The Meditations of a Little Disciple

Discipleship - the Answer

2012-02-02T13:52:00.003+08:00

The foulest, most loathsome gospel, is that which denies theliving-ness of the Messiah. It denies and mutilates the grace of God. It is aperversion and an Antichristian doctrine that is not based on the Word of Godbut the carnal desires of men.

Cheap grace – the denial of the living work of God, thatsalvation and faith cannot be lived out, that trust in God merely alip-service.

Perhaps for so long a church-goer has been embittered by thelack of God’s transformative power in the preaching, so much so that thepreaching of righteousness becomes a heavy burden and devoid of liberty, grace,and truth. When we lose the grace of God in our preaching, and yet preachrighteousness, it is the letter and the letter kills. People are turned awayfrom the truth because of legalism, the clinging to outwards forms to disguiseinner emptiness. We fail to drink from the fountain of living waters and inconsequence can only preach legalism: the law of sin and death.

We can cling to church buildings, styles of worship, modesof preaching, gospel presentations, and such, not evil, but empty - devoid ofgrace, devoid of truth, devoid of God, just a religion and a form.

Man’s solution to the preaching of works without the faithto produce it is to cut off works. There is no power, so why should people liverighteous lives? Therefore, we should just live like the world. After all,anything more than complacency and any attempt to live unlike the world is onlyfruitless striving. Somewhere, deep inside, we are made righteous we God. Wedon’t need to do anything. To do anythingis wrong- striving you see, fruitlesspursuit of righteousness which we can never attain to and should not attain to.That is cheap grace and lawlessness – the law of sin and death.

Do you know what costly, true, grace? It is the grace of Godfrom the Messiah and in the Messiah poured out to the sinner. It fills him withforgiveness and repentance. God is revealed to the sinner, and God will never lethim go. God has given the sinner undeserved riches – and filled him with the powerof the Holy Spirit, the power to change. God washes him clean, and brings himinto eternal life. The sinner is now righteous, and the Spirit of God in himtransforms him into the image of God. This grace that was bestowed upon him nowprevails upon him to leave all that he has, take up His cross, and follow theMessiah. Grace is God loves us, and God giving us the love in which we areconsumed by Him and enabled to love the lost.

Sometimes we just need to get down on our knees before Godand cry out Him, asking Him to restore to us the true gospel, not in wordonly but in power. We badly needto the true, powerful, costly, precious grace of God. We need to be empoweredto preach the true gospel of the Messiah, that says, “Repent, for the Kingdomof Heaven is at hand” and “Take up your cross and follow me”.

That’s right. The gospel we preach is the cross. If there isno cross, there is no forgiveness, no redemption, no atonement, noresurrection. There must be the sufferingbefore there is the glory. Thosewho come to the Messiah’s cross will, withHim and through Him, experience the power of His resurrection.

Discipleship needs to be restored – not the commandments ofmen but yoke of the Messiah. Yeshua calls to all those who are wearied andburdened, come and take His yoke, for it is easy and light. He calls all whothirst to drink of the living waters of life, and He will make living waters toflow out from you. He calls those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, forthey shall be filled. He calls the blind, the death, the oppressed, theoverburdened. He calls them to take up their cross and follow Him. In Him islife everlasting. In Him is peace. In Him are joy, and eternal rewards.

What is the normal Christian life? To live the life ofChrist. To be His disciple, following Him, and longing to be like Him, fixingour eyes on Him, hearing His voice, obeying Him in perfect trust.

What is legalism then? It is non-existent. You will followHim because you trust him. You will obey Him because you love Him. He is your everything.Your life is bound in Him.

Keeping the Law

2012-02-02T12:28:00.001+08:00

God desires obedience andnot sacrifice. That does not mean that obedience does not require sacrifice. Itmeans that one does not approach obedience through sacrifice, but sacrificethrough a heart of obedience. That is the same for all the commandments, notjust sacrifice. God wants sacrifice borneout of obedience, not sacrifice as opposed to obedience.

Do you know what keeping the law is? Do you know what livinga godly life is? Keeping the law is a living a life of perfect and completeobedience to the explicit and eternal will of YHWH for you.

God’s Law is Himself. He is the Law, the Instruction, theBanner of Righteousness. He is perfect, righteous, unchanging. His Law cannever change any more than He can change, and why should He change, He beingperfect? He is perfect and true.

Two times in history God translated and revealed this law inthe flesh, physically. God translated this Law from Himself firstly onto thetablet of stone. That was the Law of Moses. God brought down His law, from theheavenly places, from the Spiritual realm, into the realm of the physical. Thelaw, and God, His righteousness, revealed to the children of Israel in thatlaw, was manifested.

The law was given on tablets of stone. This was themanifestation of God in His instructions to Abraham, Moses, and all thechildren of Israel. Again it was clear. It was not so much that theCommandments came between the Children of Israel and God but the principle and heart of the matter was perfect,unquestioning, obedience to the explicitly stated instructions of God.

God told Abraham, “Go”. So Abraham believed God and went.God told Abraham, “Sacrifice”. So Abraham sacrificed. Abraham kept the law. Hewas obedient to the instructions of God. Did God tell Isaac to leave Abraham?No. Did God tell Moses to sacrifice his son? No. What matters is not the actionbut the heart of the matter is, doing whatever God tells you to do, when Hetells you to do it, and exactly as He instructs. God told the children ofIsrael to go west. So they went west. He told them not to touch Sinai. Theydidn’t touch Sinai.

The commands are eternal? Yes they are. God’s Will iseternal. His plans and purposes are eternal. It only takes common sense to tellyou that though in one case God told Moses to hit the rock, and another tospeak to it, that God is not going to tell you in one case to commit adulteryand another case not to do it.

There are so many instructionsin the Law of Moses. Some are manifestations of the eternal righteousness of God,some are not. How do we know? The Law was perfect in itself. It was perfect inits time and place.

That Law was inadequate. It left men as they were – in sin,in death, and in bondage. That Law could not change the hearts of men. It couldonly reveal what was right and wrong. There was no grace, no power, and noempowerment, to do what was right. Itcould not change the heart of man it could only expose its evil. The Work ofthe Law of Moses was not a final, authoritative, work that enabled God to proclaim,“It is done”. It was the shadow the greater that was to come. If the Law of Moses was the end of all things and the salvation of men, Yeshua need not have come.

In the Prophets we see that God is calling for the change ofheart. The Prophets prophesied of that which is to come, that the hearts of menwill be filled with the Spirit of God that will be a law to them, imbibed inthem. The instructions of God need not come from a tablet of stone or through aman , but can be written in you, and spoken to y o u, and within you a power, aforce, that causes you to walk in the right way, in perfection.

However, thefullness and total righteousness of God has been revealed to us in its absoluteperfection. Instead of God’s Word being transmitted down to stone, God Himselfbecame flesh. This living, breathing,law could impart to man what the law of stone could not – salvation,righteousness, redemption, liberty, transformation, grace. The Law of Moses wasa shadow of the greater Law that was to come. The Law was hadavar (the Word) writtendown. Messiah was to be the Word ofGod in flesh! Embodied! The scrolls pointed to the living work, that whichwas greater, that which was not just perfect and complete, it was glorious, farmore glorious with the glory that would not fade away!

The Law of God I praise. It is the Perfect Law of Liberty,the Law of Faith, the Law of the Spirit of Life in the Messiah Yeshua, the Lawthat sets men free. Why does it set men free? Because it is perfect! It isdone, completed, and fulfilled, and onlyneeds to be lived out. It is perfect because it has the power to change you and make you a new man. Youwill be birth again. You can drink from the fountain of living waters and neverthirst again. You can enter, any time, into the presence of God because it isdone. The High Priest was, and is, and is to come. The High Priest has and everlives to make intercession for you. It is God, in You, filling you with theSpirit that He prophesied will fall upon allflesh.

Can we keep the law? Absolutely. It is greater than keeping outwardly. It is living out thatwhich already is perfect and complete within us.

Now we have the guiding principles of the law. Firstly,love. Absolute lack of selfishness, self-justification, self-seeking, but anundivided and required affection for God with ones entire being, now madepossible for us. And because we finally can enterinto God’s love because of the love He has shown us, we are set free fromevery bondage we have to the narrow-mindedness of only thinking of one’s self.Now we are free, free in this Love of God to demonstrate this very love givento us to the entire world, to our enemies (previously not possible), as well asour brothers and our neighbors. The nature of the Torah is love. Affection for all except oneself. Let love be the guiding principle of yourlife.

Secondly is faith, trust. Anything done out of distrust anddoubt is gross sin. Whatever you do, say, or think, it must be found comingfrom a heart of total trust in the unfailing God. God showed Himself sostrongly on behalf of the children of Israel, yet they did not trust Him enoughto follow His command and enter Canaan. We must trust God completely. We musttrust nothing else. He alone is trustworthy. He alone is the One who is Trueand Everlasting. Jude warns us that God, having saved the people out of theland of Egypt, afterwards destroyed thosewho did not trust in Him.

We must also walk in accordance to the ways and thoughts ofGod, which are beyond us. We must not walk according to our bodily cravings,carnal intuitions, living out of our narrow perspective of life. We must walkin that which is abundant, eternal, that which is of the Spirit of God Himself. Weare not supposed to walk according to the letter, that is, the physicalexpressions of the Law of God, but the Spirit, of God Himself, from which isthe Law if birthed. If we guide our life according to physical expressions ofthe Law, we shall die, because we do not have that law written in our heartsthat is why we must focus on the outward. We walk not according to what is seenbut that which is not seen, thatwhich is eternal and unchanging.

That is why God didn’t give us a form or structure toworship Him and to serve Him. We are the form, our bodies are the Temple of the Holy Spirit,we are the living “church”, the body of those set-apart, because the Spirit ofGod dwells in us and we are sacred to God.

The Law of Moses instructed them how to build a Temple. TheMessiah (Law of God Made Flesh) is far more powerful, it transforms us into the Temple.

What does this mean? We have ultimate liberty and freedom ina way that was never known before. Ourfaith is not about the outward, it’sabout the inward transforming the outward. You are given the catalystand do not need to work to make your ways right. You simply trust in Godand He will make Your ways more righteous than you can ever make it.

Look, grace is not about lawlessness, faith is not aboutprofessionalone. Our faith is not about talk, or simply about walk. It’s allabout walking, living out the eternal life.

Scripture References About the New Covenant Written In Song

Not in but out…

2011-12-19T19:13:00.001+08:00

It’sinteresting the influence New Age has had on modern society. Why, look at howvegetarianism has spread! I have to say, nothing in Scripture supportsvegetarianism as it is today. Vegetarianism belongs to a Hindu/Buddhist/New Ageworldview and not to a Biblical worldview.

Look at Hitler.He was a vegetarian, but of course vegetarians try to deny that. I think heprobably was, and, in fact, was very, very kind and humane to animals. The NaziGovernment was exemplary in its treatment of animals.

CompareHitler with Yeshua/Jesus. Jesus ate fish, cooked fish too. Jesus ate the Passoverlamb, and also drank wine.

Vegetarianismadvocates being “pure” and “clean” in diet. Meat = immoral, cruel, killing animals.

Because ofthe fall, our bodies simply needmeat. God gave us meat to eat. And He commanded the children of Israel to eatthe Pesach lamb, among the many bloody and gory sacrifices to be performed.

Lets look atthe Nazi example again. Look at how they treated humans by dehumanizing them.They were atrocious. Then let’s take a look at modern society. Wow… look howcool and popular being vegan is. Look at how abortion is so widespread. Peopledon’t even flinch at it. In fact, they rally and fight and scream theirapproval of it, and react violently when it is revealed for what it is, murder.They refuse to see the truth. Look at how fetuses are used in making medicines!Atrocious!

The Nazismade babies into lampshades. Modern society makes aborted babies into medicine…Modern society fights and crusades for animal rights, yet treat unborn babiesas trash. Somewhere, somehow, our priorities have all gone wrong, totally wrong.

Romans 14 says that the weak eat only vegetables.

The nutrient–rich, dairy-rich, meat-rich, whole-grain rich, beautiful diet of AncientIsraelites was fantastic, and I believe, the way to go. Natural, raw milk issoooo good. When God created the heavens and the earth, He said it was good. Idon’t dare say otherwise… I don’t think it’s right to replace God-given vitaminswith man-made tablets.

Concerninghealing, I believe in the costliness of Yeshua’s healing power. It cost Him toheal us. It cost Him pain. What cost God cannot be cheap for me. I cannot takehealing like “cheap grace”. “ I believe I must sow not to the flesh, to liveirresponsibly, but by the Spirit, to live by the wisdom of God, with the wholebig perspective of eternity. No matter what I do and what I eat, I cannot healmyself. No matter what I do and what I try, I cannot deliver myself from sin.Yeshua alone is my salvation, wisdom, righteousness, healing. But He calls usto the set-apart life of discipleship. My body is the Temple of the HolySpirit. I should eat wisely, and responsibly.

Men like tobelieve that sickness is just a thing. Yet Scripture teaches us thatbitterness, unforgiveness, disobedience, and sin cause sicknesses. Look at howstress causes sickness! Yeshua told us not to worry about our life. But ofpeople would get angry at if you evensuggest that. The devil wants to deceive people and hold in them in bondage tosin *shrug*. What’s new?

The devil’ssystem, the world’s system, destroys our bodies, because the Adversary hatesus. He hates us and wants only to steal, kill, and destroy. He feeds ourtemporary pleasures but is so cynical. Like Hitler was so cynical. He seemed tobe pro-Germany, pro-church, a good man who wanted to better the nation afterits Versailles humiliation. The temporal victory of Germany was nothing. He cameto steal, kill, and destroy Germany. He reduced it to ruins and poverty anddestruction. That’s the same way the devil works, seemingly for us, but deeplycynical and evil, nothing good at all, having only evil and destructionintended for us. Do not be deceived!

The Adversary’s system is described Mark 5. The painfully illwoman was abused by physicians. They extorted her money, and left her just assick as before. That’s man’s way. The world’s way takes your money, your joy,your life, your hope, etc. The thief comes to steal, to kill, and to destroy.The medical system with its roots in demonic serpent-worship and exaltation of mammoncannot heal us. It will take our money, make us suffer, and leave us worse thanbefore.

Yeshua is our merciful salvation, our healer, our deliverance.He alone can set us free from all curses.

Back to vegetarianism. It’s not of God. Hitler was a vegetarian,Jesus was not. However, remember most importantly that what a person eats isnot the most important thing. Jesus said that what comes out of a man what defiles him. So, after, judging a manby his diet is not the fairest comparison. Look at the words, what came out of Hitler’s mouth! The hate, the evil, theblasphemy, the lies, the propaganda, the pure demonic stream of rubbish!

Look what Jesus is: life, truth, freedom. He came to set usfree. He came to deliver us. Instead for being a man for himself, He was a manfor others. Hitler only cared about his own idealogy, his own plans, and usedthe German people to that end. He was a totally self-orientated,self-autonomous man, who took his own . Jesus laid down His life. The cross wasa supreme act of love and mercy.

Hitler was a prototype of theAntiChrist/Anti-Messiah/Pseudo-Messiah. Men in the flesh looked to him to solvetheir problems.

Look only to Yeshua, who said,

Blessed are thepeacemakers, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Shalom!

Discipleship

2011-12-18T16:16:00.000+08:00

I could not have imagined, 2 years ago when I started this blog, that discipleship would become such an increasingly important and central issue in my life.

Discipleship first meant to me learning. Learning, studying, discussing, cross-referencing, searching out the original Greek and Hebrew, writing, memorizing, etc.

My favorite book that I absolutely love next to the Bible, is the Cost of Discipleship. 4 years or so ago, I picked up the Cost of Discipleship and immediately the words hit me, and I thought, "it's so beautiful'. It was poetic, it was clear, I could understand it immediately, though at that time I knew nothing experiential about discipleship. The first chapter, with its exposition on cheap grace was so vivid, so illustrative. I never knew words could be put together in such a way.

So when I started this blog I picked up a quote, "When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die."

Inseparable is Discipleship and Obedience, obedience unto death. Discipleship means obedience, obedience that costs, and I have come to learn that the only kind of obedience God calls us to is the kind that costs. Discipleship is antithetical to enjoyment and convenience.

Art Katz's writings showed me clearly that the convenient, easy, natural kind of Christian faith is nothing but dead religion. Discipleship, consisting of trust and obedience, was the kind of thing Abraham had with God.

Leave all. Follow me.

Wow. God hasn't changed at all.

Intrinsic to our walk with God as disciples must be humility. Constant humility. There's not a day we don't sin. There's not a day we put ourselves first. There's not a day where there's something I should not have said or done. Ugh... this life is hopeless. Nevertheless, my life must be hidden with Christ in God. My perfection is not something deep within that I have to search out. It's something that is found in Christ, in the Spirit, where all things of the flesh cease, where there is no condemnation.

Like i always say, "In the Spirit I am perfect. In the soul I am being perfected. In the body I will be perfected, and all by Christ and the cross". In the Spirit I am dead to all flesh. In the Soul I am dying, daily. In the body, well, physical death will come.

Ever present before me in my walk with God is the desire for that, for apostolicity. What a word. To bear on my life that apostolic bearing. That's what I must want. Through Him alone I can receive grace and apostleship to the obedience of faith to all nations. In other words, Christ has empowered me with the holy Spirit and put His sending upon me to make disciples of all nations.

That longing for authenticity, for perfection, for the cross. I want that apostolic faith, that faith which alone can save, that faithfulness unto death. I want to be a vessel of His making, from His pattern, according to God's will and not according to my own.

before doing something, before succumbing to that fleshly itch to do, I must always ask myself, is that apostolic? Is that purely of God? Is that something that sprang from my poetic, vissionary, idealistic, carnal, and sinful, soul, ie. mind will and emotions. Did this birth out of the Spirit or spring into my mind? Is this going to be something that counts for eternity.

I often fall into loving and living for the "well and good ". But it's a totally different thing to be running, living, looking for, and that is which of God, of eternity, of truth, of Christ 100% and of me 0%.

Discipleship means simple-minded obedience. Where's the rationalization, the comtemplation, the mental preparation..? Just obey? The Spirit of God moves within you and gives that bitter, horrid cup. The Spirit, power of God, drives to you obey. Fear of God overcomes you. It's the last thing you want to do, but you must. And it's now or never - not tomorrow, not anytime, not never. It's now. My mind conjures of pictures of hell fire and screamings of the disobedient. Shivering in fear, I obey, but only because I must and not because I want to.

Obedience is the opposite of self-autonomy. I want to be in control of my life. I want to make my own decisions. I want to think for myself. I will decide whether I will do it, when I will do it, and how I will do it. You can only give suggestions.
That's the individualistic, self-autonomic mindset. That's the opposite of unity, of love.

I told God many times: "No. Never. That's no and that's it." Thank God He didn't listen to me, that God He is stronger than me and makes me do His will, because He is merciful and kind and good and loving and won't let me remain as I am, because if I remain as I am, I will suffer His wrath. "Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts."

That's all for now.

Shalom, Beka.

Formalism by George Muller

2011-12-02T17:53:00.000+08:00

(Taken from George Muller of Bristol - the Free Ebook here)

I have often remarked the injurious effects of doing things because others did them, or because it was the custom, or because they were persuaded into acts of outward self-denial, or giving up things whilst the heart did not go alone with it, and whilst the outward act WAS NOT the result of the inward powerful working of the Holy Ghost, and the happy entering into our fellowship with the Father and the Son.
Everything that is a mere form, a mere habit and custom in divine things, is to be dreaded exceedingly: life, power, reality, this is what we have to aim after. Things should not result from without, but from within. The sort of clothes I wear, the kind of house I live in, the quality of the furniture I use, all such like things should not result from other persons doing so and so, or because it is customary among those brethren with whom I associate to live in such and such a simple, inexpensive, self denying way; but whatever be done in these things, in the way of giving up, or self-denial, or deadness to the world, should result from the joy we have in God, from the knowledge of our being the children of God, from the entering into the preciousness of our future inheritance, etc. Far better that for the time being we stand still, and do not take the steps which we see others take, that that it is merely the force of example that leads us to do a thing, and afterward it is regretted. Not that I mean in the least by this to imply we should continue to live in luxury, self-indulgence, and the like, whilst others are in great need; but we should begin the thing in a right way, i.e., aim after the right state of the heart; begin inwardly rather than outwardly. If otherwise, if will not last. We shall look back, or even get into a worse state than we were before. But oh, how different if joy in God leads us to any little act of self-denial! How gladly do we do it then! How much does the heart then long to be able to do more for Him who has done so much for us! We are far then from looking down in proud self-complacency upon those who do not go as far as we do, but rather pray to the Lord that He would be please to help our dear brethren and sisters forward who may seem to us weak in any particular point; and we also are conscious to ourselves that if we have a little more light or strength with reference to one point, other brethren may have more light or grace in other respects.

Free Apostolic Wallpaper

2011-10-08T18:03:00.000+08:00

This is what art I make when I listen to Art Katz.

"A Call to Apostolicity"

The Zealousness of a People Set Apart

2011-10-08T17:02:00.003+08:00

The Quakers sought to distance themselves from all forms of flattery and frivolity, which came in the manner of gambling, playing games of chance, instruments, singing, and dancing, theatre, drama, hunting, reading of sensual, thrilling, immoral, or romantic novels of any sort, wearing immodest or colorful worldly fashions, expensive or decorative furniture, addressing people in flattering titles, and non-productive conversation such as gossiping. The Quakers were a sober, peaceful, and stolid sort of people, far from being extravagant. They spoke little and valued silence. They worshipped without ceremony or program, often spending long hours of silence waiting on the Lord. I have much to learn from them!

It is better to be silent than to speak foolishly. Waiting on the Lord in silence requires a still and reverent spirit. Reverence for God was another characteristic of the Quakers. People found Quakers mystical as a body of believers, and they firmly believed in sanctification through belief and action.

The Moravian Brethren were a community. They lived, worked, and centered their lives for the brethren and had a strong emphasis of meditating on God’s Word daily, as well as strong center of prayer, prayer that lasted a hundred years! They were pietists, emphasizing on the importance of a vigorous relationship with God and piety. A very devout and persecuted group, yet also very mission minded. They were the first to send missionaries, men and women who gave up everything and risked their lives to bring the gospel. They were also very orderly, and had watchman night and day who would pray and guard the community. A strong emphasis on Biblical living, community, and devotion was characteristic of the Moravians. The fruit of their ministry touched the entire world, including the Methodists. They were fond of quietness and rest too; aye.

The early Methodists are another group I admire. They resembled the Quakers in dress, except they were a very frugal, studious and methodical group. Unlike “unprogrammed worship”, the nature of the Methodists was of orderliness, consistency, and diligence. They had such a burden for souls, and suffered much to bring the gospel throughout the Americans. Circuit riders endured untold hardships and loneliness, abandonment and scorn, yet persevered to the very end, many laying down their lives for the lost. This sort of weary lifestyle caused many to die young. They had such an abhorrence of sin of any kind, and as a fellowship they would try and question one another so as to root out all sin. They took sanctification very seriously, and had an awesome fear of God. Anything frivolous or prideful was immediately condemned. Methodists firmly emphasized the actions of living faith and were very scrutinous regarding the fruits of salvation. What indeed drove them on was feverous love for God and fear of Him.

I know such a body of believers today and I see in them such graciousness of manner and fervent love for God. They have such an anointing of the Spirit and longing for nothing else but the presence of God. Many have given up their youth, family, success, and education all for one end: to serve Yeshua. And the fruit of their lives can be seen in the way they know the Word of God and in the way they love one another. Surely by this all men shall know that these are Yeshua’s disciples. They do not care what the world thinks, but simply what God wills. They shun the world unconsciously and are a living protest against the complacency and compromise of the Church. They live each day seeking the Spirit of God, His mind and His heart. Such joy, such peace that is among such a fellowship so in love with God that they do not care the least when the world scorns and mocks them; they seek Him to the uttermost, in much humility and fear of the Lord. In sorrow and sacrifice the love of God has proved victorious.

What drives us to live set-apart lives is the fear of God and great zeal for Him. In the reality of the Spirit there really is nothing hypocritical, superficial, or pseudo spiritual. We ought to love Him with all we are, that naturally leads us to live holy lives in ways that are pleasing to Him. We ought to want His kingdom so much as to loose from ourselves all fleshy and carnal burdens, pleasures of this life which are sinful. We ought to seek the image and character of the Messiah so much in His life, and study His Word, meditating on it day and night, praying without ceasing, concerning ourselves with nothing less than the knowledge of Yeshua the Messiah and Him crucified.

We can know the method and go through the motions without the grace and apostleship of our Lord, but it will result in fruitlessness and waste. It is empty religion that puts upon men burdens that are a pious luxury for a few but a foolish tempting of God for the disciple who has to go one living from day to day. Only the call and cross of our Master Yeshua the Messiah is necessary; no other burden need we place, for we have nothing to fear – if any man runs after Christ, all these other burdens He will cast away from them for the saving of their soul. Only one commandment and requirement is necessary and that is the commandment that is the very being of Yeshua Himself upon the cross – He is our righteousness, our redemption, and His act stands as a requirement to those who here give up their lives that they might eternally live.

How ought we to live as a people waiting for the return of our Lord?

“We can do nothing else but watch and wait,

Which means enthusiastically,
Totally taken up,

Deaf towards anyone who would make us confused with doubts,

Blind towards anything that comes between us and that future of God.

Only one thing is of importance to us.

We want to receive God

We want to know God

We want to hear God

We want to see God

We want to serve God.

We want inconceivably nothing else,

In any case, nothing like we want God!”

Why I’m Not Just a Natural Girl

2011-09-27T20:37:00.002+08:00

I’m thinking a lot about natural things lately: the sun, the sky, herbs, making sprouted grain bread, drinking natural goat’s milk. But this morning as I worked the soaked grain bread with the plastic spatula I was reminded of what Scripture says.

For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.

(Romans 8:13 KJV)

For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

(Romans 8:5-6 KJV)

If I live naturally, eat naturally, breathe naturally, and wear 100% all-natural cotton, it doesn’t make one bit of difference. I’m going to die. If we live according to the natural, and sin according to the natural, we die according to the natural.

It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.

(1 Corinthians 15:44 KJV)

To be natural to be limited to our senses, to this realm, and to this earth. We don’t have spiritual understanding or spiritual awareness. According to what we see and think, we act. The flesh of a man consists of his physical flesh and his soul: his mind, will, and emotions.

But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

(1 Corinthians 2:14 KJV)

No matter how natural we are, we cannot avoid death, and we cannot avoid sin. Sin is natural to us, because we were born into it. Is there something pure and undefiled about creation, something tranquil and florescent? No. Creation was created in glory. Now Creation is subject to futility.

For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.

(Romans 8:22 KJV)

If we have ears to hear and eyes to see, we would see that everything of the flesh has a death sentence of it. If we have ears to hear, we would hear the groans and wailings of creation, its restlessness, its longing, to be restored and to see the sons of God in glory.

The value of worldly and earthly things is hyper-inflated. Like a giant bubble, it is colorful, attractive, sailing happily and smoothly. One prick is all it takes for the world’s values, systems, programs, concepts, accomplishments, to drop as a little soapy splat on the infinite pavements of eternity. It will be no more.

I don’t just want to be a natural girl, or grow into a natural living woman, eco, green, organic and all-natural. I want to be a spiritual being. I want to have eternal life. I want a spiritual, eternal body. I want to have the eyes of the Spirit, to have discernment and not divination. I want to be a work of God’s hands, built according to His pattern, not according to self. I want to hear the voice of God that thunders, and deep within me stirs me to rise up, take up my cross, and follow Him, He being the sole object and focus of all my being.

We can be as natural as we like, but unless we grasp, lay hold up, and root ourselves into that which is of God and of the Spirit, when we die, it will be as the natural grass of the field that naturally fades away. Here today and gone tomorrow.

We won’t make a dent on destiny. We won’t affect eternity. We will just live happy, and die happy, that’s the end. How sad, if all we live for is this life. Futile. Vanity. Worthless. Passing.

But if we live for the kingdom, the eternal Kingdom, and the eternal Messiah, what joy, what life and peace!

God, make me a spiritual girl. Not merely an intelligent girl, pretty girl, witty girl, natural girl, talented girl, sweet girl, useful girl, or good girl, but a spiritual girl. Hey, but wait. Now in the Spirit there is no longer male nor female, circumcised nor uncircumcised, Jew nor Greek. Messiah is all and in all.

Are we going to bury our talents in this earth, or multiply them as an investment into eternity?

A Poem by Rebekah Mui, “Oh My Precious Hyper-Inflated World”

Oh My Precious Hyper-Inflated World,

Don’t go away, leave me, in a bit,

Stay around and don’t your surly lips curl,

I will be so ever good and sweet,

Fill your pockets with dainties you will never eat,

Dear me how quickly time goes by.

Hark! All time’s wasted by and by,

Why not invest a little quick pleasure,

Something tangible to treasure,

Something possible to measure,

Enjoy my own little gesture,

Feeding this little twinkie who will take my heart,

Fly away; drop and die, and drown.

What’s the harm.

Just a little fun.

Take a break from this endless sojourn,

To chat with the locals, tales to spurn,

While the hurricane nears the ground,

You don’t want to leave the town,

Your heart and your destiny forever bound,

In Futility.

With Him and In Him.

2011-09-27T19:28:00.001+08:00

We think often about the glory of the Church in Christ. In eternity, and even now, we are literally His body, in Him and of Him.

It is a faithful saying: For if we be dead with him, we shall also live with him: If we suffer, we shall also reign with him: if we deny him, he also will deny us: If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself.

(2 Timothy 2:11-13 KJV)

We are yoked with Him.

Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

(Matthew 11:28-30 KJV)

Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world.

(1 John 4:17 KJV)

And as He is the Son of God, we are made partakers of the divine nature, and are made sons of God.

Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.

(1 John 3:1-2 KJV)

Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

(2 Peter 1:4 KJV)

What a glory! It is an eternally supreme and wondrous glory, indescribable.

And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:

(John 17:22 KJV)

And we the Body of Christ will be made One, just as One as He, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, are One, and we are One in Him!

I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.

(John 17:23 KJV)

And we will be perfected in this Oneness and glory, so that the majestic glory of Christ will be the glory of His saints!

But what is the nature of this glory?

When he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe (because our testimony among you was believed) in that day.

(2 Thessalonians 1:10 KJV)

We like to think of the glory, but what precedes and catalyzes this glory? Why does the Father exalt the Son in such glory?

Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

(Philippians 2:4-11 KJV)

Namely the cross. The cross of Yeshua the Messiah is the suffering before the glory, the labor before the birth, the pain before the joy, the shame before the exaltation, and the deaf before the life.

We are to take up our cross and follow Him. Yoked with Him, together with Him, we die. He puts to death everything of us – our inherent flesh, our inherent body, our inherent nature, our inherent goodness, and our inherent evil. Remember – we are born into the knowledge of good and evil, lest we think Christ puts to death our evil, we must not forget He put to death every good of ours, which when weighed by the eternal holiness of God is not goodness at all, nor right-doing, but filthy rags of wickedness. No matter how beautiful the fruit, it is bad, because the tree is bad, rotten, and deformed.

This glory comes only by the cross and nothing else. Next time I think of something great I want to do for God, I must put the cross to it – to death with myself! I must judge the effect and potential of such a doing with the power and glory of the cross, and my own works pale and shrink in estimation. What can we do that exceeds the wonder of the cross, what else can please God? Nothing save the cross of Yeshua the Messiah, by whom the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.

Being yoked to Him, therefore, imagine ourselves chained to Him at the time of His rejection, trial, scorn, and crucifixion. Imagine the jeers of the crowd, the lashes of the whip; whatever fell of Him falls on you, for you are yoked with Him.

He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

(Isaiah 53:3 KJV)

If they persecuted Him, will they do not persecute you? If they despised Him, they will despise you. If they reject Him, prepare to be rejected. Want to be His disciple? Want to be a Christian (follow of Christ)? Then you must take up your cross, following on behind Him, yoked alongside Him, and bound in Him.

Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets.

(Luke 6:26 KJV)

No, we will no be spoken well off; people will hide their faces from us, we will be despised by men, and not esteemed. We will be little and worthless both in the sight and men and ourselves. We will be utterly cast down, humiliated, and stripped of everything that makes us hold our head up high.

And that the Son of God, to whom belongs all glory and honor, should submit Himself to such a state, humble Himself under the agony of the cross, to take upon Himself all our suffering and shame! It then becomes only reasonable that we who love Him do the same, to follow in His steps, in Him. It becomes remarkably easier for us, because He is the one bearing the burden of the yoke. His grace poured out on us compels us and leads us on. Even the cross is not a work of ourselves, but the only thing required of us is to yield ourselves under the yoke. Then He will drive us, lead us, and His grace carries us, fills us with a hope beyond understanding, a faith beyond reason, and a love beyond bounds that will make us run towards the final eternal goal – the salvation of our souls, the Kingdom of Our Lord and of His Messiah.

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

(Isaiah 53:5 KJV)

Are we willing to lay down our lives to Him in total surrender, knowing that wounds, bruises, chastisements, and stripes will be our lot, and yet in those suffering be filled with utmost joy? This then is the glory of the saints, for we suffer with Him.

Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator.

(1 Peter 4:19 KJV)

Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God on this behalf.

(1 Peter 4:16 KJV)

See Him, carrying the cross, walking the Way of Suffering, mocked, spit upon, kicked, jeered. He looks back at His disciples. There you stand, you who have followed Him thus far. Yet now you can choose to be identified with Him, or hide your face and disappear in the crowd. Will you stand out? Would you walk forward, and stand with Him. Would You follow Him to the cross, pick up one Yourself, and then continue the rest of the way, led by the Son of God who laid down His life? Yet is any man suffers are a follower of Messiah, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God on this behalf!

It is easy to declare “O Lord, I will follow you to the death!” But this statement will not validate itself – it is spoken in ignorance, firstly of the implications of the cross and its cost, and secondly of the state of your own heart and your ability.

The disciples learnt a tough lesson at the eve of the Cross, for they had neither counted the cost nor checked their wallet, but out of impulsiveness and immaturity made such a statement.

The rich young ruler counted the cost of discipleship, for the Lord made him to understand on no uncertain terms its requirement, but did not find in himself the ability. Thus he was heartbroken. That last stronghold in his life, the last barrier between himself and the cross, was not his money or his love but his pride, or self-trust. Finding in himself no such power, he turned away, so near to eternal life that he could almost breathe its everlasting refreshment, but so far away, as to miss it altogether.

We only need fall at His feet in tears and great longing, “Lord, forgive me for I am not able. I have this not in myself. I cannot follow you. But I throw myself onto Thy mercy and avail my soul before Thee.” Then His strength will be made perfect in our weakness.

And thus we shall come to understand the grace of God, for thus it shall be poured out on us.

But and if ye suffer for righteousness' sake, happy are ye: and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled; (1 Peter 3:14 KJV)

For it is better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well doing, than for evil doing.

(1 Peter 3:17 KJV)

Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days: be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.

(Revelation 2:10 KJV)

By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter; Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season;

(Hebrews 11:24-25 KJV)

Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.

(2 Timothy 3:12 KJV)

And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

(Romans 8:17-18 KJV)

Yea, as Christ suffered and died, so if we suffered with Him, we shall be glorified together!

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.

(Isaiah 53:7 KJV)

Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

(Isaiah 53:4 KJV)

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

(Isaiah 53:5 KJV)

Are we today willing to bear and carry the sorrows of His people? Are we today willing, in this suffering, to be judged by them as being punished by God for our own sins? Are we today willing be wrongfully accused, yet remain silent. To be right, yet treated as wrong?

God, make us willing to be made willing. Make us willing to yield under Your yoke, to lift up our hands in surrender to the nails and thorns that beflicted our Master Yeshua on the cross?

Make us choose the narrow way, to drink the deeply bitter cup of sorrows, griefs, afflictions, and the cross. Let us not only say with our lips that we are willing to drink Your cup, but with our hearts, souls, and minds, bound to the cross. We will not evade the cross, nor run from You in the time of Your affliction, but make us O Master to be willing to be shamed with You.

There is not in us a desire for the Messiah’s cross, but an inborn distaste and repulsion against it. The Adversary fights against us with might and main, roaring in all the savageness of evil, circling us as wolves, waiting to bite and devour our souls. Yet Messiah ever lives to make intercession for us. The Spirit travails for us with unutterable groaning. Creation moans in restless longing. The Father preserves us to the end.

Make us O Lord, let us be a vessel of Your making, a sacrifice to Your pleasure! Keep us faithful O Lord, never let our heart grow cold. May we persevere with all the perseverance of hope, through the fires, darkness, turmoil, and wrangling of this present age to be presented a purified, blameless, glorious, comely Bride, the Church and Body of our Messiah.

Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.

(1 John 3:2 KJV)

Concerning social and moral issues and the Kingdom of God

2011-09-21T19:30:00.001+08:00

The Declaration of Independence states that one of the unalienable rights of man is life. A man has the right to live, and that right to is Endowed upon him by the Creator. The one who gives man life commands that man has a right to live. No man dares to overrule God.

It is The LORD who gives and The LORD who takes away. It is His prerogative.

And said, Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.

(Job 1:21 KJV)

If anyone shed man’s blood, man must recompense it. God hereby gives to man the right to punish fellow man who murder. Why? Man is created in the image of God.

Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.

(Genesis 9:6 KJV)

Is this fair? Is capital punishment right? Our sense of fairness and justness is not the factor in question here, nor will it have any effect. Here is where we must trust the Creator, who is totally just and righteous. He is in supreme authority, and all He does is right. We only need trust Him.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

(Genesis 1:27 KJV)

Male and Female He created them. Fullstop. If God had wanted any other sort of life He would have created it. He created us in His image. He created us male and female. It is not for our insubordinate mind to connive another sort of order and life. God is the one who had all the rights – the rights of the Creator. He made it like that. Let’s stop questioning Him.

Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.

(Genesis 2:24 KJV)

This is the order in which God created life and marriage. Since man is in God’s image, and God is unchangeable, then obviously the manner of life which He created us in unchangeable.

Does life begin at conception? No. Life is derived from God the Creator.

And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

(Genesis 2:7 KJV)

God predestined us from before the foundation of the world, long before conception!

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,

(Ephesians 1:3-5 KJV)

God knew the destiny of Jacob and Esau from the womb. Babes in the womb can have a calling.

(Genesis 25:23 KJV) And the LORD said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger.

(Galatians 1:15 KJV) But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace,

God caused the conception of Samson and willed his life.

Children can be consecrated to God from the womb.

(Judges 13:7 KJV) But he said unto me, Behold, thou shalt conceive, and bear a son; and now drink no wine nor strong drink, neither eat any unclean thing: for the child shall be a Nazarite to God from the womb to the day of his death.

God fashions children in the womb.

(Jeremiah 1:5 KJV) Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.

(Psalms 22:10 KJV) I was cast upon thee from the womb: thou art my God from my mother's belly.

We are born sinners, yes even in the sin inherited from Adam.

(Isaiah 48:8 KJV) Yea, thou heardest not; yea, thou knewest not; yea, from that time that thine ear was not opened: for I knew that thou wouldest deal very treacherously, and wast called a transgressor from the womb.

(Psalms 51:5 KJV)

Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.

(Isaiah 49:1 KJV) Listen, O isles, unto me; and hearken, ye people, from far; The LORD hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name.

God the creator and origin of life is in supreme power and authority. All kings will bow down before Him. And He is coming quickly to do a short work on the earth. He is coming to repay the wicked and bring in the flood of the world of the ungodly.

O LORD God, to whom vengeance belongeth; O God, to whom vengeance belongeth, shew thyself.

(Psalms 94:1 KJV)

And I will execute great vengeance upon them with furious rebukes; and they shall know that I am the LORD, when I shall lay my vengeance upon them.

(Ezekiel 25:17 KJV)

Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.

(Romans 12:19 KJV)

The gospel of Yeshua the Messiah is not a social gospel. It is the gospel of the Kingdom. Remember the incident of Mary's flask broken at His feet? Judas immediately reacted that it was a waste. The flask could have been sold and the money used to feed the poor. But the gospel is not a social gospel. It is the gospel of the Kingdom. It is the gospel of the cross, where I through the Messiah died to the world and the world to me. The world will say that I am wasted on God. The world will regard me as no better than dead, but to me the world is wasted, dead, and dying. Woe to me if men speak well of me. I'd rather they "sit shiva".

What is the gospel of the Kingdom?

And saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

(Matthew 3:2 KJV)

And he saith unto me, Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book: for the time is at hand. He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still. And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.

(Revelation 22:10-12 KJV)

The God who created the heavens and the earth, YHWH is His name. It is He who rained fire and brimstone on the cities of Sodom and Gommorah, being exceedingly wrathful because of their wickedness. He is angry, very angry. His wrath is burning hot.

The world should be afraid, very afraid.

You can choose to ignore the reality of YHWH, but you cannot avoid the consequences.

And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son. But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.

(Revelation 21:6-8 KJV)

Free Watchman Wallpaper

2011-09-13T17:54:00.000+08:00

Shalom! Here are two designs you can use freely BUT NOT SELL. I pray that you will be encouraged to watch and pray!

Thoughts on How The Law of Love Deals a Death Blow to Religiousity

2011-09-13T17:41:00.000+08:00

The focus and daily life of the Disciple is Christ. To be His disciple is to follow in His steps. He fulfilled the Torah. He concluded the Torah. He calls us now to a greater and more demanding Torah than Moses, which included compromises because of the hardness of Israel’s heart – He calls us to the Torah of Love – this Law which is a light to our way, and leads in His paths, all the way to the cross. We bear our cross daily, denying all, deny ourselves. The Torah of love is the cross, because the cross is love. The Torah of love is the only thing that will please the Father, for the only fulfillment of righteousness was in the Cross.

The Torah, the benchmark of all righteousness, concludes at the cross. From then on we are in Christ and He in us. He demands of us love; total surrender. “When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die.”

It is neither Gentile Christianity or Messianic Judaism in the physical form we know today. It is the body of Christ. It is Discipleship. It is religionless Christianity. It is nothing but following the Messiah. Anything apart from the Messiah and from His Cross is self-righteousness, a work of the flesh and of the soul, pleasing to the self. Anything spiritual, of the cross, is death to the soul, death to the self, death to all selfishness, and only thing pleasing to God.

This is message of the Kingdom, for when the Messiah was immersed He was found pleasing to the Father.

We the body of Messiah has to return to our apostolic foundations, found neither in the “Church” culture nor in “Jewish roots” but in the One New Man, Christ/Messiah! Apart from Him every observance, whether of Sunday service or Saturday Sabbath is worth nothing more than filthy sh*t to the Father.

Religion- flesh, works, self, carnality- comes to end in Yeshua.

The cross of Yeshua alone transcends culture. The Kingdom of God does not consist in eating and drinking. Our message to the world, our gospel to the world must be Yeshua and Yeshua alone. We must add nothing and subtract nothing from the call to discipleship. We must preach the Word of God, Yeshua, alone!

Jews are Jews in the flesh. The gospel must be go to them. Gentiles are Gentiles in the flesh. The gospel must go to them. Whether to Barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, the gospel must be preached. The gospel must be taught.

We fail to find carnal fulfillment in “loving God” alone. Yet that is the most important commandment. Without love, all our works are nothing. With love, all selfishness is removed and our eyes can see what truly matters.

Die, die, die to all that in the flesh! Be nailed to the cross and buried, O sinful man! Nothing good can be found in physical obedience. Find what is that true and perfect will of God – obedience rather than sacrifice, and obedience which leads to sacrifice. Obedience leads to the cross and nowhere else.

The cross is the conclusion of the Torah. The cross is the final death blow to our affections and lusts. When we preach the cross we have to realize that Yeshua’s yoke is easy and His burden is light. We need to the return to the pure Word of God, Yeshua and Yeshua alone. He has to be the one who calls, choses, and causes us to remain faithful. We need to know the essence of discipleship, the essence of God’s heart.

If there’s any law you want to fulfill, fulfill Shema Yisrael. Circumcise your heart. Try it – and see that Yeshua is the only way to the Father. Yeshua’s cross IS our circumcision. Yeshua’s blood is our atonement. Yeshua’s love must become our love. Then go and love your neighbor. This is righteousness.

What makes you think love is so “easy”? What makes you think love is not enough? Ask God, and see if love is not enough. Love is more demanding, more excruciating, more exacting, than the Torah.

Why did Paul not create specific laws, like concerning eating of meat, wearing headcoverings, - he wasn’t creating a religion of rules, he was creating guidelines to love amongst brethren and live a set-apart life.

The lines of our set-apartness are not like lines across fields I draw to separate you from me and me from you by my own particular religiousity. Every religion then is "set-apart" and has a human level of "spirituality" and "holiness" The set-apartness to be in disciples is an inherent, spiritual wholly-otherness, above and beyond the physical, carnal, or pseudo-spiritual, a quality which depends not on what we do, but who we are, which of course affects what we do. The disciples vs. the multitudes. (Matthew 5)

How did Abraham fulfil the Torah? Trusting in Elohim, he obeyed, left all, and followed Him. Today the call of discipleship comes to us today. Will we trust Him, obey, leave all and follow Him?

YESHUA, Yeshua alone. He said, “By this all mens hall know that you are my disciples, that you love one another.” (Not that you go to church on Sunday, tithe, wear crosses, and give out tracts, nor that you wear tallis, keep Shabbat, and preach Torah).

Who says this “justifies sin”? Love (the cross) was the death blow to the shackles of sin! Love God, hear His voice, keep His commandments – and what is His command to the rich young ruler, who kept every tittle of the law since his youth, and who wanted eternal life – “Sell all you have, give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven”. This was the cross. This was a blow in the face of the most “righteous” carnal man. Nothing is more demanding and impossible than the cross.

I can keep it ALL, I can be the most PERFECT Christian who knows all the right terminology, or the most Torah OBSERVANT kid in town, who can quote you tractate after tractate, – but if I am not His sheep and His disciple, if I cannot lay down my life, my rights, my ambitions at Yeshua’s feet, and die, and meet the needs of His brethren (Matthew 25) at the cost of my own life , I jolly well stink!!

To tell you the truth, I have got distracted many times, tempted to rely on the flesh, and am daily assailed by my greatest opponent, pride, which has to be weeded out painfully by the cross. But remember:

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.

(Matthew 7:21 KJV)

The works of the flesh are sh*t. The cross is the original, the perfect. No copy can be produced. No counterfeit can equal its power. Anything outside the path of discipleship is not righteous. We can only follow after Him, in His steps, and submit to His kindly yoke. Paul/Sha’ul understood the power and the demand of the gospel. He did not remain merely a Pharisee.If not he would have been worthless. He died in Christ. Please, he gave his life for the cross, for Yeshua, and for the gospel.

The only commands that matter are the commands impossible to keep and impossible to legislate, like Shema Yisrael, love your neighbor, sell all you have, do not hate, etc. etc. The only commands that matter are the kind that you cannot be praised for before man (Matthew 6).These are the actions birthed out of dying. Only when it costs us severely through the cross of Yeshua can our works count. Only when our actions are birthed by the command of heaven, from apostolic and spiritual being, can they (apostolic doing) be of world impact.

IN other words, don’t focus on what kind of fruit you bear and measure for qualities of good fruit, focus on being a good tree.

Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.

(John 12:24 KJV)

He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.

(John 12:25 KJV)

If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honour.

(John 12:26 KJV)

Love is an action, of course, but the only valid action of love is the cross. That is why it's the focus of Yeshua and must be the focus for His disciples.

Urgent Repost: God’s Loving Care and Human Suffering by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

2011-09-11T16:53:00.002+08:00

God’s Loving Care and Human Suffering by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
(Harvest Festival, Berlin) October 4, 1931

TEXT: “Your steadfast love is better than life”(Ps 63:3)

Two and a half millennia have passed since that ancient Jewish saint, far from Jerusalem and his homeland, devoured by misery in body and soul, surrounded by mockers and enemies of his God, pondered the strange and wonderful ways God had led him. It was no easy, peaceful meditation. It was a struggle for God and God’s faithfulness. The pillars of life had crumbled away. Where his hand thought it had found firm support it reached into an empty nothingness. “God, where are you? God, who am I? My life falls crashing down into the bottomless abyss. God, I am afraid, where has Your goodness gone? And yet, You are my God, and Your goodness is better than life,” That is one of the words that does not let you go once you have understood it, a word that seems to shine gently, but is inwardly hard, a word of passion engendered where two worlds clash, that is, a word from the world of the Bible and not from our own.

The words of this text, “Your goodness is better than life”: it is the exultant cry of the wretched and abandoned, of the weary and overburdened; the cry of longing uttered by the sick and the oppressed; the song of praise among the unemployed and the hungry in the great cities; the prayer of thanksgiving by the tax collectors and prostitutes, by sinners known and unknown. Well, is that really their shout of joy? No, it is not, not in our world, at any rate not in our age. It is the shout of joy for the peculiar world of the Bible, which frightens and angers us with its strangeness, at least as far as we still listen to its message and have not become insensitive to the reality of the Bible. Or perhaps the verse does not seem so particularly remarkable after all. Perhaps we think that it is perfectly self-evident. These things have become part of the life of a Christian. If that is how we think, we shall have to discover what the psalmist is really saying here and whether it is really so obvious.

At some point in our psalmist’s life something quite decisive happened: God came into his life. From that moment his life was changed. I don’t mean that he suddenly became very good and pious – it may well be that he was that before God came. But now none other than God had come and had drawn near to him. What made his life remarkable was simply that God was always there with him and he could no longer get away from God. It completely tore his life apart. We so often hear and say that religion makes people happy and harmonious and peaceful and content. Maybe that’s true of religion; but it is not true of God and dealings with humankind. It is utterly wrong. That is what the psalmist discovered. Something had burst open inside of him. He felt as if he were split in two. A struggle flared up within him, which every day became more heated and more terrible. He experienced hour by hour how his old beliefs were being torn out of his inner being. He struggled desperately to hold on to them; but God, standing ever before him, had taken them from him and would never give them back. And the more he loses, the more firmly and eagerly he grabs at what is left; but the more firmly he holds to what he has, the harder must God strike to break it free and the most it hurts when it is torn away. And the breathless struggle goes on, with God the victor and the person defeated; he no longer knows where it all will lead to an he sees that he is lost; he does not know whether he hates or loves the One who has forced his way so violently into his life and destroyed his peace. He struggles for every inch and in despair yields to the weapons of God. And his position would not be quite so hopeless if it not were for the fact that God’s weapons are so strange and wonderful, that they cast down and lift up, that they wound and yet heal, that they kill and yet bring life; God speaks; “If you want my mercy, then let me gain victory over you; if you want my life, then let me hate and destroy that which is evil in you; if you want my goodness, then let me take your life.” And now it has come to the final struggle. Everything has been surrendered up and only one thing has been left to the person, which he is determined to hold on to: his life. Still God will not call a halt, but storms this last citadel of all. And so the battle rages on for the last thing which he has; the individual defends himself like a mad person. God cannot want this; God is not cruel; God is good and kind. And yet the answer comes back: “If you want my goodness, then give me the last thing that you have, give me your life. Now choose!”

Such heights terrify us; it is as if someone le us to the limits of the world and as if we looked down into an abyss and he said, “Now jump!” We feel as if we had been torn apart. How can we choose between God’s goodness and our life? What is our life? Everything we see, touch, hear, taste, feel; everything which surrounds us, which we possess, which we are used to, which we love. What is God’s goodness? In any case everything which we cannot see, cannot touch, cannot comprehend, and indeed cannot believe; something which we do not possess; something quite improbable, something outside this world, standing above and behind all events, and yet which speaks to us so directly. Who would venture to make a free choice here? It is God who gains the victory, and it seems so humanly impossible that we should now hear from the psalmist’s lips the words: “God, You are my God. Your goodness is better than life.”

Some of you will now be indignant and you will begin to object: What sort of exaggerated and wild talk is this? You can’t talk about the goodness of God in that way. That I’m in good health, that I’ve still got food and drink to share with my family, that I’ve got work and a house, that’s what God’s goodness means to me and that’s what I should thank God for. But I neither know nor understand anything of this struggle with God’s goodness.

My friends, today is harvest festival and a very proper time for us to reflect seriously about what God’s goodness means to us. Unmoved by the bitter worries and unrest of our time, nature goes about its work in the world. It produces food for the people of the earth. When it withholds its gifts; millions die; when it bestows them lavishly humankind flourishes. No persons have control over it an when they are confronted by its power, they grow silent and are reminded of God who has power over nature. Today we celebrate the harvest festival in particular circumstances and with specific thoughts in mind. The harvest has not brought us what we hoped what we hoped for. This has already caused us great sorrow. But on top of this comes one of the worst plagues which can ever be inflicted on a people, and which is now spreading across the world, unemployment. We must be prepared for the fact that this winter seven million people in Germany will find no work, which means hunger for fifteen to twenty million people next winter. Another twelve million or more in England, twenty or more in America, while at this moment sixteen million are starving in China and situation is not much better in India. These are the cold statistics behind which stands a terrible reality. Should we overlook these millions of people when we celebrate our harvest festival in church? We dare not. Rather we want to measure our Christian thinking and intentions by how well we respond to these facts.

When we sit down this evening to a full table and say grace and thank God for God’s goodness, we shall not be able to avoid a strange feeling of uneasiness. It will seem incomprehensible to us that we should be the ones to receive such gifts and we will be overwhelmed by such thoughts and will think that we have not in any way deserved these gifts more than our hungry brothers and sisters in our town. What if, precisely at the moment when we are thanking God for God’s goodness toward us, there is a ring at the door, as so often happens these days, and we find someone standing there who also would like to thank God for some small gift, but to whom such a gift has been denied and who is starving with starving children and who will go to bed in bitterness? What becomes of our grace in such moments? Will we really feel like saying that God is merciful to us and angry with them, or the fact that we still have something to eat proves that we have won a special favor in God’s sight, that God feeds the favorite children and lets the unworthy go hungry? May the merciful God protect us from the temptation of such gratitude. May God lead us to a true understanding of God’s goodness. Don’t we see that the gifts of God’s goodness become a curse for us if we have such thoughts about them and act in such a way; if we look upon ourselves as models of virtue, instead of growing humble as we look at the incomprehensibility of God and the worry and anxiety our wealth creates in us and if we thank God only for God’s goodness to us instead of becoming conscious of the immeasurable responsibility which is laid upon us by God’s goodness? If we want to understand God’s goodness in God’s gifts, then we must think of them as a responsibility we bear for our brothers and sisters. Let none say: God has blessed us with money and possessions and then live as if they and their God were alone in the world. For the time will come when they realize that they have been worshipping the idols of their good fortune and selfishness. Possessions are not God’s blessing and goodness, but the opportunities of service which God entrusts to us.

This has already brought us some distance along the way toward understanding what God’s goodness is. Whoever has tasks laid upon them by God see themselves set between two worlds:”If you want my goodness to stay with you, then serve your neighbors, for in them God comes to you”; such people see in their neighbors the material and spiritual need for which they are now called to account. And now the struggle is played out of which the psalmist speaks. “If you want my mercy, then give your neighbor a share of your possessions. If you want my love, then give your neighbor your soul. If you want my goodness then stake your life for your neighbor. And if you don’t do all this, then that which was God’s goodness to you, the gifts which God showered on your body and soul, will turn into a curse on you.”
Which of us would care to say that we had done all this, that in our thoughts and particularly our actions we had really understood that God’s goodness leads us into a struggle, that it is not something which we receive and then simply possess, so that we live on, somewhat happier, somewhat richer, but essentially unaltered. But how miserably we enter on this struggle; with so little passion and with so much fear, weakness, trembling, and sadness; and how little does it really take hold of the roots of our being. Yet we shall not understand this struggle at all until we understand how radical and basic it is. “Your goodness is better than life” does not just mean better than your house, than your food, than your work, than your reputation, than your honor, than your physical, artistic, and spiritual pleasures, than your wife or husband or children, but it means more than all that; it means that it is better than the one thing you still have when you have lost everything, better than your life. Which of us has already come to know that God’s goodness leads us into a conflict, which involves the physical side of our life, and not only that but also our work, our honor, and even our family? Who would allow themselves to be drawn into such a conflict and who would see in such a conflict God’s goodness? And above all, who sees that we have not grasped the meaning of God’s goodness until the conflict goes much deeper and seizes hold of our life and reaches out beyond even that?...

But now comes the greatest wonder the world has ever known. In the very place we have fallen away from God, where we have become dead and unreceptive to God, in our guilt, God’s goodness searches us out, and is revealed to us again as the eternal promise of God, in Jesus Christ, which far surpasses all guilt and all life. Only the person who, in the darkness of guilt, of unfaithfulness, of enmity towards God, has felt himself or herself touched by the love which never ceases, which forgives everything and which points beyond all misery to the world of God, only such a person really knows what God’s goodness means.

But of course we are not lifted out of life. Our task still remains with us and we are continually asked by God: “What is my love worth to you?” But the more deeply we recognize what God’s goodness is, the more lively our answer will be, and again we shall be led by God’s goodness to assume our responsibility and will be brought to God again through our acknowledged guilt. When will the time come that, at least in the Christian community, the world of our psalmist will break in, and in happiness or in misery, in hunger or in sickness, in fear or trouble, in sadness or guilt, in good or bad harvest we can make a truly joyful thanksgiving:

And though they take our life,
Goods, honor, children, wife,
Yet is their profit small;
These things shall vanish all;
The City of God remaineth!

O God, You goodness is better than life – Amen. [NRS, pp. 125-32]

A Stranger in A Strange Land - Breaking Free of Mother Babylon

2011-09-11T16:42:00.001+08:00

We know that the financial system of this world is coming to an end. It is a house on fire, whether you choose to heed the fact or not. Don't undermine the seriousness of the fire and wait for it to come crashing down on our heads. If you smell smoke – GET OUT! This blazing inferno is beyond stamping out. The global markets are heavily damaged, in grave danger. One wrong move can turn the world upside down.

Consumerism and modern society is totally corrupt, selfish, and demonic. The merchandising system is absolutely evil. Yet modern society and culture has a tightening grip around our necks; it is a crutch we did not need at first, and now something we cannot live without. Who can live, or possibly even survive without the convenience of electricity and purified running water? What chaos and panic will ensue in our lives if the hospital or pharmaceutical system happened to fall? Can we live a day when the supermarkets close down and our money becomes worthless. To use those things may not be sin, but we can scarcely make use of them without being brought in subjection.

Mother Babylon the harlot has us bound in chains, and will not let us go. She tries to drag us deeper into the pit and subject us to the slavery of debt. We are living on devilish life support, which we never needed and now have become totally dependent upon. Why do you think the anti-Christ will deceive so many? We have become totally so dependent upon the world's system that once it is taken away from us, we cannot do anything but submit to the mark of the beast and bow down to its image.

Wisdom is seeing the end from the beginning. Wisdom is seeing life from God's perspective. We know the end, the slippery slope of sin, self, satan, and sickness – but this will also affect the very society we live in.

I'm not advocating returning to utopia-Eden lifestyles. The beauties and glorie of the age which is to come await the saints. We the children of God live in cursed bodies in a cursed world and eat cursed food – but we are strangers living in a strange body in a strange land. Our hope is set above. Why should we be chained to a hell-bent bandwagon? We were born into modern society. This is where we live and how we live. But so we were born in sin. Modern society is a hamster-wheel whirl of deception. Everything in it is contrary to the ways of God. Everything in it is corrupt, demonic, and its mindset is crippling. We can chose to ignore the message of wisdom and salvation, living in ignorance. We can ignore reality, but we cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.

Don't become so settled in Babylon that when faced with being evicted or conforming, we have no choice but to conform. We may postpone the question, but it will only be throwing away a boomerang that will come slapping you in the face, moments later.

It is time we broke free. First in spirit, from the powers of darkness. Then our minds must be renewed, the old humanism and self-centered thoughts washed clean by the blood of Yeshua. Then we must LIVE in the REALITY of the Kingdom of God.

The early church lived in reality. Whether Yeshua is returning within one year or a thousand years mattered not – the fact is, He is returning and we must live in constant readiness – not the readiness of “we're outta here any minute'. No, the kingdom is coming. The kingdom has come. Let us live as the kingdom, live in the kingdom, live for the kingdom.

How did they live? Christ sent them into all the world to preach the gospel. Scholars say it was probably 12 and ½ years between Yeshua's ascension to the baptism of Cornelius. Persecution soon sent the centralized Jerusalem church reeling to the four corners of the globe – what Yeshua had commanded them in the first place. Do we today need God to kick us out, and strip us of all reliance to Babylon, or will we simply heed His commands?

We are strangers in this earth. Captives. Like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob we are to wander around the face of the earth, looking and believing in the glorious city not made with human hands, yet living the will of God. In effect our destiny is tied through the covenant of Christ (Eph 2) into the wanderings and sufferings of Israel. We must stand with them. We must suffer with them. We must bear their burdens. We are dispersed as the wind. Messiah will us bring into our own land. We are Wandering Jews, but we are Wandering Jews with hope! Our citizenship is ABOVE!

How do we live today, in these last days, before the Olam Haba? How do we live in these difficult times of tension between the Ages? As the Master of the Ages commands.

Leave all. Cleave to Him. Deny ourselves. Take up our cross. Love our brethren. Sell all we have, give to the poor. Do not hold our earthly possessions with clenched fists, but with open arms. Have all things in common. Live for the gospel. Live the gospel.

(Until we give our all to Christ in total love, then only can the scales of selfishness around our eyes will be removed so that we can see the needs of others. Love is the opposite of selfishness. We have no capability nor affection to love as Christ loved us, the love of the cross. When we surrender our little hearts to God, He sets our affections rightly and gives us the power of love, the power which triumphs selfishness)

What did God command the captives of Babylon? Build houses. Live in them. Plant vineyards. Eat fruits – in other words, don't be dependent on Babylon's markets. Just because you live in Babylon does not make you a Babylonian – you are my set-apart people. Pray for the peace of the city where you live, for in its peace you will have peace.

Let us provide our families with food and clothing. Let us eat what God has provided. There is no sin in that. But we live not for ourselves and for our families. We live and we give everything to Christ, not holding any back. Matthew 25 shows us what sheep are to be. We feed the poor, even if this means we have none for ourselves. We clothe the poor, perhaps off our own backs. We give them our drink. We visit them with our Christ. All we must belong to Christ. And Christ requires it of us. He withheld nothing from us- dare we withhold anything from Him?

What am I saying then? That we break free of Babylon. The consumerist Babylonian bandwagon is smooth for now, but financial analysts are predicting a cliff beyond. Not only that, what they do not see is that this slippery cliff will send the bandwagon spiraling down into the abyss of hell fire. And when we know the truth and try to get off, we realize that the iron balls and bronze chains of debt has become our master, and we cannot leave.

Just as Jews were alienated from the worldly systems of education, trade, commerce, etc. in the Middle Ages, so we will we alienated, simply because of who we are. We are to be hated because we too are Chosen People. We are to be a menace and sore thumb to the society of demons, not assimilated and productive in it! Yeshua said that we would be thrown out of “synagogues” (worldly institutions) for His name's sake? Why are the demons not trembling at the words of our gospel? That happens when we are under their power, reliant upon their system, not willing to forsake the world's system.

We don't need to hear the warning more than once. We may not have the luxury of doing so. We don't need to wait until the flames lick our backs and scorch our eyes before beating a hasty retreat, for then there is no turning back.

What shall we do? Give your all to God and bear fruit for eternity. Invest you resources in the eternal treasure of souls. Break yourself free from the mentalities, systems, trading, etc. of the world, for only when your eyes and heart and mind and soul are gravitated on the solid rock, on the Kingdom of Christ and God, can you withstand the turmoil, anxieties, pressures, catastrophes, and tribulations of the last days without your entire soul quivering from the burdens on your shoulders, stones around your hert and sinking under the mires of sinking sand.

Whether Christ was returning immediately or not, the early church put their anchor where it would safely hold. O, may the church BREAK FREE of Mother Babylon the Harlot in SPIRIT, in SOUL, in the MIND, in the EMOTIONS, and in the BODY. Living in the tension of the ages is hard. It is unsteady. Oh GOD, STAMP OUR EYES WITH ETERNITY, EVERY DAY!

Thoughts on Raising Daughters to function in Apostolic Ministry 2

2011-09-10T15:17:00.003+08:00

Shalom, for this article I am tackling the popular Proverbs 31 woman from a different angle, as Tzofiyah the watch-woman. It is written with in Messianic terminology. How can we claim/aspire/want to be Proverbs 31 women if we do not Watch and Pray?

For another perspective, read below. (on an aside note about the Proverbs 31 woman, we know most people get tired just reading of her, but in actual fact she employs maids. No wonder she gets so much done!)

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צופיה Tzofiyah - She who watches
Tzofiyah is a (correct-me-if-am-wrong) female derivation of the word “watchman” in Hebrew, Tsaphah. It is also the action verb form of the word, meaning “watches” or “watching”. Its pronunciation is close to the Arabic name, “Sufiya”, meaning “pious” or “Sofia”, “wisdom”.

H6822
צפה
tsâphâh
tsaw-faw'
A primitive root; properly to lean forward, that is, to peer into the distance; by implication to observe, await: - behold, espy, look up (well), wait for, (keep the) watch (-man).

“Tzofiyah” is only mentioned once in Scripture. We all have read Proverbs 31 about the wonderful, virtuous, woman most wives aspire to be. I would like to bring to your attention one particular description of her.

She watches over the ways of her household, And does not eat the bread of idleness. (Proverbs 31:27 The Scriptures 1998+)

In Hebrew, the verse looks like this:

Proverbs 31:27
	צופיה הילכות הליכות ביתה ולחם עצלות לא תאכל׃
Translit	tso.fi.ya hai.li.khot ha.li.khot bei.ta ve.le.khem ats.lut lo to.khel:
English	She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness.

She watches. You can say she is a watchman over her household. I believe “Tzofiyah” is she who watches - she who keeps guards, observes, waits, and guards. The action of Mrs. Proverbs 31 is watching, the character and attribute behind that action was watchfulness.

I believe every one of us maidservants of YHWH is called to watchfulness, to be a “Tzofiyah”. Watchfulness is characterized by careful observance, attentiveness, and constant lookout for possible danger - open-eyed, vigilance, and wakefulness. The opposite of watchfulness would be slumber, idleness, inattentiveness and negligence. A watchful woman does not eat the bread of idleness - she “looketh well to the ways of her household”. Let's personify a watchman woman of Proverbs 31 as Tzofiyah, a mother and wife, a model for all women, married or not.

Tzofiyah is first watchful over her own life and that of her family. She guards against evil in herself, in every form, in bad attitudes, contention, evil thoughts, wickedness, etc. She does not allow evil to take any form in her household. A wise lady once told me, looking at the state of her garden, “caring for a garden is like raising children”. Meaning, weeds get in so easily. One cannot possibly neglect her garden; it would be overtaken by weeds. One cannot be lazy and negligent over one's thoughts and one's family; evil influences take root a lot easier than godly truth. She constantly asks Elohim for grace, and repents, grieving over her own sin and wrong attitudes.

Tzofiyah also is a devout woman, like Anna in the temple. She is given to fasting and prayer. The Apostle Peter warns us to be sober and vigilant; our adversary is walking around, circling our home, waiting for an opportune moment for a convenient door to be opened that he might be given access. He is a thief, he comes to steal, kill, and destroy (John 10). She is queen of her domain; she keeps the enemy out by staying under the authority of her husband. She is a constructive woman who never idly wastes away her time; she builds her home. She is a wise woman (Sofia = wise).

Tzofiyah is a watchman on the wall of Yerushalayim. She never gives Elohim peace, but (shamar) guards over it, praying for its peace and security. She looks to her eternal home, Tziyon, where her Master Yeshua will one day come and restore. As a family, they pray for the peace of Yerushalayim, and its prosperity. She faithfully keeps to the Torah of her Messiah, Yeshua, the Torah of Love and Discipleship.

Tzofiyah and her family, like Nechemyah the builder of Yerushalayim's walls, prays to YHWH for the sinful, lost, souls, and for the lost sheep of the house of Yisra'el. They pray, “YHWH, forgive us, for we have sinned. Our household has sinned against you. Our nation has sinned against you. We pray to you for mercy”.

Tzofiyah, together with her family, prays for the peace of the city where they live. It is an evil city, full of corruption and evil. They are submissive to the laws of government. They pray that all their rulers may be saved. They live a quiet, peaceable life, shining the light of holiness for all to see. They constantly pray for laborers in the harvest-field, to bring souls into the kingdom of Elohim. Her home is a center of hospitality, where she is able to care for the needs of others and share the beautiful light of the gospel with them, not just by her words, but by her actions, and not just by her actions, but her attitude and character.

Tzofiyah is not a powerful politician, warrior, or activist. However, she has the audience of the great king of the universe. She can only do so much with her hands. She can do so much more by prayer. She maintains an attitude of humility, supplication, and continual prayer before Elohims throne. Like her Master Yeshua, who continually makes intercession, she too constantly cries out for mercy for all the lost souls in the world and for all the nations. She knows that the mighty Elohim hears the prayer of His servants, His royal daughters.

Tzofiyah knows that this world is not the end. She is constantly aware of that. The presence of Elohim is over her household. Tzofiyah watches and knows the signs of the times. She knows her Master Yeshua is coming, and works as a faithful, sober, servant, watching at the signs of the times.

Tzofiyah and her family have enemies too, that treat them wrongfully, accuse them of evil, and curse at them. They are dislike by zealous idol-worshippers. She rejoices in spite of and in the midst of trials. She lovingly begs YHWH not condemn them to judgment, but loves them in every way she can. She prays for their salvation every day with many tears, not wanting them to fall into Hades. Sinners in the hands of an angry God gravely need mercy.

Tzofiyah asks. She asks her heavenly father, just as Yeshua did. She asks him for souls, for Gentiles, and for nations. She claims them for His kingdom, not for her own “kingdom”. She asks boldly before YHWH what He has already promised her. She never stops asking. She knows how to ask what please her Father and what He desires for.

Prayer is as natural to Tzofiyah as talking. She always talks to her heavenly Father, and He always hears her. Our heavenly Father longs for every one of His daughters to be a Tzofiyah - to be she who watches.

Thoughts On “Raising Daughters to Function in Apostolic Ministry”

2011-09-10T14:56:00.000+08:00

After reading countless articles on Biblical Womanhood, femininity, Above Rubies, submision, obedience, etc. etc. as well as gleaned many treasures from spiritual writings on discipleship and the apostolic, I wrote this article to attack the issue of women in God's will from the spiritual perspective.

Scripture is very clear on the order of life. The Word of God tells us all about God – His plan, His will, His creation, His order, His design, etc. and if we were to search Scripture with open hearts and seek God, through His Word we will see His heart. It is no easy thing to bear the heart of God. It is so great. To those who are called to do so,and to whom God chooses to share His heart with – how blessed are they, yet how much it must cost them. These are men and women who understand the cost of discipleship, who avail themselves to the Spirit, soul, and heart of God, at the price of their own heart and soul.

God has a certain order in creation. He created man to be man and woman to be woman. He created man in His own image. And He created man with a need for a bride. “Why is that?” I asked myself. Why did Adam have to be created with a need for Eve, for a companion? Because Adam was created in the image of God. “Why then did god not be different?” Because He is God the Rock, perfect and unchangeable. It certainly tells you something, when Adam, the World's only and perfect man, created in the image of God, still had a need – for a bride, for woman. What a mystery. This is the mystery of the Mashiach.

We raise sons to be warriors, to be kings, to be prophets, to be preachers, evangelists, fathers, builders, protectors, providers, etc. But what do we raise daughters? Why did God create women?

Only in God and His Word can I find answers for all the questions that race through my mind from every possible angle of the issue, if only I dare ask God for the answer, and if I dare accept His answer. But that is faith, knowing that though life, suffering, sorrow, and misery may seem so meaningless, God is there – He is my God, my Creator, and this faith will keep me secure. I know He has a wonderful plan, a wonderful design. It's not meaningless. Life is not mere vanity and drudgery. When I look to God I am at peace, even if I cannot see the answer right before my eyes. God has a reason for everything. When I have faith in my Creator, I just know that life is worth something, that I am created for a purpose, and that no sparrow will fall to the ground without Him knowing of it. Surely God is working.

Being females, we don't have to take for granted God's plan for our life. Just like men, we have a place in God's will and working, if only we avail ourselves to Him, that is, make ourselves available for His service.

“Here, oh God, “ the maid did softly cry, “Is Your servant. Let it be to be according to Your will.'

Who knows what His will may be?

I don't to take any part of life for granted, but I want to be equipped for every good work. Yes, women were created to be help-meets and mothers, and God has created such things to be natural, but that doesn't mean we cannot be strong, and we cannot be spiritual, that we must live for the moment, for the laundry, the dishes, the meals, etc., that we have no life beyond the grave and no destiny beyond the kitchen sink.

I don't mean that we are created to be leaders, preachers, and authorities. I don't mean that women should be ursurpers, pseudospiritual, or feminists. It's that the word of God points us to the woman whom I must be, that is,

Thoroughly equipped for every good work
Totally surrended to the will of God
Totally in love with God alone, heart soul and mind dedicated to Him
A woman who knows the heart of God.

Women like Huldah and Deborah are remembered today as prophets, as great women. But let us not forget, that they were not primarily functioning in these roles on a day to day basis. Huldah was just an ordinary housewife,. But she was available to God for His service, and used once to give a prophetic word to the High Priest and to the King. Nothing in the physical ambition or mind of Huldah could conjure up this spiritually momentous prophetic word, or the influence she had on the destiny of the nation. It is just that she was obedient. She was available to God.

God doesn't use men who want to use God's using for themselves, their own reputation and “ministry”. God uses His servants, literally servants. God used a donkey to speak to a wayward prophet, and God used a woman to speak to a wayward nation.

Women must be equipped. Daughters must know the Word of God, and have a relationship with God. Daughters must grow up strong, cornerstone women, pillars of spiritual fortitude and moral virtue, emissaries of love and mercy. Daughters must be wise, discreet, chaste, and quiet. “Quiet” means that a woman must have self-control, especially that over her tongue. Oh, these daughters must ever be disciples.

Dorcas was a female disciple, the only one mentioned in all of Scripture. A disciple does not mean that she became a great evangelist that spoke to thousands in the streets, a prophet who staged a public showdown between Baal and God, or a pastor over men. Yet she functioned in the highest apostolic calling. A disciple is one who leaves all to follow Jesus. Without that element of death to self, death to this world, death to ambition, death to desire, death to the mind and the flesh and every thing she called her own, yes, even her own life, Dorcas could not have been a disciple. It's not that work that you do that matters, it's the work of God in you. A fully-functioning apostolic ministry can look just as much like Dorcas's life, or Mary's life, than it can look like Elijah's or Peter's life.

Love is the cross. It means that in whatever state or setting of life, you love God, and that love equals the pain and suffering of the cross, for the cross was the work of God. Daughters, let God use you.

Mary was used by God. She lived the sacrifice of the cross. She was His maidservant.

Daughters must be women of character. It means that they must spend their whole life studying, loving, and savouring the word of God. A daughter must grow into a woman who knows how to pray, how to intercede, and how to stand in the gap before God; a selfless woman.. A woman who sees behind her own life and little joys and troubles and sees the heart of God. This heart of God will be revealed to her. She will stand and see, and know the times and seasons. She will stand upon the wall a watchman, powerful, through Christ a mediator, yet trembling before the awesomeness of God.

Here is a woman who knows what revival means, who knows what righteousness means, and holiness means. This is a woman who avails herself to the heart of God, and is so filled with the supernatural grace of God that she can love beyond her ability and affinity. This is a woman who can experience the compassion of God fill her hearts, who can cry with tears for those who she is not personally in connection with. This is a woman who sacrificed her own, little pathetic heart, and received a burden for the lost, a burden for the nations, a burden to see souls saved, a burdened for revival in the land, a burden to see the lost sheep of the House of Israel within the fold of Yeshua.

Yes, she may be a mother, of two, ten, or twenty. She may yet be a daughter at home. She may be a widow with burdens of her own. She may be a woman on her own.Yet what separates from the other women of her kind is the great relationship with God. Great, because it cost her greatly, and continues to cost her every day. Great, because she is not proud. Great, because she is broken by the things that break God's great heart. Great, because not matter how little, how insignificant her role in life may be, she can see eternity, and behold the future glory.

Let us not worry about our life, what we will serve for dinner, wear when company comes, etc. but seek first the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness, and all these things will be added unto us.

Here is a daughter of Sarah, of Rebekah, of Rachel, of Leah. Only when we women can behold eternity, and live our lives with eyes fixed above, can we be of any earthly use whatsoever. Only when a woman can minister before YHWH, in his holy courts, in the solitude of her own personal prayer closet, can she minister to her home and to her family. Only when our citizenship, our heart, our joys, are set above, can we properly wash the dishes, do the laundry, feed the cows, weed the garden, and raise a family, etc. This is because we can discern the purpose, the plan, the hand of God, in every little thing.

No, a disciple is not a person so “spiritual”, so “incredible”, “perfect”, that she is basically wrapped up in herself. She is pretty credible, honest, giving, and practical – very down to earth, quick to respond to needs, quick to obey the voice of God, and quick to relinquish her rights. She is a woman, just like Dorcas. She is a woman, just like Mary. She is a woman, just like Huldah. Ordinary; a humble servant, a meek and lowly “donkey”, but behold, she is “bat Melech”, a daughter of the King.

That which is greater... Love.

2011-09-10T00:31:00.001+08:00

"We who regard obedience and submission as oppressive tyranny have no inkling whatsoever of the demands of love." -Rebekah Mui

See Colossians 3 and Ephesians 5-6.

Perhaps children naturally groan at the command to obey in all things. How easy it must be for those in authority to tyrant over us! Yet we know that the demands upon those in authority are greater. James 3 says “My brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment”.

Perhaps wives bemoan the unfairness of the command of submission, complaining a burden too heavy, a sacrifice too great, an unfair and chauvinistic requirement.

However we fail to notice the heaviest and greatest demand of all is placed not upon the children, wife, or servants must upon the father and husband himself. This is the command to love. “Love”, you say, “is nothing at all. It is easy. ” No, I say, to love as Christ loved the church is not easy, for the love God demonstrated to us is the love of the cross. And the love which God demands for us is the love He demanded from Abraham, the love He demanded from Israel (Shema Yisrael, Deut. 6:4-9). This love, this perfect love is the perfect fulfilment, and only perfect fulfilment of the Torah (law). This love is the cross of Yeshua the Messiah.

Christ calls His church to submit under His yoke. It is easy, and light. Which is harder? To be the one who has to submit under the yoke, or the one who has to bear the yoke, bear our sins, carry the cross for us, to love us. No, love is harder. Love is a higher requirement. Indeed, love is the highest requirement.

Love requires the greatest sacrifice, the greatest denial of self. Our role as the church submitted to the headship of Christ and separating ourselves from all others but Him is “child's play” compared to the sacrifice He payed for us. He humbled Himself, suffered all things...

Philippians 2:
⁵ Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, ⁶ who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, ⁷ but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. ⁸ And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. ⁹ Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, ¹⁰ that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, ¹¹ and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

“Children... obey. Wives... submit. Husbands... love.”

To obey is to heed. To submit is to yield beneath. To love is lay down one's life.

Shalom and shabbat shalom!

Prayer and Preaching by Karl Barth

2011-09-07T12:39:00.003+08:00

http://www.worldinvisible.com/library/barth/prayerpreaching/prayerpreaching.c.htm

Awakening the One New Man

2011-08-19T21:01:00.002+08:00

http://www.lineoffireradio.com/2011/08/18/dr-brown-interviews-coach-mccartney-raleigh-washington-craig-keener-and-other-authors-of-the-%E2%80%9Cawakening-the-one-new-man%E2%80%9D-book/

Ha Shir l'Yeshua, Adon Olam

2011-08-17T12:50:00.000+08:00

English translation	Transliteration	Hebrew
Eternal master, who reigned supreme,	Adon 'olam, 'asher malakh,	אֲדוֹן עוֹלָם אֲשֶׁר מָלַךְ
Before all of creation was drawn;	b'terem kol y'tzir niv'ra	בְּטֶרֶם כָּל יְצִיר נִבְרָא
When it was finished according to his will,	L'et na'asa v'ḥeftso kol,	לְעֵת נַעֲשָׂה בְחֶפְצוֹ כֹּל
Then "King" his name was proclaimed to be	Azai melekh sh'mo nikra	אֲזַי מֶלֶךְ שְׁמוֹ נִקְרָא
When this our world shall be no more,	V'aḥarey kikh'lot hakol	וְאַחֲרֵי כִּכְלוֹת הַכֹּל
In majesty he still shall reign,	L'vado y'imlokh nora	לְבַדּוֹ יִמְלוֹךְ נוֹרָא
And he was, and he is,	V'hu hayah v'hu hoveh	וְהוּא הָיָה וְהוּא הֹוֶה
And he will be in glory.	V'hu yih'yeh b'tif'arah	וְהוּא יִהְיֶה בְּתִפְאָרָה
Alone is he, there is no second,	V'hu 'eḥad v'eyn sheyni	וְהוּא אֶחָד וְאֵין שֵׁנִי
Without division or ally;	L'ham'shil lo l'haḥbirah	לְהַמְשִׁילֹ לוֹ לְהַחְבִּירָה
Without beginning, without end,	B'li reyshiyt b'li taḥ'liyt	בְּלִי רֵאשִׁית בְּלִי תַכְלִית
To him is the power and sovereignty	V'lo ha'oz v'hamis'rah	וְלוֹ הָעֹז וְהַמִּשְׂרָה
He is my God, my living redeemer	V'hu 'Eli v'ḥay go'ali	וְהוּא אֵלִי וְחַי גּוֹאֲלִי
Rock of my affliction in day of trouble	v'tsur ḥevli b'yom tsarah	וְצוּר חֶבְלִי בְּיוֹם צָרָה
He is my banner and refuge	V'hu nisi 'umanos li	וְהוּא נִסִּי וּמָנוֹס ִלִי
Filling my cup the day I call	m'nat kosi b'yom 'ekra	מְנָת כּוֹסִי בְּיוֹם אֶקְרָא
Into his hand I commit my spirit	B'yado af'kid ruḥi	בְּיָדוֹ אַפְקִיד רוּחִי
When I sleep, and I awake	b'et 'ishan v'a'ira	בְּעֵת אִישָׁן וְאָעִירָה
And with my spirit, my body	v'im ruḥi g'viyati	וְעִם רוּחִי גְוִיָּתִי
The Lord is with me, I will not fear	Adonai li v'lo 'ira	אֲדֹנָי לִי וְלֹא אִירָא

This prayer unmistakably sings to Yeshua ha-mashiach and of Yeshua haMashiach.

Becoming His Disciple, Becoming Who He Is

2011-07-19T18:52:00.002+08:00

We are called to imitate Christ. We are being made in His likeness. He was the fullness of the Godhead bodily. I am sure it is our desire to be conformed to His image, to become who He is. For as Christ is, so we are in this world.

We must be the Messiah to the world. Everyone of us belongs to the Messiah. We are His called-out ones, His servants. We, the body of called-out ones, are His body. Therefore we are His. We are the body of the Messiah, we represent and present Him to the world and to His people. We accomplish the work which He commands us to do, the will of the Father.

We are the sheep. Messiah is the shepherd.

The fullness of His nature, His character, and His perfection is attributed to us, meaning, imputed to us. And they are being imparted to us daily. Who is the Messiah? It is He upon whom the hopes of Israel rests.

The character of the Messiah is one which we must become. The Character of the Messiah, then, is the Holy Spirit-imputed impulse, motivation, and ability to do what is right (righteousness; the will of God) according to His highest standard of perfection, Christ (The Messiah).

The Nature of God is what is natural to God; and that is what must be natural for us to do. The Nature of the Messiah must become our nature. We are not a naturally righteous, holy, and sanctified people; the Messiah is holy and righteous. Character is the person that we are. The Character of Christ is who we are being made to be.

Adam was created in the image of haShem (the LORD). Seth was born in Adam’s image. We are born in the image of our parents. However the Messiah is the image of the invisible God. You saw no form nor image, haShem told Israel. But haShem appeared to Israel or was manifested to Israel in His Word, the Torah, in His tabernacle, and by mighty signs and wonders. Yeshua is the Torah, Yeshua is the tabernacle, and Yeshua was the mighty sign and wonder Himself.

The nature of the Messiah is as incomprehensible as the nature of God. Yet we know that God is the creator; that He cannot lie; that He is not an idol made with human hands; He is holy (set-apart, wholly other); that He cannot do anything wrong; that He is powerful, etc. We know that the Messiah was perfectly obedient, perfectly humble, perfectly perfect, etc.

Why do we learn character and character qualities? Because these are the qualities of the Messiah Yeshua.

1) Love

Love is the foundation of all Christ-like character, yet it is the pinnacle of Christ-like character. It is simply this. He was love. His execution-stake (cross) was love. He was the manifestation of the love of God. And as He loved us, so we must love God; we must love our brethren; we must love each other; we must love our neighbor; and we must love our enemies. We must love as God loves because He loved us. God’s nature is one of love. Love is perfection. In perfect love, all our actions would correspond and therefore align to the standards of HaShem.

Only a circumcised heart can love God totally, withholding nothing. In the Messiah we are circumcised with the circumcision not made with human hands; we are circumcised off the body of sins of the flesh (carnal nature), buried and immersed with the Messiah, where we also are raised with Him through faith in the working of HaShem.

He was our great teacher. We have become His disciples. “teach us, master, how to pray.” As a student imitates his beloved Rav so we must imitate Yeshua the Messiah. As a student follows his teacher wherever he goes, so we must follow Yeshua. As a student aspires to be like his teacher, we must aspire to be like Him. As a student longs to be chosen by the Teacher, and be taught by Him, so must we. Only, we must walk the path with He walked, live the life He lived, drink the cup that He drank, and that walk must necessitate the execution stake which He bore. As He was executed for righteousness and for the salvation of the world, so must we be, daily. To the world we might as well be dead; to us the world might as well be dead. Is it so difficult?

How long more must be we longing for the leeks and garlic of Egypt? How long shall we temper with the deceitfulness of sin, lest HaShem destroy us in the wilderness. No, the words of this world cannot save us; the life of the living Torah, the milk and honey of the promised land, awaits those called out of Egypt who would indeed go through dry land and let the waters of the Red Sea shut Egypt behind us forever, never to look back, never again to chisel with our own hands the image of a man.

Scriptural Ecology

2011-06-17T16:16:00.003+08:00

SCRIPTURAL ECOLOGY

Ecology is the study of relationships. Oikos (meaning house - envinroment) and logos (meaning word - study) come together to mean the study of the natural environment. Scriptural ecology is the study of relationships through Scripture, namely the relationship between creation, man, and the Creator.

In God’s Word, there are three states of ecology.

1) The perfect state of nature in which God created the world (Past)

2) The cursed state of nature as result from man’s sin (Present)

3) The perfect new state in which God will create a new heavens and new earth (Future)

Stewardship is responsibility over something that does not belong to you, such a servant’s stewardship of his master’s property. To be a good steward of money results from the belief that the money does not belong to you, but to God who was given it to you, and you must use it wisely. Man does not own this earth. Part of it may be your possession, you may possess it, but you do not retain full power over the forces of nature. Thus, it belongs to God and to be good stewards of this earth, we must live wisely, responsibly, and unselfishly.

Environmental stewardship is taken by some to mean that because we humans affect the environment through our actions, we should take responsibility over the environment. However this statement is not completely true. Animals and plants affect the environment but they are not stewards of it. It is God who created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1) and He that created man to have dominion over it.

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so. And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

(Genesis 1:26-31 KJV)

Read Genesis 1:26-31. God made man in this state:

1) In God’s likeness

2) To have dominion over all creatures on earth

3) Male and female

4) Blessed

5) Mission to

a. Multiply

b. Subdue

6) Herb, tree, seeds, for food

It is God created and fashioned man. God gave man dominion (reign), and commanded man to multiply(increase in number) and subdue (conquer) the earth. This is the perfect state of nature in which God created the heavens and the earth. This is man’s role. As kings over the earth, man is responsible to God and over creation. Man had power over creation.

Read Genesis 3. Man relinquished that power and came under the dominion of sin. Everything changed. Man was now in this state:

1) In the likeness of sinful flesh. (Gen 5:3 tells us that Adam begot a son in his own image. Man now bears the image of sinful Adam)

2) Under the dominion of sin, self, Satan, sickness, and the world

3) Cursed to

a. Female - Multiply (in sorrow)

b. Male- Toil and sweat to bring forth food.

c. Both – die.

How does this effect ecology? The relationship between man and his environment is changed. God doesn’t reverse what he created, but man has changed his relationship to God by creating a barrier of sin and has brought curses down upon the earth.

Finally, the third state in which we Christians are in now, as related to the environment, through Christ:

1) In the likeness of God and man – Christ was fully God and fully man. We are being transformed into Christ’s image (Ephesians 4)

2) Dominion (Ephesians 1) over all, including sin, self, Satan, sickness, and the world – in Christ who is our victory

3) A new man, Christ, (Colossians 3) where there is no race or gender (Galatians 3:28). Though “male and female he created them”, “there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.”

4) Blessed, victory over the curse

5) Mission to:

a. Multiple (preach the gospel of the kingdom to all nations)

b. Subdue the peoples under Christ!

6) Christ is our eternal bread of life.

God does not reverse us to the pre-sin state, but Christ exalts us above the curses of sin and disobedience. Christ ended that Adamic curse in our lives.

Christ was fully man, and the Christian (follower of Christ) is not a homo religiouso, but still fully man, but a new man in Christ, fully man and fully God, fully flesh and fully spirit. Thus creation will be united in the cross.

Christ said, “Blessed are the peacemakers”. Eph 2:12-19 tells us that Christ is our peace. He has made peace for us with God the Father. Therefore in Christ we also are restored to that dominion over creation. We must be joined to Christ in the cross, and thus become peacemakers together with Him, bearers of that peace and reconcialiation between man, his Creator, and His creation.

When man sins against creation he sins against the creator. Therefore concerning the study of relationships, in Christ we can have a reconciled relationship to creation. This will be fully evident in the coming Kingdom of Heaven, when creation is reconciled to itself. We will reign again as Kings with Christ the King, over the heavens and the earth. This reign of the Kingdom of heaven will be far above stewardship given to Adam, because we reign as God reigns, in Christ, in total power and glory. The earth shall be filled with the knowledge of God, YHWH, as the waters cover the sea.

The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.

(Isaiah 11:6-9 KJV)

Only the believing obey, only the obedient believe...

2011-06-17T15:47:00.000+08:00

Sha’ul emphasizes, “Only the believing can obey”. Yakob emphasizes, “Only the obedient can believe”. Beyond these two men, centuries of strife, division, and heresy lie. Who is right?

If the Bible is absolute truth, it must have no contradiction (it cannot contradict itself). I believe the Bible is

absolute truth. What then? Only that it brings out every aspect of truth, because truth is an aspect of God.

God is truth. The Bible is His Word, and it emphasizes every aspect truth.

Baking soda and vinegar reacts.

Baking soda without vinegar cannot react.

Vinegar without baking soda cannot react.

In Statement 2 and 3 there is a similarity of form, and agreement in fact, but a variation in emphasis. Meaning, statement 2 emphasizes vinegar, that, yes, even if you have baking soda, if will not react without vinegar. Statement 3 emphasizes baking soda, that vinegar without baking soda cannot react.

Faith and works produces righteousness (the state of being right)

Faith without works is dead. (Yakob)

Works without faith is dead. (Sha’ul)

Faith is the state of belief. To have faith is to believe. Works, means obedience to God through action. Works are actions of obedience towards God. Belief in God and ensuing obedience is what Abraham displayed. It

was accounted to him for righteousness.

See? No contradiction. None at all. Only the obedient believe, and only the believing obey. You cannot believe without obeying, for true belief produces obedience. You cannot obey without believing – true obedience that is pleasing to God and righteous must come from a point of belief. Belief cannot exist without obedience (that would simply be empty words, proffesions merely). Obedience cannot exist without belief

(that would simply be dead “works”).

To say that faith produces works would be to stretch the reaction time. The truth is, the reaction is almost immediate. What is faith that is not acted on? It is not faith at all but rather empty confession. True confession demonstrates faith through works. Works are what are tangible, that can be seen. Faith is what cannot be seen, or rather must be seen through action. True works, obedient action, demonstrates faith. When faith and

works are present in a disciple, in the works faith is seen, in faith work is produced.

Why have faith? The reason God gives us faith in His is to produce obedience. The reason why you put baking soda into vinegar is to produce a reaction. Faith causes, catalyses action. With faith comes action. There is not enough time, when true faith is imputed into a life, to say, “I have faith, but I’m waiting for the reaction.” No, if you have faith it will show up in your works. If you do not have faith, it will not show up.

Bonhoeffer’s Cost of Discipleship – An Excerpt Loosely Reworded in Simple English by Rebekah Mui.

2011-06-06T16:39:00.005+08:00

Note: Almost a hundred years ago the martyr and disciple of Jesus, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, wrote this book in German, without even knowing how much it would benefit the church today, and how pertinently and aptly it describes the state of which the church has fallen into. This short excerpt is by no means an accurate translation of his words, and I may well be guilty of oversimplification of great truths, but I feel that many today simply cannot understand the rich prose in which Bonhoeffer wrote and the difficult words used in English translations. Bonhoeffer was a remarkable genius, who has his doctorate at age 21. Nothing beats reading his original work, but I hope I have done his work a little justice in making it suitable for simple reading. In any case, this rewording has helped me retain the message of the book and consider each sentence and concept carefully.

"Cheap grace" is the deadly enemy of our church. What we must fight for today is to retain the true value of God's costly grace.

"Cheap grace" is a lousy discounted stuff sold for several cents at the flea market, (cut-rate, a real steal, practically sold for nothing or given away) which people throw away without thinking and take for granted. (It is a waste, a terrible disastrous waste.) It is simply presumed and assumed that the central meaning of grace is that the account for our sins has been paid for well in advance.

Cheap grace means the blood and body of Christ, the forgiveness of your sins, and the comforts of a "religion" practically thrown away at ridiculously low prices. The church portrays grace as its never-ending resource which she can just give away indiscriminately. "Grace can be had here, cheap!"

Cheap grace means grace held as belief system and generalized assumption by the church. "Everyone can have their sins forgiven freely!" The precious love of God is exploited as a selling point. "God loves you! As long as you believe this and pray a little prayer your sins will be forgiven. Won't you like that?" In this kind of “Church” the world can find a cheap covering for their sins - no repentance needed, you don't even need to feel sorrow for your sins or fear the wrath of God - you don't even need to really desire to be set free from sin. In the end, cheap grace is DENIAL of the living Word of God and a denial of the Word of God become flesh (Jesus).

Grace is "peddled" cheaply today, as if it were cheap and lousy trinkets sold by the streets, given without thought to people who would not treasure it, appreciate it, or value it, and would most likely end up throwing away (casting away beautiful, genuine pearls and freely feeding it to swine). We must fight today to retain the precious treasure, the costly grace of God which we can never achieve, buy, nor afford.

Cheap grace is just saying to the sinner "God has justified you - forgiven you - and is alright with your sin" - without emphasizing or even mentioning the face that you need to get right with God! "Grace, grace alone" they say, so that everything can just remain as it was before. "Let the Christian live like the rest of the world, let him model himself on the world's standards in every area of life, and not presumptuously aspire to live a different life under grace from his old life under under sin... (that would be striving, you see)"

Cheap grace is actually grace which we imagine, conjure up, and give ourselves. Cheap grace says you can be forgiven without even being repentant or the least bit sorry for the wrong you’ve done, you can be baptized into the church without having to submit yourself to church rules, disciplines, etc., you can enjoy communion as a body without the “unnecessary discomfort” of confessing your sins. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship; grace without the cross; grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.

Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; a man’ will gladly go and sell all that he has to buy the field. It is the genuine and luxurious pearl worth billions which a trader will sell all his goods to purchase (he would take great pains to care for it, insure it, and guard it, wouldn’t he?). God didn't give us a cheap little free gift.

Costly grace is about the kingly rule of Christ for which man will zealously even pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble!

Costly grace is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him.

We must strive today to maintain the costly value of God's grace and reverence it. It is no common thing to be doled out indiscriminately. It is given to those who ask it. Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again and again, the gift which must be asked (or begged) for, the door at which a man must keep knocking.

Costly grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner.

Above all, costly grace is is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: “you were bought at a price,” and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the manifestation and incarnation of God!

Costly grace is the holy, set-apart sanctuary of God; it has to be protected from the world, and not thrown to the dogs. Costly grace is the living word, the Word of God, which he speaks as it pleases him. Costly grace confronts us as a gracious call to follow Jesus. Costly comes as a word of forgiveness to the broken spirit and the contrite heart. Grace is costly because it compels and calls a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him; it is grace because Jesus says: “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

On two separate occasions Peter received the call, “Follow me.” It was the first and last word Jesus spoke to his disciple (Mark 1.17; John 21.22). A whole life lies between these two calls. The first occasion was by the lake of Gennesareth, when Peter left his nets and his craft and followed Jesus at his word.

The second occasion is when the Risen Lord finds him back again at his old trade. Once again it is by the lake of Gennesareth, and once again the call is: “Follow me.” Between the two calls lay a whole life of discipleship in the following of Christ. Half-way between them comes Peter's confession, when he acknowledged Jesus as the Christ of God....

This grace was certainly not self-bestowed. It was the grace of Christ himself that forced itself upon Peter and caused him leave all and follow Christ. It was the grace of Christ himself that worked in Peter that confession which to the world must sound like the ultimate blasphemy, and it was the grace of Christ himself that now invited Peter to the absolute highest fellowship of martyrdom for the Master he had denied. It was the grace of Christ that consequently forgave him all his sins. In the life of Peter, grace and discipleship cannot be separated. He had received the grace which costs.

As Christianity spread, and the Church became more secularized, the costliness of grace was gradually forgotten. The (Western) world was “Christianized”, and grace became just like any other common object. It was to be had cheaply.

Summary: Grace is not the license to do what we want – it is the power to do what God wills! Grace is not the forgiveness of sins doled out – it is infinitely more powerful and of greater value. Grace doesn’t just leave us as we are but compels us and leads us somewhere. It is easier and quicker to define cheap grace and to “use it”, but it takes the cross plus a lifetime to understand and come into a complete revelation of God’s costly grace.

Mashiach Comes

2011-06-06T12:52:00.001+08:00

In power and in majesty,
in victory and in glory,
in righteousness and in mercy.
He comes, Mashiach comes.

No longer on a donkey,
With His hand to smite iniquity,
Righteous, awesome, holy,
He comes, Mashiach comes.

To judge the world of ungodly,
To proclaim the year of jubilee,
To set the captives free,
He comes, Mashiach comes.

To overthrow the king of Bavel,
To show Himself to Yisrael,
To cast the darkness into hell,
He comes, Mashiach comes.

To proclaim the name of Ha Shem,
To restore to Israel her land,
With mighty power and an outstretched hand,
He comes, Mashiach comes.

To reward the just and merciful,
To split the Mount of Olives in two,
To bring home every scattered Jew,
He comes, Mashiach comes.

The Dead Sea comes alive again,
The resurrection of all men slain,
The wondrous, perfect, blameless reign,
Of Mashiach, He comes.

His people to glorify,
His power to magnify,
His body to sanctify,
He comes, Mashiach comes.

Each eye will behold His coming,
Each mouth will sing His praise,
Each knee will bow before Him,
YHWH, ancient of days.

To turn man's glory into shame,
To save those who call on His name.
The name of YHWH to proclaim,
He comes, Mashiach comes.

His chosen faithful to reward,
The beloved called-out ones of God,
But the wicked will all face His rod,
He comes, Mashiach comes.

After the darkest, bleakest night of wrong,
For those who tarried praying long,
Will rejoice before Him in psalm and song,
He comes, Mashiach comes.

He overthrows the evil beast,
No power of darkness can exist,
The greatest of man will be least,
He comes, Mashiach comes.

To redeem the sons of Abraham,
Jacob - He will defend,
His Holy Spirit He will send
He comes, Mashiach comes,

The hearts of Israel will rend,
According to His eternal plan,
His Kingdom will never end,
He comes, Mashiach comes

His coming cannot be missed,
He will establish His rule of peace,
The blind and lame run to His feast,
He comes, Mashiach comes.

Though our tears once flowed down like a stream
We captives return in joyful dream,
Our hearts overflowing with good theme,
He comes, Mashiach comes.

The goys will all worship Him,
The peoples praise His name,
He will reign - The Anointing King,
No more tears,
No more sighs,
No more pain,
No more lies,
From sea to sea,
Dominion to dominion,
World without end,

Amen.

Maranatha - come, Mashiach come!

What are vain words?

2011-05-10T14:40:00.000+08:00

Faith is God and His Word is so precious to me, alive in me, and vital to me, especially when it comes to studies. Going through Algebra, Logic, Geometry, Chemistry, Quantum, etc. from the basis of being grounded in the Word of God and seeing the sovereignty of God is these studies is so enriching. I have been really blessed by studying the life and testimony of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and touching some of Karl Barth's teaching.

Here are some things I have learnt. I know I am not perfect and my writing is not absolute truth (which cannot be found other than in the Word of God), but my studies have helped me put into words some concepts of Scripture.

Some thoughts:

God is One who is wholly other and exists above and beyond the sphere of human reasoning and proof. How can I prove the existence or nonexistence of God? One can only hear a voice, see an effect, and that attribute to God. Philosphers have stuck to two fundamental humanistic beliefs.

1) Outside the physical senses, nothing exists... or nothing exists that can be proved or disproved (therefore, how could I disprove the non-existence of anything beyond the physical?) This is like a man locked in a basement his whole life who refuses to believe in anything outside that basement)
2) Absolute Relativity - there are absolutely no absolutes

I believe in planal relativity, meaning that relativity is limited to objects on a similar plane. This can be likened to ants in a jar or fish in an aquarium. "Dear little goldfish, argue philosophically all you like of the existence of humans, all your beliefs are relative to the plane in which you exist. You can't prove I exist, I exist in a world a lot larger than the little glass bowl and I am beyond being proved by you. If you belive the food which is sprinkled into your aquarium came about by means of a big bang which caused the food to evolve through billions of years of evolving, rather than being placed there by me, well..."

Of course I don't deny relativity, but I'm saying we all have to be relative to something, to some absolute. I don't deny the existence of "absoluteness".

A quarter 1/4 cup measurement spoon is relative to a cup. It is a quarter of a cup. Relativity is the calculation of relation. In the physical sense, in a limited way, we can calculate absolutely that 1 + 1 = 2 or that E=mc2. The fact that we can have a basic measurement that is accurate denies absolute relativity. If every chef's cup was different, and the word quarter reffered to a totally different ratio each time, chaos would ensue in a kitchen. There has to be a set standard. Watchman Nee said that mathematics is the only thing humans can do absolutely correctly :).

I don't believe in idols; I believe in a God who is absolute and is wholly other, meaning that He exists in a plane beyond human understanding and reasons. We cannot reach out and touch God. No matter how we contrive, we cannot attain to touching God. Man cannot attain to God.

Men are all on the same plane. We are all limited, weak, little beings with limited senses and limited intellect.

I refuse to think of God as an idol, which I can carve and make with my own hands whatever I like to worhsip. I also refuse to think of man as God. I believe in YHWH.

YHWH is supreme, all-powerful, and almighty. YHWH is eternal, and the name YHWH is a participle of the verb to be, meaning "always" or "eternal". Now we can say "eternal", but how many of us can actually experience "eternal-ity"? No human can. We exist in the plane of the physical, which includes death. YHWH does not exist on our plane because He is not limited like us!

THe plane of the soul is the plane of each man's mind, will, and emotions. Each man is limited to his own soul and cannot explore or discover the mind of other. I cannot "stand in anothers shoes" and therefore any human judge of another's thought has a measure of presumption and assumption. We can deduce from another's actions from the plane of the soul, but cannot be fully or absolutely right.

The realm of the spirit is where YHWH operates. All believers are called to walk in the spirit. The spirit and the flesh (soul and physical) are really at emnity. The Spirit that is in every believer is the Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit fills a man, YHWH has taken over, is taking over, and will take over the soul and physical being of a man.

Every believer has to be born again, into the Spirit. We humans may be able to run, leap, and perform great physical gymnastic feats with our physical bodies, excel to great intellectual superiority in the mind, achieve seemingly great stoic control of our emotions and conquer our will, but there is a need to be born again into the spirit, the Holy Spirit of YHWH, wholly other, beyond touching with our hands and thinking with our minds. To be birthed is only the beginning. We must learn to live more and more, to crawl, toddle, walk, and work in the Spirit. All those others things cannot please God. All those other things of the flesh are filthy rags in His sight.

The Word of YHWH says that "YHWH came down in the likeness of sinful flesh, condemning sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirements of the Torah might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit." and "There is NO condemnation to those who walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit."

If we walk according to the Holy Spirit of YHWH, it matters not what we do in the physical or in the soul, because both are under the dominion of the Spirit and will fall in line with the Holy Spirirt, who is set-apart, holy. That is true. The WOrd of God gives us guidelines to determine what belongs to the Spirit and what does not. The Spirit is not the absense of the flesh but rather the flesh being put under the dominion of the Spirit of YHWH. (This is what I believe the word of YHWH says, but it is only my interpretation, which may be correct in itself, but cannot cover the superior absolute ground of what exactly YHWH says.)

SO I believe humanistic philosophy is carnal, foolish, and vain, and now through the word of God I have been able to understand more through the Spirit. Though they have an "appearance of wisdom", they are really "vain deceit", and truly I now know why James called them, "earthly, sensual, and demonic". The Word of God is life, truth, and God offers it to all!

Yes, my words, my thoughts, will all pass away, but the word of YHWH remains forever! Seek Him first! Love Him first! You will never regret.

A Simple Pesach Meal

2011-04-20T22:41:00.000+08:00

Here's my first experience cooking a kosher for passover meal. It was kosher for passover, except for the stringent kosher part ;) (Read this article for the modern history of Matzo... really interesting!)

We had every part of the seder, and improvised, except for the shank bone, which we did not manage to obtain.

The boiled egg (beitzah) broke into pieces :) We had some REALLY bitter chinese herbs for maror, lettuce with salt water as dressing for karpas.

I made flour+water round matza, and that was the most authentic part of the meal (100% atta flour) I made my own charoset with apples, almonds, cinnamon, honey, and raisins - really tasty, and really looks like mortar.

For the main meal we had a Ashkenazi staple - latkes! Potato pancakes, with nothing dairy and absolutely no flour inside. In fact, there was absolutely no dairy in the meal. I made beef patties for meat - yum! And I deepfried crisp potato skins as a special treat! Ribena substituted kosher wine (hee hee)..

Below is the improvised matzo bag with compartments - a large napkin.

We enjoyed the good Jewish food tremendously, and we ate everything together after a prayer, not a long and complicated seder in Hebrew - though I would have enjoyed it - it would go down rather unappreciated. I had a good meal and a good time cooking it. We did not light candles, though after dinner, I enjoyed singing "Dayenu" "Adir Hu" "Eliyahu HaNavi", and of course, "Ma Nistana" - which really was meaning. It was fun, and after dinner we read through portions of Scripture relating to passover from 3 different versions :)

This meal was our first "Lord's Supper" together as a family. It was a good "Holy Communion" meal.

This is my first year doing Passover. The most important thing to do, I believe, is to pray and hope for God to open eyes and unstop ears. Especially this year we as a family renounced and repented of anti-semitism in the church that has slaughtered millions of innocent Jews during this season, claiming (of all things ) that they "killed Jesus". Of course we were the bloodthirsty ones. (See Our Hands Are Stained With Blood) We really have to repent with much tears.

May God bless Israel with peace, and may He sanctify us and perfect in all truth. Thank God for Yeshua, who died and was the atoning lamb for our sins.

Next year in Jerusalem!

Shalom,

Beka.

To God's Chosen People!

2011-04-20T22:22:00.000+08:00

Have a joyous and special Pesach this year my dear friends.

Why did I write such a song?

While practicing my violin, the day before Pesach, Passover, I heard a
distinct tune. Immediately I put the words to it. "My people, they do not
hear, nor do they understand". I opened my Bible the only place where I
remember this passage could not be found, Acts 28, and sang. And I sang and I sang and I could not forget this song.

"Go to this people and say:
"Hearing you will hear, and shall not understand;
And seeing you will see, and not perceive;
27 For the hearts of this people have grown dull.
Their ears are hard of hearing,
And their eyes they have closed,
Lest they should see with their eyes
and hear with their ears,
Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn,
So that I should heal them."
Such a melancholic song. Such depressing words. Blindess, hardness,
deafness. What does it mean? How can God say such a thing? This was and is God's message to His people. I almost wanted to cry but I could not.
There's something so yearning deep in the words of Isaiah that God spoke to
him. HOW LONG, ADONAI?

Last night I opened my Bible and immediately fell upon Isaiah 6. Ah...
that's where the passage is found.
Somehow this pass week I have been saying, "Here I am, send me." Then I had the same reply at Isaiah, "Go to this people and say..."
I have to tell you. I cannot feel the same way YHWH did when He spoke these
words. I cannot imagine what God has to go through. The pain of a people
who see but cannot see, hear but cannot hear.
And yet, all of us, see but cannot see, and hear but cannot hear. All of
us, have a veil that lies over our hearts.
I can only hope. I can only hope for the day when YHWH, in His own time and
in His own way, opens eyes, unstops ears, and gives His people a new heart.
(Ezekiel 36).

And this, only He can do.

Here's an explanation by Art Katz about Christ and Passover. I listened to this and it was very helpful and interesting. Here's another one, and one more specifically about the Passover lamb and its significance.

Hebrew4Christians.com has a detailed and informative guide to Passover proper, and you can download the Passover Seder guide here.

Dr Brown did a recent radio show about Easter and Passover. It's rather long, two hours, but it's nice because you can turn on your "radio" and listen to it like a radio show while on a long drive, etc.

Here's a Chabad-Lubavitch site about Passover, very informative and colorful with many links, resources, recipes, etc. You can watch a movie about Moses here

Scripture Readings of significance Passover are Exodus 1-15, Matthew 26, Mark 14, and John 13, besides other places in Scripture.

And how do you eat matzo? I had some with peanut butter, and also nice with cold apple-almond-raisin-honey-cinnamon charoset! Had a yummy passover dinner which I spent all afternoon cooking - photos to come!

I exhort of my brothers and sisters to understand and to share the light of Yeshua this Pesach.

Shalom, Beka.

Today's Meditation - Flesh and Spirit

2011-04-13T12:27:00.000+08:00

Author’s note: This is not a thesis. The author is not teaching. The author is honestly trying to find an answer. Writing is the author’s way of expressing herself and meditating on scripture. And she found the answer, right at the end. And not everything in-between is complete truth, but merely a sifting to find the truth.

The Spirit and the Flesh in Worship.

Yesterday I realized, while singing, “Do you really think God is enjoying this, or are you?” That’s true. Then suddenly I realized something that I heard Art Katz expound on, the Spirit and the Flesh. God, is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and in Truth.

You must know I that delight in Jewish music greatly. I cannot tire of minor key Klezmer tunes. I used to love Negro spirituals (Go down, Moses, especially) and sang them non-stop. When I discovered the Jewish scale, well I fell in love with it. However now I realize, sometimes it is worship to God, and sometimes it is Rebekah going into one of those “orgies”. How can I tell when is what and what happens when? Who can really tell what is flesh or spirit? Are you trying to say that anything that I enjoy is not worship? What really is worship?

Worship is drawing near to God and bringing something pleasing to Him, like in the days of the temple. Worship is offering my body as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is but my reasonable service. Then only is my worship pleasing to Him.

Let us return to my present situation. Am I worshipping God or not? I thought I was. I was enjoying it immensely too. Is physical enjoyment something to be shied away from as spiritually demeaning? I believe the only way to test is to put it through the fire. If the physical is removed, can I still worship? When everything goes through the fire and through the sword only one thing will remain and that of God. So now, how? Even in the blandest of worship songs someone will find it enjoyable. The key is not to shy away from songs you like. Everyone has songs you like. But can you worship God without it?

I have a very real, physical hope. I want so much to be in eager anticipation, expectant hope and anxious longing for the very real Kingdom of God, for the literal restoration of Israel, and for the literal salvation of the Gentiles. Yet I don’t have that kind of same excitement for that as when I anticipate an email from my friend! I don’t grieve over lost souls the way I get upset when something small goes wrong in my life. What is wrong with me!

Two Masters.

You cannot hold God in one hand and the world in the other. You cannot serve to masters. One calls to you, the other enslaves you. One is eternal, the other temporal. You can only desire for one and chose one. You can only give your life to one. Unconsciously we serve the internet. We give our life to it. We spend excessive amount of time on it. We desire it. We contribute to it. We create our own world on it. The internet is the epitome of all that is the mind - From mind to mind; an invention of man. How else could we live? How else could we learn anymore? Books were of the mind. Now the internet. Wait, isn't God's word in book form? Books will pass away. Even without the form of a book the word of God endures. The word of God is more than a physical book and its pages.

There is nothing wrong with the mind or with the internet. It's the same as yesteryear when people bought books and wrote letters. Now it's on a greater scale. But even those actions are works of the physical and of the mind. Now the internet we can do those things on a greater scale. Paul served God and not his letters and not his ministry. Everything he did was consecrated. Can I say my internet use is set-apart, consecrated? Because of the speed and intensity of the internet it can readily become a controlling force, a master in our life. It is not the internet, but we, who make the internet our "lord".

Don’t blame the internet J

Internet is communication between humans. We can become addicted to communication with humans. Our primary communication should be with God. The Internet is just a name. A face. You can use it for whatever you want. In that way, there's nothing wrong with the internet. Who is this master thatcomes between you and God? Don't blame the internet. You are looking at his back. You serve him, you feed him, you nourish him, and you subject yourself to him. Now you resent him, because he stands between you and God. Let the internet turn around. Who really is the master that you serve and what is his face?

It's me! It my flesh! The real master behind the internet is you. You are the one that stands between you and God. You cannot serve God and your flesh. You have to choose one. The internet is a service with which you serve your self. The problem then, has nothing to do with the internet but with you. The internet is an arena where you can showcase yourself. The internet is the platform on which you parade yourself. The internet is your master and your slave. WHY? Your self has become your master. You have become your slave. The internet has become the means by which you serve your mind, your eyes, your ears, and your heart.

I speak of myself. Because I can make of the internet whatever I want of it, I have built a kingdom for myself. A kingdom of words I want to read, videos I want to watch, and friends i want to keep up it. The internet is a service to the flesh. The internet is my servant. Every one of use now has a castle, an empire, and a hoard of servants that will do our good pleasure. I don't have to read, watch, or see anything i don't want. I can see, learn, and do whatever I want.

Fasting from the internet and removing your heart from it is essentially a removal of the greatest way to serve your flesh. There are, however, still other ways to serve yourself. It's just that they're not so efficient. In fact, most activities are serving your flesh. Cooking, cleaning, studying, is all the service of yourself.

God's Word is antithetical to the internet's words. Why? I can't choose what I want to hear or read. It is not natural to me. I cannot find it in something to suit my tastes and my style of reading. I cannot find it pleasure. I find in it words I have to wrestle with. Why? When I read the word of God I am not feeding myself. I am feeding my spirit. And my flesh (self) does not delight in it. My flesh and my spirit are enemies. One wants to serve itself, the other God. God’s Word is not comfortable to me. It is not a playground of the flesh. It does not come to where I am. In fact, God’s Word is the place of the cross, and is antithetical in its very nature to the flesh.

When I say I want to serve God and I mean it with all my heart, I am dedicating myself to Him. That means I can no longer serve myself. I have but one master, God. God is my master. Now everything I do must be consecrated to Him. What is pleasing to me is not pleasing to Him. It is up to Him to decide what is glorifying to Him, not what I hope to be glorifying to Him.

What then is serving God? Some ways of serving God we enjoy, some we do not. Just because I enjoy it, does it mean that I am serving my flesh? No, because my flesh is dead. I now exist primarily in the Spirit. Whether I enjoy the flesh or not is no matter. It’s very my spirit profits. Some activities are like junk food to the flesh, some like wholesome health food to it. The point is, you are not supposed to be feeding your flesh at all. You are supposed to be spiritual creature. Feed you spirit. Serve God. Worship Him in Spirit.

The whole problem arises, and this is God’s wisdom which we cannot understand, because we still exist bodily. We still have a body. Our old man is dead, right? Then why doesn’t God, at the point of salvation, zap up, resurrect us physically, and give us a literal, shining, new, perfect body that has no evil “flesh”. That is the mystery of sanctification.

Even the flesh can be “spiritual”. Even the flesh can be good. ARGH! Consider any daily dilemma. Confusion arises. The flesh and spirit are mutually indistinguishable because they “blend”, so to speak, to form a person. That’s why we cannot judge another. We can’t even properly judge ourselves. We can’t decide whether this is flesh or spirit because, wouldn’t that be an act of the flesh?

Only a person completely in the spirit can tell us whether we are still in the flesh. However, no one living and breathing is completely a spiritual man, right? No one is perfect, except Yeshua. Yeshua was perfectly God and perfectly man and we are being made to be like Him and be transformed into His image. That’s why Yeshua is the way. He had to become flesh to save flesh. Yet He was completely Spirit. So is the flesh good, or bad and why does this author seem to make so many conclusions and then contradict them? Isn’t this full of contradictions?

Here’s where this long and drawn out question is solved in one answer. That answer is Yeshua. All this complicated discourse about flesh and spirit can be solved in one simple obedience to one simple command of Yeshua. What is that?

And okay, let's be "spiritual" about it...

A MUST - LISTEN

2011-04-10T19:19:00.001+08:00

CHRIST IN THE JEWISH PASSOVER and more at Art Katz Ministries

2011-03-31T19:11:00.000+08:00

http://artkatzministries.org/audio-messages/k-461-jewish-resistance-to-the-gospel-1-of-2/

Works of the Flesh

2011-03-21T15:16:00.001+08:00

I was meditating on works and realized something. You see, scarce a person can be totally perfect and walk in the Spirit in everything. What happens to words, works, and thoughts tainted by the flesh? How does God use us oh-so-human humans? When am I acting completely, naturally and perfectly Spirit and when I am not? How can everything I do be of the Spirit - it is thought out in the mind and accomplished in the flesh, is it not? *sigh* no matter what I do it is tainted. It's not perfect. I can't be perfect!

That's what sanctification is about. It's the process of purifying, or setting-apart. Our gifts and service to God are far from perfect. Even were I to die, be burned to ashes, still it would not be a perfect sacrifice. only Yeshua is, was, and can be, the perfect sacrifice and He has completed that. In witnessing, in prayer, in learning the word, surely no one is free of the taints of flesh and self. How then? God will bring every work through the fire of purification. He Himself will shake everything from us that can be shaken, burn everything from us that can be burned. I can't wait to be perfect.

I may have the right motive, but wrong outworking. I may have the right action, but the wrong motive. I may have the right thought, but express it wrongly. God is the one who will bring us to the place of the cross and gradually, more, and more , it will be less of me and more of God. God will take the machaira sword of Scripture and slowly, gradually, steadily, peel away the flesh, seperating soul and spirit.

Every of you and I naturally is soul and flesh. God is at work, transforming. No one is perfect. All have sinned. No one is any better than another. What is the difference? Where I stand with YHWH - whether i am in Christ or not. The miraculous thing is that I cannot be totally in Christ physically after all I still have a human body, but I am "dying daily". I can't love God perfectly on my own. He is causing me to love Him, more and more every day. Once I have taken that next time I cannot turn back. It's going from glory to glory. The "continuous" tense of salvation is very real.

I have no need to fear. He who begun the work of salvation in me will complete it until the day of the Messiah. He is more than able.

Shalom! My 100th Post after more than 2 years of blogging here.

2011-03-21T15:16:00.000+08:00

Shalom to my readers. I began blogging here on March 3rd, 2009 at my mother's suggestion during a noontime Wisdom search. Some posts have been very, very, long, and some very short. Hahaha.

As disciple of Yeshua, how have I grown?
Wow... I have learned SO many things from God's Word that I never imagined. From my pastor, from reading Scripture, meditating, and memorizing, I have indeed grown a lot. My bookshelf is getting heavier and heavier. And i have only begun to know God in totally. So little do I know of Him! If my memory, mind, and
body were so filled and encompassed by God to the brim and were I filled to overflow I still cannot contain God and all He is.

It's so important that when I am young that I input and inscribe into my heart as much as possible from God. I can imagine God as the ancient scribe,
inscribing upon the clay of my heart in ancient cuneiform Hebrew. The younger i am, the softer the clay. Clay gradually hardens through exposure. The younger

I am, the better it is to seek God. The things I inscribe from God's Word now will last beyong this lifetime. I want to memorize as much as God's Word as I can, so that I will be prepared for the last days.

Many begin well with a genuine love for God and then later fall away. Gradually their heart grows cold, and sometimes God revives them in later years, and sometimes God doesn't. Far be it from me (God forbid!) that that should happen. I don't want to waste any more of my life on my self or on the world. I just want to grow and grow, and love God more and more.

When did I become a disciple?

When I became Bat Mitzvah. It's especially special when one is brought up believing in God. There is a great parallel between a believer becoming a disciple and a child becoming an adult. A believer becomes a disciple when he really begins to follow Yeshua and obey all His commandments. A child becomes an adult at Bat or Bar mitzvah, a son or daughter of the commandments, when she or he reaches maturity. A bar mitzvah, though having been growing all his life, puts off and cuts off all childish things at maturity. A believer, becomes a disciples, by cutting off and putting off all the things of the world.

What does a disciple do? Obey the Mitzvot. What does a bat mitzvah do? Obey the Mitzvot. So it happened to me. Yes, I may have believed in God as a child, but it was after becoming bat mitzvah that I began to truly be a disciple, to truly learn of the cross I have to take up to follow Yeshua, to begin to love God with all I am to begin my serious Torah study, etc. SO this was my experience. What is interesting is that my spiritual growth parallels my physical growth, discipleship parallels my bat mitzvah. Perhaps not everyone is like that, but it how God chose to work in me.

Surely, yes, being a bat mitzvah and a disciple is not the end but rather a beginning, of lifelong commitment to God, to His Mitzvot to Obeying the Torah which YHWH speaks to me, to fasting, to prayer, etc. There are so many things, infinite, that a disciple has to be, just there are infinite commandments a bat mitzvah has to obey. Yet I know that YHWH is leading, teaching me, speaking to me. Let me never let Him go.

Btorat Ha Shem is the same yesterday, today, and forever. The requirements He makes of His servants to follow Him has always been the same, His calling is constant whether to Abram in Ur, to Moshe in Mizraim, to Shmu'el in Ephraim, to Kefa in Galil, to Shaul in Damascus, even down to Bonhoeffer in Berlin, and
today, dare i say, also to me. Leave all! Leave the comforts of the world you see to venture into the unknown to a place I will show you, based upon nothing but the sure rock of the promises of YHWH. Far from the religion of convenience, it is a demanding, taxing, and difficult journey. It is a relationship that brings you into the unknown. It calls to all. Only few hear, and even less still follow.

Shalom again to my readers. I will write a more conclusive meditation on discipleship and becoming bat mitzvah, in fact, I have been working, God willing, on a more comprehensive, topical, and systematic resource where you can go, read, explore, search Scripture, etc rather than a sporadic and inconsistent blog.

Please enjoy this month's lighted lamp magazine too!

Shalom Aleikhem,
Beka.
When Christ calls a men, He bids him come and die! - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Blessed Purim

2011-03-19T10:58:00.002+08:00

Purim is the festival where the Jews celebrate their deliverance from the hands of Haman the Agagite. (Hence the Purim pastry “Hamantaschen” – Haman’s hat/ears). Today is the eve of Shabbat, and also a one-day Fast of Esther to commemorate the brave Jewish woman who risked her life to save her people. God had placed her in the position as Queen of all the Persian Empire for the salvation of His people.

Purim is the start of the early year Jewish High Holidays, including arguably the most well-known, Passover.

Today of all days, and this weekend of all weekends, and Shabbat of all Shabbats, should be a great time of fasting as well as feasting, joy as well as mourning, supplication as well as thanksgiving. It is at this time the Songs of Ascent take on new and vivid meaning to me.

“In my distress, I cried to Ha Shem, and He heard me.” Psalm 120

“I will lift up mine eyes to the hill – from whence comes my help?” Psalm 121

“Pray for the peace of Yerushalayim” Ps 122

“Unto You I lift up my eyes, O You who dwell in the heavens” Ps 123

“If it had not been Ha Shem who was on our side, when men rose up against up, then they would have swallowed us alive!” Ps 124

“Those who trust in Ha Shem are like Mt. Zion, which can never be moved, but abides forever” Ps 124

“When Ha Shem brought back the captivity of Zion” Ps 126

And so on. These Songs of Ascent are eternally significant and are reminders of the truth of Ha Shem that prevails, of His love for His people Israel (He really loves them so much!) and of His greatness.

My mother Esther has written all these Songs of Ascents into song and placed them for free download here. I encourage you to pray for Israel even more as they gear up for these significant feasts and holidays. Pray with me that this Purim Ha Shem will show Himself strong and powerful on behalf of Israel. This Passover, remember that as Jeremiah the prophet said, one day Ha Shem will not be remembered primarily as the God who took them out of the land of Egypt, but who gathered them out of all the four corners to the earth to bring them back into their own land.

We can only imagine what Queen Esther and Mordechai prayed during the great turmoil they went through the days of the fast, the grief and the crying out to Ha Shem, the distress they were in, and then Ha Shem’s deliverance. These Songs of Ascent remind us of Ha Shem’s Salvation and His mercy.

Most used word in the Bible?

2011-03-15T21:05:00.001+08:00

LORD! http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Popular-Bible-Words.php. I believe that the King James Version and most others has more than 7,365 mistakes - the translating away of YHWH's great and awesome name, in which is salvation. In fact, it is a vital mistake. YHWH\'s name is important - there are many "lords", many "gods", many "el"s and many "baals", but there is only ONE YHWH. There are many "Jesus"s in the world today. Some people are named Jesus, and some are preached with a wrong gospel. When we call upon that Name YHWH we are referring specifically to the Only YHWH God and the Only and All Powerful God,

YHWH is One God.
YHWH Alone is God.
in YHWH Alone is Salvation (Yeshu-ah)

2011-03-15T11:42:00.001+08:00

1 Peter 2: 9-10 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Set-apartness. Holiness. What does it all really mean? What does it do to us? How does it take on a meaning to me that is not the pre-meditated, memorized, utterly “correct” definition that involuntarily springs out of my mouth? Yes, I know what it means. But what does it mean to me?

“Holiness and I” is not so much the issue. The issue is me and God. God is “wholly other”, as Karl Barth put it., and my relationship with Him is my relationship with Holiness. God is Holy, and none can be holy except by Him.

“Who God is and what it is to be divine is something that we learn where God has revealed [God] self….We may believe that God can and must be absolute in contrast to all that is relative, exhalted to all that is lowly, active in contrast to all suffering, inviolable in contrast to all temptation, transcendent in contrast to all immanence, and therefore divine in contrast to everything human, in short that [God] can and must be ‘Wholly Other’. But such beliefs are shown to be quite untenable, and corrupt and pagan, by the fact that God does in fact be and do this in Jesus Christ.”

To be holy is to be sacred, set apart. God is holy. God is thrice holy. God is set-apart and His set-apartness, I speak in the natural sense, is unobtainable by mere mortals. No, His set-apartness is infinitely above and beyond us. Then He says, “I will sprinkle you with clean water, and you shall be clean”. Clean. “I will cleanse you”. Cleansed. “I will put a new spirit within you”. Renewed. And they shall be called, “The Set-Apart” people.

If we are indeed His set-apart people, if I am indeed set-apart for Him, then what am I set apart from, where am I set apart to, and what am I set-apart for?

The first mention of holiness (qadosh in Hebrew) is Moses with the burning bush. From then on holiness is a recurring theme throughout the Torah. God’s revelation of His Set-Apartness is something that once it is revealed, cannot be ignored or be escaped from. It is now an inescapable fact. It is a relentless fact. God would never so much as relent from His holiness, for that would be the same as denying Himself (an eternal impossibility!). Moses was probably the first person to hear the word “qadosh” issue from the mouth of God. From thence on it goes from holiness to holiness. The holiness of God is being revealed to man and defined in terms of man’s understanding more and more through Scripture. From thence on holiness is a recurring theme and issue in the Bible that God’s people have to come face to face with, they have to look the fact in the face and can either come away dead or alive. God’s people indeed have to wrangle, wrestle and settle the issue of God’s holiness within them. To ignore the fact is to simply close one eyes in persistent ignorance to the truth. It’s there, whether you want it to be there or not.

Of course, God was holy, even before He said He was holy. Whether I tell you or not, my name is still Beka. Whether you believe it or not, my name is still Beka.

Beware of thinking God’ holiness is an “Old-Covenant” revelation. “Holy” is mentioned 169 times in the “New Testament”.

God’s holiness is exalted, praised, and feared. God’s holiness, set-apartness is to be reflected into the holiness and set-apartness of His people. What characterizes a set-apart nation and a set-apart people?

1) Reverence towards YHWH. Fear of Him. Obedience towards Him. Respect of His Holy Name.

2) Humility, Contrition. Unless we know the depth of our sin and depravity, which in turn comes from the realization of God’s holiness, we are pride and arrogant, each “walking according to his own way”. To be a people of God means to know that we, on our own, can never measure to that which is God. We can never be holy on our own. And we have to know the grave consequences of our sin. Therefore humility, total repentance, and turning away, must be so very intrinsic in the nature and practice of the people of God. We must always come before Him on our face in utmost rejection of all that is flesh.

3) Abhorrence of evil. Avoidance of evil in any form. Utter purging of all that is not of God (whatever is not of God is not of the world. There is no neutral ground). No pretense or idol-worship in any form. A separation from sin, self, Satan, sickness, and the world. We are to be separated from all wickedness and perversity. “Come out of her, lest you share in her sins!”. Such a removal from and of all that is against YHWH is so clearly exemplified in the moving of the tents of Israel away from the tents of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. The children of Israel were repeated warned and commanded to stay away from the Canaanites. The land was to be utterly purged and cleansed. There is no such thing as “cultural assimilation” into that which is of the Kingdom of Darkness by the Kingdom of Light.

4) Antithetical Way of Life. God’s ways are not “blindly opposite” or “purposely different” from man’s ways. Rather, all that is man and all that is flesh is in blatant and perverse rebellion against the will of God. We have to live the lifestyle of the Kingdom of God. Note that the Kingdom of Heaven does not consist in merely eating and drinking. God does not want us to be obsessed merely in the “doing” and the “physical”. What matters in the Kingdom of God is the inward state and motive of the heart. Once that is taken care of, everything else falls into place.

a. The Way of the Kingdom is a Narrow Way, a difficult way. It is not a religion of convenience, but a demanding relationship where all the demands have been met for us through the Messiah. Now we have to live, think, act, eat, the way God does, and the way God commands. We have to consist and exist in the realm of God, in the Kingdom of God. We have to set our minds on things above. We have to place our treasure where is really counts and will remain. We have to be a witness of God’s light, grace, truth, and likeness to the entire world around.

5) Love. Utter love for God and for other. A consuming, holy, love. An eternal, endless love. Love that requires, love that demands everything from us - our heart, mind, soul, will, and even our very lives. That is the love that God is. That is the love required to perfectly observe and fulfill all the Torah. That is the love completely absent from a natural human being. I am naturally incapable of loving God in such a way. Love perfects - that is why is it a perfect fulfillment of the Torah. Love is the pinnacle of our maturity in Christ the Messiah. The characteristics of true love include the following.

a. One must know the love of God

b. One must love God

c. One must love His neighbor as God loved him

d. One must not love his own skin

These are only a few characteristics of holiness – what others can you think off? Holiness is not just expressed in what I write – Holiness expresses itself in infinite ways. Holiness affects my attitude, my choices of activities, my lifestyle – everything I think, do, act, feel, buy, sell, etc. Holiness is demanding.

There is a time-honored tradition in Judaism that even if you are sure you are ritually clean, you really aren’t.

You are the Light of the World

2011-03-15T11:33:00.000+08:00

You are the Light of the World - Read more here!

Yeshua

2011-02-09T10:23:00.001+08:00

Matthew 1:21 The Scriptures 1998+
(21) “And she shall give birth to a Son, and you shall call His Name Yeshua for He shall save His people from their sins.”

והיא ילדת בן וקראת את־שמו ישוע כי הוא יושיע את־עמו מחטאתיהם׃

Fire on the Altar

2011-02-01T10:06:00.002+08:00

Free Books (Including Art Katz) and audio sermons/Messages including Ravenhill, Dr. Brown, Art Katz, Wilkerson, Heidi Baker, etc. - a worthwhile resource!

Chapel Library Literature

2011-02-01T10:03:00.000+08:00

Chapel Library Literature - Click here to read a lot of Christian classics like Bunyan, Ryle, Calvin, Spurgeon, Bonar, etc. available online for FREE reading mostly in PDF form.

God's Endtime Strategy

2011-02-01T10:01:00.002+08:00

Art Katz Quote : "This has everything to do with what the Church will need to show Israel when they meet with the Jew, face to face, in the wilderness. We have to show the Jew this unconditional love of God while they are yet sinners! It is easy to love them while they are cute, fetching, and admirable. It is another thing to love them while they are in an abominable and angry condition. This is at the heart of a redemptive God. When God will have a people through whom that can be shown, then the age will have ended. Therefore, the issue is not Israel, per se, but the issue of a people who can show “God as God” under deep vexation where the natural thing to say is, “You deserve this judgment! Don’t expect any mercy from me. Shape up and I’ll think it over.” Jews expect and understand that kind of response. It is the way they would act. And so God is wanting to show them the very thing they least expect, namely, His unconditional love. But He needs a people who can show that forth. That is what God is waiting for, and that is why we have to move from our organized, programmed system of doctrinal beliefs into the actuality of the faith. Only in this place can we appropriate the very nature of God Himself. The whole conclusion of the age waits for it. Nothing is to be expected from Israel. Only that one who can love her while she is in that condition will be the instrument through whom the age is concluded."

Read the whole article at : Art Katz Ministries

2011-01-31T15:21:00.002+08:00

2011-01-27T13:42:00.003+08:00

troubleinamishparadise.com

I was blessed by a link to this fascinating documentary on the No Greater Joy website, and found the blessed testimony of the Stoltzfus family on their conversion and salvation. The documentary is informative and interesting about the Amish way of life but is saddening because of the legalism and turning away from the basic principles of Scripture in the Amish chuch, for " teaching as doctrines the commandments of men." (Matthew 15:9) They have been persecuting those who have discovered the truth, when their Anabaptist origin was one of being persecuted for their faith. I pray that many more Amish will come to know Yeshua as they can be such a glorious testimony of God to the unsaved world by the way they live.

Here is an article by No Greater Joy about their experience with Amish believers:

Plus, the No Greater Joy Ministry is giving out free downloads of Mr. Michael Pearl's preaching (2 and a half days worth) to the plain people for free to all until the end of February. I have yet to listen to them yet.

Linked is the audio testimony of the Stoltzfus family, based on Ezekiel 36:25-28, how God saved them from legalism, pretense, self-righteousness, condemnation, etc. and changed their lives. Their experience of salvation is a great testimony for the glory of YHWH. I would recommend this for you to listen. It is taken from their website, "Trouble in Amish Paradise"

Ezekiel 36:25-28 (New King James Version)

²⁵ Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. ²⁶ I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. ²⁷ I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them. ²⁸Then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; you shall be My people, and I will be your God.

And here is the scripture song for that passage word-for-word, written by my Mummy!

Anyone's read Leonard Ravenhill's new biography?

2011-01-25T14:35:00.001+08:00

Leonard Ravenhill Biography . I haven't bought it or got it yet, but I really enjoy his sermons and books.

Leonard Ravenhill Biography: In Light of Eternity from I'll Be Honest on Vimeo.

A. W. TOZER

Those who know of Leonard Ravenhill recognize in him the religious specialist, the man sent from God to battle the priests of Baal on their own mountain top, to shame the careless priest at the altar, to face the false prophet, and to warn the people who are being led astray by him. Such a man as this is not an easy companion. He insists on being a Christian all the time and everywhere. That marks him out as different. Why do we have men of such fiery swords as Ravenhill? They are sick inside when they see the children of heaven acting like the sons of earth. To such men as these, the church owes a debt too heavy to pay.

PAUL WASHER

I was introduced to Leonard Ravenhill at the very beginning of my Christian pilgrimage and the impact of his life upon mine remains until this day. He lived as one who dwelt in the shadow of the Almighty and he preached as one sent from God. He knew God's presence, wore His mantle, bore His burdens, and spoke His truth. He was the rarest of commodities in his day and ours - a man of God.

DAVID WILKERSON

Leonard Ravenhill was one of the few men I have ever known who was a true prophet. I am glad this book has finally been written.

Free E-book!

2011-01-21T12:58:00.000+08:00

I'm very excited as, to YHWH's glory alone, I have discovered, among others, some of Mr. Art Katz's books for reading free online, among them, The Mystery of Israel and the Church. I hope you will find these links every useful, I will indeed will! Thank God!

2011-01-19T13:29:00.001+08:00