When my young son was taking Tae Kwon Do, he said, “Mom, I just want a yellow belt and then I’m finished.” He received his yellow belt and the board he had to break to secure it. He was done!
When he joined a speed skating team, he wanted to make it to Nationals. That was his goal. He and his three-man relay team went to Nationals in Peoria, IL and won third place — a bronze medal. A feat indeed!
When he enrolled in the Music Program at the local high school, he wanted to make District Band. Yes, he did.
What’s the point — because I could go on with more examples? I think for the most part, we all who live in the West are very much like my son. We set a goal and we achieve it and we go on to the next thing. What I did not know then as I supported my son through these achievements is that Biblical (Hebrew) thinking is so different from the way we normally think. Biblical thinking does not center itself upon the goal or achieving it. It centers itself on the process.
Today we want to throw in the towel if we do not have a job making 40K by the time we’re 30 … or 2 1/2 children … or a home with a 2-car garage. We’ve learned nothing along the way, not even the fact that we live in a society that is so Greek-thinking oriented that all of our thought processes are so far from how God made us to think and live.
Who told you you had to be a certain way and to acquire certain things by a certain age? I’ll tell you who told you that!!! Society. A society not based on Hebraic thought but on reasoning and Greek thinking.
Biblical thinking focuses on the pursuit. Just think, Apostle Paul, one of the greatest theologians of all times, says this:
“I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection” (Philippians 3:12).
Wait a minute, Paul: “YOU of all people have not reached perfection!! YOU who traveled to 3 continents, wrote most of the New Testament, and whose ministry changed the face of the Gentile world??? YOU have not reached perfection?
Paul knew what a lot of us do not know because he no longer thought like the world; he thought like Yeshua who was born into a Hebrew culture. Paul knew that the essence of life was in the pursuit of the goal:
“No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.” (Phil. 3:13-14).
It’s in the press. The learning, the character building, the transformation into His likeness — it’s in the pursuit.
Here’s to Yeshua undoing what my son, you, and I have learned from this world so that we can think like Him, be like Him, and love like Him.
HAPPY PURSUIT!
Kingdom Life Messianic Congregation (KLMC) cordially invites you to share in its “Celebration of Purim,” the event that marks the divine overthrow of the plans of Haman to utterly destroy the Jewish people.
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