Abba…in the wilderness You asked Your people
to contribute to the building of Your sanctuary.
They gave so much, in fact,
that some had to be turned away!
May we give even more freely to the things
near and dear to Your heart today.

You have a new house now…the body of Yeshua.
May we generously give
to build up Yeshua’s body so that
we may all be equipped
to do the work of Your kingdom.

May we give to You:
of ourselves,
of our money,
of our time,
of our abilities,
of everything we have.

May we consider that all we have
comes from You
and really belongs to You.

May we use all with which You have blessed us
for Your purposes as good stewards.

Abba, You gave explicit instructions to Your people
on how to build Your sanctuary.
You have also given us instructions
on how to build up Yeshua’s body.
May we follow those instructions closely,
always keeping in mind
Who it is that love and serve.

Abba, thank You for loving us
and for forgiving us for all the wrong things we do.
So many times we miss the mark,
yet You love us anyway
and keep cheering us on.

May we love You back with:
all of our hearts,
all of our minds,
all of our souls,
all of our strengths.

May we love our neighbors
as ourselves.

May we love one another
as Yeshua commanded us to do.

Abba, we praise You and ask You to
please touch
all who are reading this prayer.

Give them:
Your healing Shalom,
Your wisdom,
Your comfort,
Your strength,
Your forgiveness.

Please bring as needed:
Your rest,
Your reconciliation,
Your restoration,
Your forgiveness of others.

Please bring Your healing for:
body,
soul,
spirit.

Help us all, Abba:
to walk faithfully in Your ways,
to proclaim Your truth,
to lift up one another,
to feed the hungry,
to clothe the naked,
to give water to the thirsty,
to visit the sick,
to visit those in prison,
to open our homes to the homeless,
to introduce You to all who need it,
to minister Your love to all who need it,
to encourage one another,
to cheer one another on.

Praise You, Abba.
Praise You, Yeshua.
Praise You, Ruach/Spirit.
We bless You and Your Holy Name!

B’shem Yeshua

Every week, the Jews read a portion from the Torah. Each portion is called a parashah or parashat. The whole Torah is read through in one Jewish year. They also read from the Haftarah which is a reading from the prophets. Messianic Jews also add a reading from the Apostolic Writings or B’rit Hadashah/New Covenant.

Although the Jews are agreed as to the Torah portion, there are some differences as to what is read by some groups for the Haftarah. There is no particular schedule of B’rit Hadashah readings.

This week’s portion/parashat is Terumah. Here are some links that shed some light on Terumah.

Hebrew4Christians Terumah

The Mercy Seat

Up and Down the Mountain

More on the Mishkan

Sanctuary of the Heart

FFOZ Terumah

There are many people who claim the following verse from the Bible for America:

…if my people, who belong to me, humble themselves, pray, seek to please me, and repudiate their sinful practices, then I will respond from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land. (2Ch 7:14 NET)

They don’t pay attention to the context. It is G-d talking to Israel. Israel is “my people”. No other nation can make that claim.

In Ezekiel, G-d talks about what He will do to other nations in the following passage. Just prior to this passage and right afterward He is talking about Israel, but here it is about other nations…nations like America. Pay close attention to what He says here:

“Son of man, suppose a country sins against me by being unfaithful, and I stretch out my hand against it, cut off its bread supply, cause famine to come on it, and kill both people and animals. Even if these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they would save only their own lives by their righteousness, declares the sovereign LORD. “Suppose I were to send wild animals through the land and kill its children, leaving it desolate, without travelers due to the wild animals. Even if these three men were in it, as surely as I live, declares the sovereign LORD, they could not save their own sons or daughters; they would save only their own lives, and the land would become desolate. “Or suppose I were to bring a sword against that land and say, ‘Let a sword pass through the land,’ and I were to kill both people and animals. Even if these three men were in it, as surely as I live, declares the sovereign LORD, they could not save their own sons or daughters — they would save only their own lives. “Or suppose I were to send a plague into that land, and pour out my rage on it with bloodshed, killing both people and animals. Even if Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it, as surely as I live, declares the sovereign LORD, they could not save their own son or daughter; they would save only their own lives by their righteousness. (Eze 14:13-20 NET)

G-d will not ignore a nation who truly repents, but He does NOT promise to save a nation for the sake of the righteous few. He promises to save only the righteous few as He judges the nation.

These are sobering words. The righteous in America (and other countries, too) had better be prepared for what is ahead because it isn’t going to be pretty. I believe we are already under judgment and I see NO indication that our nation is repenting of its ways. We just seem to be going farther and farther away from G-d and deeper and deeper into evil and darkness.

Pray, people! America (and many other countries) desperately need to repent. The people of Yeshua’s body need to stop playing games and get serious. They need to stop listening to teachers who mishandle the word of G-d and tickle their ears with what they want to hear instead of with what they NEED to hear!

Pray for our nation and for the good teachers who are sounding the “shofar” call. Repent! Repent! Repent!

For more on this insidious false teaching go here.

Please do not tell me that you can see those and not cry and grieve over what happened. Do not tell me that you can see these photos and then say that it did not happen. Do not tell me that you are willing to ignore the threats against the Jews from her enemies…the ones who want to wipe all Jews and Israel from the map!

For, if you can tell me that, then you are deader in your soul than the all the bodies of the victims of the Holocaust put together.

Look at them all…if you dare.

The Holocaust

The Holocaust Archives

I hate to even show some these few out of respect for the people in them. However, it is out of respect (and love) for them that I MUST show them. We must NOT FORGET what happened. We MUST NOT ALLOW it to happen AGAIN!

Do these images disturb you? They SHOULD! Look at them…and weep for the women and children…for the men…for all those who were murdered…for all those who were beaten…for all those who were experimented upon…for all the lost childhoods…the lost adulthoods…the lost lives.

And WEEP

PLEASE…DON’T LET THIS HAPPEN AGAIN!!!

Why Urban, Educated Parents Are Turning to DIY Education

Abba…as we enter Your holy Shabbat
we think of You
and of Your righteous judgments.

We think of all the rulings and judgments You so lovingly gave us
so that we would know
how to live with You
and how to live with others.

Abba, You call upon Your children to make righteous judgments…
not to condemn…
not to feel superior…
not to put people “in their place”…
but to love them…
to show them the truth…
to reach out and help them.

You want us to live in peace with others.
walking in the Shalom of Yeshua,
filled with Your Ruach,
arm in arm and heart to heart
with our spiritual siblings.

You call us to discern truth from lie…
the things of You from
the things of hasatan
and of our fleshly and selfish desires.

You call us to walk in uprightness,
avoiding evil
and walking in the Light.

May we live according to Your ways,
always obedient to Your teachings,
and always loving as You love.

May we feed the hungry,
clothe the naked,
house the homeless,
visit the sick and those in prison.

May we bring Your Ruach
to set captives free.

May we bring Your healing Shalom
and reach out with Your words
and Your arms of love.

May we love You with
all of our hearts,
all of our souls,
all of our minds,
and all of our strengths.

May we love our neighbor as ourselves.

May we love one another.

B’shem Yeshua

There are those who truly do not understand the truth. They either have not been told or they have not yet reached a place of understanding it. They are not culpable for what they do not know or understand.

There are also those, however, who DO know the truth. They have understood it, yet they choose to feign ignorance in an attempt to salve their consciences as they walk away from it. While that might actually seem to “work” for a while, ultimately it will fail. Sooner or later they will have to face the truth. Only, instead of facing it for the first time and having an “aha” moment which allows them to embrace it, they will be facing it as someone who knew it and walked away. There will be guilt and condemnation, but it does not have to be that way.

While walking away from the truth is not a good thing and denying the truth is even worse, it is NOT irreversible. We have a heavenly Abba/Father who WANTS His creation to walk in truth. He WANTS us to come to Him. He WANTS us to be the bride of His Son Yeshua/Jesus. We can run to Him and ask forgiveness for walking away from the truth. We can run to Him and ask forgiveness for denying the truth to ourselves and others. We can accept the invitation to live as Yeshua’s bride. But we can only do that while we are yet alive. After death comes judgment. Then it will be too late.

There are many who enter into pacts or deals with the “devil” because they think it is just a game…a way to open a door to success in this life. But it isn’t just a game or door opener…it is real. You can scoff all you want, but hasatan takes all pacts and deals very seriously. So does our Creator. If you have made such a deal or pact, do not delay. Cry out to Yeshua to undo it right away.  It does not matter what kind of deal you have made with the “devil” or what kind of pact you have entered into or what kind of oath you have sworn. All can be undone by the power of Yeshua/Jesus who is greater than anything in this world. You do not know how much time you have. Death could be a heart attack away, or an accident away or even a murder away.

We know this world will eventually end. The same G-d who told us in advance about so many other things that have come true in detail has also told us that Messiah will return and will bring judgment with Him when He does. A study of prophecy shows that this will be fairly soon. We might have until that moment to change the course of our lives…but we might not. The end can come for any one of us at any time. Death waits for no one.

The scriptures tell us that each one of us has a certain number of days, but we don’t know exactly how many we will have. We could die next month, next week, tomorrow, tonight, in the next few minutes. We don’t know. Is it worth the gamble to decide to get things right with your Creator later? I don’t think so. Please don’t wait. Settle things now and then live your life with gratitude to the One who makes it all possible for you…the giver of all good gifts…the Creator.

It is very obvious when you get an instantaneous like on a post you publish that it is not a true like. No one even had time to read it and decide to like it. It is simply a program someone figured out how to use that automatically likes new posts. I noticed this on the previous post I did today and I have to wonder how many other posts this same blog automatically liked today…or will like today? I wonder, too, if there are programs with a time delay!

While it is nice to have people liking my blog posts, I prefer that they be genuine likes. I want people to take a few minutes to read it and THEN decide that they like it! I am not into numbers for the sake of numbers and, even if I was, that would make automatic likes even MORE annoying! They skew your stats! They don’t truly reflect the popularity of a blog.

If you really do like a blog post, it would be very nice if you took a minute to leave a few words telling the author why you like it. You don’t even have to do it every time…just on the first one you like. After all, if you like one, it is not unusual that you might like future ones, and I certainly understand how busy people are. As a writer, it is nice to know why someone likes a post. After all, that is how bloggers improve their writing, by getting feedback from their readers! Feedback is a bloggers dream and I make it easy by not requiring that you be registered to comment!

When you have a blog about a completely unrelated subject or something like a property for sale, and you do not leave a real comment, it is pretty clear that you are just using my blog to try to get my readers to see yours. That really is a bit rude…don’t you think?

In the storms of life, sometimes we just need a rainbow. Why? Well, it has to do with what the rainbow stands for and, to understand that, we have to go a long way back in time.

About 4000 years ago or so, humankind had become very wicked. There was no respect for life or for the Creator who made all life. People’s thoughts were evil. Their acts were evil. Everything was about evil.

Imagine a world like that. Imagine a place where evil was the norm and good was unheard of because everyone’s thoughts were wicked. There would be no respect for one another and the weakest would be the most vulnerable. Children, the elderly, the disabled, the sick…would all live and die at the hands of others. They would just be a commodity to be used for the pleasure and whims of the adults and the strong. Lusts and desires of the flesh would be their “gods”. It would be all about “self” with no one else really mattering.

The Creator was SO heartbroken over all of this evil that resided in the hearts and actions of the people He had created that He regretted even making them. He wanted to destroy them all…to remove the evil from the earth. Yet, in that darkest of times, there was one man and his family who remained faithful to the Creator. He was righteous and wholehearted and he walked with the Creator G-d, rather than the gods that people had made of their own hearts. So, the Creator decided to save this little family out of all humankind. The man, his wife, his three sons and their wives were all kept from harm. How? Read on.

The Creator told the man to build a huge boat to hold the people and the animals that He wanted to save. When I write “huge”, I mean really HUGE! It was at least 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high! To put that in perspective, it was taller than a 3 story building. The deck area was as big as 36 lawn tennis courts. It could hold as much as 569 railroad stock-cars.  How long of a train would that be? Five and one-half miles long! Wow! That might not be that big according to today’s world of ocean liners, but back then I would say that was HUGE! (For more information on the boat go here and here and here and here.)

120 years after the man was told to build the boat, the Creator brought animals came to him and they all went inside. At that point, the Creator closed the big door in the side of the boat, the rain started and the waters began to break out from the depths of the earth. This went on for 40 days until every part of the earth was under water. They were in that boat for about a year.  When they finally left the boat, they gave thanks to the Creator and He put a rainbow in the sky as a sign of His promise to never flood the entire earth again.

When I look at the world today I am reminded of the world back then. Sure, there are good people all around, but I also see so much evil rising up. I see hatred and genocide, the killing of babies in the womb, the abuse of children of all ages, the denying of medical care to elderly and disabled people. I see people purposely pitting groups of people against each other instead of promoting true equality and harmony. I see lying and a lack of integrity all around. I see wars and people torturing others. What a sad state our world is in. Are we any better than those people before the flood?

In the midst of all the evil rising in this world today, it is a comfort to see the rainbow and be reminded that the Creator will never flood the whole world again. I know that the Creator is watching over us. He sees those who worship Him and are true to Him. He will take care of those of us who truly love Him and obey Him. We will go through hard things, but we will come out the other side victorious to be with the Creator forever.

We have been warned there is another judgment coming and that the world will be similar to the time before the flood. The condition of this world and its systems of power plus a careful study of biblical prophecy shows it is not that far away. The next (and last) judgment is coming soon.

So, how do we escape the coming judgment? There is only one way…get into the boat. We do have a “boat” today. Just as the Creator provided a way of escape for this family, He also provides one for us today. It is the person of His Son…Yeshua/Jesus. It is only by trusting in Yeshua that you will escape the coming judgment.

The Creator does not want to destroy His people. He wants His people with Him forever. He only wants to destroy evil. There is a time of tremendous upheaval coming upon this earth that will be so intense that it will cause people to put their hopes in a seemingly good leader. But he will ultimately prove to be false, resulting in a time of horror never seen before. Judgment will fall and evil WILL be destroyed, but this time it will be a forever deal. When it is all over evil will be gone forever and all that will remain is a new heaven and new earth for the Creator’s people to dwell in with Him forever.

Yeshua came as Messiah about 2,000 years ago. In the bible timeline, we are looking at about 2000 years before the flood. Then another 2000 years until Messiah followed by another 2,000 years until Messiah comes again. Yeshua showed up right on schedule the first time and He will show up right on schedule again.

What year will it be? Well, calendars have gotten a bit messed up so we don’t really know for sure, but we can know that it is going to be “soon”. We can even know about what time of year He will come because the feasts of the Creator are all prophetic. It will be on a feast whose start time no one knows the hour or the day of because the feast starts based upon the sighting of the moon cycle…not a particular calendar day.

A time is coming like this planet has never seen before. Won’t you please give it some serious consideration? This life is not a game and you don’t get another chance once you die. You only have one life. You are not invincible. There is only one True G-d and neither you or I or anyone else is He.

Please, if you have not entrusted your spiritual well-being to Yeshua, stop and do it now. Stop playing the “game”. We ALL have darkness in our hearts and it causes us to be separated from the Creator. It does not matter if it is a little or a lot…NO darkness can be in fellowship with the Creator! Only the Light of Yeshua can take that darkness away and restore us into fellowship with G-d. All you need to do is acknowledge that darkness…admit to yourself and G-d that you have blown it on some level in your life…that you have done wrong things. Ask Him to forgive you. Believe that Yeshua came and died and rose again for YOU…so that YOU could receive forgiveness and be back in fellowship with the Creator of all. Then give Him first place in your life and live for Yeshua out of love for Him and gratefulness for what He has done for you. He has paid the price to redeem you (buy you) from the bondage of slavery to darkness so that you are free to live in the True Light. Live as if you truly do belong to Him…for you do…if you accept His offer of forgiveness!

I guarantee that your life will never be the same if you do this. He will take away the darkness and start changing you in amazing ways. You will walk in fellowship with Him and His Ruach/Spirit will live within you…forever! Tough times are coming and, I believe, have already started. Please don’t wait. Life is not a game or a stage performance. It is the real deal and you only get one go around. Choose before it is too late. Accept Yeshua’s gift to you!

Questions? I have a contact link above. I would be happy to answer any questions you have to the best of my ability.