead us to our eternal joy. Lord keep me from stumbling on the road that leads me to You. I ask this in Yeshua’s name, amen.

Trust

Romans 9:30-32

So, what are we to say? This: that Gentiles, even though they were not striving for righteousness, have obtained righteousness; but it is a righteousness grounded in trusting!  However, Isra’el, even though they kept pursuing a Torah that offers righteousness, did not reach what the Torah offers.  Why? Because they did not pursue righteousness as being grounded in trusting but as if it were grounded in doing legalistic works. They stumbled over the stone that makes people stumble.

 

Trust is the foundation of everything when serving ADONAI.  Lord let my trust in You be true.  I ask this in Yeshua’s name, amen.

Wisdom

Mishlei (Proverbs) 4:7

The beginning of wisdom is: get wisdom!

And along with all your getting, get insight!

 

In one of the classes I teach the curriculum calls out the difference between knowledge and wisdom in this way; “Knowledge is knowing what a tool is, wisdom is knowing how to use it properly.”  Too much focus in our society is been on the acquisition of knowledge and not enough on what to do with it when we gather all that information, how to sort through the chaff to find the real kernels of truth so we can apply it to our lives.  Shlomo teaches that wisdom, learning to apply the knowledge that we come across, is much more important than knowledge without the lens of wisdom to use it.  Just knowing the Word of God has never been enough, Yeshua said even the demons know it and HaSatan even quoted the Word to Yeshua.  But wisdom in how to apply the Word to our lives, that is where the victory is.  Lord let me always look to You for leadership in my life, open my eyes, mind, heart and soul to fill me with the wisdom to serve You more.  I ask this in Yeshua’s name, amen.

The Discipline of God

Mishlei (Proverbs) 1:1-3

​ The proverbs of Shlomo the son of David,

king of Isra’el,

are for learning about wisdom and discipline;

for understanding words expressing deep insight;

for gaining an intelligently disciplined life,

doing what is right, just and fair;

 

For years l had pursued wisdom and knowledge without discipline.  It has been that lack of discipline that made me nothing more than a clanging bell, an empty barrel of full of nothing.  Discipline on what knowledge to use and when, that only happened when I accept Yeshua as my savior and even that has been a slow learning curve but an upward trend every day I spend in the Word and in prayer.  It only took me several years to learn to stay in the Word an in prayer.  Lord You have sheltered me in my folly and led me to still waters to rest in Your loving peace.  Keep me in Your hand, in my days ahead.  I ask this in Yeshua’s name, amen.

Reputation

Divrei-HaYamim Bet (2 Chronicles) 9:1-2

​ When the queen of Sh’va heard what was being said about Shlomo, she came to test him with difficult questions in Yerushalayim, accompanied by a very great retinue, including camels bearing spices and gold in abundance, and precious stones. When she appeared before Shlomo, she spoke with him about everything on her heart; and Shlomo answered all her questions; nothing was hidden from the king that he could not explain to her.

 

Our reputations proceed us and gives others an idea on how we are going to act.  We must decide if we are going to act in our own selfish sinful interest and let that be our witness to the world or if we are going to pursue what is just and righteous in God’s eyes and let the story of those actions bear witness of His love through us.  I have failed more than I have succeeded in this but each day I get up and try to stand a little closer to God and leave my own selfish desires behind.  God forgive me for my failings and remove them from my mind.  Strengthen me to stand like a man of Yissakhar, who understood the times and knew what to do, for without You I continually fall into foolishness.  Let my reputation bring only honor and glory to You.  I ask this in Yeshua’s name, amen.

No greater love

Romans 5:7-10

Now it is a rare event when someone gives up his life even for the sake of somebody righteous, although possibly for a truly good person one might have the courage to die.  But God demonstrates his own love for us in that the Messiah died on our behalf while we were still sinners.  Therefore, since we have now come to be considered righteous by means of his bloody sacrificial death, how much more will we be delivered through him from the anger of God’s judgment!  For if we were reconciled with God through his Son’s death when we were enemies, how much more will we be delivered by his life, now that we are reconciled!

 

Yeshua taught that there is no greater love that a man should give his life for his friends.  Yet Yeshua himself supersedes this lesson by sacrificing Himself while we were yet estranged from Him through sin.  For it was in our sin we were the enemies of ADONAI, yet through this perfect sacrifice Yeshua has seen to it that through our trust and participation in it we can be reconciled back to God.   Lord let me be worthy of this loving sacrifice.  I ask this in Yeshua’s name, amen.

Trust

Romans 4:17-21

This accords with the Tanakh, where it says, “I have appointed you to be a father to many nations.” Avraham is our father in God’s sight because he trusted God as the one who gives life to the dead and calls nonexistent things into existence.  For he was past hope, yet in hope he trusted that he would indeed become a father to many nations, in keeping with what he had been told, “So many will your seed be.”  His trust did not waver when he considered his own body—which was as good as dead, since he was about a hundred years old—or when he considered that Sarah’s womb was dead too.  He did not by lack of trust decide against God’s promises. On the contrary, by trust he was given power as he gave glory to God, for he was fully convinced that what God had promised he could also accomplish.

 

Trust is the foundation for everything done through the power of ADONAI.  The example of Avraham, Sha’ul uses for the believers in Rome proves that anything can be done beyond the comprehension of man through the Ruach of ADONAI.  A man past the point of physically fathering children as well as his wife became the father of nations by trusting in the Word God had given him and never faltering in that trust.  Lord let me have the trust of Avraham, let me cling to You only and never take my eyes from Your will in my life.  I ask this in Yeshua’s name, amen.

Nothing but the Blood

Romans 3:25-26

God put Yeshua forward as the kapparah for sin through his faithfulness in respect to his bloody sacrificial death. This vindicated God’s righteousness; because, in his forbearance, he had passed over [with neither punishment nor remission] the sins people had committed in the past;  and it vindicates his righteousness in the present age by showing that he is righteous himself and is also the one who makes people righteous on the ground of Yeshua’s faithfulness.

 

Just as that dark night so many years ago in Egypt, when we as believers through our trust in ADONAI put the blood that Yeshua’s sacrifice on the doorpost of our hearts, that is when the Ruach HaKodesh, the Holy Spirit of the Lord can pass over the threshold of our being and we become redeemed to Him.  It is the blood of Yeshua that covers our sins and sanctifies us just as it is recorded over and over again in Torah and the prophets that blood consecrates us for service to ADONAI.  Lord I plead the blood of Yeshua over myself, for in my foolishness I only have loss without You.  Lord remove my sin and dwell within me so that I might bear witness to Your salvation.  I ask this in Yeshua’s name, amen.