Thanks for sharing some of your beautiful “surprises” and photographic gifts with us.
Teresa C.
Thanks for these – Shabbat shalom!
David Russell
Shalom Skip and others,
Thanks for the course correction from the recent reflection to see the commands by YHVH as an interplay of involvement rather than orders from above. There is a tendency to understand G-d giving the Torah at Mt. Sinai as commands, directions, orders, rulings, expectations rather than guidelines, considerations, principles given lovingly, “mountain-top chat” if you will.
David Russell
Thank you for the summary, David. “Orders from above” with force to back them up was invented in hell, and is used to perpetuate it on earth.. The enemy has always used the accusations that belong to him against heaven, and we listen to the propaganda.
Love NEVER forces. At the judgment day, choice will be over; not because God said so but because it is impossible to change where you are already at when you get to that face-to-face encounter. Those who were already choosing death will keep on choosing it and will cry to the rocks to fall on them. THEY give that order; not God. The Lake of Fire is where YHVH finally stops contending with people about their choices with that guiding Law and those pesky curses, unasked for mercies and incomprehensible grace, and just agrees with them instead,. That face-to-face encounter also means that He is out of choices, too, because there will be no possibilities for any misunderstandings left to allow for. In that day, we will “know even as we are known”.
I think Love already knows us because love IS that experience of us. It is up to us, however, to build belief systems (paradigms) based on experiences (choices) of His love that are the only way we have to erase our innate fear of God, for it is that fear that kills us “men’s hearts failing them for fear”. That Lake of Fire is Him agreeing with our choice to die, but if there is no one left to choose death, death itself will likewise perish with us. In none of this is there any force. Love, in the end, lets go and lets us, too.
Today i had an experience that relates to the ‘death’ conversation…
i was speeding down a country road when i saw a gaggle of geese ahead of me, mom, dad, babies. They were standing on the side of the road, one parent standing guard, the babies and 2nd parent scrambling up the side of the ditch.
Instantly, mentally i calculated the speed of the car, the number of living beings, the speed the littlest ones would be moving, and hit the brakes.
Hard.
Lead duck stepped onto the road, i pressed on the brake again…babies scurrying behind, i pushed harder….rear guard closing the gap, i came w/in feet..inches of them, and stopped. All six of them were between my headlights, I could just see them, marching forward, oblivious of death sitting there..They fit between the two headlamps snuggly.
I glanced into my side view mirror.
Another car coming up, far enough to see me stopping, close enough to be a danger, and i hit the horn, steady, without letting up. I watched the car’s front end dip as THEY hit the breaks, veering off to the shoulder of their side of the road, making a curve around to miss lead duck who had done an about face w/the babies between his legs and froze at the sound of my horn.
He froze in exactly the right spot, the babies frantically scurrying between the adults, but not away from them, safely between them as the car went around the brood w/inches to spare, the lead goose made another about face, never missing a beat and the whole family hit the ditch on the other side of the road.
I looked away from the babies; to my right far enough ahead of me for me to see his tailgate was a dually 350 diesel truck that had obviously gone around me when i hit the brakes, and in my rear view mirror was the grill of work truck that had a commercial tractor on it’s flatbed and a utility trailer on its hitch, behind it a couple of vehicles that i noted when i pulled over so traffic could continue to move (after the 3 cars that had stopped behind the one that pulled over to the shoulder to avoid the geese).
I went weak. The whole thing had death written all over it.
And yet life prevailed.
There are people in my life who are arrogant enough to think they know me, that they have the right to judge me and i have been found wanting…again and again and again.
YHVH, alone, knows my heart and he, alone, chooses to spare who i am, again and again and again, at HIS pleasure. HE sparks my voice, and not one human being has ever had that ability.
May it be that way for everyone who reads this.
Shabbat Shalom to those who have no idea who i am, and trust me, even if you think you do, you really don’t.
Is His torah for us who have “come into Torah”, now becoming “The Ten Suggestions” again?
We ought not be afraid of YHWH, but we ought to fear Him and His torah, rightly. Is He the “Great Grandfather in the sky” who spoils His grandchildren, without commandments, orders, rulings, expectations, and even warnings, judgements, and punishments for disobedience, leaving us to just consider what He has spoken to us through His prophets, and to just sort of, kind of,, pick and choose what we are willing to do in our love and worship of Him, or just think that living close to the path is “good enough for government workers”?
Indeed, He is a Father Who loves us with a perfect love, full of mercy, forgiving our sin and trespasses and iniquities, and we must consider His instructions as lovingly given to us and even reason with Him as to how His instructions are to be kept. But let us consider the manner in which those “guidelines, considerations, principles” were “given lovingly”, how that “mountain-top chat” went.
“Now the entire Mount Sinai was in smoke, because Adonai had descended upon it in fire. The smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace. The whole mountain quaked greatly. When the sound of the shofar grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him with a thunderous sound. Then Adonai came down onto Mount Sinai, to the top of the mountain. Adonai called Moses to the top of the mountain, so Moses went up. Then Adonai said to Moses, ‘Go down and warn the people, lest they break through to see Adonai, and many of them die. Even the kohanim who come near to Adonai must consecrate themselves, so that Adonai does not break out against them.’” [Exo 19:18-22]
“All the people witnessed the thundering and the lightning, and the sound of the shofar, and the mountain smoking. When the people saw it, they trembled and stood far off. So they said to Moses, ‘You, speak to us, and we will listen, but do not let God speak to us, or we will die.’ So Moses said to the people, ‘Do not be afraid, for God has come to test you, so that His fear may be in you, so that you do not sin.’ The people stood far off, while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was.” [Exo 20:18-21]
Hardly suggestions! No, these are instructions for those who chose to live under the God of Israel. But that’s not quite the same as saying that everyone who struggles to find God will discover Torah in this lifetime, is it? Those who embrace Torah know that it is mercy, not wrath, that compels us to follow Him, so even though we might recognize His awesome power and potentially furious command, it is love that causes us to want to please Him. Otherwise it is just rules, and rules were never enough to make man obedient.
I embrace Torah and so I know it’s not mercy vs wrath, but both. Who cannot say that His wrath is part of what “makes” us fear, as well as to love, and obey Him? Yes, His lovingkindness leads us to repentance, but it is the fear of YHWH that is the beginning of wisdom, and that wisdom involves the influence of the knowledge of both His lovingkindness and His wrath regarding the keeping His commandments, and leading to teshuvah, repentance from sin and resulting in obedience in righteousness. Apart from His wrath, how would we know how great is His mercy? It’s not one or the other or one without the other, because it’s all about His love. If He didn’t have wrath for sin, how great would His love be? Not that great! I appreciate it not being all about rules and His wrath for breaking them, for sure! However, it’s also not all about His “love” in being merciful about breaking them either. That kind of comfort can comfort us to death!
Love is jealous and wrath is the response we find in ourselves when we feel betrayed, too! But, love still never forces obedience. Fear of wrath for betraying love? That is the proper motivation to obey for sure, but that is a fear freely embraced and freely responded to by those who choose love back. Fear of disobeying God is what we should have – and will have IF we do love Him (and I dare say none of us fear that nearly enough) – and fear of God’s displeasure is what we should employ as our motivation to obey (for we were designed for His pleasure), but we are still free to choose to respond to those fears as opposed to responding to the fears that are a result of sin.
Adam and Eve only felt fear of GOD after they were in bondage to evil, and when they chose to listen to that unholy fear they subsequently found themselves forced into hiding FROM Him. Fear is a powerful force, yes, but we still get to choose which fears we respond to. I spent many years listening to lies (that, in part, were convincing me to commit the sin of being afraid of God) that resulted in panic as well as other depressive fears which kept me in a place of bondage where my choices were limited or just not working well at all. I was battling a wall of curses, for sure, those years I was afraid of God.
Bondage is the result of force, but God never employs either. Holy fear (of displeasing God) frees us from unholy fear (of God Himself), but it is what I am choosing to believe that determines which kind of fear will be motivating me to either pursue freedom FROM evil or causing me to consent to bondage TO evil as a way of hiding from God in my bushes because of fear of Him. I am forced into slavery by means of sin, but I am the one who makes the choices of what lies I want to believe that put me in those bushes – I do mean chains.
I think all evil is based on some sort of lie about God that results in us being afraid of Him instead of loving and wanting to please Him; therefore, all evil has the net result of causing us to want to hide from Him because of that fear of Him. Bondage is the fish we find ourselves swallowed by in the process of running to Joppa as a result of that fear.
God’s wrath is about our bondage: He is angry when those He loves are enslaved (or hiding from Him in bushes or fishes) but because we are the auctioneers (choosers) of our own self bondage, that wrath is directed at us. However, at the height of that wrath He STILL never forces our choices either way. In the end, He will even agree with our choice to die, even though we can expect Him to be extremely angry at us for choosing to do so.
In the following passage is where I began to see more clearly the distinction between being afraid of YHWH and fearing YHWH. Here we see that Moshe understood the fear of YHWH. The people at the base of Mt. Sinai didn’t and they were not, therefore, able to “IMAGINE AN ADVENTURE [really HIS adventure]” (relating this back to Skip’s blog here). They were just afraid. They agreed to the rules but not with true faith, trust, and love, plus they didn’t trust, and therefore obey, the words of the prophet of YHWH. And I think that’s ultimately why the golden calf incident took place and also why YHWH’s wrath burned against them and why He then said to Moshe that He would make ANOTHER great nation through HIM. The “red flag” was already there to be seen. Moshe saw it and tried to exhort them to a righteous faith. “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.” Yet he had compassion on them, but for His name sake.
“All the people witnessed the thundering and the lightning, and the sound of the shofar, and the mountain smoking. When the people saw it, they trembled and stood far off. So they said to Moses, ‘You, speak to us, and we will listen, but do not let God speak to us, or we will die.’ So Moses said to the people, ‘Do not be AFRAID, for God has come to test you, so that His FEAR may be in you, so that you do not sin.’ THE PEOPLE STOOD FAR OFF, WHILE MOSES DREW NEAR to the thick darkness where God was.” [Exo 20:18-21]
“Then Adonai said to Moses, ‘Go down! For your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have become debased. They quickly turned aside from the path that I commanded for them. They have made a molten calf, worshipped it, and sacrificed to it, and said, “This is your god, O Israel, that brought you up out of the land of Egypt.”’ Adonai said to Moses, ‘I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people. Now therefore, leave Me alone, so My wrath may burn hot against them, and so I may consume them—and make from you a great nation!’ Then Moses sought Adonai his God and said, ‘Adonai, why should Your wrath burn hot against Your people, whom You have brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say, “He brought them out to do evil, to slay them in the mountains, and to annihilate them from the face of the earth?” Turn from Your fierce wrath, and relent from this destruction against Your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac and Israel, Your servants, to whom You swore by Your own self, and said to them, “I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of I will give to your offspring, and they will inherit it forever.” So Adonai relented from the destruction that He said He would do to His people.” [Exo 32:7-14]
Moshe was moved by the fear of YHWH, because of His wrath AND because of a love for His name.
Moshe was ready for HIS (YHWH’s) ADVENTURE. The people were not.
So, it is much more than a “mountain-top chat” we are to have, but it is also much more than just agreeing to obey commandments because of being afraid of His wrath.
Seeker
Beautiful images, Thanks for sharing.
Those that embrace Torah know it is not wrath… or as Luarita says invention from below… Well said thank you.
Jerry
Here’s the surprise He had for me today, and for all my family. I shared this in another post on another blog of Today’s Word, and thought it would be good to share it on this one too, so that readers here might have the opportunity for the encouragement it offers and to rejoice with those who rejoice:
Even today, I am giving thanks for Him having already removed some of my “roadblocks” so that I could now fully rejoice in what I was already seeing, encouraging, supporting, and rejoicing in, that which YHWH has been doing in the life of one of my brothers who today testified by writing to us, his family, that he had “come out of the darkness and into the light”, that just because he didn’t have an attraction for women all his life, he didn’t have to believe the lie that he had to be homosexual. After 20 years of being deceived and having much pain in the struggle, I have been watching YHWH leading him out and now into the path of righteousness.
This is a little of what he wrote in a message he entitled, “You Shall Know the Truth” –
He said, “The past almost 20 yrs I had allowed myself to believe this lie and it has been a serious waste. I have lost the person and soul I once was. I miss that person and wish to God I never went down that path. I am now totally free from the past lifestyle and not wanting to return to it. I no longer support anything that is connected with it and believe I lived in sin. I have confessed this to God and am asking Him daily to do for me what I can not do for myself. The ‘anointing’ that I seek is to BE the person I was created to be and LOVE him and allow him to do what I know is what I do well and best, (to be single and) to do the type of job I have been doing for the past 30 plus year.” (He nurses sick and disabled people in their homes.)
Yes, it is good to remove the restrictions that are “roadblocks to seeing ALL that He is doing in other’s lives”. Then we can better co-labor with Him and share in the joy of what He’s doing in a much greater way. I must say that I also believe that some of the reproof, correction, and training in righteousness that I have spoken to him in the past likely played a part in his teshuvah as well. Speaking the truth in love, having mercy and compassion, praying for him, etc. all makes for a greater joy when the fruit comes. In a couple of weeks, we will be having a family gathering here near where I am in Virginia where another brother and his homosexual partner will be visiting from Florida (see a connection?). I pray for good seed to be planted in good soil. Maybe you will pray from Florida into this situation up here, too, and share joy in a greater way when the reward comes, all to His esteem. Thanks, if you do.
Thanks for sharing some of your beautiful “surprises” and photographic gifts with us.
Thanks for these – Shabbat shalom!
Shalom Skip and others,
Thanks for the course correction from the recent reflection to see the commands by YHVH as an interplay of involvement rather than orders from above. There is a tendency to understand G-d giving the Torah at Mt. Sinai as commands, directions, orders, rulings, expectations rather than guidelines, considerations, principles given lovingly, “mountain-top chat” if you will.
David Russell
Thank you for the summary, David. “Orders from above” with force to back them up was invented in hell, and is used to perpetuate it on earth.. The enemy has always used the accusations that belong to him against heaven, and we listen to the propaganda.
Love NEVER forces. At the judgment day, choice will be over; not because God said so but because it is impossible to change where you are already at when you get to that face-to-face encounter. Those who were already choosing death will keep on choosing it and will cry to the rocks to fall on them. THEY give that order; not God. The Lake of Fire is where YHVH finally stops contending with people about their choices with that guiding Law and those pesky curses, unasked for mercies and incomprehensible grace, and just agrees with them instead,. That face-to-face encounter also means that He is out of choices, too, because there will be no possibilities for any misunderstandings left to allow for. In that day, we will “know even as we are known”.
I think Love already knows us because love IS that experience of us. It is up to us, however, to build belief systems (paradigms) based on experiences (choices) of His love that are the only way we have to erase our innate fear of God, for it is that fear that kills us “men’s hearts failing them for fear”. That Lake of Fire is Him agreeing with our choice to die, but if there is no one left to choose death, death itself will likewise perish with us. In none of this is there any force. Love, in the end, lets go and lets us, too.
Today i had an experience that relates to the ‘death’ conversation…
i was speeding down a country road when i saw a gaggle of geese ahead of me, mom, dad, babies. They were standing on the side of the road, one parent standing guard, the babies and 2nd parent scrambling up the side of the ditch.
Instantly, mentally i calculated the speed of the car, the number of living beings, the speed the littlest ones would be moving, and hit the brakes.
Hard.
Lead duck stepped onto the road, i pressed on the brake again…babies scurrying behind, i pushed harder….rear guard closing the gap, i came w/in feet..inches of them, and stopped. All six of them were between my headlights, I could just see them, marching forward, oblivious of death sitting there..They fit between the two headlamps snuggly.
I glanced into my side view mirror.
Another car coming up, far enough to see me stopping, close enough to be a danger, and i hit the horn, steady, without letting up. I watched the car’s front end dip as THEY hit the breaks, veering off to the shoulder of their side of the road, making a curve around to miss lead duck who had done an about face w/the babies between his legs and froze at the sound of my horn.
He froze in exactly the right spot, the babies frantically scurrying between the adults, but not away from them, safely between them as the car went around the brood w/inches to spare, the lead goose made another about face, never missing a beat and the whole family hit the ditch on the other side of the road.
I looked away from the babies; to my right far enough ahead of me for me to see his tailgate was a dually 350 diesel truck that had obviously gone around me when i hit the brakes, and in my rear view mirror was the grill of work truck that had a commercial tractor on it’s flatbed and a utility trailer on its hitch, behind it a couple of vehicles that i noted when i pulled over so traffic could continue to move (after the 3 cars that had stopped behind the one that pulled over to the shoulder to avoid the geese).
I went weak. The whole thing had death written all over it.
And yet life prevailed.
There are people in my life who are arrogant enough to think they know me, that they have the right to judge me and i have been found wanting…again and again and again.
YHVH, alone, knows my heart and he, alone, chooses to spare who i am, again and again and again, at HIS pleasure. HE sparks my voice, and not one human being has ever had that ability.
May it be that way for everyone who reads this.
Shabbat Shalom to those who have no idea who i am, and trust me, even if you think you do, you really don’t.
Thank you for this moving story! And even though you often don’t come across this way, I’ve always felt you had a soft heart.
Is His torah for us who have “come into Torah”, now becoming “The Ten Suggestions” again?
We ought not be afraid of YHWH, but we ought to fear Him and His torah, rightly. Is He the “Great Grandfather in the sky” who spoils His grandchildren, without commandments, orders, rulings, expectations, and even warnings, judgements, and punishments for disobedience, leaving us to just consider what He has spoken to us through His prophets, and to just sort of, kind of,, pick and choose what we are willing to do in our love and worship of Him, or just think that living close to the path is “good enough for government workers”?
Indeed, He is a Father Who loves us with a perfect love, full of mercy, forgiving our sin and trespasses and iniquities, and we must consider His instructions as lovingly given to us and even reason with Him as to how His instructions are to be kept. But let us consider the manner in which those “guidelines, considerations, principles” were “given lovingly”, how that “mountain-top chat” went.
“Now the entire Mount Sinai was in smoke, because Adonai had descended upon it in fire. The smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace. The whole mountain quaked greatly. When the sound of the shofar grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him with a thunderous sound. Then Adonai came down onto Mount Sinai, to the top of the mountain. Adonai called Moses to the top of the mountain, so Moses went up. Then Adonai said to Moses, ‘Go down and warn the people, lest they break through to see Adonai, and many of them die. Even the kohanim who come near to Adonai must consecrate themselves, so that Adonai does not break out against them.’” [Exo 19:18-22]
“All the people witnessed the thundering and the lightning, and the sound of the shofar, and the mountain smoking. When the people saw it, they trembled and stood far off. So they said to Moses, ‘You, speak to us, and we will listen, but do not let God speak to us, or we will die.’ So Moses said to the people, ‘Do not be afraid, for God has come to test you, so that His fear may be in you, so that you do not sin.’ The people stood far off, while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was.” [Exo 20:18-21]
Hardly suggestions! No, these are instructions for those who chose to live under the God of Israel. But that’s not quite the same as saying that everyone who struggles to find God will discover Torah in this lifetime, is it? Those who embrace Torah know that it is mercy, not wrath, that compels us to follow Him, so even though we might recognize His awesome power and potentially furious command, it is love that causes us to want to please Him. Otherwise it is just rules, and rules were never enough to make man obedient.
I embrace Torah and so I know it’s not mercy vs wrath, but both. Who cannot say that His wrath is part of what “makes” us fear, as well as to love, and obey Him? Yes, His lovingkindness leads us to repentance, but it is the fear of YHWH that is the beginning of wisdom, and that wisdom involves the influence of the knowledge of both His lovingkindness and His wrath regarding the keeping His commandments, and leading to teshuvah, repentance from sin and resulting in obedience in righteousness. Apart from His wrath, how would we know how great is His mercy? It’s not one or the other or one without the other, because it’s all about His love. If He didn’t have wrath for sin, how great would His love be? Not that great! I appreciate it not being all about rules and His wrath for breaking them, for sure! However, it’s also not all about His “love” in being merciful about breaking them either. That kind of comfort can comfort us to death!
Shabbat shalom.
Very well put for me, Jerry!
Love is jealous and wrath is the response we find in ourselves when we feel betrayed, too! But, love still never forces obedience. Fear of wrath for betraying love? That is the proper motivation to obey for sure, but that is a fear freely embraced and freely responded to by those who choose love back. Fear of disobeying God is what we should have – and will have IF we do love Him (and I dare say none of us fear that nearly enough) – and fear of God’s displeasure is what we should employ as our motivation to obey (for we were designed for His pleasure), but we are still free to choose to respond to those fears as opposed to responding to the fears that are a result of sin.
Adam and Eve only felt fear of GOD after they were in bondage to evil, and when they chose to listen to that unholy fear they subsequently found themselves forced into hiding FROM Him. Fear is a powerful force, yes, but we still get to choose which fears we respond to. I spent many years listening to lies (that, in part, were convincing me to commit the sin of being afraid of God) that resulted in panic as well as other depressive fears which kept me in a place of bondage where my choices were limited or just not working well at all. I was battling a wall of curses, for sure, those years I was afraid of God.
Bondage is the result of force, but God never employs either. Holy fear (of displeasing God) frees us from unholy fear (of God Himself), but it is what I am choosing to believe that determines which kind of fear will be motivating me to either pursue freedom FROM evil or causing me to consent to bondage TO evil as a way of hiding from God in my bushes because of fear of Him. I am forced into slavery by means of sin, but I am the one who makes the choices of what lies I want to believe that put me in those bushes – I do mean chains.
I think all evil is based on some sort of lie about God that results in us being afraid of Him instead of loving and wanting to please Him; therefore, all evil has the net result of causing us to want to hide from Him because of that fear of Him. Bondage is the fish we find ourselves swallowed by in the process of running to Joppa as a result of that fear.
God’s wrath is about our bondage: He is angry when those He loves are enslaved (or hiding from Him in bushes or fishes) but because we are the auctioneers (choosers) of our own self bondage, that wrath is directed at us. However, at the height of that wrath He STILL never forces our choices either way. In the end, He will even agree with our choice to die, even though we can expect Him to be extremely angry at us for choosing to do so.
In the following passage is where I began to see more clearly the distinction between being afraid of YHWH and fearing YHWH. Here we see that Moshe understood the fear of YHWH. The people at the base of Mt. Sinai didn’t and they were not, therefore, able to “IMAGINE AN ADVENTURE [really HIS adventure]” (relating this back to Skip’s blog here). They were just afraid. They agreed to the rules but not with true faith, trust, and love, plus they didn’t trust, and therefore obey, the words of the prophet of YHWH. And I think that’s ultimately why the golden calf incident took place and also why YHWH’s wrath burned against them and why He then said to Moshe that He would make ANOTHER great nation through HIM. The “red flag” was already there to be seen. Moshe saw it and tried to exhort them to a righteous faith. “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.” Yet he had compassion on them, but for His name sake.
“All the people witnessed the thundering and the lightning, and the sound of the shofar, and the mountain smoking. When the people saw it, they trembled and stood far off. So they said to Moses, ‘You, speak to us, and we will listen, but do not let God speak to us, or we will die.’ So Moses said to the people, ‘Do not be AFRAID, for God has come to test you, so that His FEAR may be in you, so that you do not sin.’ THE PEOPLE STOOD FAR OFF, WHILE MOSES DREW NEAR to the thick darkness where God was.” [Exo 20:18-21]
“Then Adonai said to Moses, ‘Go down! For your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have become debased. They quickly turned aside from the path that I commanded for them. They have made a molten calf, worshipped it, and sacrificed to it, and said, “This is your god, O Israel, that brought you up out of the land of Egypt.”’ Adonai said to Moses, ‘I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people. Now therefore, leave Me alone, so My wrath may burn hot against them, and so I may consume them—and make from you a great nation!’ Then Moses sought Adonai his God and said, ‘Adonai, why should Your wrath burn hot against Your people, whom You have brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say, “He brought them out to do evil, to slay them in the mountains, and to annihilate them from the face of the earth?” Turn from Your fierce wrath, and relent from this destruction against Your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac and Israel, Your servants, to whom You swore by Your own self, and said to them, “I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of I will give to your offspring, and they will inherit it forever.” So Adonai relented from the destruction that He said He would do to His people.” [Exo 32:7-14]
Moshe was moved by the fear of YHWH, because of His wrath AND because of a love for His name.
Moshe was ready for HIS (YHWH’s) ADVENTURE. The people were not.
So, it is much more than a “mountain-top chat” we are to have, but it is also much more than just agreeing to obey commandments because of being afraid of His wrath.
Beautiful images, Thanks for sharing.
Those that embrace Torah know it is not wrath… or as Luarita says invention from below… Well said thank you.
Here’s the surprise He had for me today, and for all my family. I shared this in another post on another blog of Today’s Word, and thought it would be good to share it on this one too, so that readers here might have the opportunity for the encouragement it offers and to rejoice with those who rejoice:
Even today, I am giving thanks for Him having already removed some of my “roadblocks” so that I could now fully rejoice in what I was already seeing, encouraging, supporting, and rejoicing in, that which YHWH has been doing in the life of one of my brothers who today testified by writing to us, his family, that he had “come out of the darkness and into the light”, that just because he didn’t have an attraction for women all his life, he didn’t have to believe the lie that he had to be homosexual. After 20 years of being deceived and having much pain in the struggle, I have been watching YHWH leading him out and now into the path of righteousness.
This is a little of what he wrote in a message he entitled, “You Shall Know the Truth” –
He said, “The past almost 20 yrs I had allowed myself to believe this lie and it has been a serious waste. I have lost the person and soul I once was. I miss that person and wish to God I never went down that path. I am now totally free from the past lifestyle and not wanting to return to it. I no longer support anything that is connected with it and believe I lived in sin. I have confessed this to God and am asking Him daily to do for me what I can not do for myself. The ‘anointing’ that I seek is to BE the person I was created to be and LOVE him and allow him to do what I know is what I do well and best, (to be single and) to do the type of job I have been doing for the past 30 plus year.” (He nurses sick and disabled people in their homes.)
Yes, it is good to remove the restrictions that are “roadblocks to seeing ALL that He is doing in other’s lives”. Then we can better co-labor with Him and share in the joy of what He’s doing in a much greater way. I must say that I also believe that some of the reproof, correction, and training in righteousness that I have spoken to him in the past likely played a part in his teshuvah as well. Speaking the truth in love, having mercy and compassion, praying for him, etc. all makes for a greater joy when the fruit comes. In a couple of weeks, we will be having a family gathering here near where I am in Virginia where another brother and his homosexual partner will be visiting from Florida (see a connection?). I pray for good seed to be planted in good soil. Maybe you will pray from Florida into this situation up here, too, and share joy in a greater way when the reward comes, all to His esteem. Thanks, if you do.
Blessings.