Shabbat on our knees... Teshuvah!

Tonight begins Shabbat and we will be on our knees. Today is the eighth anniversary of the 9/11.

We are not having a special meeting tonight but a time of prayer. Husband and I are grieved to see America has slipped back into complacency, back away from The Almighty. This is the season of Teshuvah, of returning back to the laws of The Father in preparation of the Fall Feasts and the Messiah's return.

How very fitting that tonight's Parashah is Ki Tavo, "when you enter." In this Parashah, the children of Israel are getting ready to enter the land and Moses is exhorting them to keep the law, the Torah. It is in this reading where the Moses gives them the charge for the "Blessings and Curses." Blessings if you follow the commandments, the Torah, and Curses if you don't. This is reflected in 2 Ch 7:14

Quote:

If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

Ki Tavo is read during the season of Teshuva, or returning, the time when we are to perform cheshbon ha-nefesh and teshuvah, (soul searching and return [to the laws of the Almighty]) in the days leading to Yom Kippur. In other words, "Repent before you die." This is interesting because Husband and I feel today, the eighth anniversay of 9/11, America needs Chesbon ha-nefesh and Teshuvah!

Parashah: Deut. 26:1 - 29:9
Haftarah: Isaiah 60:1-22
Brit Chadashah: Acts 7:30-36, Eph. 1:3-6 , Rev. 21:10-27

A Labor Day Mikvah

We are now almost three years into our "Messianic" (for lack of a better term) journey. Husband has been getting increasingly anxious to learn about an immersion.

From what we've been able to learn, a Mikvah is a cleansing before entering the temple. Actually, it is the recepticable for holding the immersion water for cleansing before entering the temple.

We have no temple but it is commanded in Leviticus and Numbers.

~Also the Messiah himself was immersed.~

I was recently asked if I felt we needed to perform a Mikvah in place of our childhood Baptist Baptism. Here was my answer:

Yes, actually. We've been studying a lot and, as you have probably already figured out ,(we're just very slow and leaving all we've ever known is, at times, difficult) we have discovered that there are concepts added to scripture that were not there originally.
One concept seems to be the idea of the Trinity.

Even though we have been Messianic for almost three years now, we were challenged over the summer to study if the concept of Trinity is actually scriptural. Here is what we found:

The statements "Father, Son, and Holy Ghost" are not in the oldest Greek manuscripts or ANY of the Hebrew NT manuscripts. The updated Strong's has changed their definition of "Echad" found in Deuteronomy 6:4, to actually mean "One" instead of "Unity." A Trinitarian concept does not agree with Torah.

I never realized that in being Baptist, I was very Catholic...

We wanted to be immersed into the Father's Biblical name, YHVH, and into His Son's, the Messiah Yeshua's (or Yashua, Yahosua) Name and character.
And in following the Sh'ma, Deuteronomy 6:4-11, we wanted to symbolically state we believe YHVH is truly ONE, not a unified god-head.
We prayed for the Father to immerse us in His Son's character (name, reputation)
I don't think this is a salvation issue but Husband is thinking it is. We are studying John 3 right now.

Here is something on which I would like your opinion:

How do you interrupt this verse and the whole context surrounding it?

Quote:

John 3:5 Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.

As I see it, the Messiah is using parallelism to answer Nichodemus' question; born of water being of flesh, born of spirit being spirit...

In other words, you certainly can't enter into the Kingdom if you're not first born into this world.

But, then how does that explain the evil one's access to the Throne in the book of Job? He wasn't "born of water."

But, if the "born of water" phrase means baptism, then how can I explain the robber on the cross?

Quote:

And Yeshua said to him, “Truly, I say to you today, you shall be with Me in Paradise.” Luke 23:43

Do you have any thoughts on this?If you see any error in my logic, please point it out to me so I can study further!

~

Spurred on by John 3, We decided to follow HIM.

We went to the river today and after a simple prayer, immersed ourselves in HIS name and in HIS character.

It was a wonderful experience for our entire family.

k'tiva v'chatima tova!

~wow~

Out with the Old...

Looking over those old blog posts that I just imported just makes me marvel at the changes in our family these last two years.  We have gone from die-hard, pork-eating, New Covenant Southern Baptists to in-with-both-feet, full-steam-ahead, no-looking-back, Torah observant followers of the Messiah!  Whew!  If I think about it, I just get dizzy.

In with the New!

This week, we are getting ready to celebrate our third Passover. We have been preparing by studying the scripture, examining and scrubbing the house, trying to get rid of leaven but not quite succeeding.  My children are again seeing how leaven equates with sin; no matter how hard we try, we just can't get away from it.  We desperately need the help of a Saviour!   Isn't it amazing how the Father can use such a simple task as cleaning to illuminate deep spiritual truths to us. 

 We are still learning about Torah so we will make many mistakes but our desire is to please Him and become more like Him.  I am so grateful for The Father's kindness and mercy; He can forgive our clumsy attempts at obedience as long as we are truly trying to obey.