What 2022 brought to us and looking forward to 2023

Liberation

Lots of people thought 2022 would be the year of liberating us from that terrible virus which got the world in its grip. Though not a liberation became several people on their part, an even more senseless killing ‘disease’ came unto Europe.

The leader of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, who would love to find a renewed Soviet Union, said at the beginning of the year he would bring liberation to the Ukrainians. Instead, his “bloodstained” tyranny plunged Europe into the war on a scale not seen since 1945 as Russian troops advanced on Kyiv on Thursday night, February 24th.

The invasion of Ukraine by Russia is shocking and disgraceful. It is the latest terrible aggression by the Putin regime and the latest damaging conflict in our world, with so many people being killed or injured, losing loved ones and seeing their homes destroyed.

2022 has been a tough year to navigate, with a series of political and economic crises that continue to shape our world.

One powerful man

Who could have ever imagined that one man, from up north, would single-handedly turn the world upside down? However, he has succeeded very well in not only bringing black snow over several people, and literally turning the landscape blood-red, he has severely disrupted economic life in several countries.

Following two long pandemic years – with many still experiencing the effects – we’ve witnessed the outbreak of war in Ukraine and could feel in our purse how it affects us also in our region. We cannot ignore this war that has affected many citizens. At our new WordPress Site “Some View on the World” we have given a voice to those suffering in the conflict as well as reporting the situation on the ground and providing the expertise needed to understand geopolitics.

Picturing what is happening in the world

As best we can, we try to give a picture of what is happening in the world on the continuation of “Our World“. 2022 was another year of figuring out how we would be able to keep up with bringing political and religious news alongside our other spiritual websites. We hope to find that balance further in 2023.

By nature, I am not an easy person and have dared to clash several times by speaking my mind outright. Even in the articles, I publish here and on my other websites, my thinking is based on my personal opinion. One can agree or disagree with that view. I, therefore, appreciate that people also dare to express their opinions. But in general, there is a little reaction in that area. Still, I hope the articles brought, can make people think. For instance, I was happy to find that my op-eds on Christmas in the Daily Telegraph were able to bring a debate after all.

Hoping to expose wrongdoings

With the news we place at Some View on the World we do hope we also could be able to expose the mistreatment and deaths of migrant workers in Qatar for almost a decade as well as other wrong attitudes towards people as well as animals and plants. At my personal site and this site as well, in particular on “Some View on the World” we continue to bear witness to the climate crisis as it destroys lives, uproots whole communities and changes the course of our shared future. We hope for 2023 to be able to bring regular news about our environment.

The fallout from the January 6 hearings and Donald Trump’s presidency could get our attention, and we hold our hearts for the intentions of Mr Trump, wanting to come back as president of the U.S.A..

Independence of my websites

For all the reporting we do here, and on my other websites, I would like to remind you, readers, that there is no financial support from companies anywhere and that all reporting is based on personal and independent reporting, where I keep searching for this site among texts that appear on the net what could possibly be fascinating for you to read as well, and thus to reblog them here.

2022 could bring lots of blogs on the net of which we presented some selections over here too. At Firefox several could find their way into ‘Pocket’, like: Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid, How to Want Less, A Neurologist’s Tips to Protect Your Memory, Why You Should Really Stop Charging Your Phone Overnight, A Guide to Getting Rid of Almost Everything, a.o. most read.

Uncovering and unravelling

Whether on social, political or religious issues, we are eager to seek the truth and expose false reports. Exposing wariness is not always appreciated, but is very important in our view. To do that, we can count on several investigative journalists and some newspapers to join in the pursuit of that muddle, so that together we can make certain things known to the world while others would rather see them covered up.

At Some View on the World we have maintained round-the-clock coverage from several places, not always bringing nice news, like mass graves of Bucha, Izium and many war crimes.

The war accelerated a global economic slump, sending costs soaring, throttling energy supplies and raising the spectre of blackouts, malnutrition and a winter of discontent across dozens of countries. As global food supplies fluctuated, we reported on the hunger gripping the Horn of Africa and Afghanistan. In 2022, it became impossible to ignore those victims in poorer countries. But sadly, we had to observe how little the public cared about those people living far from their homes. And closer, many did not wish to have refugees, so we could speak of a refugee crisis again this year.

Here in Belgium, the influx of refugees seems completely uncontrollable and many, even with small children, shamefully had to sleep outside several nights through rain and wind. This while in Great Britain, the reception was also not going smoothly and people started looking for a housing solution in Rwanda, and proceeded to deportations.

Condition of mother earth

A lot of people do not want to realise that things are very bad for Mother Earth. To this, in 2022, several scientists again tried to make it clear to the world that we need to think seriously about this and take action. We were confronted with UK’s hottest summer, a very early and long great Summer in Belgium, drought in Europe, and the accompanying fires.

Heating the houses became for many difficult to keep in the household budget. It looked like mother nature felt the pressure on the energy market, as well. Everywhere in Europe, we had extremely high temperatures for the time of year. In Belgium 2022 became the warmest year since measurements.

The climate emergency ran as a constant thread through much of our Some View on the World journalism in 2022.

While many European countries were suffering from a shortage of water, they had it in other countries, like Pakistan, too much. Devastating floods in Pakistan, encountering one of its worst natural catastrophes, Sydney’s wettest year on record, ferocious heatwaves in the US southwest and the costliest Atlantic hurricane for years, could catch our attention.

At Cop27 in Egypt, the Guardian asked the tough questions. Though, we did not give so much attention to the changing tactics of activists, now more likely to throw soup at a painting as they are to glue themselves to a public highway.

Uprising

In my view, many other protests could get our attention earlier, as they were carried out in a more correct way. Coming from a not expected corner, sparked by the death in custody of a young woman, Mahsa Amini.

Once again, we were able to conclude in Afghanistan and Iran that there is no improvement in human rights yet. The Iranian authorities tightly control reporting inside the country, so we counted on the teams of the Guardian to redouble efforts to reach protagonists to tell their stories. Social media remained also important for this, so it was satisfying to see the Guardian Instagram video on why Iranians are risking everything for change reach more than 2 million viewers.

It is impossible for me to have news sources everywhere, which is why we must also call on professional companies, for which we must also pay. Financial aid is therefore very welcome to cover these expenses. Nevertheless, we try to be as aware as possible of the general events, for which we also make further use of the known news channels and reliable TV channels and newspapers.

United States debacle

In terms of exposure, it was imperative to look at the Trumpists who still claim high and low that the US elections were forged.

The country which was formed on the idea that it could be a free world where everybody could express himself freely and would not be bounded by limitations through a government, in 2022 came to see deep political divisions, caused by a man who as 45th president of the U.S.A. did mutiny on that state and brought democracy in danger. His party made the ongoing climate crisis and racial, economic and health inequalities worsened. It was impossible to ignore the fallout from the January 6 hearings and Donald Trump’s presidency, as well as his willingness to come back as president.

The repeal of Roe v Wade provided a divisive backdrop to the November midterm elections. The conservative, or better said, the extremist Christians in the U.S., made it possible that women lost even the right to their own bodies. They also did not want to give an eye for mother nature nor for all those poor Americans who have no house or anywhere to live except on the streets, where many in the last weeks of the year found their dead by Winter storm Elliott. Buffalo got the worst hit by that bomb cyclone.

Political storms

In 2022 there were more significant elections in America which caught our attention. In Brazil, there were an anxious few weeks as Jair Bolsonaro wanted to do like his friend Trump, saying the votes were falsified. Finally, he suffered a chastening defeat by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who completed a comeback from prison to the presidential palace.

To our annoyance, we in northern Europe had to observe an inverse movement towards South America. The far right in Sweden, Italy and Israel, could get most seats in parliament. Despite her political prowess, the 45-year-old from Rome, whose strong will and determination has drawn comparisons to Margaret Thatcher, Giorgia Meloni has spent three decades fighting her way to the top of Italian politics. She is clear evidence that go-getters win. In October last year, after Brothers of Italy managed to draw votes away from the Northern League in its northern strongholds in local elections, a secret recording revealed Matteo Salvini hitting out at Meloni, calling her a “pain in the ass”.

In Belgium, too, the newspapers disguised several polls, clearly showing that the right is making a strong rise and where voices can already be heard that NVA will have to make the choice to form a majority coalition with Vlaams Belang.

As for British politics, prime ministers came and went with alarming regularity and the nation buried the pound, Queen Elizabeth and its global standing in quick succession. For 10 days in September, the future of the monarchy dominated the newsroom. The crazy game of the English conservatives who wanted their leader to put his capsones under the benches and to ask the people to stay at home because of Corona and not to have parties seemed to think it normal that their leader could do that and lie about it too. The whole world could laugh at the blunders of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, while the British citizen seemed not to mind. In any case, they did not demand new elections and left it to the Tory members to elect the new prime minister.

In Australia Labour could note a historic federal election victory.

Economical storms

The struggle between Russia and Ukraine is also a struggle between the Putin regime and Western Europe.

The war accelerated a global economic slump, sending costs soaring, throttling energy supplies and raising the spectre of blackouts, malnutrition and a winter of discontent across dozens of countries. But we also noticed that certain companies were abusing the war in Ukraine to raise their prices.

Cereals and gas were not released enough by blockades from the Russians, which caused major food problems, especially in Africa. In Western Europe we felt our energy prices skyrocket due to the pressure on the export and import markets. In Belgium, it took forever for the government to take measures to mitigate the costs of its citizens. After several months of calls by the Labour Party PvdA/PtB to reduce VAT to 6% and by their appeals to the public to put pressure on the government, things finally came to a head.

Health matters

2022 received big leaps forward for Alzheimer’s treatments, bowel cancer prevention and understanding depression.

In several countries there was joy that people could come together again to party and that the elderly should no longer be separated from their children and grandchildren. The lockdown had made it very clear how important personal contact is. It was striking how in 2022 teenagers and twens still had many psychological difficulties, which were not resolved. Bad enough, many could not be admitted in time, causing unnecessarily too many young people to die, while this could have been avoided.

Post-pandemic in Europe in danger

For months Europe tried to combat Covid-19. We started the annual overview with the relaxation of the Corona measures. But at the end of December, they now appear to be endangered because Europe does not want to take strict measures for the Chinese who are now allowed by their government to travel outside China again, which will allow them to spread the increased disease further outside China. With the coming Chinese New Year, they could start a new pandemic as in Belgium, it started in Antwerp.

For much of the world, a sort of post-pandemic normality has resumed – with one striking exception: the country where it all began. Chinese leaders faced a rapid spread of public anger caused by their draconian Covid lockdown policy. Only after some activists could ignite a revolt against the lockdown and more people joined them on the streets, even coming to shout to get rid of the Chinese leader and communist party, the government got seriously afraid and eased the lockdown measures. After they had done that another hell broke down, the virus rapidly spreading and killing so many people the mortuaries could not handle it anymore.

While the Chinese seem to be in the first Corona wave, as it were, the rest of the world has gotten out over time and everyone is now looking forward to a shock-free 2023.

We too look forward to an ending of the war in Ukraine and to a peaceful solution between Kosovo and Serbia.

At Some View of the World and at my other personal Space, we shall try to bring you up-to-date news of the happenings in the world, and here on this website, we hope we shall still be able to offer you and share with you, some worthwhile articles to read in this coming New Year.

 

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A sincere thank you to our readers and supporters – wherever you are in the world,
we wish you a wonderful end to 2022 and an optimistic 2023.

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Additional reading

1. G7 agreed to ban or phase out Russian oil and gas imports
2. 2022 the year of fearing some wars

Passover 7 days of meditation opening a way to conversion

Immanuel Verbondskind looks back at the lockdown period and the impact on the small Jeshuaist community and some Jewish communities. For Jews it has even been more difficult to undergo the lockdown, because many do have no television or internet and have been in a real-time strict isolation, not being able to have worship moments with brethren and sisters.

Those times of seclusion and restriction could be called a ‘reflection time‘ or retreat, where one had enough time to think about faith and religion. On the 15th of April this year (2022) it was 14 Nisan, the evening to remember the liberation of God’s People from the enslavement in Egypt, but also to remember the gathering of Jeshua and his disciples, where at the last supper Jesus talked about the blood being shed for the liberation of all people.

In Wintertime, many Christians celebrate Christmas and have some holiday, where they also can think about the light that came in the darkness. For true Christians and for Jews, 14-22 Nisan is the most sacred period of the religious year, where is remembered how the Elohim brought to light in the dark night by passing over the houses where there was the blood of the lamb, giving the opportunity for the Jews to flee their world of slavery in Egypt.

True Christians with Jeshuaists remember also the Passover lamb Jeshua (Jesus Christ) and show their gratitude for the salvation by the Grace of God, Him accepting that ransom Jesus was willing to pay for all people.

 

Since Friday night Jeshuaists and Christadelphians, like other true Christians, since some long time of isolation because of lockdown, could at some places get together (in restricted form) and make connections with other brothers and sisters, either in place or via the internet streaming. Many, the previous time in isolation got lots of opportunities to think about the value of such a connection or ‘fraternity‘. They had enough time in the lockdown period to think about their religious affiliation, and some also about their need to go over into a conversion. Because the last few months, more signs could be seen that we are entering a new period in the Time of Ages or in God’s Plan.

Because of those “Signs of the Times” there has come a certain pressure to know what to do and which direction to go. Now many more ask themselves who shall be part of the things going to be there after the big battle or great tribullation.

Several people have wondered in those Covid times if it would not be better to become part of a community. There also have been Jews by race or non-believing and non-practising Jews, who started to change ideas about the world and its Creator. The Jews from Middle European origin also started wondering by which denomination of Jews they would best join. Those people living here in Belgium, France, Holland and Germany wonder if they would convert to Judaism, if they then would be accepted as a Jew.

Anti-Zionists often claim that Ashkenazi Jews are white imposters, fake Jews who are entirely descended from European converts to Judaism. This is completely rebutted by genetic studies which have proven a Middle Eastern patrilineal origin for Ashkenazi Jewry. However, when the Anti-Zionists make the Apartheid accusation are Jews suddenly a single racial group. The notion that Jews generally constitute a racial group is Nazi in origin and is at the core of the Anti-Jewish Apartheid libel. {Why Many Ashkenazi Jews “Look” European}

There is a long history of the racialization of Jews. There have also been religious and non-religious Jews in several countries.

Racialization of Jews have a long pedigree in the history of Anti-Semitism. Racialization of Jews was practiced in Spain against the Anusim (“Marranos”), Jews who were involuntarily converted to Christianity during the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492. Racialization of Jews in Germany became prominent already in the second half of the 19th century when religious Anti-Semitism (Anti-Judaism) was increasingly supplanted by racializing Anti-Semitism. The third phase is the current racialization of Jews by the extreme left.

Racialization of Jews is intended to paint Jews as “genetic aliens” in a certain country (e.g. Spain, Germany or Israel). Of course painting any other people as “genetic aliens” is not socially acceptable beyond Nazi circles. But Anti-Semitic opponents of Israel systematically engage in discourse to stigmatize the Jews in the land of Israel as genetic aliens despite Ashkenazim, Sephardim and Mizrahim patrilineally being very very genetically similar to Palestinians due to common historical origin, with the genetic divergence accounted for by historical conversions to Judaism and by immigration to the land of Israel from other parts of the Middle East during the Islamic era.

Ashkenazim, Sephardim and Mizrahim are more similar to each other than to any other populations and are predominantly of Middle Eastern origin in genetically confirming the historical narrative of ancient Israelite origin. The Anti-Semitic accusation according to which Ashkenazi Jews are exclusively descended from European converts to Judaism despite that part of Ashkenazi ancestry accounting only for only 30% of the Ashkenazi gene pool with the remaining 70% being Middle Eastern in origin is used by Anti-Semites such as Palestinian-American professor of Columbia University Joseph Massad to libelously paint Israeli Jews as “European colonizers” and against the scientific consensus denying that most modern Israeli Jews are Levantine returnees to Israel. The false claim that Ashkenazi Jews are “European colonizers” is in fact one of the main claims involved in the Anti-Semitic racialization of Ashkenazi Jewry. {Jews are a Nation of Color}

After the covid pandemic several feel a greater need to come to connect with one or another Jewish or Jeshuaist denomination. Having been on their own, in their own living room, with nobody else to share the faith, was too lonely. Some, who were previously connected with a shul, lost contact but also interest to go to a prayer and study house. Though others have now, even more than ever before, felt the need to be connected to other fellow believers.

This Passover is for several an essential time to consider the way how God handled His People and how, also today, He is still willing to guide them through the desert of this (non-religious) world.

Some people take time to think about separation and isolation, and look at the lessons we get from the Scrolls that teach that the priests were deliberately separated from everyone else. They even couldn’t go to family funerals, like many could not in the Corona crisis. Their job was to remain separate from the people they served, which may sound strange. But their goal was to maintain their close connection with the Most High in purity or holiness.

To remain separate at all times isn’t healthy for anyone. All over the world many learned that all too well the last two years. this year many felt a great joy they were able again to come together with some friends to do like the apostles did, following up the permanent ordinance… a celebration for all of God’s people throughout all time, remembering Passover.

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Find to read:

Times of seclusion, restriction, liberation, connection, religious affiliation and conversion

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Preceding

Measure of loneliness whilst time drags

Adar 6, Matan Torah remembering the giving of Torah

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Additional reading

1. Jewish diaspora
2. December a joyful time for many
3. Lenten Season and our minds and hearts the spiritual temple in which God seeks to live
4. Remember the day
5. Ransom for all
6. A perfect life, obedient death, and glorious resurrection
7. Redemption #4 The Passover Lamb
8. Redemption #7 Christ alive in the faithful
9. Atonement And Fellowship 8/8
10. A strange thing might happen when you come under Christ
11. Seeing or not seeing and willingness to find God
12. Falling figures for identifying Christians
13. What is happening in America to religion and to the language of faith
14. Who is a Jew?
15. Counting sands and stars
16. We Count. We Just Weren’t Counted.
17. Judaism and Jeshuaism a religion of the future
18. Great tribulation and Armageddon
19. Armageddon or the Great Tribulation
20. Ashkenazi Jews are extremely inbred

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Related

1. Passover Blessings – April 15th through 22nd, 2014
2. Proselytism
3. Jesus Became Our Passover Lamb
4. How Jews look to non-Jews – Part 1
5. Going back to shul
6. Fighting ignorance

So many being afraid – reason enough to step in the boat with Christ

For weeks already in Italy, Spain, France and Belgium the inhabitants are feeling limited with their country in lockdown. All over the world people are confronted with an unseen enemy, and that frightens many of them.

Normally the lovers of God who are worshipping Him alone and not other gods, are accustomed to living in a certain way somewhat isolated. The majority of Christendom worshipping a Trinity does not like those Unitarians and avoid contact with them as if they are affected with a terrible disease. Worship services for those isolated Christians are often followed by the internet, because of the distance between many too far. Those able to share the Breaking of Bread in real life, under normal circumstances only find themselves with a few. The 14th of Nisan is for many the big exception for the year. That day is often the ‘high-mass’ bringing many lovers of God together to commemorate the liberation of mankind. That special commemoration day in several prayer halls or kingdom halls often brings more than a hundred people together, showing how even when they are not with many, they also are not with such a few that they should feel alone. This year it was a totally different experience for many, not having the Memorial Gathering in public. It was nice to have several groups providing for internet sharing, but it is not the same and can not be a surrogate or placebo for the real thing.

Remarkable to notice is how so many expressed their calmness and accepted totally those restrictions the governments gave them. Opposite to many unbelievers most members were convinced the time of quarantine should take as long as necessary to keep everybody safe, no matter of the economic impact. We also can notice the members of those Unitarian denominations respect the social distancing and trust God that everything shall turn out back to normal in a certain time.

On the other hand all over the world, we find certain Christian groups calling to gather for Easter and to ignore such social distancing. They forget they perhaps do not only bring their own life in danger, but worse bring other people, they could encounter also on other days, in great danger. We can only say they have a very selfish attitude.

Around us, we can find unbelievers and believers who express their fear. Normal when one does not know the unseen enemy thoroughly and does not know how it all shall evolve in the near future. People also love to have everything under control and when they feel they loose control they start panicking.

For those with fear, we would like to remind them of a little event which took place some two thousand years ago.

Like on many great lakes and seas the wind can come up forcibly and bring dangerously high waves.

The disciples and Jesus were on passage on a boat and when the master teacher went to sleep, and a violent storm came.  The wind was howling, the boat was taking on water, these men felt that their lives were in danger from forces they could not control.  Take note, these were not inexperienced Saturday afternoon boaters.  Most of these men were professional fishermen.  These men were of strong hand and backs, they had been in a storm or two in their years of fishing.

If you have ever met a sailor, they often pride themselves on the storms they have endured on the seas.  However; this was not the same kind of storm that these men had endured before.  This storm frightened them to the point of fearing death.  It was pretty easy for them to see that the boat would likely be crushed in the waves, the wind and water was overtaking the boat.  They had no control over their circumstances.  All of their lives were passing before their eyes.  Wives lips that would never be kissed again, children that would never be played with again.  The sunrises they would miss.  Songs that they would never sing again.  As they looked over their possessions, their homes, their clothes, money, land, and more they began to realize how little value those things actually had.  They could see that they had focused their whole lives on things that really didn’t matter.  Their children, their spouses, their families, and their God are the things that mattered. As devout Jews they knew they could trust their God, the God of Abraham. Though it looked like as if they feared That God would not be with them.

On land they would know who to turn to when they had doubts of certain matters or fear for certain things. But far from any temple, no synagogue at hand, to whom had they to turn? Where could they find a rabbi or rebbe who could help them?

In want of having a Rabbi there now they turned their eyes toward their friend Jeshua (Jesus) who was lying quietly sleeping.  In all of this storming wind, spraying of water, beating of the waves, screaming of the men, he seemed steadfast asleep.  It looked like he was in a place of safety and comfort.  Peacefully like a baby he was there sleeping, probably laying in a puddle of water, soaked from head to toe, but asleep none the less.

A few decades ago Lenny LeBlanc released a song with the name “Asleep in the Boat”.  It talks about a promise God made, and that He is always there, just as Jesus was here with his disciples.  Just like when we are in the storm, He is here for us.

In these times of trouble we better look at how Jesus cope with difficulties and uncertainties. We do know many Christians take him as their god. God does know everything, but Jesus, not being God, did not know everything and like us just had to trust his heavenly Father.
Jesus has encountered several very difficult moments, and we should know that also he, even doubted God and asked Him why He had abandoned him. From the stake, Jesus cried out loud to His heavenly Father, the Only One True God.

46 And about the ninth hour Yahushua cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My Elohim, my Elohim, why hast thou forsaken me? (Matt 27:46, NRKJV)

But God never had abandoned or had forsaken His only beloved son. Nobody can do anything to God and God is the only Being that can not die. But Jesus could be hurt by men and he knew very well that those people could kill him. His death was a certainty, but what would happen after his death was not so sure. For that he had to trust his heavenly Father to Whom he cried that he would not be forsaken. Only by having enough faith in his heavenly Father Jesus could face those difficult moments. The Nazarene Jew had enough faith in his heavenly Father, the God of Israel, Who had already for centuries guided His People.

Jesus so much trusted his God, that he was willing to put his own will aside to do the Will of his heavenly Father, Whom Jesus considered to be the Only One True God, the God above all gods and above all kings. Like his ancestor King David, Jesus trusted his God.

We too, should have the same trust in God like the son of God had in his heavenly Father, Who is also our heavenly Father. In the Elohim Hashem Jehovah, we should find security and peace at heart, not having to have fear for what might come.

When we are children of God let us behave like it, and show others what a good Father we have. Let us take this period of more free time, to let Jehovah’s Name resound in many more places. That we who believe in Him show others how the Elohim has given the world the opportunity to be free of all worldly matters and that this time on this earth is only a temporary period. Let us take the opportunity to witness over the beauties of the Highest and how He has given the world a solution to be free of all worries.

We should step in the boat of Christ and be aware that even when he would be asleep, we still shall be safe, because he is with us and his God is with us.
When we feel abandoned by the world, them not liking we do not adhere to their god or gods, do not worry. One is better to worship the True God of the Bible instead of the many gods human beings love to worship. The God of Jesus, Hosea, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Solomon, David, Nehemiah, Abraham, Moses and Adam is the Best God we can have and Who can make sure we shall be able to receive the best life, “is it not today than tomorrow” ….

When we feel the pains of this world, and lost dear friends or family members, let us always remember that once they died their pain would be gone, and all worries would be over for them. Let us also put everything in the right perspective, comparing our luxury life with the millions of people in worse circumstances. And let us not forget how there was once a man who had not done any fault in his life, but was tortured and nailed at a wooden stake, giving his life for so many people he did not even know, so that they could live unto righteousness.

30 The Elohim of our fathers raised up Yahushua, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree. (Acts 5:30, NRKJV)

24 Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed. (1Pet 2:24, NRKJV)

Let us remember that event when the apostles were afraid and think about the storm in which we landed today.

23 And when he was entered into a ship, his disciples followed him. 24 And, behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves: but he was asleep. 25 And his disciples came to him, and awoke him, saying, My master, save us: we perish. 26 And he saith unto them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm. 27 But the men marvelled, saying, What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him! (Matt 8:23-27, NRKJV)

It would be wrong to think Jesus had no fear. He, like his brothers and sisters, also had many fears. Though Jesus feared more God than people and therefore was not afraid to speak out. Jesus very well knew his humble position and that he could do nothing without his heavenly Father, His God. Only by listening to his God, and doing what God wanted from him, Jesus could do exceptional things.

19 Then answered Yahushua and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise. (John 5:19, NRKJV)

From those around him, Jesus asked them to come to him and to his God, so that what God had given to His son also could come unto us. Jesus knew that his God was the Only One to trust and knew that those who have complete trust in God will be kept in perfect peace by keeping their minds focused on Gods promises.

3 Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee. (Isa 26:3, NRKJV)

Like so many before Christ let us also the same as Jesus did, trust the Divine Creator and give ourselves in His Hands. Even if we fear others or such disease as CoViD-19, we should have more fear for the God of Christ, the God of Abraham and should pray to Him and trust HIm, in the same way as Jesus and Isaiah trusted their heavenly Father.

9 With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early: for when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness. 10 Let favour be shewed to the wicked, yet will he not learn righteousness: in the land of uprightness will he deal unjustly, and will not behold the majesty of יהוה. 11 יהוה, when thy hand is lifted up, they will not see: but they shall see, and be ashamed for their envy at the people; yea, the fire of thine enemies shall devour them. 12 יהוה, thou wilt ordain peace for us: for thou also hast wrought all our works in us. 13 O יהוה our Elohim, masters instead of thee have had dominion over us: but by thee only will we make mention of thy name. (Isa 26:9-13, NRKJV)

While we may not know what tomorrow holds for us, we have chosen to follow Jesus and to have the same trust in his heavenly Father and as such should not have to worry about the future. In Christ Jesus lies our hope for the future, because he gave his life for us and God accepted his sacrificial offering as a ransom for once and for all.
When we believe who Jesus is and what he really has done and how God has now taken him out of the dead as an example for what might happen to us, we should not be afraid because in such resurrection is our hope and future.
It is in our belief in the promises of God and in the certainty of salvation that we have a present peace.

We just have to be patient and trust the Most High God. By following This God His only begotten beloved son, we have the assurance that one day there shall come a Kingdom which surpasses all other kingdoms and where there shall be peace for all without any pain or sorrow. Let us look forward to such days in the coming Kingdom of God.

 

**

Let us thank God for everything that we got for good things in our life
and let us trust Him as our Guide and Helper in difficult days
as well for Him being a Stormstiller

From Sticky Note to God ~03.31.20~

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Preceding

Why are you afraid?

Fear in your own heart or outside of it

Our life depending on faith

The Struggle Ends When Gratitude Begins

Many opportunities given by God

If you keep your faith and trust in God

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Additional reading

1. Matthew 8:23-27 – The Nazarene’s Commentary: Jesus Calms a Stormy Sea
2. Matthew 9:32-34 – How others look at the blind, speechless and demoniac being healed
3. The unseen enemy
4. Fear of failure, and fear of the unknown
5. 8 fears caused by the fear of Man
6. Fearmongering succeeded and got the bugaboo a victory
7. A Living Faith #9 Our Manner of Life
8. Thanksgiving wisdom: Why gratitude is good for your health
9. Problems on a dark road and A look at our ego-centric world
10. Not fear or dread or blind compulsion
11. The chosen ones to fear or not to fear
12. What is life?
13. Greatest single cause of atheism
14. Whom Shall I Fear (God of Angel Armies) by Chris Tomlin
15. Control and change
16. We find by losing. We hold fast by letting go.
17. A treasure which can give me everything I need
18. I Am Not Alone – By: Kari Jobe
19. Necessity of a revelation of creation 3 Getting understanding by Word of God 1
20. Entrance of a king to question our position #2 Who do we want to see and to be
21. Today’s thought “Faith in Troubled Times” (January 14)
22. Today’s thought “Crying to God” (August 04)
23. The Wrath of God
24. Today’s thought “Plea for Vindication or for Protection against Oppressors” (January 07)
25. Today’s thought “My times are in your hand” (January 14)
26. Today’s Thought “You will keep … in perfect peace” (May 03)
27. Kingdom of God what will it be like

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Related

1. Housebound
2. Right Attitude in Trouble… Joshua of Ghana
3. Isaiah 26: Content in God alone.
4. The Sea of Galilee
5. Sonnets For My Savior 24
6. “In The Midst Of The Storm”
7. Jesus Feared God, Not Circumstances
8. Pandemic: Be Calm During the Storm
9. Why Not to Be Afraid – Br. Curtis Almquist
10. Covid-19 and Isaiah 26
11. Pandemic, Quarantine, and Isaiah 26
12. Praying the Bible with Gratitude
13. The Wind and Sea Obey Him
14. Today’s Theme Song: Above All
15. Hide Yourself
16. Isaiah Chapter 26
17. Daily Devotion: Isaiah 26:3-4
18. 100 Blessings for Pandemic
19. Podcast #299: “Thank You, Lord” by Dennis Jernigan
20. The rock on which we stand

To turn the world into a “vessel” receptive of God

Shavuot by Moritz Daniel Oppenheim

At the end of the first weekly Shabbat of the seven weekly Shabbats, in between firstfruits and the Feast of Weeks the close friends of rabbi Jeshua had the shock of their life, having come to hear that their beloved master who was killed at the stake, now had disappeared from the grave. From the heavenly malach they heard that יהושע {Jeshua} was risen form the dead. Later they also had come to see him again, him also showing his wounds to proof to them he was not a ghost or spirit. Them knowing that God is a Spirit, came to hear from their beloved master teacher that he (Jeshua) was going back to Him and they saw him lifted in the air. When the moed of Shavuot was fully counted by the omer, they were all with one accord in one place. The talmidim knew they had to continue to study Torah and remember those Fifty days after Pesach and remembering how the Most High had revealed Himself and given the mitzvot to Moshe so that he could deliver them to the People of God.

For the talmidim and us it might be not a negligible fact that on the day of the revelation at Sinai they also remembered the death of of King David and the death of the successor of King David, the risen King of kings, from King David’s Tribe, the son of man and son of God, יהושע {Jeshua} (Jesus Christ). Their master had revealed the Words of God and made the mitzvot clear, so that they too could go into the world and explain them.

Today we remember that the entire people of Israel (600,000 heads of households and their families), as well as the souls of all future generations of Jews, heard God declare the first two of the Ten Commandments and witnessed God’s communication of the other eight through Moses. Following the revelation, Moses ascended the mountain for 40 days, to receive the remainder of the Torah from God.

At Sinai, the Elohim  rescinded the “decree” and “divide” (gezeirah) that had been in force since the 2nd day of creation separating the spiritual and the physical into two hermetic worlds; from this point on,

“the higher realms could descend into the lower realms, and the lower could ascend to the higher.”

Thus was born the “mitzvah” — a physical deed that, by virtue of the fact that it is commanded by God, brings Godliness into the physical world.

The deaths of two of the greatest figures in history serves as a reminder to us that revelation was not just a moment but a continuing process; that new faces of the infinitely meaningful Torah have always been revealed at the critical moments of our religious development; and that Sinai posed an immense challenge to the Jewish people to which we continue to try to rise.

English: King David, second king of Israel (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

David, a descendent of Judah the son of Jacob as well as of Ruth, a Moabite convert to Judaism, was anointed King of Israel by Samuel in 878 BCE. All future legitimate kings of Israel were David’s descendants. Mankind was told it would be from him that the Moshiach or the messiah, would come, who will “restore the kingdom of David to its glory of old.”

These two figures stand at key points in the development of this response, and thus have a special relationship to Shavuot.

“lower (worlds) shall ascend to the higher, and the higher descend to the low.”

It is significant that though the Midrash quotes God as saying

“I shall take the initiative,”

and though the descent of God in fact preceded Moses’ going up, it still mentions the ascent of the lower worlds before the descent of the higher. This is because the ascent of the low was the ultimate purpose of the giving of the Torah, and the ultimate purpose is the last tobe realized. Though Moses’ ascent came after God’s descent, it was nonetheless of great importance. God’s initiating step was needed beforehand, before man could rise to meet Him.

Only by the liberation of the people from slavery man could become a free person able to aim for the promised Land and preparing themselves for entering the Kingdom of God. That entrance also made possible for the goy, they now also liberated from the curse of death like all people became liberated from death by the death of the descendant of King David, the long awaited Messiah, Jeshua who by the allowance of the Most High God, may now be seated next to God to be a mediator between God and man.

The Elohim had come down to the world to give His Word, in two senses, the stone tablet and the fulfilment of His promise in the Gan Eden, when man had rebelled against God. That Word spoken in that Royal Garden had become in the flesh and the talmidin had been close to it, feeling how it brought in them the Word also to live.

Like in the time of Moshe the effect of the giving of the Word was felt within the world, now that Word given also would have its effect unto many generations still coming after the talmidin.

The Midrash may say

“No bird called, no bird flew” and “the voice which came from G-d had no echo”

because it was absorbed into the very texture of the world. But from the Shavuot 30 CE change came over the world, several disciples of rabbi Jeshua having shaken by the sound from the shamayim as of a groaning Ruach, which  filled all the Bayit where those scaredy-cats had taken their refuge.

For those talmidin it was now clear that the Torah was no longer “in heaven,” but that the Word of God had descended to earth. For that reason, grasping that the world could face a new world, the beloved disciple of Jeshua, the apostle Jochanan (John)wrote about the word having come in the flesh.

John 1:1-5 OJB
Besuras Hageulah According to Yochanan

Bereshis (in the Beginning) was the Dvar Hashem [Yeshayah 55:11; Bereshis 1:1], and the Dvar Hashem was agav (along with) Hashem [Mishle 8:30; 30:4], and the Dvar Hashem was nothing less, by nature, than Elohim! [Psa 56:11(10); Yn 17:5; Rev. 19:13]  (2)  Bereshis (in the Beginning) this Dvar Hashem was with Hashem [Prov 8:30].  (3)  All things through him came to be, and without him came to be not one thing which came into being. [Ps 33:6,9; Prov 30:4]  (4)  In him was Chayyim (Life) and the Chayyim (Life) was the Ohr (Light) of Bnei Adam. [Tehillim 36:10 (9)]  (5)  And the Ohr shines in the choshech [Tehillim 18:28], and the choshech did not grasp it. [Yeshayah 9:1]

There had been man like the baptiser John who tried to shed light, but the true light that could enlighten everyone was his cousin who came into the world by the Ruach of the Most High, but the talmidin could be witnesses that the world did not recognize him who was sent by God.

Moshe had received the stone tablets and given them to the people, who took a very long time to come to make out why they had to follow those mitzvot and how they had to follow them.

Only afterwards did the work begin of refining, sanctifying and raising the world in spiritual ascent. This was the worship of the Jewish people, to turn the world into a “vessel” receptive of God. The possibility of this achievement was created at Sinai; the actuality began later.

Just as the descent of God to the world began with Abraham and culminated in Moses, so the ascent of the world to God began after the giving of the Torah and reached its climax in the wise kings David and Shlomo (Solomon), his son, who in building the Temple took the Jewish people to a new apex in their upward climb to God. In line with the great kings the world received a high-priest who would not only be king of the United Monarchy, with the northern Kingdom of Israel and the southern Kingdom of Judah, but of the whole world with its seven continents (Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, and Oceania).

With the advent of David came two new developments. Firstly, he was the first king to rule over the whole of Israel (unlike Saul, who according to the Midrash {Bamidbar Rabbah, ch. 4.} did not rule over the tribe of Judah), and the dynasty was entrusted to him in perpetuity:

“The kingship shall never be removed from the seed of David.’ {1 Chronicles 29:2 ff.)

Jeshua being that seed has now taken over the dominion. the apostle John and his comrades could see that now the time for a special kind of monarchy had entered this system of things. Through the intermediary of kingship, Israel has an obedience to God which is both total and extending to every aspect of their being. Now the Kingdom of Israel shall have to come to witness their new king for ever. Though the world shall not want to recognise this sent one from God, many objecting such a position to a person who was once a man of flesh and blood. (Lots of Christians still take him as being their god and want to believe Jesus is God.) They all shall have to come to accept Jesus to be the mediator between God and man and the High Priest in the order of Melchisedec.

Thus we can see the difference between the acceptance of the Torah at Sinai and the obedience to God involved in the idea of Kingship, which David initiated and with the kingship of this King of kings, the sent one from God. The revelation at Sinai was an act of God:

“I shall take the initiative.”

It did not come from within the hearts of the people. And so it did not affect their whole being absolutely. But kingship does come from the people — their obedience is the source of the king’s authority. David’s reign signifies a new phenomenon: The voluntary, inward acceptance by the people of an absolute authority over them.

Ever since the Torah was given, the world was given a possibility to come into unity with God. Jeshua being revealed from above should be the eye opener for the world, him being the way to God, and the one who explained how we have to interpret the Law of God.

The Lubavitcher Rebbe urged that all children — including infants — should be brought to the synagogue on the 1st day of Shavuot to hear the reading of the Ten Commandments in re-enactment of the Giving of the Torah at Sinai. Our sages relate that when God came to give the Torah to the people of Israel, He asked for a guarantee that that they will not forsake it.

“The heaven and the earth shall be our guarantors,”

said the Jews, but God replied that

“they will not last forever.”

To this the people replied

“Our fathers will guarantee it,”

But the Elohim said that

“they are busy.”

It was only when we promised that

“our children will guarantee it”

that God agreed,

“These are excellent guarantors.”

therefore we should make sure that our children do come to hear the mitzvot and shall have the Word of God imprinted in their hearts.

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Preceding articles

Looking at the time when the Torah was given

Elul Observances

9 Adar and bickering or loving followers of the Torah preparing for Pesach

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Additional reading

1. Matthew 1:1-17 The Genealogy of Jesus Christ
2. Jesus is risen
3. Restoration Scriptures True Name Edition Matthew Chapter 28
4. The Acts Of The Sent Ones Chapter 2
5. Nazarene Acts of the Apostles Chapter 2 v1-13 Working Spirit
6. Hebraic Roots Bible Book of The Acts of the Apostles Chapter 2
7. For those who believe Jesus is God
8. God’s salvation
9. Jesus Messiah

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Further reading

Text of Book of Ruth and its connection to Shavuot

Related articles

• Know Your Doctrine
• The Only Requirement…

Remembrance and freedom in the Netherlands – Dodenherdenking and Bevrijdingsdag

Remembrance Day 4 + 5 May =  low-key affair, focussing on memorial services + parades at war memorials + military graveyards.

Liberation Day = Bevrijdingsdag = celebration of freedom => free festivals throughout the country

lighting of bevrijdingsvuur (Freedom Fire) = transition to a day of celebration commemorating liberation + celebrating freedom.

victims of Nazi persecution: Jews, Sinti, Roma + others

victims of Japanese camps in Indonesia

capitulation > City of Liberation > Wageningen Hotel de Wereld

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Voorgaande artikelen / Previous articles:

Religieuze feesten in mei 2016

Dodenherdenking. (Opinie)

Geef Vrijheid Door

Bevrijdingsdag Wine, Art & Jazz festival

May, for many a month for mothers and many celebrations

Integrated Expat - a British expat's views on Nijmegen, Arnhem & the Dutch

On 4 and 5 May every year, the Netherlands first remembers the sacrifices made by those who lost their lives, then celebrates the freedom those sacrifices made possible. Dodenherdenking (Remembrance Day) is a low-key affair, focussing on memorial services and parades at war memorials and military graveyards. Bevrijdingsdag (Liberation Day) is a celebration of freedom, with free festivals throughout the country. After a day of remembrance of those who gave their lives, the lighting of the bevrijdingsvuur (Freedom Fire) symbolises the transition to a day of celebration commemorating the liberation and celebrating freedom.

There are always many events surrounding both Remembrance Day and Liberation Day, particularly in the east of the Netherlands, so I will give some background information and pick out a few interesting things I discovered about this year’s celebrations in Gelderland. This year is the 70th anniversary of the official end of WWII, so many places have…

View original post 1,361 more words

To believe in the liberation of slavery and to repent

Having these special days we think about whom God wanted to save and whom He is willing to come to His Holy Land and His Holy Kingdom.

It are days that we wonder what sort of person is the Most High Divine Creator looking for and Who is He willing to call?

In the Christadelphian Bible readings for April the 26th we look what happened after the gathering at the upper room and the killing of rabbi Jeshua, when his disciples were so much afraid that they hid in a house and did not dare to show themselves outside in town.

Shavuot by Moritz Daniel Oppenheim

Today we encounter also many who say they believe in Christ but do not dare to tell about him. Perhaps they also better remind what happened to the apostles. When the Day of the Festival of Shaḇu‛ota had come, they were all with one mind in one place.  About three years they had followed their master, listened intensively to his marvellous preaching about the Most High God and explaining the Torah. That master was never afraid to speak or to show others what he believed. But they were so afraid. Sitting in their hiding place suddenly there came a sound from the heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.  And there appeared to them tongues like flames, as of fire that separated and each flame came to  rest on each of them.  First full of awe they found themselves now filled with something special, an inner fire which seemed to fill themselves with energy. They heard the Holy Spirit and they themselves were surprised to hear themselves being able to speak in other languages as the Spirit gave them that ability.

Acts 2:1-4 (TS98)

Acts 2
1 And when the Day of the Festival of Weeks had come, they were all with one mind in one place. 2 And suddenly there came a sound from the heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. 3 And there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and settled on each one of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Set-apart Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them to speak.

Can you imagine how a remarkable speech was presented in that town where the people were together having had celebrated the most important event of the year. At such occasions the town was filled with several nationalities, all people speaking different tongues. And now those Galileans could  intrigue this great crowd speaking in their own languages.

Of course we only have the essential kernel of his speech, as the record says how the onlookers came to understand those people speaking in tongues were not drunk, as you suppose, since it was only the third hour of the day. But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel that in the last days it shall be that the Elohim Jehovah God will pour out His Spirit on all flesh, and that there would be sons and daughters prophesying.

Today when we can see more of those signs as prophesies foretold, blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke, we can see that many loose hope and see their sun turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day.

Acts 2:20 (TS98)
20 ‘The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the coming of the great and splendid day of יהוה.

We are told of the importance of calling upon the name of the Host of host יהוה to be saved. Like the people in the time of Moses had to believe him, now the coming generations shall have to hear these words that Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to the world by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in the midst of the Israelites, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God was raised up by his heavenly Father, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.

Acts 2:24 (TS98)
24 “Him Elohim raised up, having loosed the pangs of death, because it was impossible that He could be held in its grip.

In Moses his time god’s people could see how the angel of death passed their doors. Many after that liberation from slavery and the Egyptians put their hope in the One God Who they placed before themselves like David always saw God before him.

Jeshua had asked God why He had abandoned him; but God was always by him and did also not abandon his soul to Hades, when Jesus was three days in hell (sheol/hades).  Patriarch David both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption.

The apostles were witnesses that this master teacher, they had followed for such a short period, was raised up from the dead. They also were convinced that this man of flesh and blood was exalted at the right hand of God, not sitting on god’s throne or not taking in the place of God, like so many Christians want others to believe today. No, real Christians believe in this sent one from God to be like Moses, a leader who can bring us unto liberation, getting us free from those chains of the curse of death.

All who die shall stay in the graves and shall like David who also did not ascend into the heavens, have to look at the blessings God provided.

Acts 2:29-36 (TS98)
29 “Men and brothers, let me speak boldly to you of the ancestor Dawiḏ, that he died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. 30 “Being a prophet, then, and knowing that Elohim had sworn with an oath to him: of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, to raise up the Messiah to sit on his throne, 31 foreseeing this he spoke concerning the resurrection of the Messiah, that His being was neither left in the grave, nor did His flesh see corruption. 32 “Elohim has raised up this יהושע, of which we are all witnesses. 33 “Therefore, having been exalted to the right hand of Elohim, and having received from the Father the promise of the Set-apart Spirit, He poured out this which you now see and hear. 34 “For Dawiḏ did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself said, ‘יהוה said to my Master, “Sit at My right hand, 35 until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet.” ’ 36 “Therefore let all the house of Yisra’ĕl know for certain that Elohim has made this יהושע, whom you impaled, both Master and Messiah.”

It appears almost impossible that those who have been redeemed by the blood of the dying Lamb, Jesus giving his body as a ransom for all man, is been ridiculed by telling that he should be God because no man can be without sin and fulfil God’s Wishes. It also makes a cruel God of the Creator because then they insinuate that God, at the beginning of man, gave such commandments to man He knew they would never be able to follow.

We should see  and understand that this man who sat a the table when he had given thanks, broke the bread, and said,

“This is my body, which is for you. Do this in memory of me.”

and afterwards in the same way took the cup, after supper, saying,

“This cup is the New Covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink, in memory of me.”

also asked us to remember this act

1 Corinthians 11:26  (TS98)
For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the death of the Master until He comes.

The liberation from slavery of death is what Christ Jesus has brought to mankind. And we should not forget that love of this Nazarene man. With an everlasting love by the eternal Son of God, we should not forget that gracious Saviour and look forward to the same hope god’s chosen People was given, the Holy Land and a precious Kingdom of God.

So many, today, have forgotten him who never forgot God nor us! The majority has forgotten him who poured his blood forth for our sins! He whom we should make the abiding tenant of our memories is but a visitor therein. The stake where one would think that memory would linger, and unmindfulness would be an unknown intruder, is desecrated by the feet of forgetfulness and by those who do not want to believe that Jesus was a real man of flesh, blood and bones who managed to do the Will of God instead of doing his own will. In case he is God he naturally always would have done his own will.

Does not your conscience say that this is true? Do you not find yourselves forgetful of Jesus? Can it not be that some creatures steals away your heart, and you are unmindful of him upon whom your affection ought to be set, because you prefer to keep to human doctrines and to human traditions? Is it not that some earthly business engrosses your attention when you should fix your eye steadily upon the stake which brought Jesus to the end of his life?

Real Christians should not only let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made Jeshua both Lord and Christ and that this Jesus whom was put on the stake with the inscription that he is the “King of the Jews”, but should tell the whole world about him and his God.

St. Peter Preaching at Pentecost by Benjamin West (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Peter asked the people around them to repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their sins so that they too could receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Acts 2:38  (TS98)
And Kĕpha said to them, “Repent, and let each one of you be immersed in the Name of יהושע Messiah for the forgiveness of sins. And you shall receive the gift of the Set-apart Spirit.

At Pesach we can think of those who died and those who were able to escape death. Around the holiday period those apostles were filled with so much fear they could say

“We die daily.”

This was the life of the early Christians; they went everywhere with their lives in their hands.
We are not in this day called to pass through the same fearful persecutions: if we were, the Lord would give us grace to bear the test; but the tests of Christian life, at the present moment, though outwardly not so terrible, are yet more likely to overcome us than even those of the fiery age.

We have to bear the sneer of the world-that is little; its blandishments, its soft words, its oily speeches, its fawning, its hypocrisy, are far worse. Our danger is lest we grow rich and become proud, lest we give ourselves up to the fashions of this present evil world, and lose our faith. Or if wealth be not the trial, worldly care is quite as mischievous. If we cannot be torn in pieces by the roaring lion, if we may be hugged to death by the bear, the devil little cares which it is, so long as he destroys our love to Christ, and our confidence in him. {Spurgeon}

Spurgeon had good reason to fear that the Christian church is far more likely to lose her integrity in these soft and silken days than in those rougher times.

We must be awake now, for we traverse the enchanted ground, and are most likely to fall asleep to our own undoing, unless our faith in Jesus be a reality, and our love to Jesus a vehement flame. Many in these days of easy profession are likely to prove tares, and not wheat; hypocrites with fair masks on their faces, but not the true-born children of the living God. Christian, do not think that these are times in which you can dispense with watchfulness or with holy ardour; you need these things more than ever, and may God the eternal Spirit display his omnipotence in you, that you may be able to say, in all these softer things, as well as in the rougher,

“We are more than conquerors through him that loved us.” {Spurgeon}

The promise was for the Jews but now it has come to be also for the Gentiles and for their children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Almighty God of gods calls to Himself.

Acts 2:39-40 (TS98)
39 “For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are far off, as many as יהוה our Elohim shall call.” 40 And with many other words he earnestly witnessed and urged them, saying, “Be saved from this crooked generation.”

The Jews were saved from the Egyptians and from the pressure which was on them by their slavery. Today many are slave of this crooked generation, though many want to stay chained to this crooked world with its heathen rituals and pagan festivals.

All generations are ‘crooked’ to differing degrees but today we live in one that is extremely so! Peter had quoted king David his Psalm (verse 28)

“You have made known to me the paths of life; you will make me full of gladness with your presence”.

Icon of the Pentecost (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

At the time of the apostles the people around them did not hesitate to be baptised. All those who received the words spoken by the apostles who suddenly dared to come out of the house and speak in tongues, were baptised.

Around Pesach much time is taken to hear to the Words of God. Like at other times it is very important to hear (or read) to receive into the heart the Infallible Word of God. Today it is even to hear at more places than in the time of the apostles. A pity is to notice that it not necessarily means that people come to realise what it has to mean for them personally. Not enough people are willing to put away their fear for the world. Lots of people are more afraid of not taking part of such pagan feasts as Christmas, Easter, Halloween or others instead holding to those festivals God has given.

Today we are also reading in Deuteronomy (chapter 12) of those who heard Moses final stirring messages before he died – they received his words and so entered the promised land and were faithful in their lives.

The initial effect on those who received Peter’s words and were baptised was that they “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and prayers” (verse 42). This is the result when God calls men and women to himself.

Our thoughts then went to those most moving words in Hebrews,

Hebrews 10:22-25 (TS98)
22 let us draw near with a true heart in completeness of belief, having our hearts sprinkled from a wicked conscience and our bodies washed with clean water. 23 Let us hold fast the confession of our expectation without yielding, for He who promised is trustworthy. 24 And let us be concerned for one another in order to stir up love and good works, 25 not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging, and so much more as you see the Day coming near.

Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering … all the more as we see the day approaching.

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Preceding articles:

The Best Bedtime Stories

Days of Nisan, Pesach, Pasach, Pascha and Easter

Responsibilities of Parenthood for sharing the Word of God

Counting Each Day – and Making them Count

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Additional reading:

1. Jesus three days in hell
2. The day of the festival of Pentecost
3. Nazarene Acts of the Apostles Chapter 2 v1-13 Working Spirit
4. The Acts Of The Sent Ones Chapter 2
5. Hebraic Roots Bible Book of The Acts of the Apostles Chapter 2
6. Speaking in tongues (article on Bible Students)
7. Speaking in tongues (article on Christadelphian World)
8. Tongues a sign of authenticity or divine backing
9. Meaning of “speaking in tongues”
10. Authority given to him To give eternal life
11. He has given us the Pneuma, the force, from Him
12. The Spirit of God imparts love,inspires hope, and gives liberty
13. Not enlightened by God’s Spirit
14. Know Who goes with us and don’t try to control life
15. We may not be ignorant to get wisdom

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• Preaching as an Act of Listening
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• Easter
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• Risen (thurs, Fri, Sat ) ( Mar 24,25,26)
• Did Jesus Go To Hell?
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• You Are Not A Victim

Christianity like Judaism God’s call to human responsibility

The season of Pesach (Passover) is a time for reflection for many people.

Shimon Zachary Klein finds that the relevance of Pesach as a festival of freedom is lost for many reasons. He writes

It is a festival that conjures up obsessions for the “Kosher for Pesach” foods that result in the annual hair-splitting arguments between the secular and religious. The losers are inevitably the secular who have to kowtow to the whims of the religious who have the law on their side. What is free about that? Religious coercion reaches a climax during the Pesach week.Another aspect and one that very few people give a thought is the plight of the Palestinians under occupation. Their limited freedom is even further curtailed. Road-blocks, closures and checkpoints are stricter. The reason is always security. However, the difficulties that innocent Palestinians have to endure are further increased by this “Festival of Freedom”. The Israeli soldiers who are on duty in the occupied territories are even more abusive and insensitive to Palestinians to ensure that the “Festival of Freedom” is not “interrupted” by Palestinians.

It is difficult and even hypocritical to celebrate a festival of freedom while denying another people basic human rights. The settlers in the occupied territories show their presence during this “Festival of Freedom” when they trespass on Palestinian lands. At the same time the Israeli government is still expanding settlements on Palestinian land. Racist rabbis continue their anti-Arab diatribes and this does have much influence for the celebration of Pesach. {Pesach (Passover) – the Festival of “Freedom”}

Today, having a holy week and having listened to the stories how God liberated His people, we in these days of particular times, showing that we are coming closer to the end times, it should be a challenge to all of us as lovers of God to seek new meanings and learning new lessons as to how relevant Pesach remains today.

From the previous writings you could find that it is not enough to celebrate the liberation of the Israelites, who to all intents and purposes, are our ancestors. It is also not enough just to think about the Jewish rabbi who called his disciples together to speak about a new covenant.

English: Omer ceremony – Pesach 2007 , Jewish holidays עברית: חגיגת אנשי אילות לקראת סדר פסח בדשא חדר האכילה.ריקוד אמהות וילדים:שיבולת בשדה., Original Image Name:טקס העומר-פסח 2007, Location:אילות (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Many Jews still come together in a very traditional way and even may perform what others consider out dated rituals as to what is Kosher for Pesach and what is not. The religious hair-splitting explanation over what is “kitniot” –“legumes” that are forbidden to be eaten by religious Ashkenazim.

Rabbi John Rosove, J Street Rabbinic Cabinet, Co-Chair brought following message

“As the festival of Passover approaches, we are all challenged, this year even more than most years, to reflect and act on the universal message it conveys — especially in the light of very disturbing trends both in the United States and Israel.

A page from the Haggadah of Pesach printed in Prague, 1527 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The overriding message conveyed through the Haggadah is that it is our duty to experience the story of our liberation from Egypt as if it happened to us personally — and not just a story that happened to our ancestors countless generations ago. As former slaves, our tradition teaches us to be sensitive to the plight of the oppressed throughout history and in our own time. Accepting our role as active participants in that drama, we realize that we have a hand in forging our own destiny and cannot allow ourselves to become mere bystanders.

“We’re taught as Jews despite cruelty leveled against us not to become cruel and hard-hearted ourselves. That is the key lesson of Pesach, and we ignore it at our moral and spiritual peril.”

We are sensitive even to the pain of our enemies, taking a drop of wine out of our glasses for each of the ten plagues visited on the Egyptians, lessening our joy as we recall their suffering.

As our sages have noted, the one commandment in the Torah reiterated more than any other is to care for and love the stranger — for we ourselves were strangers in Egypt. It is repeated no fewer than 36 times.

Perhaps the repetition is necessary because this commandment tells us to do something that is both counterintuitive and very hard to do. It goes against something that is very deep and fundamental within us. We’re hardwired to be loyal to our own tribe and to be suspicious of and hostile to “the other.” When we’re hurting or in distress, some of us blame strangers and pour out our rage on them. It’s happening again, right now, in Syria, Iraq and in sectors of America.

He is not the only one who looks at what is going on at the 2016 presidential campaign in the United states of America where some of the leading candidates have built their campaigns by exploiting the fears and anxieties of fellow Americans. Also on several religious websites, mainly fundamentalist Christian or American right wing Evangelist sites everything is done to bring people against each other and to downgrade one or an other faith-group.

The rabbi rigthly remarks:

They have cynically fomented an anti-immigrant, xenophobic, nativist feeling against Muslims, Hispanics and others.

and sees the same problematic matter in Israel

we see the same phenomenon in the very disturbing recent polls showing that a sizeable proportion of the Jewish population would favor depriving Arab Israelis of their democratic rights or even expelling them from the country. And tragically, Israelis and Palestinians have become strangers to each other, meeting in fewer and fewer places and not currently engaged around the negotiating table.

Yes, Israelis have been subjected to heinous terrorist attacks, rockets, missiles and constant psychological pressure — and we must stand with them in upholding their right to defend themselves and our Jewish homeland — but returning hatred with hatred is not the response our tradition teaches. We’re taught as Jews despite cruelty leveled against us not to become cruel and hard-hearted ourselves. That is the key lesson of Pesach, and we ignore it at our moral and spiritual peril.

This is not who we are as Jews — nor who we can be and should be.

As individuals and collectively, working through organizations like J Street and its many American-Jewish, Israeli and Palestinian allies, we need to change this. We are called upon by tradition to pursue peace and justice and to love compassion. We must see that our neighbors are fellow humans with the same desires and aspirations as us — and we must never abandon our goal of reaching a two-state solution to end the conflict.

That is the great challenge of our time and it is deserving of particular reflection this festival season.

Sir Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the UK, at National Poverty Hearing 2006 at Westminster, London. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As the former Chief Rabbi of Britain, Jonathan Sacks, has noted,

“Judaism is God’s call to human responsibility. From this call you can’t hide, as Adam and Eve discovered when they tried, and you can’t escape, as Jonah learnt in the belly of a fish. The first humans lost paradise when they sought to hide from responsibility. We will only ever regain it if we accept responsibility and become a nation of leaders, each respecting and making space for those not like us.”

Also for those who want to call themselves Christian should ring the same bell. Jeshua asked his followers to be messengers of peace. We can not permit it that we again would loose the paradise. It is promised to us, but we can go along the wrong paths and miss that important entrance or small gate to the Kingdom of God.

Christians should take up their responsibility to preach the Good News and to show the right attitude of a lover of God, keeping to the golden Rule of the Agape love.

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Please do read also: Relevance of Observing Pesach Today

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• FLASHBACK – Public Law 102-14 and the Jewish Noahide Laws
• Why Are Jews Lying About Their Prominent Role in the African Slave Trade?
• ~ “The Difference Between Hebrewism and Judaism” ~
• Taking Back What The Devil Stole Those whose ancestors were in the Slave trade and Gentiles
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• Leviticus 23:10-16

‘I try to keep my hate in check. If you can’t hate, you can’t love.’

The author of this article thinks religion has robbed us of freedom to think and listen to our inner selves, but true Christianity demands just that. The Divine Creator requests us to place ourselves in the whole universe and to go deeper in our inner being. God demands us to come to know our own “I” and to make it not a “selfish I” but to come to an acceptable relationship with those around us.

The author also ask us to imagine a life where equality existed and institutions crumbled, which “is what keeps him pushing along”.

Those who read and come to know the Bible shall not be “misguided souls who choose to work in prisons” but the opposite shall become liberated beings who are no slave any more of this world. For them they shall know that no human being can do them something very bad. Even when they would take the life or the person this would not be the worst thing, because once death all suffering shall be ended and life gone, the person having done the killing not having accomplished much more and not been liberated himself of the agonies which are bothering his mind. The opposite he (the murderer) shall have some extra worries or bad dreams “en plus”.

To the Inside-Outside Alliance group of people who claim to be trying to support the struggles of those inside (or formerly inside) Durham County jail, and their families and friends, we would advice to revise their idea about religion and ask them not to take away the dreams of a better life which really can come true when a person does find the right religion.

By pushing all religion into the corner and to consider it evil is taking away the right of the prisoner to have a hold or guidance to become a better person or for the one who is imprisoned unlawfully to see the good his imprisonment may bring to his other inmates. Because even imprisoned we can do good to others and should be doing good to others. Even when we may be literally chained we do not have to be spiritually chained and even when they would put us in an isolation cell we can be very free when we are willing to make ourselves strong enough so that the other his limitations on us do not obstruct our self-development and our own being.

*

To remember

The theory of will power

cause of demoralization in prisons:  All transgressions of accepted moral standards = to lack of a strong will

majority of inmates of prisons = people who did not have sufficient strength to resist the temptations surrounding them or to control a passion which momentarily carried them away.

In prisons = monasteries = everything done to kill a man’s will => no choice between one of two acts ==> whole life regulated + ordered in advance => to swim with the current, to obey under pain of severe punishment.

will power disappears

prison = done everything to kill inner strength > make him docile tool in hands of those who control him

penal system based on the deprivation of individual liberty

 

sound of chains + steel banging all the time = enough to test the strongest will = will break you

all we can do = give advice to people +live a moral life.

Misguided hate can hurt

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Preceding articles

Remain lovingly = No path for softies

Crying is good for inner self!!

A little ray of sunshine.

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Additional reading

• Not bounded by labels but liberated in Christ

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Amplify Voices Inside

Kropotkin wrote a lot on the wrongs of prisons. These two paragraphs hit the nail on the head for me. Sadly I feel these effects.

The theory of will power

“There is another important cause of demoralization in prisons. All transgressions of accepted moral standards may be ascribed to lack of a strong will. the majority of inmates of prisons are people who did not have sufficient strength to resist the temptations surrounding them or to control a passion which momentarily carried them away. In prisons as in monasteries, everything is done to kill a man’s will.

View original post 491 more words

The Best Bedtime Stories

Moses and Aaron before Pharaoh: An Allegory of the Dinteville Family, oil on wood painting by the Master of the Dinteville Family, mid 16th century, Metropolitan Museum of Art (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

In preparation for the most high day of the year, celebrating two big liberations we can prepare our children with stories which relate to modern times, our slavery, our often forgetting God’s Paths, giving us also opportunities to take away the annoying time of waiting, but also remembering why waiting is sometimes worthwhile and in this case our waiting shall be sanctified.

 

Pharaoh, like we, had to know it were not Moses and Aaron who had managed to turn the water in Egypt to blood, bring millions of frogs into the cities and fields, create an infestation of lice, and destroy the spring crops with balls of flaming hail. It was the Work of the Most High Elohim Hashem Jehovah. By strength of hand Jehovah the 10 plagues came over Egypt. The sanctify of the firstborn, whatever opens the womb among the children of Israel, both of man and of animal is God’s. And when they had to go forth in the month Abib it was Jehovah the God of the People of Israel Who was to bring them into the land of the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Amorite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite, which He swore to their fathers to give them, a land flowing with milk and honey, that they shall keep this service in this month. and we still can look forward into what is coming into reality, God’s Land made for His people. A blessed hope.

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Find also:

 

1. No prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation
2. The radiance of God’s glory and the counsellor
3. Challenging claim 2 Inspired by God 1 Simple words
4. Challenging claim 4 Inspired by God 3 Self-consistent Word of God
5. Many Books, yet One
6. Eternal Word that tells everything
7. Bible in the first place #1/3
8. Why think that (5) … the Bible is the word of God
9. Creator and Blogger God 8 A Blog of a Book 2 Holy One making Scriptures Holy
10. Creator and Blogger God 9 A Blog of a Book 3 Blog about Prophecy
11. Creator and Blogger God 11 Old and New Blog 1 Aimed at one man
12. Miracles of revelation and of providence 1 Golden Thread and Revelation
13. Isaiah’s Book of the Messenger of Glad Tidings
14. Date Setting
15. Exodus 9: Liar Liar
16. Commemorating the escape from slavery
17. 1 -15 Nisan
18. A Holy week in remembrance of the Blood of life
19. High Holidays not only for Israel
20. About a man who changed history of humankind
21. How is it that Christ pleased God so perfectly?
22. A new exodus and offering of a Lamb
23. Ransom for all
24. Thoughts on Passover
25. Shabbat Pesach service reading 1/2
26. Shabbat Pesach service reading 2/2
27. This Passover maybe we can liberate ourselves
28. 14 Nisan a day to remember #1 Inception
29. 14 Nisan a day to remember #2 Time of Jesus
30. 14 Nisan a day to remember #3 Before the Passover-feast
31. 14 Nisan a day to remember #4 A Lamb slain
32. 14 Nisan a day to remember #5 The Day to celebrate
33. The Evolution Of Passover–Past To Present
34. Passover and Liberation Theology
35. Deliverance and establishment of a theocracy
36. The redemption of man by Christ Jesus
37. The day Jesus died
38. Impaled until death overtook him
39. Jesus is risen
40. Christ has indeed been raised from the dead
41. Risen With Him
42. To whom do we want to be enslaved

 

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Related articles

 

• God Called Moses The Exodus Story Continues (Part 4 of 5) (vineandbranchworldministries.com) + God Called Moses to Go and Rescuse His People From Slavery (part 3)  + God Called Moses to Go and Rescuse His People From Slavery (part 2)  + God Called Moses to Go and Rescuse His People From Slavery (part 1)
• Exodus 10 – The Eighth and Ninth Plagues
• The Exodus Story God Calls Moses to Go Down to Egypt
• Exodus 5:4-5 – But the king of Egypt said, “Moses and Aaron, why are you taking the people away from their labor? (church4u2.wordpress.com)
  There has always been a pattern of God calling his people out of their normal rhythms to take time to worship Him. Even in this famous story of when Moses confronted the Pharaoh of Egypt, the main thing that God wanted was for his people to cease from their labor, come aside and worship Him. This pattern offends those who see work as a way toward power. Work is a good thing, but the Sabbath is a weekly reminder that God wants to deliver us from our false identities of power and bring us back to Himself.
• The Sixth Plague: Boils (rough) (ninapaley.com)
  And they took ashes of the furnace, and stood before Pharaoh; and Moses sprinkled it up toward heaven; and it became a boil breaking forth with blains upon man, and upon beast.
• Fast from Complaining (robertsmusings.com)
  In the 17th chapter of Exodus, the people quarrel with Moses and test the LORD, complaining that Moses has led them out of Egypt and into the desert to die of thirst. Modern advertising takes advantage of human thirst for things that might provide salvation. Rarely will an ad show the benefits of a particular product over its competitors. Instead advertisements portray a lifestyle we might seek imply that if we buy their product, we will have the lifestyle we seek.
• 23.5 Moses 23, Day 5 (thenotesaregood.com)
  For God to bring them across the Jordan river into the Promised Land, they would have to travel this country.  And, like Sihon, Og king of Bashan marched out to meet them.
• To Soar In The Spirit You Have To Be Hard Core (theinscribedheart.com)
  The carnal man represents the man who was born from a carnal birth and was shaped by worldly orientation through being subject to the influences of a deceived and wicked world. The carnal man will be merciful to carnal living and would rather comprise with the enemies of the soul rather than destroy them. He is double minded, trying to serve the flesh and live spiritual at the same time.
• Choose Positivity (matheusyuhlung.wordpress.com)
  The world is full of negativity. I’m sure you’ve experienced your share as well. Amidst the lies that exaggerates fear, it is very much essential to trust on the God whose name is Jehovah El Elohim; which means The LORD God of Gods, the LORD, mighty, powerful, strong One over all.
• Those People Will Turn Your Children Away From Me: (dailydevotionswithdawn.wordpress.com)
  We are to purge the things in our life that would cause us to turn from God. Jesus even said that if our hand offended us, to cut it off. (I think he was speaking figuratively?)

  If we obey God, and stay close to Him, we are blessed:

• Reflective Moment ‘Establishing Testimony’ (mylordmyfriend.com)
  Jethro had heard the story how God had bought them out of slavery. He had heard the story of redemption. He heard the story of the wonderful and victorious power of The Lord. Moses told Jethro all the Lord had done to Pharaoh and Pharaoh’s people to make Pharaoh, let them go. Moses told his father-in-law about all the hardships and troubles that had come on them along the way, but the Lord had delivered them.

  A wonderful story, to get into, but this is only a reflective moment. When our family and in-laws here what, Our Lord, Our Redeemer and Our Friend, has done and is doing for us, are they wanting to come around.

  Moses life and calling, was a testimony to His God, and people wanted to here. Our lives and our callings, should also be a testimony for what Our Lord, Our redeemer and our Friend is doing in our lives.

• Resources of help (helpfulinspirationalblog.wordpress.com)
  Moses made excuses because he felt inadequate for the job God asked him to do. It was natural for him to feel that way. He was inadequate all by himself. But God wasn’t asking Moses to work alone. He offered other resources to help (God himself, Aaron, and the ability to do miracles). God often calls us to do tasks that seem too difficult, but he doesn’t ask us to do them alone. God offers us his resources, just as he did to Moses. We should not hide behind our inadequacies, as Moses did, but look beyond ourselves to the great resources available. Then we can allow God to use our unique contributions.

 

Laya Crust

art by Laya Crust

Parshat Bo: Exodus, chapter 10 -13

Haftarah: Jeremiah  46: 13 -28

The Best Bedtime Stories

Story time is one of the best times of the day.  We are transported to magical places. We meet extraordinary people and see things we would never come across on a typical day. Stories make time enchanting when reality is boring. You need to get someone to brush teeth? Tell a story. The wait in the doctor’s office is hours long? Tell a story. The car ride isn’t ending? Tell a story.

Our family’s favourite source of stories was Tanach (the Jewish Bible). Between the angels, the giants, the talking snakes and the trickery, what could be more exciting?

Take this week’s Torah reading. Our heroes are Moses and Aaron, two poor brothers, who were on a quest to free a nation of slaves. The downtrodden  slaves were in the grasp of…

View original post 300 more words

This Passover maybe we can liberate ourselves

This Passover maybe we can liberate ourselves
from holding onto what happened
We don’t have to subscribe
To Be Here Now but we can try
letting go of all that happened
that gets in the way
of how pink Egypt is how much
we loved one another before
life intervened. This Passover
We will pass over injustice
not because it’s ok
but because we want to try a holiday experiment
maybe just this year, we want
to liberate ourselves
by saying these words: Forgive Forgive Forgive

– Esther Cohen
Esther Cohen is a poet, cultural activist, novelist and book doctor. She lives in New York.

Passover plate with symbolic foods: maror, egg, haroset, karpas, zro’ah, dish of salt water (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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Commemorating the escape from slavery

In this day and age many like to play god, and often think they are able to do so. Lots of people do want to be in the ‘beams’ shining bright. They want to be in the centre of the ‘spotlight’ and love the attention. But at one point the attention becomes too much. Lots of people then loose control over their emotions.

twitter y macworld (Photo credit: juque)

To cope with all those little agonies today people have found Twitter as their outrage machine, where this medium will make its little idols, through its perpetual series of distractions, puffery and self-indulgence.

Twitter allows us to be like Gods, worshipped by our followers with retweets and personal messages. And then we do battle with other Gods. {Twitter, Outrage, and Jesus}

Lots of people think they do not need to seek healing, for we have these weapons in 140 characters.

If there is the hope of winning, we will continue to place hashtags. {Twitter, Outrage, and Jesus}

A 13th century book illustration produced in Baghdad by al-Wasiti showing a slave-market in the town of Zabid in Yemen. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In the mean time they all have become enslaved by their little technological attributes like smartphones, tablets, i-pads, laptops and all sorts of brands computers, televisions and so much more.
They also have become the new slaves of this age, having to work with more than one in the household to survive. And the bosses do know they need that work to survive and use it to their advantage, not to pay to much, but just enough to keep the workers quiet.

What would be the difference with the slaves from old times?

The coming week millions of believers in the Divine Creator shall celebrate an historic moment when the People of God were liberated from slavery. First they were liberated from the oppression of the Egyptians. A later liberation was even to become more important for all those who still had to be born. It would be the liberation of something which catches us all. In the past and in the future it was and is something which has conquered the people always. But now there would have come an end to it. But people shall have to make choices to be part of the winners. It would not be a game of poker, or an other game of cards, gambling or trying your luck on the lottery game. It would become a matter of choosing the right way to go in your life at your own responsibility.

Jews and several Christians shall be celebrating next Monday and Tuesday the incredible offer the Divine Creator gave to the world. Many probably would wonder why they will tell again old stories to their children, for the so ‘many-est’ time in their life.
Even in far away countries where it all happened, parents shall remind their children of that special occasion, we all should remember.

Also at the Youth Group at Hillside Church they may get Corbin’s grandmother, Ruth Dudlay, coming to tell them stories about the Underground Railway with special Underground Railway quilts, actual slave irons, and other historical relics from the time of slavery in a place close to them, North America. They shall hear those old stories because they are important to know their past but also to know their future.

Those stories can be told in many ways, but they should not only give entertainment. They should get us to think about certain matters, perhaps hidden behind the words of that story. Stories are also told in many ways to help us remember them.

The coming week many people in the world shall look at the liberation from slavery remembered in the ritual of the Passover feast. The coming weekend and following days many shall take time to remember and to recall those old stories. We also should take up those ancient books like the Bible and read about those important moments in history of humankind.

By reading and studying those old stories we can get to understand more about our human way of living and get to see who we are. Where we came from and where we are headed.

It is significant that the ancient stories of the Israelite slavery were cherished by the North American African slaves. Because of these ancient stories, slaves over 3,000 years later had hope that like the Israelite slaves they would be liberated by God! It was reading the stories in the Bible and the teachings of Jesus that caused William Wilberforce to petition the British Empire (and its colonies of Canada) to abolish slavery. {Why tell old stories?}

The story of Exodus describes an enslaved oppressed people rising up from captivity and escaping through the desert to return to their nomadic ancestors burial lands in Canaan. If you believe this story, the Exodus is one of the most significant moments of history without parallel. Slavery has been a part of human civilization for time untold and continues to be practiced today. Throughout history many slave revolts have occurred, however they usually end with all of the revolting being killed (for instance Spartacus and his slave rebellion against Rome). That the tribe of Hebrew slaves were able to leave Egypt, the most powerful empire in the world, and survive wandering through the desert is a powerful story that has inspired many oppressed peoples throughout history. {Why tell old stories?}

Friday-night, this coming Sabbath, the Haftorah read shall refer to a day in the future which will be “great” – the day of the re-establishment of God’s Kingdom on this earth, as described in Malachi 3-4.

Mal 4:5-6 NHEBYSE  Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of YHWH comes.  (6)  He will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.

The world should know that before the Day of Jehovah God, shall be there the world shall have receive the opportunity to choose for better things. We shall not be able to escape therefore the third World War, which shall be coming and be terrible, but we shall either be gone before or when still alive, shall be able to cope with it because we shall be prepared.

In the above verse the prophet speaks of the day of redemption in the future. Passover, which represents the day of redemption of antiquity, serves as the model for the future redemption of the children of Israel.

This Shabbat in Egypt was different from all other previous Shabbatot. This time, man joined God in His holy day. Ironically, the mode of observance was not “resting” as we think of it in the context of today’s Shabbat. Historically, the Shabbat before Pesach was the day when the children of Israel were commanded to take to themselves a lamb, a symbolic action that stood in opposition to the lamb-worshiping Egyptians. {Weekly Torah Commentary — Acharei Mot April 11, 2014}

The Sages note that by taking the lamb the Jews observed Shabbat in Egypt as never before. This was their first Shabbat as a people, a moment of passage in the national sense: They had reached the age of majority, became adult (“gedolim”), with responsibilities. This was Shabbat “HaGadol”. The most basic teaching of Shabbat is the acknowledgement that God created the world in six days. By taking the lamb the Jews rejected idolatry and accepted God. This was not merely an action which took place on the tenth of Nissan. This was a watershed of Jewish history. Now the Jews joined God in a Shabbat.  {Weekly Torah Commentary — Acharei Mot April 11, 2014}

All those who believe in the Creator God could better sometimes listen to those who are still in the old tradition of Hebrew teachings. then they should know and understand that it is perhaps because people always went in against the wishes of the Most High, that the better things did not yet come up to them. we should remember that God was very clear on which days had to be celebrated and to which Laws we should keep. But how many thought they could bring better laws into the world than the Maker His Laws? How many did not think they could make a better world than the world the Maker of the Universe had in His mind?

Our sages teach us that if all of Israel fully observe just two Shabbatot the Messiah would appear. {Weekly Torah Commentary — Acharei Mot April 11, 2014}

Interestingly, according to the mainstream Jewish approach the world was created in Nissan, which means that the Shabbat which takes place around the 10th of the month was the second Shabbat in the history of the world. Had those two Shabbatot been kept properly the world would have been redeemed back then. {Weekly Torah Commentary — Acharei Mot April 11, 2014}

In particular, the two Shabbatot which must be observed are Shabbat Hagadol and Shabbt Shuva. Each of these Shabbatot have a special power to them: One falls between Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur, it is a Shabbat which teaches man how to return to God. The other Shabbat is the first Shabbat observed in Egypt, the one we are about to celebrate. It is a Shabbat which contains within it the secret of redemption. {Weekly Torah Commentary — Acharei Mot April 11, 2014}

If man could master these two Shabbatot, the Messiah would quickly arrive. Would that it would be this year. {Weekly Torah Commentary — Acharei Mot April 11, 2014}

Observing the Sabbath-closing havdalah ritual in 14th-century Spain. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

These days we should come to prepare to celebrate the Festival of our Redemption, past and future. We should take some time to examine our relationships and make sure that we have no ‘unfinished business’ in that area. Now has come the time that we should consider which relation we would like to have with others around us. In case we have something done wrong we should come to the point that we ourselves take courage to go up to that person and admit we were wrong. These coming days we should look at all those old stories where we have seen that even people of God could do something wrong but ask forgiveness, and that it was given to them. We are also in need to ask forgiveness for some offence or have to forgive others for their offences against us. Now has come the time to our doorstep that we do have to do it from the heart. If we need to forgive someone else, likewise let’s forgive freely as God forgives us.

Now is also the time we do have to remember that Nazarene Jew who had no fault but was killed. He was willing to give his body as a lamb for God, as a payment for the sins of all people in this world.

Next Monday night we should come together and be feeling united with many people all over the world. We should also let others know that all over the world people will be looking forward to this gathering. We could always invite others too to gather with us to celebrate Passover – the holiday that commemorates the Jewish people’s escape from slavery in Egypt. And Christians can look for some extra dimension to that feast. We should not mourn for the death of Jeshua (Jesus Christ), but should be pleased that he on the night before he was given over to the Romans, took his closest friends with him in an upper room in Jerusalem to present them with symbols, which were a sign of the New Covenant, our new connection with Jehovah God, the Father of Christ Jesus, Who is also our Father and Who is welcoming us all again, if we are willing to come up to Him.

The world should get to know the meaning of these special days and has to come to understand the meaning of the symbols of Passover which all point to the ministry, death and resurrection of that humble Nazarene man Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is our Passover lamb.

On the 14th day of the month of Nissan Jesus was crucified, or sacrificed. On the very same afternoon that the Passover lambs were being killed as a sacrifice, Jesus – the Lamb of God- was being sacrificed for all of us. Just like the blood on the doorposts of the Hebrews caused God’s judgement to pass over them, so the blood of Christ causes God’s judgement to pass over us. Christ provided atonement, as well as redemption for us upon the wooden stake. To receive this forgiveness of our sins we must put our faith in this Nazarene man, who is the Christos or Christ, the Messiah for which many may be still waiting. But he has already come, has fulfilled the wish of his Father and sealed the New Covenant with his own blood.

For seven or eight days (depending on where you live), families and friends come together for festive seder meals packed with ritual foods and a few dietary restrictions (for instance, no leavened grains). We all could feel united with them and show the outer-world the connection those people from all sorts of tribes, cultures or countries may share with each other. they all are united under the blessings of the One and Only True God.

It is under His Wings that we shall be able to come closer to each other and will be able find peace in unity.

Festive Seder table with wine, matza and Seder plate. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We look forward to be able to find many at the meetings held on Monday night. On the 14th of April 2014, it shall also be from sundown the moment to remember what Jesus has done. Therefore a “Memorial Meal” shall bring many Christians together all over the world, keeping “Christian communion”. Also known by many as “the Lord’s supper” we shall gather to pray and remember all the difficulties this world received, but also all the goodness which has come over it. We shall read the old stories of the exodus and of the last days of Christ Jesus. Together we shall celebrate our Passover remembrance of the body and blood of Christ. His body being broken for us and his blood being shed upon the wooden stake for our salvation. The Passover lambs had to be without blemish in order to be sacrificed for sin. Christ was the only man without blemish (sin) so he became our Passover lamb. Christ is the second Adam, the man of flesh and blood and bones. He could be tempted and sin, like any other man, but he did not. He was the only person who managed to keep to the Laws of his Father, the Only One God, Whose Name he made known and asked us to be made known all over the world. Being without fault he was the perfect offer humankind give to its Maker. Giving his life for many he succeeded to become the only one who could purchase our salvation and become the mediator between God and man. In him we can trust, like we can trust his Father, our heavenly Father, the Elohim Hashem Jehovah God.

Let us wish each other:

Shabbat Shalom and Chag Pesach Sameach!!! (A blessed Passover)

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Additional literature:

1. 1 -15 Nisan
2. Day of remembrance coming near
3. Another way looking at a language #4 Ancient times
4. Self inflicted misery #5 A prophet without a hedge around him
5. The Advent of the saviour to Roman oppression
6. Seven days of Passover
7. On the first day for matzah
8. A Great Gift commemorated
9. Jesus memorial
10. Observance of a day to Remember
11. A new exodus and offering of a Lamb
12. In what way were sacrifices “shadows”?
13. What does ‘atonement’ mean?
14. Why did Jesus say he wouldn’t drink wine again until the kingdom when he ate and drank other things? (Mark 14:25)
15. Children ate the OT passover so why not NT bread and wine?
16. Deliverance and establishement of a theocracy
17. 14 Nisan a day to remember #1 Inception
18. 14 Nisan a day to remember #2 Time of Jesus
19. 14 Nisan a day to remember #3 Before the Passover-feast
20. 14 Nisan a day to remember #4 A Lamb slain
21. 14 Nisan a day to remember #5 The Day to celebrate
22. Around the feast of Unleavened Bread
23. High Holidays not only for Israel
24. Festival of Freedom and persecutions
25. 14-15 Nisan and Easter
26. The Song of The Lamb #7 Revelation 15
27. Servant of his Father
28. For the Will of Him who is greater than Jesus
29. A Messiah to die
30. Anointing of Christ as Prophetic Rehearsal of the Burial rites
31. Death of Christ on the day of preparation
32. How many souls did the death of Jesus pay for?
33. Swedish theologian finds historical proof Jesus did not die on a cross
34. Why 20 Nations Are Defending the Crucifix in Europe
35. Impaled until death overtook him
36. Misleading Pictures
37. A time for everything
38. 2013 Lifestyle, religiously and spiritualy
39. Fixing our attention
40. Control your destiny or somebody else will
41. Allowed to heal
42. A secret to be revealed
43. Your Sins Are Forgiven
44. Slave for people and God
45. Liberation in Christ
46. Not bounded by labels but liberated in Christ
47. Holidays, holy days and traditions
48. A Holy week in remembrance of the Blood of life
49. Peter Cottontail and a Bunny laying Eastereggs
50. Bread and Wine
51. Around the feast of Unleavened Bread
52. The son of David and the first day of the feast of unleavened bread
53. Deliverance and establishment of a theocracy
54. Focus on outward appearances
55. Fraternal week-end at Easter in Paris

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  The social laws of the Pentateuch were not designed for the modern world,
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  Some scholars try to reconcile Leviticus with the other laws by suggesting that “Hebrew” was a wider social or ethnic category than “Israelite”.
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  +
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• Passover Primer (boiseweekly.com)
  Passover, a Jewish holiday celebrated for seven or eight days (depending on the branch of Judaism) that starts on the full moon in April, is a great opportunity to sink your teeth into Jewish history and culinary traditions. Why? Because each item consumed during the Passover seder–a ritual feast that’s hosted on the first night of Passover, this year Monday, April 14–is filled with thousands of years of meaning.
  +
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  +
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  +
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  +
  When discussing more recent experiences, he didn’t revel in the details of his operations. And he shied away from discussing any of his recent stings in the United States.

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  The Unanticipated Passover Seder
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  +
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  +
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  +
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  +
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  +
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  +
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• The Crossing of the Red Sea- A Picture of the Process of Salvation…..Just as the Egyptians followed the Hebrews into the Red Sea but the Hebrews alone emerged alive, when we enter into the death burial and resurrection of Messiah as symbolized by water im (guapotg.wordpress.com)
  When someone asks “are you saved”? the natural question is “saved from what?” “Saved” is a verb that begs for a direct object. Yet many who ask you “are you saved” cannot actually tell you what they mean.