Salvation is More than a Handshake

by Christie Berry

When you ask Yeshua into your heart it is like an introduction, a handshake, if you will, that prepares us for a lifetime of relationship… it is not the relationship itself as many seem to teach. When you accept Yeshua as Yah’s salvation for your life you are saying, “Elohim, I would like to get to know you, to build a relationship with you.”  You wouldn’t, upon meeting a new person, just immediately have a strong relationship, know everything about that person, or be able to know how that person thinks or will react to things… it takes discussion, juxtaposition, intimate time with one another to build that relationship. This is the same yada (Hebrew for intimate relationship) that is requested by Messiah, he wants us to build our relationship with him before we are called up to be his bride… you certainly wouldn’t marry someone you didn’t know! Just accepting Yeshua as savior is not enough! We cannot just believe that he is Yah’s salvation (demons believe and tremble, James 2:19), we have to build the relationship.

So how do we get to know him? You are right, by prayer and reading his word. But it is important also to remember that He said, “If you love me, keep my commandments.”  (John 14:15) This was said to those who only knew the Old Covenant (OT) and those were the commandments he wanted us to keep. Yeshua continued later in John 15:10 to say, “If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love.”  He asks for our obedience, our vow to the covenant. This is the covenant… a covenant of a bride and groom that have made the vow of betrothal… engagement is the term used today… an agreement that we will stay faithful to the other until we are married. How do we stay faithful to Messiah? We stay faithful by keeping his commandments, his covenant, if you will, until the time that we are to be married.  As a young couple promises to stay true to one another, faithful, learning about each other, growing in love more and more as time passes, not forsaking one another… there is a commitment, there is a contract or covenant that, although unwritten, dictates what can and cannot be done within the relationship. Our covenant with Messiah is written out for us in the Old Testament. Faithfully following his covenant teachings will help us build the relationship he wants with us, but it is still not enough!

It is in keeping the covenant that we understand the character of our future spouse. As we keep the commands, we gain insight into his being, learn to think like him, and hear his still small voice when he speaks to us. As we read and learn the teachings, we will find that each Hebrew word has several levels of meaning. This is the reason why so many divisions in the body have been created. It is difficult for someone thinking in a linear fashion (Greek Thinking) to understand that each word and phrase can have several very different meanings. Moment by moment, we need to seek him to show us how he wants us to keep the teachings. As we seek, hear, and do, we will grow to know him intimately, we will walk with him in knowledge, wisdom and understanding without question. Our relationship will become like a long engagement where the betrothed know each other very well and will complete each other’s sentences. The Creator wants us to ask him each moment what to do… better yet, he is telling us each moment what to do, and he wants us to listen intently and act upon it. He is constantly speaking, whispering to us, through his Holy Spirit, guiding us through each thought and step. That is the yada, intimate relationship that he expects from his bride. Are you diligently seeking yada? Begin by reading his word and asking him how you are supposed to keep the marriage covenant that he has set in stone! They are the guiding words that bring us to close relationship with the Father of all and with our Bridegroom, Yeshua. Get past the handshake and begin building your relationship!

Shalom!

The Creator's Pattern for Education

While reading the Torah portion this week I began to wonder why specific information was given in Deut. 11:30 as to the location of the mountains of blessings and curses. As I began to look at the context of the passage I noticed that YHVH was telling man how to learn, teach, and live, one more time.

God tells us how to teach, then he gives the example

He tells us in Deut...

Chapter 6:

“And this is the command, the laws and right-rulings which יהוה your Elohim has commanded, to teach you to do in the land which you are passing over to possess,

Deu 6:2 so that you fear יהוה your Elohim, to guard all His laws and His commands which I command you, you and your son and your grandson, all the days of your life, and that your days be prolonged.

Deu 6:3 “And you shall hear, O Yisra’ĕl, and shall guard to do, that it might be well with you, and that you increase greatly as יהוה Elohim of your fathers has spoken to you, in a land flowing with milk and honey.

Deu 6:4 “Hear, O Yisra’ĕl: יהוה our Elohim, יהוה is one!

Deu 6:5 “And you shall love יהוה your Elohim with all your heart, and with all your being, and with all your might.

Deu 6:6 “And these Words which I am commanding you today shall be in your heart,

Deu 6:7 and you shall impress them upon your children, and shall speak of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up,

Deu 6:8 and shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.

Deu 6:9 “And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

Deu 6:17 “Diligently guard the commands of יהוה your Elohim, and His witnesses, and His laws which He has commanded you.

Deu 6:18 “And you shall do what is right and good in the eyes of יהוה, that it might be well with you, and you shall go in and possess the good land of which יהוה swore to your fathers,

Deu 6:19 to drive out all your enemies from before you, as יהוה has spoken.

Deu 6:20 “When your son asks you in time to come, saying, ‘What is the meaning of the witnesses, and the laws, and the right-rulings which יהוהour Elohim has commanded you?’

Deu 6:21 then you shall say to your son, ‘We were slaves of Pharaoh in Mitsrayim, and יהוה brought us out of Mitsrayim with a strong hand,

Deu 6:22 and יהוה sent signs and wonders, great and grievous, upon Mitsrayim, upon Pharaoh, and upon all his household, before our eyes.

Deu 6:23 ‘And He brought us out from there, to bring us in, to give us the land of which He swore to our fathers.

Deu 6:24 ‘And יהוה commanded us to do all these laws, to fear יהוה our Elohim, for our good always, to keep us alive, as it is today.

Deu 6:25 ‘And it is righteousness for us when we guard to do all this command before יהוה our Elohim, as He has commanded us.’

Then he gave us the commands and told us there would be blessings if we guard them and curses if we did not.

In Chapter 11 he reiterated this again:

Deu 11:18 ‘And you shall lay up these Words¹ of Mine in your heart and in your being, and shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. Footnote: ¹See footnote at 5:22.

Deu 11:19 ‘And you shall teach them to your children, speaking of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up,

Deu 11:20 and shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates,

Deu 11:21 so that your days and the days of your children are increased on the soil of which יהוה swore to your fathers to give them, as the days of the heavens on the earth.

Finally, they lived the instruction.

Deu 11:26 ‘See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse:

Deu 11:27 the blessing, when you obey the commands of יהוה your Elohim which I command you today;

Deu 11:28 and the curse, if you do not obey the commands of יהוה your Elohim, but turn aside from the way which I command you today, to go after other mighty ones which you have not known.

Deu 11:29 ‘And it shall be, when יהוה your Elohim has brought you into the land which you go to possess, that you shall put the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ěyḇal.

Deu 11:30 ‘Are they not beyond the Yardĕn, toward the setting sun, in the land of the Kenaʽanites who dwell in the desert plain opposite Gilgal, beside the terebinth trees of Moreh?

And as they walked between the two mountains the commands were read (see the rest of Deut)

It is interesting the meanings of the words in this final passage.

The Jordan (Yarden) is 'low place' which we must go through before reaching the mountains.

Then we go to the land of the Kena'anites which is 'peddlars' or merchants, traffickers. We are to uproot the world's traffickers in our lives so that we can make it to the mountains having shed off the world so that we can wisely choose to follow or to disobey.

Then we have the mountains:

The root meaning of Gerizim is 'cut apart' (also can be divide or set apart) which, if we keep the commands, we will be set apart to YHVH.

The root meaning of Eybal is bald, naked, as Adam and Chavah in the garden became ashamed when they realized they were naked, disobedience brings nakedness and shame.

And finally the locations where the mountains reside are by Gilgal and Moreh.

Gilgal is wheel, rolling, cycle and Moreh is teaching. In these two words we have the cyclic teaching model again reiterated symbolically.

As the children of Israel walk across the Jordan (through the low places) into the land of Kena'anites to displace them (in the midst of the world selling it's wears and displacing it), between the mountains of blessings (set apartness) and curses (shame) they will hear again the instructions of how to live and they will hear it over and over again (Gilgal and Moreh, circle teaching) year after year in the synagogue.