Archives for February 2011

I had an opportunity to speak with a gentleman today who said he was an agnostic. He said that he believed in God, but he had questions.
“What are some of your questions?” I asked him.
“Well, I am sure all believers have questions,” he said, unwilling to share any of his questions.
“Our questions would stem from not knowing God,” I said. If we don’t believe that God loves us and that He is LOVE, we will have questions. If we don’t believe that He is Righteous, we will have questions.
“What kind?” he asked.
“We would say, ‘Why is this happening to me? Why is this happening to her? If God is good, why is there so much evil in the world.”
“I am sure everyone has those questions,” he said.
Do you believe that when you pose those questions that you are questioning the righteousness of God. Greater still, that you do not KNOW that particular aspect of the character of God.
The gentleman was right. Even as believers we have questioned God. We may not have considered or realized that we were questioning him, but what is so wonderful about our righteous God is that He is big enough to handle the questions.
Let’s not sit back in our own self-righteousness and refuse to seek the answers from the only One who has them! He is not afraid of your questions! I pray you will be able to embrace the answers He gives you and discover the awesomely wonderful character of God.

To the agnostics I say, why waste your life wondering when you can get to know a loving God who wants to get to know you?!

Father, thank you for being righteous. I know I do not understand it all  — Why the prodigal son got a big party thrown for him and the older son did not (Luke 15). Why the one who had worked one hour got the same wages as the ones who had worked all day, bearing their burdens in the heat of the day (Matthew 20). Why did the master take the talent from the one who buried it and give it to the one who had ten — why not the one with the five who doubled his money too (Matthew 25)?Perplexing Questions! But what we know is that you are holy! Your reasons are your own but they are always for the fulfillment of your purpose — which is ultimately for our own good. Amen!

Enjoy this video about the unquestionable love of God for you!

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I heard a young singer once say, “My generation is tired of doing church.” She continued to highlight the way her parents’ generation “did church.” I understand exactly what she means; I really do. There are a lot of ills among the people of God in every generation. But I think of this:

• God gives a revelation of Himself to every age.
• I believe that it is all that we can take and handle as His “called-out ones” for that moment.
• For example, the religious leaders could not take the truth that was revealed to Paul
• Imperial Rome could not handle the truth given to church fathers like Wycliffe & Luther

Here’s an important point:

The truth that God has given believers throughout the century has always been enough to save, for instance:

• In my Baptist church (when I was younger) I came to salvation.
• But it wasn’t until I engaged in pentecostalism (as a young woman) that I discovered what it meant to have an intimate relationship with God; what it meant to tithe out of love obedience; what it mean to respect authority; and what it meant to worship God.
• It wasn’t until I was introduced to Messianic Judaism (as a more mature woman) did I learn the the necessity of reconnecting with the Jewish-rootedness of my faith and falling deeply in love with a Jewish Yeshua.

I think of how long I went –although saved– I had no intimacy with the Father and didn’t know Him as Daddy. I think of all my intimacy with Him and I didn’t really know His heart as it pertained to His biological children or the reality of why the Messiah entrenched himself in the Jewish culture from birth to death to resurrection!

So I understand what this young singer was saying. But I must say this — It might be easier to put down the roots of the past as opposed to thanking God for them and using them as stepping stones by which to move forward. The generations to come, I believe, can look back on the previous one and complain about it or be thankful for it and use it as a bow and become the arrow that is propelled forward by it.

Father, thank you for all of my experiences of the past, especially with the congregations you led me to and the way you moved. I know that before you return, Yeshua, you will move past the revelation that you have given each of them and move us all into perfection. Until then, Father, help us to hold on to the good and the truth that we have heard and allow it to build our faith and our trust in you. Even Paul shared with Timothy to do so: “What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus.  Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you—guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.” (II Tim. 1: 13-14) Amen.

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I went to see a film at the Jewish Film Festival held at the Roper Theatre. It was a French film entitled “The Raffle.”  French Jews were taken from their homes into a stadium waiting mass deportation to a concentration camp. It is told from the perspective of children, so we see their innocence and unsuspecting attitudes. In one scene before the round-up, a priest walks past the playground where the children are playing — he, like them, is wearing a Jewish star.
One boys says, “Hello Father.”
The man returns the greeting and walks on.
Another boy wants to know why he called the priest “Father.”

“That’s what he is called,” the boy answers.  And then he says something that I think was the most powerful line of the play: “His God is Jewish you know, and if he were here right now, he would be wearing a yellow star like us.”
That’s what we would have done to him had he lived and come pre-WWII. If when he did come we condemned him to die with thieves, would we not have condemned him to die with his own people? I guess the most powerful point is that he would have wanted to. He would have had it no other way — even if they would not have received Him.

“He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.” (John 1:11)

The priest willingly wore the star — at his own peril, of course — in protest of what the French government was doing and to stand with the Jewish people. As we stand with God and seek to follow His heart, we will be asked to stand with His people as well. You know the truth is We Are Required to Stand With His People!

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile” (Romans 1:16)

“There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile;
but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.” (Romans 2:9)

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