The Candlestands are Lighted

Shabbat Shalom from Zavitan Street---

This Shabbat, after many years, Two Candlestands were re-lighted for the Two Houses of Israel. Using seven-day memorial candles seemed especially appropriate, for the Prodigal Son has always been "remembered" by the God of Israel. "This was my son who once was lost, dead, but now is alive and found..." So memory, but now Light and Life and Return and Work...

Greetings & Shabbat Shalom from haGolan

Soon the Sabbath will be descending on Katsrin & the Golan Heights of Israel. This is the first Sabbath which Jan & I will celebrate with a full Sabbath Table. Last erev Shabbat we had only scrambled eggs and challah---no candles, no wine (because we didn't have a corkscrew, even though we had an excellent bottle of wine from the Golan...). But we were blessed with a Sabbath rest that erased all the fatigue of our weeklong journey.
This night we have wine for our new kiddush cup, sweet white peaches, and candles that don't quite fit our new candleholders... What else can we do but rejoice, laugh, and give the Lord thanks for quite a week. So to all of you back there in Maine...Shabbat Shalom. Baruch

In Your Presence, Israel: that's where I belong...

However the Word comes---in the depths of the night, in the heat of the battle, in the cry of His children---the Answer is always the same, enduring and constant, merciful and fearfully fiery... I AM Israel, and I AM your portion, and I AM your inheritance. That's where I belong...

Yom Teruah: Pet Rocks

The Pet Industry in the U.S. is a multi-billion dollar industry. It goes through phases and fads; several years back some enterprising fellow managed to convince a lot of people to fork over a lot of bucks to purchase Pet Rocks. I think that was the origin of a nagging question surrounding "Pets" that I have pondered over many years: do we train our "pets" or do our pets train us?
Notwithstanding the many interpretations that various churches and theologies have given to "The Rock"---Jesus or Peter being among the more controversial---perhaps it is time to ask: has your Pet Rock trained you or are you rearing up your Pet according to your notion of what a good Pet should be... I'll leave you to the question of whether your Pet is a Pit Bull, a Barking Beagle, a decorated Pet Rock, or a Cuddles the Cat!
Since it seems to me self-evident that our "pet" or our "Pet" is an invention of the vanity of our imagination, let's move to one of the questions Yom Teruah may be blowing in our ears: does the Master Yeshua train us up in the Way (Torah) we are to go, or are we attempting to "master" the Master, that is train Him (maybe even dress Him up according to the latest style of Puppie-dom!) in our ways and insist He behave: that is come on our command, sit on our command, perform cute tricks on our command...?
Sooner or later seems to me the Pet Rock will fall on us, or at least cause us to stumble. The Torah Rock will save me.

Beginning of the Days of Awe: Yom Teruah

September 15 Schedule:
Camden, meet at top of Mt. Battie, 10:30 a.m.
Hikers---meet at Old Carriage Road, Rt. 52 on right about 1 mile from Library at 9:30-9:45 a.m.
Others drive up Mt. Battie road, main entrance Camden Hills State Park
(there is an entrance fee if you drive)

Bring shofar, and your garment patch (also water & a snack)

The Days of Awe: Yom Teruah, Yom Kippur, Succoth

To: All the sons (& daughters) of Jacob
-----All the brothers (& sisters) of Joseph

Am I aiding & abetting the "murder" of Joseph?

Am I grieving & mourning, like Jacob, over the death of Joseph?

Am I restoring, like Joseph, the wayward sons of Jacob?

Am I building the House of Joseph?

Speak, Do, Be, Reveal...

Speak of The Israel of God: for this I have been given ears to hear. Reveal The Israel of God: for this I have been given eyes to see. Love The Israel of God: for this is the whole Counsel of the Spirit. Walk in The Israel of God: for this is the whole will and purpose of my Life.

Kutless

"Lord, You take my heart away with Your love.

And I am willing to put all my faith in Your plan.

Come and take my life.

Make my soul refreshed in truth now.

I am ready for You.

Take my heart and make me new now.

I am ready for Yout, to come and fill my soul.

Cleanse all of my mind that is not of You.

Break me, teaching me how to find rest in Your hands.

Come and take my life.

Make my soul refreshed in truth now.

I am ready for You.

Take my heart and make me new now.

I am ready for You, to come and fill my soul.

To come and fill my soul.

Whatever it takes, I'm needing to make Your will be done.

And I'm letting go of my control,for I see what You've done in me.

I am ready for You.

Take my heart and make me new now.

I am ready for You to come and fill my soul."

-Kutless----"I am Ready for You"-----

Thank you Kutless for those amazing words. Very talented guys in that group.

KUTLESS.

We are Kutless, thanks to Jesus our Messiah....because He gave up his fleshly body so we would be forgiven, and that makes us Kutless. Because whenever we fall short, He can wipe away our sins, and we are, once again....KUTLESS. Thank You Jesus, we are READY for You, come and take our lives FOREVER.

Stepping Out in Faith

I wrestled with the title of this message for a bit. It could have been titled many different things. For example ,
Letting Benjamin Go; Saying Goodbye to Security; Leaving Your Comfort Zone;. You get the picture. It's the idea of setting out on a new and unchartered journey to a new and possibly undiscovered, uninhabited place. It could be a lonely place, it could be tumultuous, maybe, it's a place that "no man has gone before". It's a place that may be in the dark for us ( or seemingly so because we can only see the Lamp at our feet, and the Light at our path). Ahead of our steps it's very dark, but not really though. The place we are heading toward is actually in the brightest Light of all. It is the place where the True LIGHT dwells. It's the place that HE has already set up for us, and HE is just patiently waiting for us to follow HIS Steps to arrive there.

I've been reading about our father, and his faith. Not our Heavenly father , but our forefather Abraham. Abraham, or Abram as he was called at that time in his life. Abraham was a hero in faith. He should be our example, and I believe that his story was penned for that very reason. To encourage us in our faith. To build up our trust in the providence of Yahweh, our Heavenly Father who never leaves us nor forsakes us. Abraham was the man who was called the "friend of God".

Abrahams life was not much different than ours. We would benefit greatly from studying the "father of faith".
His life was in UR a very civilized place in the world, with everything a man could ever want. He lived there with his family.Ur was also a place where idolatry abounded, and unfortunately Abraham's father Terah was an idolator. We never think of God using someone from an idolatrous background to do HIS work, but the call of God can come regardless of one's roots.


Look at Genesis 12:1 "and Yahweh said to Abram, "Go yourself out of your land, from your relatives, and from your father's house, to a land which I show you."

God had a three-fold command to Abram

1. Leave your society
2. leave your stability
3. leave your security

I will expound in greater detail in a future article, but for today I'd like to just cover the major points of what I believe the Lord would want us to ponder today.

1. Leave your society. Abram's country was idolatrous. There was a warning in this for Abram as well as us. Be careful of societal boundaries. It may mean leaving. It can sometimes be a challenge for us but although we are "in" this society, we are not part of this society. The more like society you become, the less impact you will have for the cause of Yeshua. This is not only a warning for the young people , but for us as well.

2. Leave your Stability. Abram was not only told to leave his country, but to leave his relatives as well.
It's quoted in 'The Patriarch's' "leave all that life has encircled you with; leave the stability of home and friends, and that circle of people you know; leave the pattern of life and break out of it". I'm going to send you to someplace totally new and different. Break out of the norm".
This command was probably one of the most difficult things for Abram. We've all got our comfortable patters of living. We are not easy to break away from the "norm".

3. Leave your security. Lastly Abram was told to go forth from your father's house." He was told that he not only had to leave his country, but his relatives, and his father's house. This was a completley foreign concept. You didn't leave your father's house, in fact, once you got married, you actually added on to your father's house with your new wife moving into the home with you. It was a foreign concept to leave your father's house. That is exactly what God had asked Abram to do-- to leave his security. He was told in a sense to "just trust me and come along with me Abram".

A little boy was his grandfather's constant companion. They would often go on short trips together- to the grocery store, sometimes to the lake to fish, or wherever the gandfather needed to go. The boy always tagged along with his grandfather and they were delightful companions. One day the grandfather said, "Let's go for a ride".
The boy asked, "Where are we going?"
The grandfather left without him. When he got back , the little boy looked crestfallen and asked, "Grandfather, why did you leave me behind?"
The grandfather looked at him and said, " "Because you asked where we were going. If you really wanted to go with me, it wouldn't have mattered where we were going."

The author goes on to tell us that this same thing is in the heart of the man or woman of faith. God says, "GO", or "DO", or "BE".
But we say" Okay LORD, where's the security package?, What are the benefits? Where are you taking me? How long will I be there?"
So God moves on to the next person

So God commanded Abram, "leave your society; leave your stability; leave your security. Leave it all behind.
One of the difficul things that we can be warned of as individuals, and as a fellowship is that we can fall into a pattern that is so predictable. We know exactly what is going to happen in our little conformed lives, so we never dare to risk anything for God. Never stepping out in faith, we want to see it all in front of us. As a result, our usability for the kingdom of God is greatly hindered.

There is much more that I will share at a later date. I've been blessed with my study of 'the Patriarchs', and encourage you to do the same. We need to be careful to not fall into a pattern of security, and stability of familiar things. In Genesis 12 Abram was commanded to throw away all these "securities", and become a wanderer, a pilgrim, a pioneer. Abram was to become as Charles Spurgeon once wrote, "shipwrecked on the island of God's sovereignty".
That is where we want to live. Responding to God's call means finding our security in God alone. Do we really want that?

Musings from the Merry Heart

One morning I woke up feeling our new puppy Dov katan moving around restlessly on the bed between my husband and me. I know that it is a bad habit we allowed the puppy to get into, but under the circumstances we are in for now, it was the only way to keep Dov quiet so as not to disturb the couple who so graciously lent us this apartment until our new trailer is set up. Normally, I would have crate-trained the puppy which entails listening to puppy cries of unhappiness for a few nights.
I lay there pondering on how to re-train Dov out of this habit when we move to our own home. The Lord brought to my mind this true story.
There was this woman who had a rather large dog that insisted on sleeping on the bed; he had managed to get his own way from puppyhood into the first two or three years of adulthood.
One day the dog's mistress decided that she had had enough of dirty paw prints on her quilts and wanted to teach the dog to stay off the bed and sleep in his own dog bed on the floor. She tried coaxing him off with doggie treats, but as soon as the treat was gobbled up the dog quickly jumped back on the bed and refused to budge. She tried pleading, she tried talking tough---all to no avail. Then she tried pulling him off the bed, but he would give a low growl and hunker down even more. The only time the dog got off the bed voluntarily was when the downstairs door-bell rang announcing company. Then he would jump off the bed, run down the stairs to bark at the front door.
So the mistress decided she would use this to her advantage. She quietly opened the front door, rang the bell, and shut the door; then as her dog was running down the stairs, she passed him on the stairs as she was running up the stairs: she quickly shut the bedroom door behind her before the dog knew what was happening.
Whenever the bedroom door was inadvertently left open, the dog would boldly walk in and once again take up his position on the bed. The mistress used her trick a time or two more and they dashed by each other on the stairs. The last time she shut herself in the bedroom and lay down to take a nap with the whole bed to herself. She could hear the dejected whimpers of the dog outside the bedroom door. She smiled to herself thinking she had finally won the battle of wills. His bad habit would be forever broken.
Her reverie was broken by the sound of frantic barking and the dog running downstairs to the front door. The mistress threw open the bedroom door, and as she ran down the stairs to open the front door, her dog dashed up the stairs past her, into the bedroom and onto the bed. Needless to say there was no one at the door.
When I was little, I used to try to teach my dog Buster tricks, and when he didn't learn them either as fast or as well as I thought he should I would become impatient or disheartened. My father noticed my puzzlement one day and said, "Linda, when you have a smart dog and want to teach it something, you need to be smarter than the dog."
Since then I've learned to seek out expert advice on dog training? According to Paul you can: "This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart; who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. But you have not so learned in Messiah, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Yeshua: that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness." (Ephesians 4:17-24) Paul continues, "And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God" (Romans 12:2) Strong's definition of "renewing" is: "the adjustment of the moral and spiritual vision and thinking to the mind of God, which is designed to have a transforming effect upon the life." Like dogs and others of God's creatures, we humans form habits of mind that have an effect upon our lives, for good or for bad, depending on the habit. The more we repeat a thought or action, the deeper the pathway is cut into our minds, until these patterns of thoughts and actions become so automatic we no longer have to consciously plan them out. They become spontaneous: for good or for bad.
Our thoughts can make for us crooked paths. "Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood; their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their paths. The way of peace they have not known, and there is no justice in their ways; they have made themselves crooked paths; whoever takes that way shall not know peace." (Isaiah 59:7-8) Strong describes these "paths" a beaten track. You've heard of a one-track mind. These thoughts lay tracks or paths of habit.
"For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. For I delight in the Law of God according to the inward man. But, I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?" (Romans 7:18-24)
Paul has a problem with bad habits, that like the dog of bad habits on the bed, rushes back up the stairs to regain his position as Paul rushes down the stairs to answer the door-bell call to good habits.
So it is much easier to train a puppy into good habits than to train bad habits out of an older dog. It is the same for us humans. "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." (Proverbs 22:6) How do we do this? "And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up." (Deut. 6:6-7) Consistency is the key for training both children and puppies. This method lays the paths of good habits in thoughts and actions.
But what about those of us who have never had this guidance and training in the way we should go? Well that is where the Expert Trainer comes in. First you must find one. "Seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to the Lord." (Isaiah 55:6-7) We are told to seek and we are guaranteed to find our Expert---our one and only Yeshua. He knows that our habits (ways) and our unrighteous thoughts need to be forsaken. We need renewal. We each must ask "Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my anxieties. And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way of everlasting." (Psalm 139:23-24) As each of us has been the product of our environment, upbringing and education, we each have our own individual pathways that need to be renewed by the Searcher of hearts.
When we are training children or puppies, we reward them for good responses. Our Yeshua does likewise with us. "But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him." (Hebrews 11:6) What reward? "You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You. Trust in the Lord forever, for in YAH, the Lord, is everlasting strength." (Isaiah 26:3-4)
But when children or puppies are willfully naughty we chastise them. Our Yeshua does also with us. "My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him; for whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives. Now chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righeousness to those who have been trained by it." (Hebrews 12:5, 6, 11)
We never punish a puppy or child for something they do not understand or are not able to accomplish. Neither does Yeshua in his parenting of us. "For if there is first a willing mind, it is accepted according to what one has, and not according to what he does not have." (2 Cor. 8:12)
Now that we know the training methods, we must ascertain our goal. What do we want to accomplish with our training program? Yeshua has a goal set for us: "Let this mind be in you which was also in the Messiah Yeshua." (Philippians 2:5) Yeshua's goal for us is have a mind like His.
A good trainer/teacher uses the best helps available to help their student, puppy, or child succeed. So does Yeshua. He has shown us our need and so we ask: "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Your Presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me." (Psalm 51:10-11)
Yeshua provides our helper. "But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my Name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you." (John 14:26)
Here is where the similarities of our two training programs diverge. We cannot write upon the heart of any of the creatures of God's creation. But Yeshua says, "For this is the covenant that I will make with the House of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. None of them shall teach his neighbor, and none his brothers, saying 'know the Lord', for all of them shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more." (Hebrews 8:10-12)
So let us all say with Paul, " I thank God through Yeshua haMashiach our Lord." (Romans 7:25)
contributed by Linda

Loving God...

If any one says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. 1 John 4:20

Whose Image?

Neither a faith nor a religion about Jesus will be able to cope with the present day of lawlessness; how much more catastrophic will such faith be confronted by "the man of lawlessness." That day and that person will reveal all the false images about Jesus, created by fanciful and vain imaginations. The whole world, including all the major religions, has an endless catalogue of notions about Jesus: Jesus is black, Jesus is Hindu, Jesus is buddha, Jesus is gay, Jesus is married... Truly, the worldly imagination has been captured by these notions. The fate of those images will be the same as the golden calf at the base of the mountain: like the gold of the people, they will be gathered, melted, cast forth in a marvelous new form... But, that final image will be ground into fine dust (when the righteousness of Moses is restored...)---then dissolved---and the speculators will drink what they have brewed.
Will the real Jesus stand up...please!
The faith and religion of Jesus, the Word of his Father which he lived out, will overcome the man of lawlessness. Yeshua, The Living Torah, asked, "When I return, will I find faith?" Seems right to ponder during the Counting of the Omer what sort of faith that might be...
Shabbat Shalom!