8.13.25 ~ Draw it, Do it
Good morning!
We are 1/2 way through counting towards the first fruit of the oil (Deut. 7:13), which means the fall feast season is approaching rapidly. Where will you be for the fall feasts? BTW, did you know that the council of Laodicea, ratified by the lukewarm church of Laodicea (Rev. 3:14-21), decreed 60 points that must be followed by all believers of their day that no one can keep the Sabbath (#29) or the feasts of the Lord (#37)...hence, our soon coming Redeemer and Messiah is asking to come in and sup with us (Rev. 3:20,21). Personally, I don't want to be 'lukewarm'.
During this season of the year we find our hearts stirred to teshuvah/Repent and Return. Repentance is a very normal concept in our assemblies today. The $64,000 question is: What are we returning to?
Yeshua told us that in the last days because iniquity/anomia/toralessness would abound, the love of many will grow cold (Matt. 24:12). Sadly, this is an obvious reality in our modern world. It’s obvious from the Government all the way down to the Boy Scouts to the daycares and everything in between. Lawlessness (against Torah) has been working a whole bunch in a whole lot of areas.
I appreciate Yeshua’s words because He makes it clear that ‘many’, not all! There will be some who don’t leave their first love (Rev. 2:4). There will be those who overcome and receive the crown of life (Rev. 2:10). There will be those that do teshuvah and make the world and their own lives a better existence.
These individuals, possibly without knowing it, through their behavior are living out the three essentials to holding our world together. Those three essentials are said to hold the world up! Personally, I agree. What are they, you ask? Enquiring minds, like yours, want to know :-)
The three pillars that hold the world up, or keep the world from unraveling include, categorically:
The study and doing of Torah,
Service, which is worship, to the Most High, and showing mercy to mankind.
This is what real teshuvah will look like. We will turn back to the Instructions of the Lord our God. And when we do, we can expect, testing, hunger, thirst, humbling events (Deut. 8:2,3) and a 10-fold blessing (Deut. 7:13-15). In this internal working, it will move us to learn of Him, serve Him accordingly and we will show mercy towards our fellow man. Ahhh, now that makes sense.
As we enter into this workday, let’s see if we can start to piece this together, kind of like a dot to dot. Let’s take these three ideas and connect three dots in the shape of a triangle. If you are like me and have been out of a Geometry class for a while, that's going to be a triangle (two base angles and and then there's a vertex at the top), where everything comes from. Now the big question is, what goes at the top? Without a doubt, study and doing of the Torah would go at the top. Service and Mercy will go at the two base bottoms.
By drawing it out this way, service to the Most High and mercy to men appear to flow from Torah. Is this true? What if we took away any one of those three? How would the world be different? Would the world be able to stand?
In order to understand their collective functions, we need to know their individual components. Notice the two base corners have a vertical and horizontal relationship. One, service, deals with our spiritual relationship with the Father and the other, mercy, deals with our physical relationship with men. Great. That’s simple enough.
That’s the difference. Are there any similarities? Yes. They are both serving The Almighty, but that's the point: they're both serving Yahweh Elohim/the Lord our God. Most importantly, they both require action! They are both activities. Torah, the instructions from Yahweh, is not an activity, it's a document. It's a blueprint as it were. So, what then would you say is, the relationship between the Torah, which is this conceptual blueprint, and these two activities called service on the one hand and mercy on the other. Why is it that we put Torah at the top of the triangle, and you put service and mercy at the bottom of the triangle? How are they related to each other?
What Torah does is, Torah/God's instructions is going to define, give structure to these activities - service to God and mercy will help us understand why it is that we need all of them and that the world wouldn't survive without all of them.
So, for example let's say, I did teshuvah without Torah. Let’s say, I’m going to stop doing the ‘bad’ and start doing what I think is good or what is culturally acceptable. Is there a problem with this? On the surface it would seem not, but when we examine it further we see a glaring problem.The problem with that is, life is too subjective and we all know that subjectivity is, in a way, the great enemy of the good. No one thinks they are bad, even really bad people. Really bad people have the best of intentions and think that they are really good; and they are not faking it. They actually think they're good. At least, that’s the way I feel in my own skin. How about you? My problem is that I am locked in the prison of my own subjectivity. I see things through the prison of my own desire and my desires really color things (that’s a problem with me, I’m color blind :-)! I may think I’m being nice to you, but…I’m really being a pain in your tooshie-rama!
Torah gives us structure, objective structure. This is where it gets tricky for many. Years ago, I read the book ‘The Garden of Peace.’ It’s a wonderful, fundamental guide to men in marriage. In the opening chapters the author tells a story of three different men and their lifestyles. Each story is told, with little nuances, and a postulation of what it will be like on judgment day for them. One of the men completely devoted himself to the study of Torah. Day and night. The people admired him for his discipline and devotedness to Yahweh. Upon his death the people thought for sure that he would be warmly received into the presence of the Most High. However, just the opposite was true. The moral to the story is: a life devoted to study without the outflow of service and mercy is a wasted life.
Please don’t get this wrong. Torah is marvelous! Wonderful! Essential! But we have to take action upon what it says. If it just stays in your head, that’s not a good thing. Imagine, I love my wife (one day :-), but I stay secluded in my attic all day. Periodically she comes and knocks on the door, bringing me a fruit smoothie and asks, “honey, what are you doing?” I respond, I’m meditating upon how much I love you. That’s what I’m doing. I’m here, sitting here on the floor with incense and candles…please don’t disturb me.
How's that for love? You'd think I was nuts, and you'd be right. The blueprint of love without the actions of love really isn't love. Fortunately, we don't have an attic and I know better that love is NOT seclusive. I hope you get the point (triangular pun intended :-)
While you continue to prepare to walk in the field with the King and He turns your heart back to Him, may it be true of you that Torah becomes the blueprint of your service and mercy! The world's unraveling at the seams. It's our job, by His design, to do our part in holding it together by living out His blueprint towards Him and mankind.
Shalom!
During this season of the year we find our hearts stirred to teshuvah/Repent and Return. Repentance is a very normal concept in our assemblies today. The $64,000 question is: What are we returning to?
Yeshua told us that in the last days because iniquity/anomia/toralessness would abound, the love of many will grow cold (Matt. 24:12). Sadly, this is an obvious reality in our modern world. It’s obvious from the Government all the way down to the Boy Scouts to the daycares and everything in between. Lawlessness (against Torah) has been working a whole bunch in a whole lot of areas.
I appreciate Yeshua’s words because He makes it clear that ‘many’, not all! There will be some who don’t leave their first love (Rev. 2:4). There will be those who overcome and receive the crown of life (Rev. 2:10). There will be those that do teshuvah and make the world and their own lives a better existence.
These individuals, possibly without knowing it, through their behavior are living out the three essentials to holding our world together. Those three essentials are said to hold the world up! Personally, I agree. What are they, you ask? Enquiring minds, like yours, want to know :-)
The three pillars that hold the world up, or keep the world from unraveling include, categorically:
The study and doing of Torah,
Service, which is worship, to the Most High, and showing mercy to mankind.
This is what real teshuvah will look like. We will turn back to the Instructions of the Lord our God. And when we do, we can expect, testing, hunger, thirst, humbling events (Deut. 8:2,3) and a 10-fold blessing (Deut. 7:13-15). In this internal working, it will move us to learn of Him, serve Him accordingly and we will show mercy towards our fellow man. Ahhh, now that makes sense.
As we enter into this workday, let’s see if we can start to piece this together, kind of like a dot to dot. Let’s take these three ideas and connect three dots in the shape of a triangle. If you are like me and have been out of a Geometry class for a while, that's going to be a triangle (two base angles and and then there's a vertex at the top), where everything comes from. Now the big question is, what goes at the top? Without a doubt, study and doing of the Torah would go at the top. Service and Mercy will go at the two base bottoms.
By drawing it out this way, service to the Most High and mercy to men appear to flow from Torah. Is this true? What if we took away any one of those three? How would the world be different? Would the world be able to stand?
In order to understand their collective functions, we need to know their individual components. Notice the two base corners have a vertical and horizontal relationship. One, service, deals with our spiritual relationship with the Father and the other, mercy, deals with our physical relationship with men. Great. That’s simple enough.
That’s the difference. Are there any similarities? Yes. They are both serving The Almighty, but that's the point: they're both serving Yahweh Elohim/the Lord our God. Most importantly, they both require action! They are both activities. Torah, the instructions from Yahweh, is not an activity, it's a document. It's a blueprint as it were. So, what then would you say is, the relationship between the Torah, which is this conceptual blueprint, and these two activities called service on the one hand and mercy on the other. Why is it that we put Torah at the top of the triangle, and you put service and mercy at the bottom of the triangle? How are they related to each other?
What Torah does is, Torah/God's instructions is going to define, give structure to these activities - service to God and mercy will help us understand why it is that we need all of them and that the world wouldn't survive without all of them.
So, for example let's say, I did teshuvah without Torah. Let’s say, I’m going to stop doing the ‘bad’ and start doing what I think is good or what is culturally acceptable. Is there a problem with this? On the surface it would seem not, but when we examine it further we see a glaring problem.The problem with that is, life is too subjective and we all know that subjectivity is, in a way, the great enemy of the good. No one thinks they are bad, even really bad people. Really bad people have the best of intentions and think that they are really good; and they are not faking it. They actually think they're good. At least, that’s the way I feel in my own skin. How about you? My problem is that I am locked in the prison of my own subjectivity. I see things through the prison of my own desire and my desires really color things (that’s a problem with me, I’m color blind :-)! I may think I’m being nice to you, but…I’m really being a pain in your tooshie-rama!
Torah gives us structure, objective structure. This is where it gets tricky for many. Years ago, I read the book ‘The Garden of Peace.’ It’s a wonderful, fundamental guide to men in marriage. In the opening chapters the author tells a story of three different men and their lifestyles. Each story is told, with little nuances, and a postulation of what it will be like on judgment day for them. One of the men completely devoted himself to the study of Torah. Day and night. The people admired him for his discipline and devotedness to Yahweh. Upon his death the people thought for sure that he would be warmly received into the presence of the Most High. However, just the opposite was true. The moral to the story is: a life devoted to study without the outflow of service and mercy is a wasted life.
Please don’t get this wrong. Torah is marvelous! Wonderful! Essential! But we have to take action upon what it says. If it just stays in your head, that’s not a good thing. Imagine, I love my wife (one day :-), but I stay secluded in my attic all day. Periodically she comes and knocks on the door, bringing me a fruit smoothie and asks, “honey, what are you doing?” I respond, I’m meditating upon how much I love you. That’s what I’m doing. I’m here, sitting here on the floor with incense and candles…please don’t disturb me.
How's that for love? You'd think I was nuts, and you'd be right. The blueprint of love without the actions of love really isn't love. Fortunately, we don't have an attic and I know better that love is NOT seclusive. I hope you get the point (triangular pun intended :-)
While you continue to prepare to walk in the field with the King and He turns your heart back to Him, may it be true of you that Torah becomes the blueprint of your service and mercy! The world's unraveling at the seams. It's our job, by His design, to do our part in holding it together by living out His blueprint towards Him and mankind.
Shalom!
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