Reflections on this week’s festival of Chag HaMatzoh…

As I ate my orange and drank my hot tea this morning, I began reflecting on Chag HaMatzoh, and how it has impacted me over this past week.  But first, if you are wondering why I am celebrating what most Christians would consider to be a “Jewish” festival, let me explain.

The fall of 2010, I asked the Lord to show me more of Himself.  I needed more of Him, wanted more, craved more on a deeper level.  So in faith I sat down at my dining room table, opened my Bible and said “Where Lord, should I begin reading”?  He took me to the book of Leviticus!  Wow, I thought, really?!  I found myself fascinated with the Temple, and how it related to anything in the New Testament.  Hmmmm, I know all of scripture is profitable…so I kept reading.  I began to ask myself questions about why an individual must exit by the opposite door from which he entered.  Wondered why there were three chambers in the Temple, also read about the stream that will one day flow from the Temple of God….all of this!  What I learned with further study in the following days is that the Temple is a picture of our relationship with Yeshua (Jesus)!  The first door, as you enter the Temple, is called “The Way”…..you know what’s coming next don’t you…..the second door is “The Truth”, and the door to the Holy of Holies is…yep you guessed it,….”The Life”!  Outstanding!!  I found Yeshua in the Old Testament!  Why, over all the years since I have been attending church, has this never been taught to me, I wondered?  The answer is because we live in a modern western, non-Israeli culture.  We have no physical ties to the Jewish people, only spiritual.  If we are serving a living Savior who was placed into the Jewish culture, the scriptures are Jewish books, and the commands God gave to Israel were for not only them, but for all those “who attach themselves to Israel”, whether foreigner or slave, should observe the same laws as Israel, then why aren’t we seeking teaching from saved Jewish teachers?!  Their history books ARE the Bible, and they WROTE it!  Makes sense… doesn’t it?

I later came to understand parables that made no sense from our western mindset (and no Christian commentator I have ever read had a clue to their meaning).  I understand some of them now because they are Rabbinic teachings, idioms Jesus used with His disciples and followers!  Think about this….the New Testament didn’t exist when Jesus was on the Earth.  He taught from the Torah!  Why then do we Christians spend most of our time in the New Testament?  Yeshua IS Torah made alive….in other words, He fulfilled Torah (didn’t do away with it, as He said Himself!).  Jesus showed us how to live Torah – He summed it up for us.  Have you ever received a summary of a document, and wanted to read the original that the summary was written from?  Many Christians say that because Jesus didn’t teach on the laws of the Torah, then we don’t need to follow them.  But He only taught from Torah, so how could He have not taught the laws?  They also say the Ten Commandments are all we need – well, that is the summary document of the laws of Torah.  Don’t you want to read the original document the summary was written from?  I do!  Because I have found Yeshua in the Torah, I want to spend as much time as I can and learn more, deeper truths about Him, and I have and I continue to do so.    Now, on to Chag HaMotzah.

Swallowing my last bit of orange, I realized I felt better this week than usual.  I surmised that perhaps I don’t need to eat leavened bread…perhaps the yeast makes me feel icky.  I connected the leaven to sin, and how sin in our life really messes us up!  We will feel better (spiritually) when we stay away from it.  🙂  It only takes a little leaven (sin) to do so.  So this week of self denial of regular bread was a good thing.  God gave this festival as a reflection on the death of His son, how He removed sin from us once and for all, if we have repented of our sin (leaven) and asked Him to save us.  Celebrating this festival brings me closer to Jesus in a tangible way – not just in my spirit, but in my flesh, my body.  Everything we do should be an act of worship, and celebrating not only this festival, but all of them in the Bible, brings us closer to God in a very real way.

I learned that I have more discipline that I thought, and that I have been making excuses for myself in other areas of my life that need to stop.  The festival of Chag HaMotzah runs for 7 days after Passover – so we eat only unleavened bread that week.  All the leavened bread, yeasts, any type of leavens, are removed from the home.  It’s kind of challenging to put together some meals, but it brings God into even the process of fixing a meal, going grocery shopping, etc.  As we reflect on what I eat this week, it brings to mind the laws regarding food in the Old Testament.

Do you believe, really believe that God loves you, and wants the best for you?  Why do so many Christians think that these laws are so burdensome?  God loves you and wants you to be healthy and happy.  He restricts some foods because of this, I would guess.  You know what, when I stopped eating high cholesterol seafood (bottom dwellers like crab, lobster, things without scales), my cholesterol went down.  I also have stopped eating pork.  In the Jewish culture, Beef is considered a very rich, luxurious meat.  A rabbi I know says he thinks that the marriage supper of the Lamb will include big old Rib eyes!  So, while I do eat beef, I imagine what the beef must be like from cows with no curse on them!  lol  YUM!  Okay, I’ll stop rambling now.  God has reasons for the laws, and they were not all punitive.

I would challenge you to reflect on the goodness of God, and how the commandments relate to a Christian…someone who is SAVED.  Jesus said “If you love me, keep my commandments”.  I don’t think it only means in the spiritual sense, or only as it regards charity, but those things are excellent.  God wants us to literally “eat Him”!  Not only ingest His words, but physically connect to Him through food as an act of worship…after all, our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit.

The Passover seder (seder means “order”) taught me as well, that there were four cups of wine served at the table when Jesus sat down at Passover with His disciples.  The cup mentioned in the NT scriptures was the 3rd cup in the seder…the cup of redemption.  I am not comfortable divorcing this one cup from the other three in a once a month communion, because God has a reason for putting as a third cup – I may not know what that is right now, but I want to honor Him by taking this cup at Passover, and not every month or whenever “communion” is served.  When Jesus said “As often as you eat this bread and drink this cup,..” doesn’t mean, according to the Rabbi, any time you decide to take it.  It means as often as you celebrate Passover…    BUT, I don’t judge those who do otherwise.  I was once in that spot.  🙂

I pray that this little blog hasn’t put you out (irritated or angered) you.  It wasn’t meant to.  I write this in the spirit of love and to share what I have learned with you.  I am on a journey, but the journey is meant to be shared.  Will you stay with me?  God bless.

 

 

Genesis 31-33 and Luke 13

Jaob’s life has been fraught with difficulties ever since he first cheated Esau out of his birthright by deception. Jacob then experienced deception at the hand of his Uncle Lavan, in having to work 14 years for Rachel, and then stayed up nights worrying about what Esau would do to him when they would again meet. His wives would be jealous of each other, always vying for Jacob’s attention and the number of children they would bear for him. Until one night Jacob wrestles with God – perhaps Yeshua, since in the first part of that story it indicates he wrestled with a man, and later that Jacob saw Elohim, who blessed him when Jacob asked him for a blessing, before letting him go. That is when Jacob’s name changed to Israel, and I believe his life changed as well, for the better. In Jewish culture, when boys (and girls) become men and women, they get a new name. When we finally get to our new heavenly home, we get a new name, because we have crossed over from death into life – which is what “Hebrew” means…”crossed over”. Jacob had a new beginning that night, but would carry the scars of his deceptive past into the future as lessons learned.

Just because we become new creatures in Yeshua, doesn’t mean we have no scars from our past. We will carry them always, until one day God wipes away all tears, and perhaps those memories as well. We have all wrestled with God, and then decide to finally let Him have His way in our lives. I have found this to be so true, and then peace settles into my heart, and obedience becomes so very sweet, and the yoke so easy.

Genesis 23, 24 and Luke 9

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S:  Luke 9:12-13    This is the story of the loaves and fishes.  Luke 9: 37-42  The story of a man’s son possessed of a demon.

O:  Later on in this chapter, Jesus also comments about His frustration in the disciples not being able to cast out the demons in a person they encountered.  In both incidents, Yeshua seems to be asking the disciples to perform these tasks to increase their faith, but in both cases, they make excuses and say they aren’t able.  So he takes care of the tasks Himself.

A:  Yeshua wants us to follow through on those things He gives us to do.  Obviously, the Father gets frustrated with us when we aren’t obedient, but He didn’t rebuke them.  He took care of it.  I think back to things I have asked my children to do, and when the tasks weren’t done, I was frustrated, sometimes to the point of just doing it myself.  However, how much better it would have been if they had done them themselves, to learn and grow from those experiences.  God wants me to grow, and so I need to be careful to do all that he says to do.

P:  Father, please enable me to have enough faith to carry out those responsibilities you give me, and to be thankful for them, doing them with joy.

Genesis 20 – 22 and Luke 8

S:  This passage about Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac on Mount Moriah shows us the parallel of this sacrifice with that of Yeshua Meshiach.  Isaac was Abrahams only begotten son, as was Yeshua God’s only son.  Both were being sacrificed by their father.  Both knew that if/when their son died, he would again be ressurrected.  Both occurred on Mount Moriah.  In Jewish teaching, the ram that God provided to Abraham had two horns, the right one larger than the one on the left.  The smaller horn was used at Mount Sinai and was blown when the laws were given.  The larger horn will be blown when Messiah comes in the future.

O:  In both cases of sacrifice, love reigned supreme – Abraham’s love for God was so great, he would sacrifice his only son.  And God’s love is so great, yes the love of Yeshua was so great, that He sacrificed Himself in our place so we could be resurrected, have eternal life to live with Him in eternity.  Jesus once said that the Torah (Scriptures) can be summed up in these words:  “Love your neighbor as yourself” and “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and strength”.   This is also why God was disgusted with the sacrifices in the Older Testament, because their heart (love) was not in it.  God desires us to worship Him with our hearts.  Therefore, when you truly Love Him, you will want to obey all He has given us in His Torah (Word, scriptures), including the laws (although sacrifices can’t be performed without the Temple). By “obeying the laws”, I mean seeking to apply what God gave in the Old and New Testaments as the Holy Spirit leads us, in faith and love for Jesus Christ.)   It is legalism when it is done out of a mindset of “I HAVE to do this! (for salvation”) which is works based, and those who do not know God tend to do this.  But the believer obeys Torah out faith in God and love for Him.  God wants our hearts!!  “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to Him for righteousness”.  This is why God blessed him and his seed.

A:  God wants our obedience (Abraham obeyed God in putting Isaac on the altar).  He wants our hearts, and when He has that, we willingly obey Him.  Our lack of faith holds us back from obedience, and lack of faith leaves room for sin.

P:  Thank you Lord that you have drawn me to yourself, loved me so much that you gave your very LIFE in my place!!  I am overwhelmed with gratitude to you.  I praise you for your great mercy and love towards me.  Help me to be obedient to you in all things.  Amein.

First S.O.A.P Blog for 2012

Okay, here goes – this is in the “out there zone” for me, more so than Facebook, so I’m not very used to going so public but…well here I am.  🙂

I use the Torahportions.org readings to stay in sync with my studies at synagogue, and thought others might be able to get some gleanings as I go along throughout the year.  FYI, the New Year started for me back in late October (on God’s calendar:  Tishrei 5772 ( or Oct 22 2011), but I will try to coincide with the Roman Calendar as well.

This week’s reading is Vayigash, or for 31 Dec 2011, and the readings are as follows:  Gen 44:18 – 47:27;   Ezekiel (from the Haftarah) 37:15-28, and from the Gospel (B’rit Chadashah): John 5:1-47.  All readings are from the Complete Jewish Bible, translation by David H. Stern.

Let’s Dig In:  I plan to blog throughout the week on the scriptures in this weeks passages, so there will be more than one SOAP for the week.  🙂

S:     GENESIS 44:18-47:27

Here is the accounting of Joseph as governor in the land of Egypt.  He made himself known to his brothers, and had his father and family brought to Egypt to survive in the midst of the seven year famine.  Also, all of Egypt became enslaved to Pharoah because of the famine – everyone had to sell their belongings, even their land and themselves to get grain from Joseph.  Once enslaved, Pharaoh gave the people seed to plant so they could live.  Everyone then gave Pharaoh 20 percent of their crop as payment to live there.  Joseph’s family became productive and they multiplied in the land.

O:   In the midst of all his trouble, Joseph knew God meant it for good, so that he and his family would survive the seven years of famine.  Because Joseph served Pharaoh faithfully, Pharaoh was good to Josephs family, and Pharaoh was blessed by Jacob (Those who bless Israel will be blessed).   God brought Israel to Egypt for good and to save them, and would again save them from slavery when Moses would be revealed.  Again, a Hebrew would live in Pharaoh’s house.  And again, God would deliver Israel out of Egypt.  A pattern was set in motion when Joseph was sold into slavery.

A:   By keeping our eyes on Yeshua instead of our circumstances, we will come through the most difficult of circumstances, even when we don’t understand all the why’s of what is happening to us.  God means our circumstances to produce character in us when we see nothing but difficulty and pain.  Yet He doesn’t leave us or forsake us because He loves us.  He will always be our deliverer.

P:   Adonai, there are surely difficult days ahead as this world waits for you to come again.  Help me to ever look to You for strength, courage and wisdom to stay the course.  I thank you for those circumstances before they happen, because I know they are for my building up, so that I can know you more intimately.  May I bless those who are over me, even when they appear to be my enemy, and may you bless them, and draw them to yourself.  Amein