YODHEYWRITER

‘TEMPLE AUDIT’

2017-08-06T15:14:00.000-07:00

‘TEMPLE AUDIT’

In the beginning there were no churches; it was simply a relationship between God and Man, and another relationship between Adam and Eve. I started writing to share with others about what I have discovered through my relationship with God and to bring about new relationships with others. I don’t know everything, actually I know very little, but I believe it is important to have a community with others to sharpen our swords. My blog is called, YODHEYWRITER; Yod and Hey are two Hebrew letters that spell the word: ‘chai’ which means ‘life’. The letter ‘yod’ itself means ‘hand’ and the letter ‘hey’ means ‘revelation’, so life means the hand that brings revelation. Yod and Hey are also the first two letters that make up the ancient name of God, Yod Hey Vav Hey; which makes sense because all life flows from God. So I pray that life happens with all of us; that we all have the ultimate revelation that Yeshua is Lord of all and that we allow our lives to flow with God’s will.

Over the past few years I have been to many different churches, under many different denominations. I have seen too many people that stop believing in God due to churches. Churches, religion, and denominations are evil. Yep I said it; it’s evil. My dad always proposed a theory about the three sixes that numbered the devil. The number six can be correlated directly with man, after all we were created on the sixth day. My dad asks rhetorically, “What are three things that no matter who you are or where you live you are constantly forced to operate within?” He responds with, “Government, Money and Religion.” These three things are manmade and they are evil.

Divide and conquer is a major device that the enemy uses against us, if we were one people with one God then the enemy would have trouble harming us. However, over the course of man’s existence we have continued to divide ourselves over the most absurd reasons. I have seen people divide due to the kind of music or instruments that people want to play in congregations. People have divided themselves over issues like the Trinity, or the Sabbath day, or what we should wear to church. We see more divisions occur on what name we should call God, or if we should wash our hands before we eat, or should we pray after or before the meal. Jeremiah 23:1, “Woe be unto the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! saith the Lord.” This is serious stuff!

I am so tired of churches adding and taking away from the scripture. I am so tired of pastors that care more about how much they know than caring about how much love and compassion we should have towards each other. I am so tired of pastors that are more worried about the number of views or attendees they get than the number of lives they have changed. I recently came into contact with a young man that lost his faith because of all the hate that he witnessed in his church throughout his life. I witnessed this same man try to come back to the church but was thrown to the curve because he made a mistake. This is scary! Ecclesiates 7:20, “Indeed, there is no one on earth who is righteous, no one who does what is right and never sins.” Now we must all look in the mirror and ask our Father in Heaven to reveal our sin and then ask Him for forgiveness and then ask for the strength to overcome this sin in your life. Christians get a bad rep for being hypocritical, but we all make mistakes and we have all fallen short of the glory of God. I love the analogy I heard on the radio this past week though; hating a sinner for being Christian is like hating someone that’s an alcoholic for attending AA meetings. We are scum and God says, “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags,” Isaiah 64:6. Paul says he is the chief sinner! Paul who wrote the majority of the New Testament is the chief sinner? We are Christian not because we are perfect or holier than thou, but because we need God’s grace to have life! Without His hand bringing revelation to us then we will cease to exist.

One question we should all ask ourselves, especially pastors and churches, what is your motivation for what you do and do your actions align with that motivation? If we never audit our doctrines or motivations then we will stray from the narrow path. The devil is much smarter than all of us; the devil would never have us go 45 degrees off the path; instead he will have us go 1 degree off the path so that you will continue living your life in a manner that you believe is right, and it could take thousands of miles down the path before you realize that your off of it. When Jesus called Peter to walk on the water Peter had no problem with it until he took his eyes off Jesus; then he fell in the water. How often do we look down? How often does our motivation sway from pointing to our Lord and Savior Yeshua? 1 Corinthians 9:26, “Accordingly, I don’t run aimlessly but straight for the finish line; I don’t shadow-box but try to make every punch count.”

The 9^th of Av was this past week. The 9^th of Av is a mysterious and terrible day for God’s people. The first and second temple were both destroyed on this day. It is also said that this same day is the day that the spies returned back to camp to give a bad report about the land that God is giving to His people. Sin is the reason the temples were destroyed! Are we not the temple of God? 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, “Or don’t you know that your body is a temple for the Ruach HaKodeshwho lives inside you, whom you received from God? The fact is, you don’t belong to yourselves; ²⁰for you were bought at a price. So use your bodies to glorify God.” This time of year reminds me who I am and who I belong to. We were all made in the image of God and we are all His children. After Antiochus Epiphanes desolated the temple by having unclean sacrifices on God’s altar, God’s people cleansed the temple and made it whole again. We too must inspect our lives and make it Holy and Clean. Matthew 5:48, “⁴⁸Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

I am truly worried for the people living in this age. We have become a confused people; we are beginning to not even know male from female any more. God is not the father of confusion, ‘1 Corinthians 14:33.’ Do you even know the difference between Holy and profane or clean and unclean? Ezekiel 44:23, “They are to teach my people the difference between holy and common and enable them to distinguish between clean and unclean.” My fear is that we are not teaching these things anymore and unfortunately Hosea 4:6 says, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.”

Quit looking for your pastor or church to provide you with knowledge. Quit relying on man to gain your salvation. Seek God with all your heart, pray without ceasing, never settle on where you are on your walk with God, and continue to grow your relationships with others. Keep your eyes on Christ and let all your decisions be aligned with that. I heard someone say, “When you pray you’re talking to God but when you read the bible He’s talking to you.” Start auditing your temple, and rededicate it to the God of the universe. Pray, study God’s Word, and remember two things: Love God and Love your Neighbor.

I pray that anything I have written that is not the will of God that it falls dead at your sight and does not bear bad fruit.

#ACTS17:11

‘FEAST OF MYSTERIES'

2017-04-29T14:04:00.003-07:00

‘FEAST OF MYSTERIES'

The Feast of Shavuot has many names, such as; Pentecost (meaning the 50^th day), Feast of Conclusion (because it ends the conclusion of the spring feast days), and my favorite is the Feast of Mysteries. Shavuot holds many mysteries as to why God commands us to keep this day holy. The way we are commanded to celebrate this day and the events that have unfolded on this day throughout history and tradition are rather peculiar, but they seem to help steer us in the right direction. It is my attempt to show you these mysteries and traditions and try to draw a conclusion as to what God’s plan is for this commanded festival. Proverbs 25:2, “It is the glory of God to conceal a matter but the honor of a kings is to search out a matter.”

Let me begin with explaining some of the mysteries behind the festival:

1. There are two loaves of bread that gets presented as a wave offering. I will go back to my five year old self and ask the question, why are there two loaves? And why are the priests waving the two loaves?

2. The two loaves of bread are leavened bread. Leavened in scripture is used to symbolize sin, so why would God’s people wave a symbol of sin on this day?

3. There is no specific date that God commanded us to keep this day on. It has been highly debated for thousands of years on when to keep this day.

4. Shavuot is commanded to be observed on the 50^th day. Why the 50^th day?

5. In Acts 2 we see people talking in tongues. Why does God unite everyone’s languages on this day?

6. According to tradition 3,000 people died on this day at Mount Sinai, and oddly enough 3,000 people were saved at Shavuot after the Holy Spirit fell on them. Why such a coincidence between the days? Why is it important?

7. It is the first time that we see God blowing a trumpet. Why is He blowing a trumpet?

Before we start trying to unravel this mystery it is important to understand how Israel has viewed this day throughout history. I cannot prove that these events actually all happened on this feast but it is interesting that Israel has passed down this particular history and the traditions that it did.

1. It is known as the day that Enoch got translated.

2. It is also thought that David died on this day.

3. Interesting that it is believed that the Tower of Babel was destroyed on this day.

4. God gave His commandments to His people and here we witness the first marriage ceremony.

5. God sent His Holy Ghost to dwell in us and here we witness the renewing of the vowels or some might say another wedding all together.

There are a few peculiar traditions as well:

1. Many people renew their wedding vowels on this day. (My wife and I actually got engaged on this feast day and were baptized as well.)

2. According to the tradition, the Israelites were caught sleeping the day that God came down on Mount Sinai to deliver His Torah, and Moses had to wake them all up. Since then people stay up all night and study Torah to show their appreciation to God giving His written word.

3. The book of Ruth is read on this day.

4. The first chapter of Ezekiel is read as the haftarah reading for the week.

5. People eat dairy to symbolize them entering the land that flows with milk and honey.

What a crazy day that God commands us to observe! It is day of talking in tongues, fire flowing from our mouths, God coming down a mountain in the form of a cloud and sounding like a trumpet and God writing on tablets the laws for us to follow. I don’t know about anyone else but if I hear about a group of people out in the wilderness going up to a mountain to be with God and talking in tongues, I might stay away from them. But, we are so conditioned to not expect miracles or the power of God in our lives. Most of us are probably scared of something like this happening to you; just think how you would react if you were part of these events. We have gotten soft in our spiritual walk, only talking about the power of God, but never actually expecting the power of God to show up. People stayed up all night praying and reading the word of God. I don’t believe they stay up all night just out of appreciation of the written word but because they are expecting God to show up. Perhaps there is more to be accomplished on this day and maybe we should approach this season each year expecting to receive the power of God.

Let’s look at the fact that Shavuot is kept on the 50^th day, which if you know much about the number 50, it represents a jubilee year. In Israel every 50^th year is known as a jubilee year. Let’s look at what scripture says about the jubilee year: Leviticus 25:8-10, “⁸“‘Count off seven Sabbath years—seven times seven years—so that the seven Sabbath years amount to a period of forty-nine years. ⁹Then have the trumpet sounded everywhere on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement sound the trumpet throughout your land. ¹⁰Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; each of you is to return to your family property and to your own clan.” This is another example of restoration of God’s creation. Shavuot is a mini jubilee that is given to us each year. We are all to return to our own family! Are we not part of God’s family? Are we not to be the bride of Christ?

Lightbulbs went off when I discovered that this day is known as the day that the tower of babel was destroyed. Before the tower was destroyed there was only one language amongst man, and after the destruction God confused the people’s languages thus creating many new languages. Then later in History God decides to use this same day as the day that He enable His people to speak in tongues, thus providing only one language for everyone. Acts 2:5-6, “⁵Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. ⁶When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken.” According to some this was not the first time on Shavuot that people spoke in tongues and fire came from their mouths. Many Jewish sages claim a similar story at Mount Sinai when God came down to deliver His word. Rabbi Moshe Weissman says, “On the occasion of matan Torah, the Bnai Yisrael not only heard Hashem’s voice but actually saw the sound waves as they emerged from Hashem’s mouth. They visualized them as a fiery substance. Each commandment that left Hashem’s mouth traveled around the entire camp and then came back to every Jew individually, asking him, “Do you accept upon yourself this Commandment with all the law pertaining to it?” Every Jew answered, “Yes.”, after each commandment. Finally, the fiery substance which they saw, engraved itself on the tablets”

We have two marriage ceremonies, one where God writes His law on stone tablets and tell us if we are to do all that is commanded then we are to be His people and He will be our God, and the other marriage we see God sending His holy spirit to dwell in us and write the law on our hearts. II Corinthians 3:3, “³You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.” For by the law we are all deemed the death penalty which is why we see 3,000 people perishing at the giving of the law but thousands of years later we see 3,000 people being saved by the spirit of God. II Corinthians 3:6, “⁶He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” This now enables us to be able to worship God in spirit and truth. (John 4:24)

Everything we see through scripture, history, and tradition points to the restoration of God’s bride on this day. Even the tradition of reading the book of Ruth on this day. The book of Ruth is all about the kinsman redeemer in Israel redeeming a gentile bride. The law and spirit are not for the Jew only but for all of Israel and for all the world. Jesus told His disciples to preach throughout the entire world. Mark 16:15, “¹⁵He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.” Even at Mount Sinai God gave His torah not just to the Jews but to every person that walks the earth.

Perhaps there is still more to be accomplished on Shavuot. Ezekiel 37:16-22, “¹⁶“Son of man, take a stick of wood and write on it, ‘Belonging to Judah and the Israelites associated with him.’ Then take another stick of wood, and write on it, ‘Belonging to Joseph (that is, to Ephraim) and all the Israelites associated with him.’ ¹⁷Join them together into one stick so that they will become one in your hand. ¹⁸“When your people ask you, ‘Won’t you tell us what you mean by this?’ ¹⁹say to them, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lordsays: I am going to take the stick of Joseph—which is in Ephraim’s hand—and of the Israelite tribes associated with him, and join it to Judah’s stick. I will make them into a single stick of wood, and they will become one in my hand.’ ²⁰Hold before their eyes the sticks you have written on ²¹and say to them, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lordsays: I will take the Israelites out of the nations where they have gone. I will gather them from all around and bring them back into their own land. ²²I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel. There will be one king over all of them and they will never again be two nations or be divided into two kingdoms.” We have witnessed a modern day miracle, of the Jews still being a race. No other race has endured so much exile and attempts of eradication by the nations. Now today we not only witness the survival of the Jew but the reuniting with their homeland of Israel and the reemergence of their ancient language Hebrew. However, the kingdom is still not whole as prophesied in Ezekiel. Could this be the day in the future that God decides to unite His bride?

This day is just another part of the love letter that God has written to each of us; unveiling His plan to ultimately redeem His bride. The two loaves seem to represent the two sticks of Israel being reunited, which is an old prophecy that we just read in Ezekiel 37. The loaves represent the two kingdoms of Israel, (House of Israel in the North and the House of Judah in the South). The leaven of the bread represents the sin of both kingdoms. Now any other time unleavened bread is used during feasts and rituals at the temple, and they are completely burnt up on the altar, but God does not allow any leaven on His altar (Leviticus 2:11). Instead the High priest waves the two loaves facing eastward to God, by using a motion of forward and back, and side to side. Now I know many in the COG believe that the cross is pagan, however the cross is also represented as the Tau in the Hebrew alphabet which Jesus is the Aleph and Tau. So it seems that on this day God is restoring the two kingdoms of Israel into one kingdom, and instead of burning the offering on the altar the offering is saved by the grace of God.

There are many more mysteries out there to discover about this holy day and the word of God. I challenge everyone to seek out the depths of God. And remember to never take my word for anything. Behave as a Berean, always be open minded and study the scriptures daily to find the truth.

‘First Fruits’

2017-03-25T09:06:00.002-07:00

‘First Fruits’

Passover is fast approaching and we must prepare for God’s holy feast. The ecclesia seems to be in agreeance that Passover is to be kept on the 14^th day of Nissan each year and the 15^th day of Nissan begins the Feast of Unleavened Bread but then God also places the Feast of First Fruits in the midst of the Unleavened Bread and this Feast seems to have some controversy around when to keep it. Leviticus 23:10-12,¹⁰“Tell the people of Isra’el, ‘After you enter the land I am giving you and harvest its ripe crops, you are to bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest to the cohen. ¹¹He is to wave the sheaf before Adonai, so that you will be accepted; the cohen is to wave it on the day after the Shabbat. ¹²On the day that you wave the sheaf, you are to offer a male lamb without defect, in its first year, as a burnt offering for Adonai” At first glance it seems obvious that the priest will wave the first fruits offering after the Shabbat so first fruits must be on the first Sunday after Passover. However, the weekly Shabbat is not the only Sabbath that occurred this week, the 15^th of Nissan is also a Shabbat, it is one of the seven annual Shabbats that God commanded us to keep in Leviticus 23. So which day is it? The day after the weekly Shabbat or the day after the 15^th of Nissan? It seems that God is wanting us to do our homework on this or he would have just told us to keep it on a specific date each year. In the time of Jesus there were two major parties of Judaism, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, the Pharisees kept it on the 16^th of Nissan and the Sadducees kept it on the day after the weekly Sabbath, so we can see that this has been a debated topic for thousands of years. I am going to pull my acts 17:11 card and tell you to do your own homework on this one and do not take my word for it. My personal view is that the Sadducee’s were correct in that we should observe First Fruits the day after the weekly Shabbat. The reason i came to that conclusion is because it would be the only way to guarantee that there would be seven Sabbaths and fifty days leading to Pentecost.

Let’s not get too tangled up on when we should keep it, we all know the season that we should observe. Let us move on to the meat of the message and truly address the significance behind such an important feast. Tonight I want to look at the theme of the first born and their importance to God! You should be able to see through this message that it is all about the first born. First Fruits truly represents the relationship that God desires to have with his people. There are three major harvests in the land of Israel, one on First Fruits, Pentecost and Feast of Sukkot. Israel was an agricultural community and depended on their crops to be able to survive. In order for their crops to grow they needed rain, which is why we see the reference in scripture about the former and latter rains. God is the former and latter rains, God is the reason for the increase of Israel’s crops. God desires his people to trust him and if we as his people obey Him then God will hold his end of the relationship and he will give us land that flows with milk and honey. To take that relationship a step further Israelites were commanded to give the land rest every seventh year and God would provide them with their increase. That takes a lot of faith to be able to stop doing the things you do that created success and rely solely on God. But that’s what He wants!!! He wants us to trust Him! On Feast of First Fruits Israel has a Barley Harvest and they are commanded to cut their first crops of barley and give it to the priest as an offering before God. Not only are all first crops God’s but all First born humans belong to God, Numbers 18:15-16, “¹⁵“Everything that comes first out of the womb, of all living things which they offer to Adonai, whether human or animal, will be yours. However, the firstborn of a human being you must redeem, and the firstborn of an unclean beast you are to redeem.” Families would have ceremonies at the temple where they would bring their first born before the priest and the parents must redeem them. There are a few rules for redemption:

1. Must be near of kin Leviticus 25:48, 25:25, Ruth 3:12-13

2. Must not need redemption himself

3. Must be willing to redeem Ruth 4:6

4. Redemption was completed when price was paid.

Jesus is our ultimate redeemer, yet it is our own fault that we need to be redeemed. If we would just listen and obey then we would still be in the garden but we see that Adam sold himself into slavery, Israel sold herself into slavery in Egypt and the Israelites chose to enslave themselves to kings and priests. Yes Jesus still loves us and he is still willing to redeem us. We see this theme of redemption throughout all of God’s Word but it is not the first born that redeems us it is the second always redeeming the first. Abel redeems his first born brother Cain, Isaac is a second born set out as a sacrifice, Jacob is the second born, Joseph is the second first born to Reuben and it is Joseph that buys back his family in Egypt. Manasseh is put aside for the second born Ephraim, we even see this example laid out in Genesis 38 with the story of Tamar and his twin sons.

We see from the very beginning of the Word of God that A divine first born (Jesus) had to pay the penalty for a divine first born (Adam). It is said that Jesus is the only son of God yet we can see that Adam is also a son of God and Jesus was known as the second Adam. So if Jesus is the second how can he be the first fruit offering? 1 Corinthians 15:45, “⁴⁵In fact, the Tanakh says so: Adam, the first man, became a living human being;^[^a^] but the last “Adam” has become a life-giving Spirit.” God is perfect and He desires us to be perfect. If we look at the pattern in scripture, Ishmael was Abraham’s first son but Ishmael was born out of disobedience to God, Cain’s sacrifice was a sacrifice of sin and Adam though born of God was also born of the Earth and chose to sin. Every true first born could not be the kinsmen redeemer because they themselves need redeeming. God set this example throughout scripture to point us to the ultimate first fruits offering, Jesus Christ.

Today we celebrate First Fruits with more joy than ever knowing that our King, our God rose from the dead so that He could redeem His people. This Feast is treated differently now than it did in Ancient Israel. Today most of us do not live in an agricultural community nor do anyone of us have a temple or a priesthood set up for us. This makes it tough to be able to keep the feast to the letter of God’s word, seeing that we have no Barley to give and no priests to give it to. I believe that God did not want us looking at Barley as our first fruits any more but instead looking to His son Yeshua and we should praise Him on this day! On the other side though i think that it is critical to have a relationship with God, just like the Israelites had a relationship with Him, in that He would provide the rain and the increase if they would do what He commanded. Scripture tells us not to go empty handed before God. Deuteronomy 16:16. I believe that when you go before you God on this feast that you should still bring an offering, some sort of sacrifice that can form this relationship that enables you to trust Him with all your heart, mind and soul.

This is an amazing time of year! Life is happening all around us! Spring represents life, and the end of the winter season which represents death. This season remove your dead works and dedicate your life to God. For it is by God’s first fruit offering of His son that we all live!

‘GOD’S NATURE-LOVE’

2017-02-25T13:14:00.002-08:00

‘GOD’S NATURE-LOVE’

I live in a time where truth is hidden deeper than the ocean, it is more foreign to people than the stars in the sky. People seem to have a common goal though, they want to survive, and they want to do what they believe is best for the world. There were and always will be people that want to exterminate other kinds of people that walk the face of the earth. People truly believe that the Jew’s are the problem with society, other people believe Christianity is the problem with the world, some believe republicans or democrats are the cause of all our problems. Do you believe any of these groups of people don’t want what they think is best for us? I believe these groups and most people are just trying to help build a better world based off of their own idea of how to get that job done. If you ask 99.999% of people if they believe that murder is wrong they will tell you yes it is wrong. We as people were born with a law written on each of our hearts in regards to morality, yet it differs from one person to the next on more “complex” issues like divorce or abortion.

Something common that I see from the LGBT community is posting signs that say ‘love wins’ or when they protest ‘fight for love’. We all desire love; to love and to be loved. So if we all desire love and we all have our own path to love what is their true love? Perhaps the answer is to have war against all people that do not view love the same way... because that is the way people seem to handle differences. What if we lived in a world where everyone you interacted with was exactly like you; they think, talk, look and act just like you? Would you be happy? It is time that we all came to the understanding that we are part of something that is so much bigger than each one of us! It seems that the entire universe was made for human’s ability to survive. We come from the dirt and to the dirt we will return, Eclesiastes 3:20. Everything that we need comes from the dirt; fruit, vegetables, animal meat comes from the dirt and they too return to the dirt when they die. If our sun were to be any bigger or smaller; then the earth could not support life, or if our earth was any closer or farther from the sun we could not survive. Without the moon orbiting around us or if the moon was any other size we could not support life as we know it. Everything has been meticulous placed in the universe to support our life. If one aspect of nature’s law fails then we all fail. Everything in creation abides by its own law, for example the earth rotates on its axis and orbits around the sun. Even man has some moral law built into us; we can all agree on that to some extent but everything that was created, other than humans, have no choice in choosing their law, they just do. The only thing we see in creation that has moral choice is humankind. So is morality and emotion something that we subconsciously created? What is our worth? What is morality? How do we know if we have the right or wrong line of morality? If there is a God, and I believe there is, how is there evil present?

Morality and love cannot be something that we just fathom in our minds because we experience emotion in life. If everything that we see in the visible universe was not created but just a product of random atoms colliding and the only thing that has emotion and free will are humans is a disturbing idea. Our own emotions are simply a random interaction from day to day and our feeling for love is simply put ‘bull shit’ that we have formed from our own random thoughts. Logic is not real because just like everything else it was randomly produced in our randomly created mind. Choice and emotion are therefore just an illusion placed in our mind. We are literally worth as much as the atoms that we came from. If you want to choose to believe this concept of randomness then please do but remember that you can never logically explain truth or morality because there is no such thing in a world that was created by nothing.

This is one reason we need God and we need His word to be able to distinguish what is right or wrong. 99.999% of people have a law written on their heart to not murder but if we allow subjective morality to take control of our world then we are subject to the other .001% of people fighting for what they feel is right in their hearts. We as people will continue to push the line of what is right and wrong. Ask ‘pro-choice’ people what age of an unborn baby entitles life and you will get an array of answers. We live in a time where the right thing to do is dependent on each individual that you talk to. If we allow the law of this world to be dictated on a case by case basis depending on who you talk to, well, that’s called anarchy. The last thing God said to Jonah was, “So shouldn’t I be concerned about the great city of Ninveh, in which there are more than 120,000 people who don’t know their right hand from their left ,“ Jonah 4:11. The people of Ninevah were confused and they did not know truth. God created everything ‘good’ not confused or in Hebrew ‘Tohu wa Bohu’. These words appear only a few times in the bible, once in Genesis and once in Isaiah. In Isaiah 45:18, “For thus says the Lord, Who created the heavens, Who is God, Who formed the earth and made it, Who has established it, Who did not create it in vain, Who formed it to be inhabited: "I am the Lord, and there is no other.”, and that word, ‘in vain’, is Tohu wa Bohu. In Genesis the bible says that earth was without form and void that is the Hebrew words ‘Tohu wa Bohu’ as well. God did not create the earth the way it is now. This is the devils world, even Jesus acknowledges that. Why doesn’t Jesus just kill the evil enemy right then there, why does He allow this evil? Without this present evil, man could never learn to appreciate love. God desires for us to hate sin, how else can we hate sin if we do not witness the fruits of it. If there were no evil then there is no free will because only love exists and love cannot exist without choice.

When God presented His commandments to man He said that He puts before us blessing and cursing, choose blessings. The good news is that our salvation depends completely on Jesus, Jesus paid our penalty for all the sins that we have and will commit. I was blessed to be raised with strict laws to keep. One of the laws that I keep is not eating pork, which seems like a very silly law to most people but science has discovered that pork carries most of the diseases that we get, for example swine flu. I could write a book about what ‘science’ has discovered about eating pork but I’ll let you do your own research and decide for yourself. Another law is for man to not lie with another man. Well it just so happens that 83% of people that have HIV/AIDS are gay men. The law needs to be looked at the same way when a child touches a hot stove and won’t do it again. Well the bible already tells us what to avoid and what to keep holy, we don’t even have to learn from touching the stove because once you touch the stove you are already in pain. Our father in heaven does not want us in pain, which is why He gave us clear instructions. Maybe now you are asking, well if He’s such a loving God what about the other people that lived before the bible was written? Well great question! How did Noah know what a clean and unclean animal was before Moses wrote the Torah? How did Abraham know about tithing or how did Cain know about sacrifice? Just as part of the law is written on our hearts, like do not murder, a larger part of the law was present on their hearts; after all they were not far removed from Adam who lived in the Garden of Eden. There are also missing books that people read, like Book of Wars, so perhaps they did have it written.

Love is the greatest form of expression in existence, yet it is the biggest mystery as to who we are. The truth is very simple though, God is love, I John 4:8. True love cannot come into contact with anything that contradicts because it will kill it. Just like light can never come into contact with darkness or it will immediately take over the darkness. Exodus 33:20 says that no man can see God or he will die. Man has been corrupted and we are not pure love. God created everything in this universe and after He created something He would look at it and say, “it is good.” We are made in the likeness of Elohim, we were made to be perfect. “Be perfect because your father in heaven is perfect.” Matthew 5:48. God did not create us to be corrupted and for us to live a life of misery. On the contrary God created us so that we could live and dwell with Him. We are told that one day we will have a new incorruptible body. I Corinthians 15:53. If you are God and can create anything you want how do you create a being to love? What God has seemed to have to done is given man free will and the ability to choose. Without the ability to choose love then it is not truly love because it is artificial design that drives the creature to do something. That’s what began in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve, they were given a choice to break the command of God and they chose to do just that.

Jesus says if you love Him, keep His commandments, scripture. Many people say that God’s law is bondage and outdated but what many people seem to miss is that human nature is the same yesterday as it is today; we have the same tendencies and desires and we tend to repeat history. The greatest commandments according to Jesus are; Love God with all your heart, mind and strength and Love each other as you would yourself and on these two hang all the commandments. If you look at all 613 commandments of God they all fall into two different categories, how to love God or how to love your neighbor. Take for instance the 10 commandments, the first four are how to love God:

1. You shall have no other God’s before me.

2. You shall not have any graven images.

3. You shall not take God’s name in vain.

4. Keep the Sabbath day Holy (although Sabbath is made for man)

The next six commandments are all about how to love your neighbor:

5. Honor your father and mother.

6. Do not murder.

7. Do not commit adultery

8. Do not steal.

9. Do not give a false testimony.

10. Do no covet anything that is your neighbors.

It is interesting that there 60% of the commandments are about how to love each other. I wonder where he wants us spending most of our energy. If God wants us spending most of time loving each other; the enemy is going to find a way to get us to spend our time divided against another. Do not follow the prince of this world but praise Yeshua the one that made a way for each of us to have life! Yeshua taught us how to live and gave us an example to follow. What I love about Yeshua is that he came to ‘magnify’ the law. Yeshua says that even if a man looks upon a woman then has already committed adultery. Yeshua taught us not even to fathom the idea of sin, placing the law of love on an even higher pedestal. Yeshua did not only die for every sinful action but for every sinful thought and word! “Oh, the glory of it all, Is He came here, For the rescue of us all, That we may live For the glory of it all, Oh, the glory of it all!” David Crowder. So how do we know if we are following the correct path of morality? Just ask yourself: Am I following Jesus? Hallelujah! Praise be to the everlasting King! Yeshua Hamashiach!

I pray that anything I have written that is not the will of God that it falls dead at your sight and does not bear bad fruit.

‘GOD’S NATURE-TIME’

2017-02-12T17:39:00.000-08:00

‘GOD’S NATURE-TIME’

People have always been fascinated by the subject of ‘time’ and the idea that people could someday have the technology to be able to travel in time. In my last blog on ‘God’s Nature’ I went through the idea that God is at least a 10 dimensional being and that we live in three and half dimensions; height, length, width and one direction in time. In this blog I want to discuss God’s Nature and how time impacts Him or if it impacts Him at all. As before we must look at our own circumstance of how time affects us because after all we are made in God’s likeness. This is probably the most difficult concept for any of us to fully comprehend because we have the prejudice that there are only three and half dimensions and we perceive time as a straight line that goes from one side to the other and never ends. Bible believers and scientists both believe that the earth had a beginning and everything in the physical realm has an end so it is very difficult for our puny brains to perceive a being with no beginning and no end. Yet eternity has been put in our hearts; people throughout all of time have done everything they can to live forever. Scientists these days are working on the ability to transcend themselves into computers so they can live forever. Two questions that a friend named John Black asks is:

· Do we move in time, or are we just carried along by it?

· When we are changed to spirit, and therefore not material, would time have any effect on us?

I will also do my best to answer:

· Does time have effect on God?

These are very difficult questions so go easy on me and please comment and let me know what you think!

We owe a lot of credit to Albert Einstein for his work and observations around time. He created two very popular formulas; E=mc2 and the General Theory of Relativity. These formulas have proven that time is a physical property. Let me prove to you that these formulas are accurate and that time is a physical property in our reality. There are two atomic clocks, one in Boulder, Colorado and one in Greenwich, England. These clocks are accurate to better that one millionth of a second per year, however, the clock in Boulder ticks 5 microseconds faster per year than the one in Greenwich. Why? Boulder has an altitude of 5,400 feet above sea level and Greenwich has an altitude of only 80 feet above sea level. Due to the elevation difference the time is different because gravity is different thus proving that time has a physical property and if time is physical then time can be manipulated in one way or another. We can discover by reading God’s Word that time is different from His point of view. 2 Peter 3:8 and Psalm 90:4, tell us that 1,000 years to us is but one day to God. It also appears to me that God created time; in Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning, (there is time), God created the Heavens, (there is space), and the earth, (there is mass).” This also in my opinion confirms Einstein’s theory, because without time there is no space, without space there is no mass and depending on where you are in space dictates gravity’s effect on the mass. I believe that we move in time, but God is outside of our time. To better understand this lets enter back into the 2D world. Let’s create a 2D flip book, I’m sure we all made one of these growing up at some point. From our perspective we can view the past, the present and the future and we can also enter into every point that we desire to. If time were to speed up, how would they know? How would we know? If time stopped how would they or we know? If it were to stop and then they would continue at exactly the moment we moved them along. God is at least a 10 dimensional being and He can see time as it truly is. He can decide to go in at any point of time whether it be past, present or future. How else do we explain prophecy of the bible or how else can you explain Jesus being present before the foundation of the world?

The next question is if we become spirit and massless then does time have an effect on us? According to Einstein’s theory time only has an effect on mass, in space. Let us take a deeper look at God’s nature though to be sure. Colossians 2:16-17, “¹⁶So don’t let anyone pass judgment on you in connection with eating and drinking, or in regard to a Jewish festival or Rosh-Hodesh or Shabbat. ¹⁷These are a shadow of things that are coming, but the body is of the Messiah.” It appears that there is a reality that God is preparing us for and this is just a ‘shadow’ or a glimpse of what is to come. God also has His own calendar that He commands us to keep. There are three aspects of God’s calendar that I would like to look at; first: the moedim, second: sabbatical years, and third: jubilee years. First if you look at Leviticus chapter 23, it talks about God’s moedim or translated: His appointed times. The moedim are the: seventh day Sabbath, Passover, First fruits, Pentecost, Trumpets, Atonement, and Feast of Tabernacles. After each one of these appointed times is talked about in this chapter it is commanded that we have a “Holy Convocation” during this time. What is a Holy Convocation? Convocation could actually be translated as rehearsal so what God is actually calling us to do is to rehearse what we will do in the future, the future wedding that God has with His bride. Like a wedding rehearsal! So if God is calling us to keep His commandments and His appointed times on His calendar then He is obviously trying to draw us into His reality. I will say this again, a thousand years to us is like a day to God! So for instance if we are commanded to rest after 6 days doesn’t that make sense why God is going to reign on earth for a thousand years or technically a day to Him. It appears that God has a 6,000 year plan to redeem His bride.

Let me move on to sabbatical and Jubilee years. A sabbatical year is every seventh year and a Jubilee year is every 50^th year. Genesis 6:3 says, “Adonai said, “My Spirit will not live in human beings forever, for they too are flesh; therefore their life span is to be 120 years.” I find this interesting that God numbered man to 120 years because if you understand God’s calendar then you will understand that He meant 120 jubilee years. 120 multiplied by 50 is 6,000; so again it appears that God has a 6,000 year plan to deal with man. So to finally answer weather time will affect us after we become spirit, it seems that time will at least be present in His reality. I believe that God is above all dimensions and that He will be here forever and ever; but God is not a lawless God. Scripture tell us that God will not sin, Numbers 23:19, “God is not a human who lies or a mortal who changes his mind. When he says something, he will do it; when he makes a promise, he will fulfill it.” He also call His people not to be lawless and He says be perfect for He is perfect. (Matthew 5:48) I believe that God is all powerful but could you imagine for one second God sinning? I think life would cease to exist. Fortunately God is love and if you love God keep His commandments. His commandments seem to be His way of life and it is true love and He desires that we all walk in this same light because the second you let sin into your life you are subject to time and all things die in time.

So in essence God is above all dimensions and He can use all dimensions for His good. The reason that God can do this though is because He is perfect for if we were not perfect then He would not be God and we would not be above all dimensions but instead He would be living in the same dimensions we are. God loves us so much that He put us here to teach us love and to eventually bring us to His kingdom. So is God subject to time? And will we be subject to time? No, as long as we love with all our hearts and all our souls and all our might then God and we will be above time and time will be subject to our will.

I pray that anything I have written that is not the will of God that it falls dead at your sight and does not bear bad fruit.

'BELIEVE'

2017-02-04T14:47:00.002-08:00

‘BELIEVE’

To believe seems like such an easy concept. We believe each day we sit down that our seat will hold our weight. To believe in God on the other hand can seem like a very difficult concept at times in our lives, and yet many Christians today say that it is through belief that we are saved and they are correct in my opinion, but if we never have the faith to hold our weight in God’s arms then do we truly believe? John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” This seems simple enough, so we can move on now, however, James 2:19 says, “the devils also believe, and tremble.” Will these devils that God cast out of heaven have ever lasting life as well? It seems that this idea of ‘belief’ has more weight than we realize.

2.5 billion People in the world are Christians, so we can assume that 2.5 billion people ‘believe’ that Jesus is the son of God. There were over 600,000 people over the age of 20 that God saved from Egypt yet only two of them made it to the Promised Land; Caleb and Joshua. Moses was God’s right hand man and Moses did not even get to enter into the Promised Land. What did Caleb and Joshua do differently that they were allowed to enter into God’s Promised Land? They believed! At least 600,000 people saw the miracle of the Red Sea parting, the manna and quail appearing from heaven and yet they still did not trust God. Moses made one mistake in the wilderness and he was not allowed into the Promised Land. Are we to assume that we are any better? We are not any better! Without our own ‘belief’ in Jesus we too could suffer the same fate. Now I believe in an amazing God that ultimately will extend His hand to all and forgive us for our iniquities but I will tell everyone to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

We must learn from the Israelites’ mistakes and our own mistakes to figure out exactly what God means to believe in Him. Hebrews 4:11 says that we must labour into belief. But I thought it was by belief alone? Is it by belief alone that the chair will hold our weight or is it by the action that we take by sitting in the chair? But what labour must we do? Hebrews 4:12 answers this, “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” Jesus says, “If you love me keep my commandments,” John 14:15. James says in chapter 2 verse 24, “Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.” For faith without works is dead!(James 2:17)

It is our duty that we must trust and labour into belief that God will provide our every need. Every thought that we have, we must take hold of it and convert it to the will of God. II Corinthians 10:5, “Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.” We must have faith like Abraham to hear and to do just as God has asked and for our thoughts to not hesitate for one moment that God will not provide for us. It is so easy for us to lose belief and to curse our circumstance but God has put us here for a reason and we must trust in Him in the good times and the bad. The Hebrew word for ‘believe’ makes up of three letters; Aleph, Mem, and Vav. The letters mean: strength, chaos and works; so basically believe means: to have strength during chaos to do works; good works according to the Word of God because doing bad works shows our belief is not in God but in darkness. Remember to pray without ceasing, (I Thessalonians 5:17), and remember that you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you, (Phillipians 4:13)! Remember that if we choose to labour for our belief in Jesus then he will give us rest! (Matthew 11:28)

I pray that anything I have written that is not the will of God that it falls dead at your sight and does not bear bad fruit.

‘WORDS ARE POWER’

2017-01-28T16:55:00.001-08:00

‘WORDS ARE POWER’

If there is one thing that can change your life, or someone else’s life it is the words that you speak and thoughts that you create. As children we have said over and over again, ‘sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me.’ I have come to the realization that that is just not true. Dr. Masaru Emoto did experiments throughout the 1990’s on the impact that words have. Emoto would subject water to different kinds of music, prayer and words. He would then freeze the water and photographers would take pictures of the water. I will leave a few photos here for you, they are photos of frozen water molecules after they have been exposed to our words that we speak. Make your own conclusions about the effect that these words had on water. These are just a few examples of the thousands of words that Emoto said to water.

(Water before prayer)

(Water after prayer)

(You make me sick, I will kill you)

(Adolph Hitler)

(Thank you)

(Love and Appreciation)

According to the Bible or God’s ‘Word’, we see that His Word and his commandments are life. Deuteronomy 32:46-47, “⁴⁶And he said unto them, Set your hearts unto all the words which I testify among you this day, which ye shall command your children to observe to do, all the words of this law.

⁴⁷For it is not a vain thing for you; because it is your life: and through this thing ye shall prolong your days in the land, whither ye go over Jordan to possess it.” I would also like to show you an observation that I and many others have made about words, blood and life. The bible testifies that blood is life according to Leviticus 17:11. It is interesting to note that the Hebrew language consists of 22 letters and that DNA consists of 22 paired chromosomes. Perhaps God is trying to tell us something.. I would also like to note that each letter in Hebrew is not just a letter but it represents a number and a meaning, for instance ‘aleph’ is the number one and it means strength or leader. Each letter in Hebrew is representative of the spiritual Journey or life that we must follow to reach the ‘tau’ or meaning covenant, so when God says He is ‘Aleph and Tau’ He is saying that He is the Strength of the Covenant or the Leader of the Law. The Hebrew word for ‘word’ is debar, and it is made up of three Hebrew letters, Dalet, Beit and Resh; which means: door, house, and beginning. So debar means: the door of the house is the beginning. The temple was always known as the house of God and where is the temple now? The temple is in each one of us; we are the temple of God. The beginning of what? That is for us to decide; we can choose to either speak life or we can choose to speak death through the door. Proverbs 15:4 says, “⁴A wholesome tongue is a tree of life: but perverseness therein is a breach in the spirit.” Notice that if we speak and do God’s word then it is a tree of life, but there is also another tree that we see in the bible, the tree of knowledge of good and evil, (that which Adam and Eve took part in). It is our decision for what tree we take part in.

This is probably the simplest concept, yet probably the most difficult for any of us to be able to fully accomplish. James says in chapter 3 verse 8-10, “⁸But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. ⁹Therewith bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God. ¹⁰Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be.” This is very important that we learn to correct ourselves now, for according to, Matthew 12:36, we will give God an account of every word that we have spoken. Our “jokes” often speak death.. So how do we accomplish something that James says no man can tame?

1. Read the Bible (God’s Word)

a. We must rely on God! Philippians 4:13, “¹³I can do all things through Christ which strengthened me.” We must also know His word; without reading the Bible we will never know what it is that we must speak and what it is that we must not speak.

2. Quit listening to negative EVIL music!

a. Let us rejoice in the music of God. I see too many of people, and I have been that person before, listening to music that profanes the name of God.

3. Quit watching garbage television!

a. Psalm 101:3, “³I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes: I hate the work of them that turn aside; it shall not cleave to me.”

4. Smile

a. According to some people language is 90% non-verbal; so smile even during the difficult moments.

5. Speak blessings

a. The hardest thing to do is to speak blessings to people that have done wrong to you. This is a test from God. How many times has an evil thought appeared in your head when you are mad? Or how about an evil thought appearing and you do not even know where it came from? Repress that thought, do not let it manifest, instead turn it into a positive thought.

6. Be open to correction!

a. II Timothy 3:16, “¹⁶All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness” Do not forget that the only scripture Timothy had when he wrote this verse was the old testament so make sure you read the entire Word of God from the Genesis to Revelation.

7. Quit Gossiping!

a. We must learn to pray without ceasing and learn to keep God’s word on the forefront of our mind. But there is hope for us, IPeter 5:7, “Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.”

8. Keep a journal of your daily negative thoughts and words and at the end of the day pray on them and turn each thought and word into a positive life breathing creation.

God SPOKE Heaven and Earth into creation! Proverbs 3:19 says, “The Lord by wisdom hath founded the earth; by understanding hath he established the heavens.” We too have the power to create life, healings, and blessings. Do not choose the alternative for it is a narrow road to walk with God; be like King David and hide God’s Word in your heart. Do not be like the people Timothy talks about, “Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.” Have faith that God will write His Word on your Heart and keep it there and do not let it be corrupted by the world. For God is the Word and the Word was made flesh. Let us praise Yeshua, the perfect Word of God that died for every evil word and thought that we have spoken and manifested.

I pray that anything I have written that is not the will of God that it falls dead at your sight and does not bear bad fruit.

‘GOD’S NATURE’

2017-01-21T14:41:00.002-08:00

‘GOD’S NATURE’

There are three popular views as to the nature of God, the Unitarian view, Bintarian view, and the Trinitarian view. Today I will not take any side of any of these views nor will I discuss them. Today, I want to talk about how great our God is and how big He truly is. Let us first take a look at our own nature, after all we are made in the image of God and in God’s likeness, (Genesis 1:26), and we will begin to see more of what God is truly like. We operate in three and half dimensions; space, width, length, and one direction in time. We live on this planet Earth and we have been so prideful throughout our history as to viewing ourselves as the center of the universe, the greatest and biggest thing in all of creation. Even today people view themselves as ‘gods’. Have you ever realized how small we truly are? Have you compared the size of the Earth to the other planets and stars? The sun is about 109 times larger in diameter than the Earth, and you could fit one million Earths inside of the Sun. Our Sun is pretty small as well; the largest star that has been discovered is R136a1 and it is 265 times more massive than our Sun! Needless to say we are pretty small, yet we puff our chests up every day with what we think we know and have accomplished. The Bible says in Isaiah 40:12,"Who has counted the handfuls of water in the sea,

measured off the sky with a ruler,
gauged how much dust there is on the earth,
weighed the mountains on scales, or the hills in a balance?” Also in Isaiah 40:22, “He who sits above the circle of the earth —
for whom its inhabitants appear like grasshoppers —
stretches out the heavens like a curtain,
spreads them out like a tent to live in.” That is a pretty massive God if you ask me!!

We live in three and half dimensions, so, let’s take a look at what science is discovering about dimensions. Mathematically we have discovered that there are at least 10 dimensions. We cannot even fathom the idea of what the 5^th dimension is let alone what the 10^th dimension would entail. According to the bosonic string theory there are 26 dimensions and according to string theory there are 10 dimensions. Scientists have also concluded that it would have taken God at least 10 dimensions to be able to create everything according to Genesis chapter one. Cern, a laboratory in Switzerland are doing experiments searching for the Higgs Boson or also called the ‘God particle’. They are hoping that through their experiments they will be able to understand more about the other dimensions.

Now let’s take a step back, God is obviously a creative being and we are made in His likeness and we too have a creative capacity. Again, we live in three and half dimensions and God obviously lives and operates in many more dimensions, could be thousands for all we know. So, if we have a God that is at least a ten dimensional being, how can man fully understand his nature? Or how can God provide a message to a three dimensional being? If we were to create a two dimensional world, we would be able to see all things, and to know all things. The two dimensional beings could attack us and we would just laugh at their attempts. We could even visit them by putting our finger in the middle of their two dimensional world and depending on the point of view they had they would argue about our nature. Or we could draw cube in their world and they would not be able to understand the three dimensions of it, they would simply see sides and points and the two dimensional beings would create different sects of beliefs around who this higher being is. We could however slowly unfold the cube piece by piece giving them clues to what our nature is; maybe that is what God has done by providing the Bible for us. God uses seven different Hebrew words to talk about heaven:

Vilon – is the word for curtain or tent as where God stretches out the heavens. (Isaiah 40:22)

Rakia – refers to the physical or visible heavens containing the sun, moon and stars (Genesis 1:17).

Shechakim – refers to the atmosphere (Psalm 78:23).

Zevul – is the habitation where God’s glory exists (Isaiah 63:15).

Maon – is the place where angels live (Psalm 42:8)

Machon – refers to the storehouses where the treasures of rain, snow and hail belong (Deuteronomy 26:15).

Aravot – is the storehouse of righteousness and peace, where angel beings reside and possibly the spirits of those not yet born in waiting (Psalm 6:4).

Perhaps these seven Hebrew words for heaven represent the other seven dimensions, beside height width and length. Unfortunately for now we see through a glass darkly, 1 Corinthians 13:12. We do not see the ultimate reality of what is going on right before our eyes. Even in II Kings 6:14-17, we see God opening up man’s eyes so that he can see His army of angels present.

God is an amazing God! He has the ability to stop the sun, Joshua 10:12-13. God is present in all of time; He was, is and is to come, Revelation 1:4. God is present everywhere, Psalms 139:7-9, “⁷Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? ⁸If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. ⁹If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea.” We even see that God can roll the heavens up like a scroll, Isaiah 34:4. Is there anything too hard for God? No there is not; read Genesis 18 and Jeremiah 32. God has counted the hairs on your head, Luke 12:7, He even has counted the stars and named them! Psalms 147:4.

“What is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?” Psalms 8:4. It is impossible to wrap our mind around God’s nature; just ponder over the fact that He has no beginning and you will understand that. I serve a God that is so big and so infinite that I will never fully understand all of who He is. Until God returns in his full Glory and we change to be like Him we must trust Him, serve Him and seek Him with all our heart, all our soul and all our might!

I pray that anything I have written that is not the will of God that it falls dead at your sight and does not bear bad fruit.

‘THE DEVIL HIJACKED IT’

2017-01-14T17:06:00.002-08:00

‘THE DEVIL HIJACKED IT’

It is much easier for the devil to corrupt what God has created than for him to create on his own. The devil or satan, is our adversary, just like in a court case there is the defense, which is Yeshua and then there is the prosecutor which is Lucifer. Lucifer is doing everything he can to build a case against us and his tactic is to show how easy we are manipulated and corrupted. It all started in the Garden of Eden when God created man in His image and the enemy tarnished Eve’s mind to go against what God had commanded and initially built his first case against God’s creation that we are not worthy to be Holy. We also see this corruption take place in Genesis when the sons of God took the daughters of men as wives and multiplied, (Genesis 6); the seed of God had been tainted and God demands us to be perfect for He is perfect, (Matthew 5:48). Then again in Numbers 21 when God ordered Moses to raise the serpent on the staff and when the people looked upon it they were healed, but the Israelites were weak and began to idolize the serpent on the staff and forgot that it was God himself that had the power to heal. Today there are many things that have become pagan but were not originally pagan; for example the ‘Zodiak’ and the ‘Cross’. The devil has read the bible, he knows God’s word better than anyone else and he knows that his time is short! (Revelation 12)

The zodiac today is made popular by pagans and witches. The zodiac is primarily used for understanding our personalities as well as the stars are often used by witches and pagans to tell the future. This of course is a sin, and goes directly against God, Deuteronomy 18:10-12, “There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch.

¹¹Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer.” We see the first example of man trying to observe the heavens in the story of the tower of babel, (Genesis 11). Man tried to build a tower so tall that they could observe the stars nightly to try to tell their future. All throughout history kings, such as Herod, have had observatories that were used to be able to tell their ultimate destiny. The enemy knows that God has used the moon and stars for signs and seasons, (Genesis 1:14). And God’s word is clear that the enemy will try to change the times and the seasons, (Daniel 7:25). The word ‘seasons’ is the Hebrew word ‘moedim’ which refers to God’s feast days that are commanded for us to keep in Leviticus 23. The moedim are always accompanied with some sort of sign in the heavens, such as Rosh Hashanah is accompanied with a new moon. Even when Yeshua is born there is a star that is present that aids as a sign for man to know of his coming, this is apparent in the scripture, (Matthew 2:2). The enemy is scrambling to corrupt what God has put in the heavens for us, in my opinion the heavens is God’s billboard for us, but be careful to not twist your own thinking about this. The zodiac was not at first the ‘zodiac’, it was at first the Hebrew Mazzeroth. We see the first mention of the Mazzeroth in, Job 38:31-32. The Hebrew Mazzeroth has much importance to a believer, for Psalms 19:1-5 say, “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. ²Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. ³There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard. ⁴Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun, ⁵Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race.” A few things in these verses intrigue me, first it is interesting that in science everyone speaks the same language and the Mazzeroth symbols have speech that all people are aware of despite what language you speak, and second the heavens declare the glory of God. We must ask ourselves, what is the glory of God? Is it His creation? I do not believe the glory of God is His creation, the Bible only talks about creation for a very small amount of time, however, the bulk of the Bible talks about God and His plan for redeeming us. I will also use the argument that it did not take much effort on God’s part to create everything, Psalms 33:6, “By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth.” God simply spoke it and the heavens were made, however, it cost God His only son Yeshua to be killed for the redemption of His creation. So, if the heavens declare God’s glory, how do they do this? Well it is a story in the sky for all man to see, beginning with Virgo, the virgin birth, to Scorpio the serpent being destroyed by none other than Leo, the lion of Judah. God also has 12 tribes, which all were given their own signs and ‘coincidently’ there are 12 Mazzeroth signs that coincide with each:

1. Judah=Leo

2. Zebulun=Virgo

3. Issachar=Cancer

4. Reuben=Aquarius/Man

5. Simeon=Pices

6. Gad=Aires

7. Joseph=Taurus

8. Benjamin=Gemini

9. Naphtali=Capricorn

10. Dan=Scorpio/Eagle

11. Asher=Sagittarius

12. Levi=Libra

We also see in Ancient Israel the Israelites camped around the temple under 4 major signs, Lion to the east, Ox to the West, Eagle to the North and Man to the South. These four signs also make up a strange four headed creature that we see in the visions of Ezekiel 1 and 10, Isaiah 6 and Revelation 4-5. This leads me to what I have to say about the ‘cross’; if you look at the number of people that camped around the Temple in Numbers 2 you will find that if you were to hover above the camp it would make the image of the cross.

We also see the cross as the ancient Hebrew pictograph letter of tau. In Hebrew every letter has a use in three ways; a letter, a number and a meaning. For instance, ‘aleph’ means ‘strength’ and ‘bet’ means ‘house’, when you combine the two letters they make the word for father which ultimately means ‘leader of the house’. Tau is not only a letter but it is its own word too; and according to the Strongs dictionary the word tau #8420 means: mark, sign, covenant or seal. So in essence treasure is found where x marks the spot. Romans 10:4, “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth.” The word end in that verse is the Hebrew word ‘telos’, which can actually be translated as ‘goal’, so in essence Jesus is the ‘goal of the law’ and it is interesting to note that the letter ‘tau’ is the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet making it the goal of the word of God for man to arrive at the cross, pointing ultimately to God’s son Yeshua sacrificing Himself so that we can live. Jesus could have stepped off that cross at any moment but it was His love for you and me that kept Him up there.

John 3:14, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up.” We see this happening all over again, man has fallen and has worshiped and idolized the cross instead of worshiping the one who actually redeems us. Do not fall trap in idolizing or worshiping images, rather worship the one who created you and redeemed you, Yeshua Hamashiach!

I pray that anything I have written that is not the will of God that it falls dead at your sight and does not bear bad fruit.

‘THE BIBLE PROVES ITSELF’

2017-01-07T18:26:00.002-08:00

‘THE BIBLE PROVES ITSELF’

As I have said before I do my best to live by the scripture Act 17:11, “These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” We should have an open mind to what we hear but there is one thing that I believe and that is that the scriptures are the one and only true, literal Word of God. I believe we must test everything and prove all things. 1 John 4:1, “Beloved, Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone into the world.” We must put the scriptures to the test and see if they are true. When I was in college I sought out the truth in this world. I studied evolution and the big bang in school, I read the Quran and Confucianism, and many works related to other religions. There are a few things that I have found, no other holy work other than the Bible has prophecy that has been revealed throughout history, and no other religion has a God that died and resurrected. Muhammed and Buddha are dead by the way, and Jesus lives! This message is to the unbeliever, this message is to everyone that does not take the word of God literally. I will begin with the prophecies that have been fulfilled, and then I will conclude with the heptadic structure that is found all throughout the bible and I will leave you with a challenge that not even 1 million super computers could accomplish in the next 4 million years.

Mark Twain once said, “All things are mortal but the Jew.”

“The Jewish people are the only exiled people to remain a distinct people despite being dispersed to more than 70 differnet countries for more than 20 centuries. The might emipires of Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome all ravaged their land, took their people captive, and scattered them throughout the earth,” Dr. Randall Price.

· In 1948 the land was restored back to the Jews and the dead language of Hebrew was restored.

o This was prophesied in Jeremiah 30:1-5; Ezekiel 34:11-24, 37, and Zecheriah 10:6-10. Jeremiah 30:3, “For, lo, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel and Judah, saith the Lord: and I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it.”

· Jesus predicts the fall of Jerusalem

o Matthew 24:1-2, “And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple: and his disciples came to him for to shew him the buildings of the temple.²And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.”

· Jesus’s life was laid out in advance

o The birth place of Jesus, Micha 5:2

o His genealogy: Genesis 12:3, Genesis 21:12, Genesis 49:10, Isaiah 11:1, 2 Samuel 7:12-16; and Matthew confirms it in chapter 1:1-17

· Virgin Birth

o Isaiah 7:14

· The messiahs appearance was pinpointed down to the day

o Daniel 9

· He would ride in on a donkey

o Zecheriah 9:9 and Fulfilled in Matthew 21:4-5

· He would be betrayed by his friend

o Psalms 41:9 and fulfilled in John 13:26

· He would be sold for money

o Zecheriah 11:12 and fulfilled in Matthew 26:14-15

· Jesus would be silent when he was being killed

o Isaiah 53:7 and fulfilled in Matthew 27:12-14

· They will divide his garments

o Psalms 22:18 and fulfilled in Matthew 27:35

· Cry of abandonment

o Psalm 22:1 and fulfilled in Matthew 27:46

· Not one bone broken

o Psalm 34:20 and fulfilled in John 19:32-33

I can go on and on but one would say that over the course of thousands of years it would happen by chance that this man would come and fulfill all the scriptures, after all the scriptures were there for Jesus to read and follow.

How about a prophecy found in a genealogy of Genesis 5. Many people do not realize that the Hebrew language, each letter has its own meaning, such as Aleph means strength or leader and Beit means house so aleph Beit put together says leader of the house which is also the word for father. The genealogy lists 10 generations from Adam to Noah. Each name in Hebrew has its own meaning such as Adam means man. So let’s transliterate all the names

Adam=Man

Seth=Appointed

Enosh=Mortal

Kenan=Sorrow

Mahalalel=Blessed God

Jared=Shall Come Down

Enoch=Teaching

Methuselah=His death shall bring

Lamech= The Despairing

Noah=Comfort or Rest

So, “Man is appointed mortal sorrow, the son of God shall come down teaching his death shall bring the despairing comfort.” Thousands of years before the arrival and death of Jesus we have it laid out for us. Maybe you draw the conclusion that a bunch of Jewish guys named themselves that to predict Jesus coming and dying for us. Oh wait the Jews don’t believe that Jesus was the messiah… I guess that’s not the right conclusion then.

Interesting that Methuselah’s name means ‘his death shall bring’. If you do your homework you will find that he died the year the God flooded the whole earth.

Now let us take a look at the heptadic structure that is in the bible. I challenge anyone to debunk this! I’ll wait..

There are some unique Vocabularies in the Gospels:

Vocab Unique to Matthew:

- 42 words unique to the Gospel of Matthew (7x6)

- With 126 letters (7x18)

How could this have been organized?

- Prior agreement with other authors

- He must have written his last

Yet Mark must have written his last, and so did Luke and John and James, and Peter and Jude and Paul. All 8 wrote their letters last because they all have a unique vocabulary that is divisible by 7.

I will leave you with a challenge, I want you to write a genealogy but I have some rules for the genealogy.

1. The number of letters must be divisible by 7

2. The number of words must be divisible by 7

3. The number of vowels must be divisible by 7

4. The number of consonants must be divisible by 7

5. The words that begin with a vowel must be divisible by 7

6. The words that begin with a consonant must be divisible by 7

7. The number of words that occur more than once must be divisible by 7

8. The number of words that occur in more than one form must be divisible by 7

9. The number of words that occur in only one form must be divisible by 7

10. Only 7 words shall not be nouns

11. The number of names must be divisible by 7

12. Only 7 other kinds of nouns are permitted

13. The number of male names must be divisible by 7

14. The number of generations must be divisible by 7

This is the genealogy of Jesus Chris found in Matthew 1:1-11

The remainder of the chapter verses 18 – 25:

161 words (7x23)

105 forms (7x15)

77 vocabulary (7x11)

Words of the Angel:

28 words (7x4)

Grammatical value: 52,605 (7x7,515)

35 forms (7x5)

Chances of Multiples of 7 if there are 9 rules:

For 2: 1 in 49

For 3: 1 in 343

For 4: 1 in 2401

For 5: 1 in 16,807

For 6: 1 in 117,649

For 7: 1 in 823,543

For 8: 1 in 5,764,801

For 9: 1 in 40,353,607

Go ahead and try! If you average 1 attempt every 10 minutes it would take you 3,362 years to do this. But it gets worse, there are 34 rules! Do you still want to try? If you have 1,000,000 supercomputers that are able to try 400 million tries per second it would take the computers 4,300,000 years to accomplish. Dr. Ivan Panin concludes that there are 75 rules! We see this structure all throughout the Bible. These are just a few examples. How do you explain this? Or maybe it’s the same way you explain the creation, it is all random and the design that we see in our world just happened randomly. Well I have never seen order come from chaos, that like saying that I saw an explosion go off and Mercedes appeared randomly. God is real and he has real design to His Word. The bible is the Word of God and if you do your homework you can prove it!

I pray that anything I have written that is not the will of God that it falls dead at your sight and does not bear bad fruit.

Amen.

P.S. I owe the credit of this blog to Dr. Chuck Missler, Dr. Ivan Panin and Mark Hitchcock for their research on this matter. For I have copied their research and put it in my own words but I do not think that they will be mad that their work is still changing lives. Also, do not forget about the prophecy of Daniel and his dream that has been revealed to be true. This is only a taste of what the Word of God offers. If you would like more detail on that matter or any other please comment or message me.

‘Do not grow tired of doing Good’

2017-01-07T12:39:00.002-08:00

‘Do not grow tired of doing Good’

Working in the service industry can be difficult. Let’s face it working with people is tough. I have learned over time to always expect people to disappoint you, because if you expect people to do otherwise you will always be disappointed. I became a personal trainer because I truly believe that through training I could groom relationships that would in turn help me make other people better versions of themselves, (according to God’s word), and through these relationships I could witness to them. There are three sins that I constantly feel that through personal training you can challenge others to change in their own life: gluttony, laziness and to eat clean ‘food’. This job also allows for people to ask me many questions such as, why do you not train on Saturday mornings?, (one of the most popular days for any gym), Why do you celebrate Jewish holy days?, and Why do you not celebrate Christmas or Easter? These questions allow me to open up to others about my faith in God and I have been able to build strong relationships with my clients on the foundation of Jesus. Have I been able to convert anyone? I do not think that is my job. My job is to plant seeds and to allow for God to grow that seed in others, and I can only pray that it bears fruit, good fruit at that. (‘1 Corinthians 3:6-9’)

Recently I have seen the good side of my job and I have seen the evil side of my job. Let me first vent and share the evil side but let us remain strong and truly focus on the good. Again, people will disappoint you, people will abuse your time. I have a client that has done just that, he has no showed our appointment 8 times out of the last 12 scheduled appointments. Over the course of three months I have had him on my schedule 30 times of which 24 of the times I got paid for so obviously you can see that 6 hours of my time I worked for free, not to count the endless amount of hours that it takes to build programs behind the scenes. I typically do not get upset about these kind of matters due to the fact that over the past five years this has happened multiple times and I have learned to expect it. However, this situation became unique when the client then asked for a full refund for the sessions because he said that he did not use the sessions. Corporations and companies only look at the bottom line these days and view employees as nothing more than a number. The member threatened to cancel his membership so the company made the decision to refund the money because they would make more money in the long run and in that same decision they took money straight out of my paycheck to be able to process this refund. I have fought and prayed hard this week on how to handle this matter. I wanted to quit, I wanted to find the guy and fight him and yell at him with all my strength and voice. But what fruit would that produce for me or for him? It would have produced a worse effect on both of us. It can become very difficult to remain strong and to keep giving the same service to people after that.

God works in amazing ways though, this week as evil as that seemed to be I saw some of the most beautiful things happen in my career. One of my clients that I have been training for the past 6 months is on a weight loss journey at the moment. She is very shy about the way she looks and has expressed to me how she hates looking in the mirror and she hates taking pictures. She has changed drastically over the past 6 months, and I have made comments about how we should have taken a before picture to compare and she just smiles and says, “Nope I wouldn’t have and there are no pictures of me anywhere from when we first started.” Well, this week she brought me a picture that she had taken with her family one month before we started training together, and she told me, “James I have been reading your blog and I know that this job is a calling for you. You are not like other trainers, you do not just take people’s money.” I don’t think she realizes how much that meant to me! It helped confirm that what I do does have value in others’ lives. Then another client this week looked at me and told me that she would love to start keeping God’s annual feasts days with me. She also attends a church in Flower Mound that is starting a writing club that begins next Wednesday evening, which I will be attending. Some days the world seems so evil and it makes it so hard to do well, but if you do not grow weary of doing good you will in due seasons reap your full reward. (‘Galatian 6:9’)

This week’s torah portion is about Joseph, (Genesis 44:18-47), and his story about forgiving his brothers for saleing him into slavery. I could only imagine how mad Joseph was at his own family for betraying him that way. Joseph had an opportunity to disown his brothers, he had an opportunity to get revenge on his brothers, for his brothers were in need of his help. Joseph realized that God’s will is much more important than his own emotions and desires. We too must be like Joseph and forgive each other for the wrong doings that others do to us. It is the will of Jesus himself that we love each other as ourselves. (Matthew 22:39) Stay strong my friends and pray for one another to keep their strength in doing the right thing under any circumstance. Pray that your will not be done but God’s will be done here on earth as it is heaven.

I pray that anything I have written that is not the will of God that it falls dead at your sight and does not bear bad fruit.

Amen.

‘RIP A PAGE OUT OF YOUR BIBLE’

2017-01-03T15:56:00.001-08:00

‘RIP A PAGE OUT OF YOUR BIBLE’
The biggest question that I have received in my life is what denomination or religion are you? I always answer that I am simply Christian. Then they will follow up with, why do you celebrate Jewish holidays then, are you Jewish? Or on the flip side I have had Jewish people ridicule me for associating “their traditions and symbols” with Jesus. Jews do not like me associating their culture with Jesus, (who was a Jew might I add), and Christians cannot seem to understand why I would celebrate a Jewish holiday if I am Christian, after all many Christians blame Jews for the death of Jesus. Then when Christians realize that I do not celebrate Christmas or easter they immediately tell me that does not seem Christian. So what am I then? Again, I am simply a believer in Jesus. I believe that the bible from Genesis to Revelations is the true, undivided word of God. There is one page that I would suggest to everyone to rip out of their bible, it’s the page that divides the Old Testament with the New Testament. I love the way I have heard it from other pastors, the Old Testament is the New Testament concealed and the New Testament is the Old Testament Revealed. There are about 33,000 denominations of Christianity today, and not one of them has everything right. I consider myself a Berean, (Acts 17:11), someone that challenges everything that I hear and I read scripture daily to see if what I have heard is true. We must test everything, we cannot rely on the pastor, the pope, the reverend or the rabbi or whoever is presenting a message to be the true Word of God. We must let the scripture define what the Word of God is. As for the Christians that do believe that the Old Testament and the Law is done away with then I have some questions:
In Act’s 17:11 and II Timothy 3:16, when the writers refer to scripture what scripture are they talking about? Just for your information the New Testament had not been written yet..
In Matthew 5:18, it says, “¹⁸For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” If the law is done away with then why is heaven and earth still present? But just to give you a glimpse of the future it does pass away, Revelation 21:1, “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.”
What does Jesus mean in the verse, Matthew 5:17 when he says he came not abolish the law or the prophets?
Why are we commanded to keep the Feast of Tabernacles in the future? Zechariah 14:16, “And it shall come to pass that everyone who is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles.”
Now as for the Jew’s today I have different reasons on why I believe they have not accepted Jesus as their Messiah. First off, Jew’s today view Christianity as nothing but pagan, because they celebrate Christmas, Easter and Sunday Church, something that God has warned his people time and time again not to do. The Jews are waiting for a conquering King, not a suffering servant. We must point them to the scriptures that lead them to understanding the pattern of prophecy that Jesus comes in two parts. For instance the story of Joseph is a powerful message in that his brothers rejected him, and Joseph suffered on the part of his family and after years and years Joseph becomes the one that is able to heal their land from famine. This story of Joseph also reveals so much of the House of Judah staying in covenant with God versus the House of Israel does not and God eventually divorces them from his covenant. Matthew 15:24, “But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Jesus came for the House of Israel the first time so that they could be grafted back into the covenant with God and the House of Judah. I pray that I am right in my theory that when Jesus returns every Jew will know that he is King and Lord of all! Romans 14:11, “For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.” Until then pray for one another, study intently every morning and evening, seeking truth in the scripture.

I pray that anything I have written that is not the will of God that it falls dead at your sight and does not bear bad fruit.
Amen.

‘Intentions are Worthless’

2017-01-01T16:39:00.000-08:00

‘Intentions are Worthless’

Growing up my parents taught me the importance of a weekly Sabbath. Starting every Friday evening we would turn all televisions off until the following evening. My parents would typically have friends from church come over and they would have an evening bible study. The next morning would be just like most kids that were raised in church, parents scurrying to get their kids, (me and my two sisters), dressed and out the door in time to make if for Sabbath service. However; keeping Sabbath on Saturday opposed to the popular view of keeping it on Sunday kept me and my sisters from participating in extracurricular activities, such as sports in my case. I will never forget when I was 10 years old I had a good friend that was going to sign up for a basketball league, so my parents decided to take me up to the gym one evening with all my other friends to sign me up for this league. My dad enjoyed sports growing up and he did not want me to miss out on anything. When we arrived to sign up for the league my dad quickly discovered that the games would be played on Saturday mornings. I’ll never forget the fight that I saw in his face that evening. It was clear that he did not know exactly how to handle the pressure that the world put on him to allow me to play sports and the tug that he felt for keeping the Sabbath Holy. We walked out of the gym that night not signing up for the league, my dad did not speak a word and I don’t think I did either. I was upset, I could never play baseball or basketball with my friends because the games were on the Sabbath. I did not understand what my dad went through when I was younger but as I have gotten older it is clear the spiritual battle he faced that night. Unfortunately, my dad finally gave into the temptation to allow me to play basketball on the Sabbath and from then on I was in love with the game, yet we fell away from keeping the Sabbath. I remember my parents trying to justify it by saying that it was something that I enjoyed and that it was not work. Little did they realize that they would never truly get back to keeping the Sabbath the way they did before I played basketball. My parents had the best intentions to do good for their kids, and to give them every opportunity that they had when they grew up. Unfortunately intentions are worthless in God’s eyes. We are to follow God’s law despite what our emotions tell us to do. “Not that I am saying this to call attention to any need of mine; since, as far as I am concerned, I have learned to be content regardless of circumstances.” Philippians 4:11. We must get to a point where we let God’s word guide us through this life and not rely on our own understanding but God’s, Proverbs 3:5. If you are reading this and are not quite understanding of this then I’ll put it this way, have you ever done something for your spouse or any loved one for that matter and had good intentions behind the action yet they got furious at you because that is not how they want you to do something? I know this has happened many times in my own friendships and marriage. God is the same way, He wants us follow us His way, not our way. Isaiah 58:13-14, “If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: ¹⁴Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the Lordhath spoken it.” The bible is filled with examples for us that we should follow, Leviticus 10:1-2, “But Nadav and Avihu, sons of Aharon, each took his censer, put fire in it, laid incense on it, and offered unauthorized fire before Adonai, something he had not ordered them to do. ²At this, fire came forth from the presence of Adonai and consumed them, so that they died in the presence of Adonai.” Nadav and Avihu had good intentions on what they were doing, they wanted to worship their God so they did it in the way that they themselves wanted to worship, but because it was not what God had ordained he killed them.
Let us learn to read God’s word with the literal meaning that it has and follow the examples laid out before us and trust in the Law of God. Do I think my parents should die for not following the scripture to the letter? Well let me answer it this way, in God’s eyes we all deserve the death penalty but he sent his only begotten son to die for our sins so that our sins could be covered in the sight of God. John 3:16. Praise God for his Son Yeshua!! Amen!

'Die for your Bride!"

2016-12-31T12:51:00.001-08:00

‘Die for your Bride!’

The most beautiful love story ever is unfolding before our very eyes. The entire bible from cover to cover is nothing more than a love letter, written in the blood, from the groom himself to his bride. The first five books of the bible lay out the vowels between husband and wife. The first marriage ceremony that we see take place is with God and Israel. In Exodus 19 God gives a list of commands that if the people obey then they will be His people and He will be their God. All throughout the bible we see this beautiful message played out that we are a bride waiting for our groom. In ancient Hebrew culture it is customary that a man asks his wife’s hand in marriage and then he leaves to prepare a place for her and him to live out the rest of their lives. The groom will come to get his wife without any notice at all. It is the bride’s duty to prepare and to stay ready for the wedding at all time, for no man knows the day or the hour that he will return and take his bride to be married. Interesting that this seems to be exactly what Jesus has done for us. He has come to ask for his brides hand in marriage and then he left to go prepare a place for us, (John 14:1-3), and he will soon return for his bride that is waiting patiently preparing intently for his return. But why did God have to come here for us, suffer for us, die for us then raise himself from the dead if he already married his people back at Mount Sinai some 3000 years before the cross? The answer is that God divorced his people, Jeremiah 3:8. God is a jealous God, just as we are jealous people and when our spouse breaks the vowels repeatedly we to desire divorce. The people at this time are without a God, and God is without a bride. During this time Israel is divided into two kingdoms, the Northern Kingdom being the House of Israel and the Southern Kingdom being the House of Judah, the southern kingdom came back to the covenant with God, however, the House of Israel did not and was dispersed amongst the nations. In God’s law a woman that has gone astray to another man after divorce then the first husband cannot remarry her, the only way that the bride could be freed from the covenant of marriage with the first husband is if the husband dies, (Romans 7:2). So what did Jesus do? Jesus died for his wife so that she could be set free from the law of marriage with him and then raised himself from the dead so that he could remarry his wife and live forever with her!

This teaches us such a powerful lesson in our own marriage; that we are to die for our bride each and every day! We are to take the penalty of sin for ourselves so that our bride does not see death! Today challenge yourself during conflict to die for your wife and keep the love of God in your marriage at all times. “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” Matthew 18:20 Love is the ultimate theme of the entire bible. Prepare yourself today for the ultimate groom to come back to redeem his bride.

‘Be a Berean, Have an Open Mind to Each Other’

2016-12-27T15:47:00.001-08:00

‘Be a Berean, Have an Open Mind to Each Other’

We have a more diverse nation than ever before and I feel that as a culture we like the ‘idea’ of embracing differences amongst others. The truth about ourselves seems to be a bit different, we flat out don’t know how to handle differences amongst each other. Let’s all face it and realize that we all have an internal law to ourselves that sets the standards for how to live and if someone does not live up to that standard then they shame them. I feel this way every day at work watching how other keep their work space or their desktop organized. In the world today we have many different cultures and belief systems that make it uniquely difficult to get along with others. My parents raised me to not celebrate Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny then instead taught me to celebrate God’s Holy days such as; Passover or Yom Kippur. Growing up in modern America I stood out like a sore thumb during their holidays or how about the time my kindergarden teacher made us all green eggs and ham, (I don’t eat pork due to my beliefs). I was taught growing up to always respect others no matter their differences in belief. Our nation is becoming more divided due to the fact that we cannot get along with each other. But this is new for our country, never before has our view ever been challenged. We live safe and sound from all the wars that happen in the Middle East and Europe. We go about our days feeling a sense of arrogance about our stature amongst others. We grew up learning that we live in the best country in the world and the only reason that we are the best is because we are free. Supposedly North Korean civilians believe that they are the best Nation in the World and that their leader Kim Jung Un is a God.. I use this example not to compare our stature to N. Korea but instead to compare the mindset that I see in every Nation. We all have national pride and we keep sacred our traditions and when a tradition is challenged then be prepared for WWIII.

I truly have been blessed due to the fact that I was raised in a way that I was always challenged on my belief system. Growing up I watched part of my family reject us because we chose not to celebrate Christmas, I watched neighbors conspire against us calling us a cult because we did not put up Christmas lights, and I watched my parents fight within themselves on how to live for God and to give their kids a normal life. Through witnessing this I was taught strength to stand up for what I believe in no matter what but I also learned how love enemies and forgive people constantly. The bible teaches that we are to be a people set apart, a peculiar people and a light to the nations. I will always be different from the majority no matter where I live in the world and I am ok with this. I know that I have a lot to learn still on how to love others but we all do. I have always remembered on thing and kept it in my heart when experiencing differences, Acts 17:11, “

Now the people here were of nobler character than the ones in Thessalonica; they eagerly welcomed the message, checking the Tanakh every day to see if the things Sha’ul was saying were true.”

Now I understand that not all believe the Bible to be the word of God, but please keep an open mind and search for the truth in this world, but I guarantee if you do your homework you will learn that the bible can be proven true.

"My Name May Be There Forever"

2016-12-25T15:23:00.002-08:00

God is referred to as El Shaddai or God Almighty in the book of Exodus. The first letter of Shaddai is the letter shin, we see this letter being present in the Hebrew culture as Hebrews have the letter Shin on their mezzuzahs that hang on their door posts. I have laid out several scriptures where El Shaddai says that he will put his name in the land that his people are to possess. There are three valleys in Jerusalem, the Kidron Valley, the Tyropoeon Valey and the Hinnom Valley. As you can see from the picture the valleys seem to spell out the letter Shin. Judge for yourselves.

Dt 12:5,11,21
5 But to the place which Yahweh your God shall choose out of all your tribes, to put his name there, even to his habitation you shall seek, and there you shall come;
11 then it shall happen that to the place which Yahweh your God shall choose, to cause his name to dwell there, there you shall bring all that I command you: your burnt offerings, and your sacrifices, your tithes, and the wave offering of your hand, and all your choice vows which you vow to Yahweh.
21 If the place which Yahweh your God shall choose, to put his name there,is too far from you, then you shall kill of your herd and of your flock, which Yahweh has given you, as I have commanded you; and you may eat within your gates, after all the desire of your soul.

Dt 16:2,11
You shall sacrifice the Passover to Yahweh your God, of the flock and the herd, in the place which Yahweh shall choose, to cause his name to dwell there.
11 and you shall rejoice before Yahweh your God, you, and your son, and your daughter, and your male servant, and your female servant, and the Levite who is within your gates, and the foreigner, and the fatherless, and the widow, who are in the midst of you, in the place which Yahweh your God shall choose, to cause his name to dwell there.

1Kg 8:29
that your eyes may be open toward this house night and day, even toward the place of which you have said, My name shall be there; to listen to the prayer which your servant shall pray toward this place.

1Kg 9:3
Yahweh said to him, I have heard your prayer and your supplication, that you have made before me: I have made this house holy, which you have built, to put my name there forever; and my eyes and my heart shall be there perpetually.

1Kg 14:21
Rehoboam the son of Solomon reigned in Judah. Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he began to reign, and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city which Yahweh had chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, to put his name there: and his mother’s name was Naamah the Ammonitess.

2Ch 6:6
but I have chosen Jerusalem, that my name might be there; and have chosen David to be over my people Israel.

2Ch 7:16
For now have I chosen and made this house holy, that my name may be there forever; and my eyes and my heart shall be there perpetually.

2Ch 33:7
He set the engraved image of the idol, which he had made, in the house of God, of which God said to David and to Solomon his son, In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, will I put my name forever:

Ezr 6:12
and the God who has caused his name to dwell there overthrow all kings and peoples who shall put forth their hand to alter the same, to destroy this house of God which is at Jerusalem. I Darius have made a decree; let it be done with all diligence.

Is 18:7
In that time, a present will be brought to Yahweh of Armies from a people tall and smooth, even from a people awesome from their beginning onward, a nation that measures out and treads down, whose land the rivers divide, to the place of the name of Yahweh of Armies, Mount Zion.

‘Do not count the cost, keep your eyes on the prize!’

2016-12-24T13:41:00.002-08:00

‘Do not count the cost, keep your eyes on the prize!’

We must remember what and who we are fighting. Ephesians 6:12, “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” The enemy is in control of this earthly realm and he manipulates our thoughts and our actions. Quit giving in to propaganda, such that the media, movies, and music provides us. We must set ourselves apart and remember that we are on the side of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. We must challenge ourselves every day to overcome this world and to sustain from our fleshly desires. Am I saying to not enjoy life? No. I am saying to rethink the way you enjoy life and learn what true joy is. Getting to experience college in modern society will allow anyone to experience worldly desires. I can remember late night parties, football games tailgating on Saturdays, and skipping class. I would be lying if I told you I did not enjoy all that. What I can tell you though, is through the midst of all my worldly fun I never found satisfaction in my life. I found myself sadder and more confused than ever. What made it interesting is that all my friends were just as sad and confused. Most of my good friends that were strong believers fell away because of what the world was teaching them.

We must stand together as a community of believers, holding each other accountable for what is right and true. Without having a community of fellow believers we will fall short of the glory of God! I believe there are three things a successful community must follow: first is your belief must be stronger than others doubts. There will be many times that we will be in the world and we will hear over and over again about how people think we are crazy for believing in God and keeping his commandments. Second is we must speak the same language; I do not mean English or Spanish; I mean the way we talk and the way we think. The third is we must execute this belief and the plan that God has set before us. A person who is 90% committed is 100% uncommitted. We are either committed or we are not committed. “We must choose today whom we serve; As, for me and my house we will serve the Lord!” Joshua 24:15

It is a scary thing not reaching our full potential; it reminds me of the parable that Jesus told, Matthew 25: 14-30, of the servants receiving 5 talents, 2 talents and 1 talents. The ones that had 5 and 2 talents doubled their share and pleased their master but the one that was given 1 talent buried his share until his master came home, and his master was disgusted at him because he did not invest his talents. We all have different gifts that we have received. I challenge everyone to strengthen your talents and to use them for the Glory of God!

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people will not feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone and as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” Marianne Williamson

Do Not Count the Cost, Keep your eyes on the Prize!

God Bless!

‘11 Parallel's of Christmas and Hanukkah’

2016-12-24T13:37:00.004-08:00

‘11 Parallel's of Christmas and Hanukkah’

1. Eternal Spirit (Christmas Spirit) VS God is Eternal: Seven Spirits of God (7 candlesticks of Menorah)

2. Santa is all knowing VS Jesus who is the only one that is ALL KNOWING (Isaiah 40:13)

3. Santa writes our names in a book VS Jesus writes our names in books (Revelation 20:15)

4. Santa hair is white as snow VS Jesus who’s hair is white as snow (Revelations 1:14)

5. Santa loves children VS Jesus love children (Matthew 19:14)

6. Kneel in front of tree opening gifts from Santa VS Light the Menorah (Tree of Life) (Zechariah 4)

7. Santa has a mystical tree (Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil) VS Jesus has a mystical tree (Tree of Life) (Genesis 2:9)

8. Focus is on giving presents VS Focus is on giving your life to God

9. Tradition to lie to children VS Tradition of truth

10. Jesus never kneeled before a tree VS Jesus did participate in Hanukkah (John 10:22)

11. Santa comes to your house through fire VS Jesus comes back in the sky (Acts 1:11)

Joshua 24:15

¹⁵If it seems bad to you to serve Adonai, then choose today whom you are going to serve! Will it be the gods your ancestors served beyond the River? or the gods of the Emori, in whose land you are living? As for me and my household, we will serve Adonai!”

“But that’s not what it means to me!”:

· Go find Christmas in the bible.

o Deuteronomy 4:2:” ²In order to obey the mitzvotof Adonai your God which I am giving you, do not add to what I am saying, and do not subtract from it.”

· Christmas was celebrated to serve other gods before the birth of Jesus

o Deuteronomy 12:31: “But when you have driven them out and settled in their land,³⁰and after they have been destroyed before you, be careful not to be ensnared by inquiring about their gods, saying, “How do these nations serve their gods? We will do the same.” ³¹You must not worship the Lord your God in their way, because in worshiping their gods, they do all kinds of detestable things the Lord hates.”

· Jesus Celebrated Hanukkah John 10:22

· In the Oxford English Dictionary under the word devil you will also find ‘Old Nick’

· Hanukkah has prophetic meaning: The anti-Christ of Revelation will desecrate the Jewish temple the same way that Antiochus Epiphanes did when he erected a statue of Zeus in God’s Temple.

· Hanukkah means to rededicate. The Maccabees rededicated the temple to God after they took back the temple from Antiochus Epiphanes. They took 8 days to rededicate it because the Feast of Tabernacles is 8 days long and they would have missed that because the temple was still in captivity. Sukkot is also a festival remembering the Israelites escaping the captivity of the Egyptians so that they could rededicate their lives to God in the wilderness and enter the Holy Land.

· We are God’s temple! This is a call for us to rededicate our temple to God to each year.

o The two trees represent the northern kingdom and southern kingdom of Israel; aka:

§ The Two Sticks

§ The House of Israel and the House of Judah

§ One people grafted in through the Spirit of God

o The seven candle sticks represent the seven spirits of God or the word of God

§ It is made up of one foundation with one center light and 6 (number of man) other branches totaling 7 branches (number of completion)

· There are 9 markings on the 6 branches and 12 marking on the middle branch representing the 12 tribes of Israel

o There are a total of 66 markings representing the 66 books of the bible or 39 markings on the first 4 branches and 27 markings on the last 3 branches making up the 39 books of the old testament and 27 books of the new testament.

UNCOMFORTABLE IS THE NEW COMFORTABLE

2016-12-19T13:27:00.001-08:00

Uncomfortable is the New Comfortable!

One of my coaches once taught me something that has been engraved in me, practice does not make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect. So practice making your practice perfect. What I mean by that is challenge the way you think, the way you behave and challenge everything around you. Act 17: 11, "These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched scripture daily, whether those things were so." When you change the way you think you will change the way you view things but, we must be open to new interpretations. 1 Corinthians 13:12, "For now we see through a glass, darkly." Our culture and our way of living is making us view things the way the enemy wants us to view them. We must rely on God and his word to guide us through the fog, just as we cannot see beyond our headlights when we drive we keep the faith that we will make it home.

We must realize that in order to reach our full potential we must get outside of our comfort zone. No one ever did anything great being comfortable. So I say to you all learn to be comfortable in an uncomfortable setting. The more comfort the more success you have the less you need God. People will do anything to avoid pain and conflict but pain and conflict are the only things that can strengthen us. James says consider it pure joy to go through trials. I have been a personal trainer for five years now and I can tell you the people that get results are the people that deny themselves of their fleshly desires and seek challenges on a daily basis. In ancient Israel they would have a daily sacrifices at the temple, one in the morning and one in the evening. How often do we sacrifice to God? It does not have to be animal sacrifices, it can be as simple as making time to pray and read his word daily. It can be take time to listen to someone, to help someone, or to show kindness to an enemy. How often do we pass our days selfishly thinking only a few more hours till I get to go home, or only a couple of more days till I get to do what I want on the weekend. I have found through my relationships with others that we all desire more in life yet we settle for comfortable. Most of us go through life never working on our passion or our dreams. We all think it is enough to go to school, get a job, start a family and then die. Each one of us has been lied to; we’ve all been preached ‘cheap grace’, we have all been told that life is about our careers and our money. We let the world get in the way of who we truly are!

‘What we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory He will reveal to us later.’ Romans 8:18

God Bless

SHALOM AND SOME DEEP THINKING

2016-12-18T12:52:00.002-08:00

‘SHALOM AND SOME DEEP THINKING’

The word Shalom has so much meaning and even prophetic meaning wrapped in it. Shalom is more than a meaning but more about a personal journey. It represents our journey and struggle with God as each of us die to the physical and rise and live to the spiritual relationship with God. Each letter in the Hebrew language has its own meaning, such as the letter aleph means strength or leader and tau means covenant or law so when God says he is Aleph and Tau then he is saying that he is the leader of the covenant or the strength of the law. The word Shalom in Hebrew is made up of the letters, Shin-Lamed-Vav-Samech, when you put the meaning of the letters together it says, destroy the physical, learn the spiritual, join together (also represented as the nail that nailed Jesus to the cross), and marry to become God’s bride. The word it self-sets out the plan for man to cross over to become and child of God. However, all men have fallen short of the glory of God so Jesus sent his only beloved son to die for our sins. Right after Jesus is resurrected he is recorded saying, “Peace be to you.” It is the only time recorded that Jesus says this and he says it twice in a row. Jesus died for our Shalom! He wouldn’t have said peace be to you before his death because there is no peace when sins are not forgiven. Jesus is our shalom, but he is so much more than that as shalom does not just mean peace but it means safety, rest, prosperity, wholeness, welfare, completion, fullness, soundness and well-being! Even though we have our journey to shalom we can all rest assure that Jesus has already won the battle for our Shalom and he alone is our peace!

One last aspect of the word shalom is that it is connected to the Shabbat or the weekly Sabbath (rest). God finished creation in six days, rested on the seventh and ordained that it would be a sign between God and man that we rest on the Sabbath. Exodus 31:13 and Exodus 31:17. “But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: with the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.” 2 Peter 3:8, this is also mention in Psalms 90:4. In Genesis 6:3, “My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be and hundred and twenty years.” God has his own calendar and a jubilee year is every 50^th year. If you do 120 jubilee years multiplied by 50 years you get 6000 years. It would appear that God has a 6000 year plan and that we will rest with him for 1000 years in the millennia as Jesus Christ reigns as King! A Sabbath is also a “holy convocation”, (Leviticus 23:3), a convocation is actually translated from Hebrew to the word “rehearsal”. So in a sense each week we are rehearsing for our rest, or our Shalom that we will eventually have for 1000 years with Jesus.

GOD BLESS!

WHEN GOOD TURNS EVIL

2016-12-18T12:11:00.003-08:00

‘WHEN GOOD TURNS EVIL’

Ever since I began truly knowing who God is, I have been motivated by two things; Love God and Love Others as ourselves. During the time I began knowing God I was also enrolled in the University of Texas Tech, at which time I was studying Management Information Systems. I took an elective course my 3^rd year in the program called, Sport Pscychology, in which I learned about the health epidemic that we have in our country. I knew that I wanted to do more with my life than sit behind a desk, I wanted to be able to help my community come closer to God by allowing them to gain their health back. I stopped studying Information Systems and began studying exercise science which then has turned into a five year career in personal training. I can remember when I first started I was very proud to have the title personal trainer, I knew in my heart that the career I chose could truly help others. I remember I prayed every day to send me someone that I could help achieve the will of God. When I first began I never looked at my career just as a way to make money but it was a way to develop relationships with others to obtain health both physically and spiritually. I have been extremely blessed throughout my career for God to do just that, send me people that truly need help, or that can help me. Scripture says, “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” Galtaions 6:9. I always tried to keep in mind the original motivation of why I do what I do, but I am human and life does evolve and my motivation became more about competing for certain business numbers with others. God had blessed me to the point in my personal training career that I was one of the top trainers in my company. Unfortunately I handled the success like a child and I became proud and began to chase numbers rather than truly help others. I will never forget a client named Don Corley, I was fortunate enough that Don trained with me for over a year, or I should say I trained with Don for over a year. I learned more from this man during the beginning of my career than any other, especially good aggie jokes! I will never forget a time that I had just lost a client that trained at 5pm on Monday and Wednesdays and I was walking the floor looking for potential clients to replace his spot. Don noticed me aimlessly walking around the gym and called me over and asked me what I was doing? I replied, that I was looking for someone to fill my 5pm spots. He looked at me and nodded and told me that he understood what I was trying to do and that I had good intentions, as he too is in the business of sales. He told me, “James all the conversations we have had I know you do this job for the right reason so why not instead of looking for someone to fill the spot why not just go find someone that needs your help out there.” My proud stature immediately crumbled within me. I knew then that my mentality had changed and Don called me out. I took a long look in the mirror at what I had turned the job into. This world is filled with amazing opportunities to do good but our enemy is always attacking around every corner and we must not fall trap to turn good into evil. I challenge everyone to look at their current life and ask yourself, am I living for the same reasons as I used to? Turnaround today and live not for yourselves but to live for two things: Love God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind and Love your neighbors as you would love yourself. Pray that your will not be done but his will be done here on earth as it is in heaven! Hallelujah!