Ruth 1:16-17 But Ruth said: “Entreat me not to leave you, Or to turn back from following after you; For wherever you go, I will go; And wherever you lodge, I will lodge; Your people shall be my people, And your God, my God. Where you die, I will die, And there will I be buried. The Lord do so to me, and more also, If anything but death parts you and me.”
When Ruth pledged her allegiance to Naomi and to the God of Israel, it wasn’t based on, “What ifs?” or circumstances. It was a faith rooted in her devotion to Naomi and God even to the point of death!
So often, I’ve received emails from people wondering why? “Why this?” or “Why that?” But honestly, “His ways are higher than my ways and His thoughts are higher than my thoughts” — and I don’t have easy answers for much of the horrendous stuff that happens to us! But what I do know is our faith is not based on “if this” circumstance was changed then I could serve — or “if this” problem didn’t exist then my life would be so much easier!
We tend to look at our circumstances, our problems, our status, our situations — however the faith we’re called to have is a “whatever and where ever” faith!
Let’s stop looking at the “what ifs” and “why that” and start looking to the “Who” of your life! The “who” of your life should be Yeshua (Jesus) — and when He is the “Who” of your life — then the rest of your life is “whatever and where ever” for your good and His glory!
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]With the war breaking out in Ukraine there is a lot of speculation that we are in the end of days with the apocalypse on the horizon. Everyone who knows me knows I’m not a gloom and doomer, that I do acknowledge the days we are living in, but remain expectant and focused on the birth of the Kingdom.
The children of Israel were delivered into the hands of the Philistines for 40 years for doing evil in the sight of YHVH. Then a wonderful event takes place: an announcement to a barren and childless woman that she will conceive and bear a son. The announcement is given by one who is called “malach-YHVH”, literally “Angel (of) YHVH. This messenger, in two separate appearances, reveals God’s commandments concerning the boy to be born. At the angel’s behest, the couple offers a sacrifice to YHVH, then they ask to be told his name.
This interesting passage speaks of a time when Israel had no blacksmiths to make weapons and was without any armament to defend themselves. The enemy had succeeded to disarm Israel by removing their weapons, and those who forged them! He’s attempting the same tactic today.
From the moment we were conceived we began aging, growing older by the day. We may slow down the physical aging process by exercising, eating right and other natural techniques – but we cannot ultimately stop it. This mortal flesh, our outer man, is “wasting away” and moving toward decay as we await the immortal bodies promised us in the Resurrection.
In his letter to the Colossians, Paul reveals the prophetic nature of Shabbat and the Biblical Feasts as “shadows of things to come”, whose substance is the Messiah Yeshua (Jesus). My study of the feasts therefore seeks to discover their relevance to the Lord, His identity, work, and purpose for my life in relationship to Him.
A few years ago, I was in a debate with an atheist who had a legal background, and the Lord gave me a revelation about the tactics of the enemy. At Yeshua’s first coming, his tactic was to destroy the infant before He could grow up; [Revelation 12:4-5]. After the Lord’s death and resurrection, Satan continued his direct assault by attacking the church through persecution, which lasted through the first three centuries. The tactics of the enemy were to destroy any “eyewitnesses” of God’s goodness.
An interesting parallel exists between these two passages of scripture: Isaiah 53:9 and Acts 3:15. Isaiah renders the “death” of the messiah in the plural form, “deaths” (“motav”). Acts renders the life of the Prince of Life as “lives” (“chaim”). Some scholars suggest that the plurality of the word death indicates a violent death this servant would suffer, and that making the noun plural is a way of emphasizing the terrible intensity of his experience. Jewish counter-missionaries suggest that the “death” in plural shows that the suffering servant is not an individual man, but a group of people, specifically the nation of Israel, thus denying that the passage refers to an individual messianic figure.