World of Being

The name of Soloman is virtually synonymous with the word wisdom. The ancients were firmly convinced that Soloman was not merely a monarch, but also a wizard. (Strongs definition: properly knowing, wise, prophet, wizard, always used in a bad sense of false prophet).
In a world beset by pain and sufferings, where the power of evil often seems to triumph. G-d gave Solomon a great deal of wisdom and insight, along with understanding, as great as the sand along the seashore. Solomon’s wisdom surpassed all the sons of the east as well as all the wisdom of Egyptians.…
He talked about trees, from the cedars of Lebanon to the hyssop that sprouts from the walls. And he also talked about the beast, the birds, the creeping things and the fishes. And people from all nations came to hear the wisdom of Solomon, having been sent by all the kings of the earth who heard his wisdom. (1 Kings 4:29-30; 33-34; 5:9-10; 13-14)
There seems to have been a whole folklore about Soloman, as a miracle worker/magician, who had power over demonic forces. Even Y’Shua makes slanting reference to this fact in Luke 11:29, 31. But haven’t all mature Believers been given a seal, a divine signer, a ring of power that has been placed in our hands. We are to become the Bride of G-d, we can wear it, we can display it, we can also exercise it, because it is a weapon. A signet ring may not look like a weapon, but it is. In ancient times the ring-bearer possessed the seal of the king – with his power and authority. Slip it on and we enter a new realm, a new dimension – the World of Being. We are invested with a power invisible to others, but more potent a weapon than Excalibur. Y’Shua is our King, and we can have this gift also when we come to mature in Him. Did not Y’Shua said we can do all things and even greater He did – all you must do it receive it, and use it.
Soloman, being king, was blessed with great bounty, wealth, privilege, and status, which he well knew come from above. But his way of paying back the divine providence was to pay it forward, to pass the blessing along to someone else.
The exercise of our own gifts; all must be submitted to a Higher Power. Discovering the power within us is a wonderful thing, but with our power we must learn a dependence on the Divine Presence. Power brings down kings but raises up tyrants.
Solomon’s heart is turned away to the worship of pagan deities by one of his many wives. The spirit of wisdom subsequently takes leave of the great king., who spends his time building temples to pagan idols instead. His spirit of counsel is darkened, and his words become vain chatter. It is a lesson for us to learn – a warning and admonition, not merely to consider the beginning of a spiritual journey, but also its end. Pay attention to our ancestors and learn from their mistakes.
The best temples are spiritual temples, built not with human hands but with human hearts. The rabbinic sages of old ask each other why the temple was destroyed. The answer they gave was what they called boundless hatred. Surely, it stands to reason that if the temple were destroyed thought boundless hatred, it might be rebuilt through boundless love.
Like King Solomon the wise, we must put that seal – that image – to work, transforming the powers of darkness around us into forces for good. Finding ways to channel negativity around us into positive directions with G-d’s help, it is not such an easy task, but it is possible. Even at some homes where conflicts continually arise, and you find yourself in the middle of a war zone. I thought of myself as living proof that it is better to light a candle than curse the darkness, fancied myself as a bearer of King Solomon’s ring, remembering I am only accountable for my own actions. Truth be told, feelings are in fact nature’s way of ensuring survival.

World of Emotions & Feelings

The world of our emotions is a formative world, affecting everything we do. We spend much of our lives in the world of our feelings, or our ego. Indeed, the emotive world is a battleground, on which the war of moods, critical to our well-being and our well-being and our very survival, is fought. It is a war that is waged every day. We may surrender to negativity and agree in the battle or choose to enter the fight and engage each negative emotion with a positive response. It is all a matter of choice. Our greatest challenge is to gird up the loins of our mind (in the words of 1 Peter 1:13) and charge into combat. We are often beset by a fight-or-flight mentality; sometimes we must choose the flight.
One of the greatest works of literature ever produced deals with a man who loses everything he has and is plunged into despair. No biblical character is a better expression of this battleground than the venerable Job, life is symbolic of suffering. Job curses the day of his birth (everything was taken from him on his birthday). He raises his complaint to G-d as he sits in sackcloth and ashes and wallows in self-pity. Satan is depicted simply as one of the angelic messengers in the divine court. He is dispatched by G-d, but given no power in his own right. Satan is far too dominant and independent a character to be tolerated.
As the book begins, Job is ill and nearing the end of his life, he gathers his seven sons and three daughters and relates the fantastic tale of his earlier years. His Hebrew name was Jobab, before it was changed by divine decree to Job. Job was attacked as part of a bet, a wager between G-d and Satan, to see whether a righteous man who is unjustly afflicted with retain his steadfast faith in G-d (1:1-12; 2:1-6). A plague is unleashed and devastates on his livestock, and his children, then his friends (there are allies as well as adversaries). Through the tragedy, Job holds fast to his faith in G-d, and did not blaspheme. After all the L-rd gives and the L-rd takes away, trusting in His reasoning. Teaching us that when facing the most intractable enemy of all, ourselves, in the world of feeling, the admonition is simple and direct: HOLD FAST!
We know very little about Job’s wife, Sitis, – only that she taunts him with the words, “bless G-d and die.” While Job sits on his dung heap, immovable defiant, she becomes a maidservant to bring bread to her afflicted spouse. When self-pity threatens to consume us – when we are at the brink of despair – the compassion, the caring, and the action of others often help us regain our perspective. Realizing that we are loved by others makes all the difference in the world of feeling.
Job, responds like the fighter he is, he has never surrendered his soul. far from letting his emotions defeat him, he summons his feelings, and commands his anger. Reveals he is one who has taken charge of his emotions and has wielded them as a weapon against the foe. Job has learned that there is a time to mourn and a time to engage the enemy. We may have lost everything, but why should we be alienated from G-d, who is our greatest wealth. Physical action is not always required, but fortitude of soul is, physical illness and/or pain. To wrestle emotionally is to feel a physical sickness. To live is to wrestle, and to wrestle is to live.
You must never surrender to despair. You must never give up. You must be steadfast, for if ever you despair, if ever you abandon yourself, you also abandon G-d. You may feel like Job, or like Abraham’s son Isaac, about to be slaughtered, but remember that your emotions are a battleground. You can and you must prevail. The deepest pit into which one may fall:
HOLD FAST, AND KEEP THE FAITH!

World of Vanity

Long ago, in the days of the prophet Jeremiah, there lived a group known as the Rechabites, a name derived from their leader, Jonadab son of Rechab. They lived as nomads, pitching their tents from place to place, never touching wine and not even cultivating their fields. The prophet Jeremiah praises them for the purity of their ways and declares that they will be spared from the calamity soon to befall Jerusalem. The descendants of Jonadab certainly kept the commandment give to them by their ancestor: yet his people have not listened to G-d, and did not when He called, and doing what He called them to do … there will always be a member of a family of Jonadab the son of Rechab before His presence. (Jer. 35:13-19)
Another communal group who flourished in the days of Y’Shua and John the Baptist, lived in splendid isolation along the western shore of the Dead Sea, they were known as the Essenes. They were the one ancient sect that accurately copied all the sacred scrolls.
The Hebrew have a community living called a kibbutz. Kibbutz means group in Hebrew. It is a modest name for something unique: a voluntary community where people live and work together on a non-competitive basis. Their living expenses and studies are financed by work. It is required that a serious and responsible attitude toward all work be maintained. No work is more or less important than any other; you are respected according to how you work as opposed to what you work at. All for one and one for all.
It takes a child – or a lost tribe from the days of Jeremiah – to know the difference. We live in a world of vanity. But Paradise cannot be found in the clothes we wear or do not wear, or the food we eat, or the fine wines we drink.
Desiring nothing, they had no cares, no worries, no anxieties. They understood implicitly that that the real problem in life is desire; whenever we want something, we are a little bit less than whole. Unexpectedly, it is in the learning to empty ourselves of desire that we really become full. As the biblical psalmist wrote in Ps. 23:1 ‘The L-rd is my shepherd; I shall not want.” How did we become a ‘I want, I want world’ the more the better? He has and will provide for us always.
US. society urges us to put on airs, to leak splendor and circumstance, pride and prestige. Possessions are often just status symbols, designed to distract people’s eyes from our native shallowness. Such things really amount to invisible, defiled clothing, worn to mask our nakedness.
We live in a world of vanity, the more we have the more stuff we have, the more time and energy we are likely to expend taking care of it. The most important and enduring values in life we often barter away simply to acquire more stuff. We have no need to display our wealth or position by the acquisition of one status symbol or another. There should not a struggle to build a bigger house, drive a sleeker car, or put together a bigger stock portfolio.  
Bankrupt is spreading rapidly, even Christians partaking in it. Part of being grown up is to learn to pay your bills. Living in ones means, not wants.   The Good Book says in Prov. 22:7 The rich ruled over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender. Be neither a loaner or a borrower, saves friendship, even among family members. Better if people learn to save for a rainy day, and manage their money wisely.

Message of the two choices

A major advantage of age is learning to accept people without passing judgment.  People’s days are numbered and the days of your earthly life are drawing to a close, and your death is at hand. It is time to set your affairs in order, were do you want to spend eternity? G-d has created the world, and does not wish to destroy anyone. After all, everyone has a chance to change their ways and live, until their number is up. G-d needs us to be merciful. If we want divine compassion to have an impact on the planet, we had better show compassion ourselves.
There are two gates we can take; the broad gate or the narrow gate, Matt. 7:13-14 says ‘Come in by the narrow gate, because the gate that leads to destruction is wide. That way is easy, and many enter through it. But the gate that leads to life is narrow. That way is hard, and few people find it.’
Life is fundamentally about choices. There are no scripts, but there are gates – toward the good or toward the bad. People are not forced to do evil. They make choices, and what we think of as rewards or punishments are the natural consequences of those choices. We can choose the marriage of heaven or the pit of hell. Consequently, we should not really think of G-d sending people to hell; people send themselves. We also realize that unjust actions bring their own consequences, naturally.
With respect to judging others, spiritually, I became aware of an unbelievable phenomenon in life that causes people to forget who they were meant to be by adopting strange spiritual experiences that links with self-righteousness and judgmental attitudes.
People make choices and experience their consequences. We act without thinking of the consequences. However, by sitting back and simply being -through stillness and meditative practice – we can see how our actions today affect the larger whole, and how our mercy is the channel of divine mercy. By mentally getting out of the world for a while, we gain a larger perspective. We become more open, because we have cultivated a G-d’s eye view of things. Each of us is born, not evil, but morally neutral, carrying within us the staggering power of the divine image. It is pure creative power, which can be used however we wish to use it.
We are invested with the ability to accomplish deeds of goodness, but also to harm and even to destroy. Each of us is a messiah in our own right, anointed with an innate ability to create the universe we inhabit, day by day. We are not simply adapted to our environment, as are all others species. We are masters of it. We have learned to harness the very forces of nature, even splitting the atom. We live longer, healthier lives than our ancestors ever thought possible. We have a rambunctious aspect to our personalities, a certain mischievousness that perpetually gets us into trouble. We have an evil inclination. This rambunctious side of our personality is nothing more than an assortment of our base drives and instincts; our lust, sextual and otherwise; our desire for power, prominence, and prestige. Truth be told, we need these drives, for without them we would be incapable of leading, commanding, or taking charge in any situation. We would be incapable of building a home, creating a family, and bringing forth children and raising them. Our evil inclination is essential to our functioning in society.
Y’Shua was born a real human being, flesh and blood, who had to wrestle with His evil inclination like everyone else, remember His blood carried also His human mother traits, and we know nothing of His childhood lessons, until He was twelve years old, astounding the Rabbis in the Temple.
You are more than what you know, you are stronger than you know, you can mature in life’s lessons. Maturing into Messianic, redemptive roles, in short, do not worry if you are not perfect. All of life is a learning curve.

Becoming Human Beings

It dawned on me that he real problem behind human conflict is not that we love ourselves too much, thereby being selfish and self-centered, but that we do not love ourselves enough. It is only when we can see G-d in ourselves that we can see G-d in everybody else.  If we could all grasp the magnificent truth of our being and tap into that expression of the divine source in each of us, we would not be so easily controlled by strong personalities and other powers of this world. We learn to release the fears that keep us focused on materiality, judgments, hatred, and prejudice. Our actions become more meaningful. We can evaluate knowledge more effectively, transcending the bombardment of information that is so much a part of modern life.
We may agonize over whether we believe in G-d, but G-d believes in us. If we can only clear away the cobwebs in our minds – glimpse that wide-open heaven – we will understand that our potential is unlimited, and our powers are multifold. We always have options. After all, look who we have as our Source. The first step toward reaching our potential is of course to change our focus from the physical to the metaphysical, to let the breath of the Eternal fuse with our own.
I had a special need to tap into that supernatural presence. The stresses I encountered daily were frequently beyond my poor constitution to handle. I needed to fine myself, once again, to be rejuvenated. Fortunately, I knew where to go, having my mind back into the Word. I tend to wonder in the outdoors were the stones, water, leaves – just everything in nature strangely alive with the divine breath, calms and speaks to me. I had discovered myself afresh, but I had also discovered how to leave myself behind, how to filter out the background noise that robbed me of my inner peace.
I decided each day to set some time aside, to set a place aside, to center-down into my deepest being through silence, meditation, and study. Learning how to approach life and never underestimate yourself. Trust yourself; believe in you own judgment. Look in the mirror daily, but do not look for blemishes or the latest wrinkle in your brow. Stare at yourself and say not only, “I am made in the divine image,” but also, “I AM with the Father and the Father is with me.”
Satan can be said to represent human denial. He could not recognize the divinity of humans, or of anything else for that matter. He is a metaphor for the countless mental factors that get in the way of our believing in ourselves and in others. The great Adversary short-circuits the world of being by denying our connectedness with G-d. The outermost regions of hell as being occupied not by those who committed the worse acts, but by those condemned for their callous indifference to the divine image in others.
We must cultivate stillness, practice meditative silence, and take every opportunity to observe the world of nature. We realize that we are all part of the whole, the divine Source. It is only when we forget that greater reality that we perpetrate negativity, doing things that are not
G-d like. The Eternal considers humans to be nothing less than divine. We can see the spark of Deity in ourselves and know that we are a piece of the divine fullness.
Bottom line is we are all a part of the Divine Presence in the earth, and so is everyone else. All people have inherent worth. Dominating is not the way, for we are hurting ourselves as well as others, for we do damage to the image of the divine in us, enable us to act with conscience and creativity rather than reacting to circumstance. Remember we are only accountable for ourselves.
True, good deeds often seem to go unrewarded, but acts of revenge spawn their own demons to perpetuate evil. Cycles of revenge are as common today as they were in the Scriptures producing the same lamentable results. Revenge is a dish best served up cold, and may work as short-term tactics, but they inevitably fail as a long-term strategy. Be G-d like and leave it to Him.

Self Discovery

Being is all about self-discovery and self-actualization. It is where true life begins, this sense of being is what makes us true to ourselves. In the case of a woman – me – the voice that beckoned was from the Scriptures, which had gotten into my blood. I lived, and studied as 2 Tim. 2:15 says, peace comes over me, over time I had my own Mount Sinai experience. I realized that the answer for my life was in the personal empowerment that comes from self-actualization, an I decided to simply sit for a while out of denomination teachings and influence. Once again filling my life with a sense of wonder and to understand the complex tapestry of civilization which has given birth to us all.
How many of us are plagued by inner voices whispering: “You will never amount to anything? You will never get ahead in life. You will never accomplish much. We had grown accustomed by measuring our self-worth based on what we do, having never discovered the world of being. Like many other members of the Baby Boom generation, I used to think that I was never good enough, after all I am just a woman in a man’s world. It was a phenomenon I overcame only when I learned to quit judging myself by other people’s expectations. I have learned that happiness comes not through what you do, but by who you are. You need not prove yourself or your worth to anyone. You simply need to discover yourself. Shakespeare said it simply and directly: “This above all, to thine own self be true.”
Long ago on a mountaintop, somewhere in the vast desert of the Sinai Peninsula, a voice from the world beyond spoke from a bush that burned with fire but was not consumed, declaring to a fugitive shepherd named Moses, with all simplicity and directness. This voice commissioned Moses, an encounter between a frail human being and the world beyond. The secret of Moses’ strength was his meekness, the great Israelite sages called him a ‘hollow reed’ – personally empty, but filled with the divine breath. The power with which he acted was not his and the staff he used represented divine fullness and his own emptiness. Why was Moses chosen to be the recipient of such secrets? The answer lies in Moses’ deep humility, his hollowness, it emanates from the infinite domain of heaven and finds expression in the limited. Moses, learned to leave himself behind and simply rest in the Divine Presence. When we know that all of history – and our own life – is under control, we discover the secret of rest. We quickly realize that history is going somewhere. It is not an endless circle with no progression, but a dynamic process, charged with meaning. Nothing is lost in G-d’s economy.
The burning bush moments for me when I discovered a human being can alter their life by altering one’s attitude of mind. I choose to alter both my attitudes and my mind. The most important lesson to be gleaned from all this is simple: before doing anything, you must first learn the secret of being a part of G-d’s great plan. Believe in destiny. You were born for a specific purpose, and there are no accidents. The universe makes sense, and you make sense within the greater cosmic pattern. As the jubilees of your own life unfold, look for the larger patterns. Let go, and get out of the way. Each of us resides a mind-boggling, G-d given power so don’t just sitting there, be all you were meant to be! Each one of us resides a mind-boggling power, through which we can transform ourselves and the entire world. Many people in the ancient world loved the Scriptures which tells us a great deal about the spiritual nature of human beings and the torture and judgment of evildoers. G-d is eternal and beyond space and time.

Life has chooses

Yet, we all feel somehow inadequate. There is a huge disconnect between what we are and what we wish it be. The flesh and the spirit may seem incontrovertibly opposed, but true knowledge will make them one. When we know ourselves and the world around us, we can replace conflict with harmony, to fine unity in all things and among all people.
We must be beware, for appearances are perennially deceiving. We must look beyond outward appearances – good or bad – to behold the true light in others. It is the snare of materiality (the smoke-and-mirrors act of everyday life) that robs us of true vision.
We only truly arrive at our destination when we realize something universal – that none of us needs to seek beyond ourselves for courage, fortitude, intelligence, or anything else we desperately wish we had. What we seek is already inside of us; we need only recognize it. We need not look any further than our own backyard, and if we cannot find it there, it must be that we never lost it at all.  The holy Spirit fire is the power residing within each of us, guarded by the Master until we understand and know enough about ourselves for it to burn brightly. May that day come, sooner than we dare to believe. People’s lives consist of multiple choices they make. Life has no scripts, but it does have paths, and we are free to choose among them. The hell we occasionally experience is a part of life, and we could never appreciate heaven otherwise. These visions come from human experience, and it is in our (sometimes fearful) experience that we appropriate redemption. We can choose to see goodness and mercy, rather than wrath and punishment. Every action has its consequences. But wouldn’t our lives be infinitely sweeter if we studied to know and understand the two ways – of good and evil, of life and death – chose the way that leads to life? Know yourself, believe in yourself. Get out of the role of victim; give yourself the power to choose.
One might feel a victim of religious persecution becomes a story of a hero of religious perseverance, liken onto Daniel. Symbolically it tells us how to find calm during a storm. Discover the source of true nourishment, which, even in deprivation, will never fail you. Why was Daniel fearless in the face of persecution? Because he had cultivated knowledge and wisdom, which are really intertwined. Science is organized knowledge, wisdom is organized life, Daniel it seems, was a master of both science and life. I knew that it is not about setting dates or plugging current events into some prophetic scheme, but about finding meaning on a personal level. Indeed, there is something very comforting in knowing that history is going somewhere, that events are not random, and that life itself consists of something more than time and chance in an impersonal void. There is a lesson here, summed up in a single word: progress. It is a word we take for granted. It is all part of a great cycle, endlessly repeating itself, constantly seeking equilibrium and balance, but never finding resolution.
It is said that hope springs eternal in the human breast. We all want to nourish hope – for a better, brighter day, for a renewed and restored world. Hope is a good thing, perhaps the best of things, though it is sometimes a rare commodity in the modern skeptical world.
Enoch, the grandson of Adam declares that a time of terrible persecution will come someday; in which the righteous will suffer greatly at the hands of the wicked (the great flood). Enoch’s very name in Hebrew; Khanokh, is another word for education or knowledge. The second judgment will not be by water but by fire. Fire destroys, but it also purifies. Let your heart be purified, Enoch would surely advise us today. Let every motive be judged. Open yourself to divine scrutiny, and let the hand of G-d be upon you. Images of fire notwithstanding, judgment is not for evil, but ultimately for the good. You must understand fundamentally that you cannot know mercy without judgment. You must understand fundamentally that you cannot know mercy without knowing judgment. When we understand that everything is temporary, we can relax in the only day that really matters – today.

The World of Knowing

My personal quest for knowledge, my path through the World of Knowing began in 1997. Studying was to be my therapy, knowledge my deliverance. It was freedom and power, for I understood implicitly that no group of domineering shepherds could control me if I studied the Word myself as it said in 2 Tim. 15. I see the Scriptures as a story book and I came to identify with the ancient writers and placing myself in the story line to see and feel what was happening.
The first thing I needed to do in my own life’s odyssey was discover my worldview, my own value system, which no one else could do for me. One of the counterproductive things modern people do is to throw out he time-honored traditions of their ancestors, claiming that organized religion doesn’t do it for them.  My personal advice to the perplexed is to find your spiritual heritage all over again, don’t lose your first love. Seek out the ancient wisdom, when we dedicate ourselves to that search, we enter the World of Knowing.
When we get out of the role of victim, when we quit being passive and dare to ask questions, when we challenge somebody else’s interpretation, we are on the path to discovering the true knowledge is all about. Life in the final analysis is not only about what we feel it is about what we know. When we enter the World of Knowing, we can make valid judgments about right and wrong, about the path we need to follow, without being led astray into a mess of relativity.
In the life of Adam and Eve, they were told not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge - - there are always consequences if we disobey, but it got me to thinking that from the lessons we learn in life good can also come out of it if we look hard enough at it. G-d has always turn when was meant for evil into a blessing. I also discovered where you biggest hurt is, is where He will use you – for you been there done that and can help another in a similar situation, telling them how G-d has helped you through it all.
So there has to be a blessing out of eating from the forbidden fruit – I am now in my ‘golden years’ and encouraged to take the time to search it out as I tip toe though the Scriptures and find what I have missed.
G-d made Adam and said it was not good for man to be alone, and made him a help ‘Meet’ – which taken back to the Stongs means ‘equal partner’. After the fall brings about many plagues that afflict us, also makes us fully human in the most positive sense, for without pain, we could not possibly know compassion, the most G-dlike quality of all. The language of compassion is the language of sacrifice and of love. Their sin is described as covetousness, or simply desire. Desire focuses us on ourselves, desire leads to ‘I’ trouble. The irony is that desire brought forth knowledge which in turn has made each of us aware, not just of our own pain, but the pain of others. It gets us out of ourselves. We may have fallen, not down, but up, looking always for
G-d’s help. In a marriage it is taking deliberate action on behalf of someone else and teaches us to accept the pain attendant with living in a fallen world knowing that pain leads to compassion.
Knowledge is power is a valuable one in our victim’s culture. Through the consequence of disobedience was the Fall, eating from the Tree of Knowledge has also brought redemption. They knew that they were made in the divine image, and they could have used that power to rebuke the serpent and command him to leave. We will be wounded, but our wounds need not debilitate us. When we truly know who, we are – miraculous divine creations – we unleash a secret power that puts us in charge of circumstances, rather than circumstances overseeing us.
The pains of life invariably yield to death, but because we have knowledge, we need not surrender to fear. The love and compassion we express become sweet-smelling incense, to make fragrant the passage into eternity. Without the Tree of Knowledge there would be no pain. Neither would there be weakness. But without the capacity to be weak, would we truly have the capacity to care?
The bible tells us that the serpent once walked on all fours, and that he even had ears and wings, prior to being cursed from on high. Notice the serpent could talk to mankind, from that day forward animals could not verbally communicate with man. I believe in heaven they will be able to once again. We now can see from our pets they can understand and feel.
Adam is to toil working the ground, and Eve is to experience pain in childbirth. Through all the pain that is predicted, Eve will learn a touching vulnerability, as she cries out to the Almighty. Pain has a positive, redemptive value, for it acts as G-d’s loudspeaker, nudging us out of complacency and awakening us to the Divine Presence.
Historically, women have guarded the home and built nests, while their husbands have gone out into the world. The homemaker is a higher role, not lower; she is the Director of Homeland Security.
 
Allegorically, the serpent is like all the people who try to mess with our heads. We need to remind ourselves who we are – made in the divine image – and operating in that kind of knowledge, no serpent can fool us. The concept of a personal devil made me do it – the fact remains that evil exists, and the Bible is trying to teach us that we created it by our own desire, be it lust, the desire for power, wealth, prestige, or whatever. We must take accountability for our own actions, if we open the door of our own garden to evil. We open the door to desire and desire produces its own fruit.
We know not to bemoan our fallen condition, but to embrace it, to celebrate our weakness, and even our mortality. From the Tree of Knowledge, we find our way through the wilderness of life.
When we are in the Work of Knowing, we unleash the power of wholeness. Whenever we think we want something or need something, we need only remind ourselves that we are complete already, because we are made in the divine image. Every time we look in the mirror and affirm who we are – the very stuff of G-d - we are embracing wholeness and conquering desire. We need not fear shrinking from death, for dying brings forth life. When dreams, and hope die, knowing that the very next phase is mercy, compassion, and resurrection.
We are all on a journey of self-discovery. We are destined to have many adventures, make new friends along our way, and ultimately learn that what we thought we lacked was inside us all along. We are strangers in a strange land, we are not at home, and we are looking for answers.
But all too often we fabricate brittle doctrines of religion, that is the true nature of our fallenness, we are blind to the divine spark within, which ought to be a blazing fire, the soul is far from being corrupt, it pure, eternal, and birthed in Paradise. Knowing that you are pure and holy and birthed in Paradise doesn’t get you back there. Each of us must set out on a road of discovery. How to find this knowledge is a deeply personal – a self-revealing path, unique for each person. The kingdom is not some far-off hope for the future, in the sweet by-and-by, but a present-tense reality for those who know themselves, those who have discovered their divine nature. We should expect to be troubled, but we should also persevere, through massive, consistent action. We should keep seeking the answers, because knowing them is what causes us to reign over our adversity. Getting the right requires both knowledge and discernment. We must know ourselves but also know the world around us, evaluating each grain field and every sojourner on the road to the kingdom.  It takes a heart of discernment to separate the wheat from the chaff, to cultivate a set of personal values that somehow reflect eternal values. It takes a childlike heart to believe that true virtue still exists.

In His Time

Y’Shua was a Jew, not a Christian (which is Greek for Messianic). He was circumcised at 8 days old, observed Passover, read the Torah in Hebrew, and kept Saturday as the Sabbath Day. In growing up in a religious and cultural world that has been almost wholly lost to the subsequent developments of Christianity, He had a deep commitment to the ancestral faith of His fathers. He saw Himself as doing nothing other than fulfilling the words of Moses and the Prophets, and the messianic hope that guided His life, and led Him to His death, was the central core of His innermost being.
Y’Shua grew up poor in a rural Jewish town in Galilee. Archaeology has shown that the houses were modest, made of fieldstones packed with mud and straw. The floors were beaten dirt, windows were few, the roofs were thatched reeds laid over wooden beams and covered with mud to form a flat rooftop area that was utilized year-round for sleeping, eating, and domestic chores. Houses often had underground chambers used for storage. Furniture was sparse and pottery was local and practical, almost wholly undecorated and unadorned. Absent was mosaics, imported ceramics, fine glassware, gold and silver coins, cosmetics, jewelry, and bronze vessels that were common in the urban areas. The larger houses might have a courtyard and several rooms and extended families living together; these houses often expanded into a random network of shared structures. Livestock lived in enclosures attached to the house or in dugout areas and caves, and small gardens were cultivated wherever space allowed. Staples were olives, bread, and lentils. Eggs, milk, cheese, salted fish, meat, fruits and vegetables were welcome additions. Skeletal remains show evidence of dietary deficiencies, and death from disease before age forty was not uncommon. This was the noise, the stench, the crowding, the grime and grit of daily peasant life, the feel of living under military occupation of ever watchful inspectors, agents, and tax collectors.
Stone vessels, required for required for purposes of ritual purity, are typically found, as well as plastered pools or mikvahs used for ritual immersion. The bones that turn up are from goats, sheep, chickens, and some cattle, but no pigs. Tombs were outside the living area, expanded from natural caves or cut into the bedrock. The corpse was laid out in a shaft to decompose and after a year the bones were gathered and placed in a separate niche.
The center of civic and religious life in a Jewish village was the Synagogue. Gatherings were held on the Sabbath day when the normal work activities of the whole town came to an abrupt halt from Friday at sunset until dusk on Saturday. Where is, it written that it was to be changed to Sunday? Has G-d’s Word changed? Precious handwritten copies of the Torah, or Jewish Law and the scrolls of the Prophets were read aloud and discussed. Aramaic was the spoken language but judging from the Dead Sea Scrolls the sacred scrolls were written in ancient Hebrew. The central activity was the reading and discussion of the Scriptures. How far away from this original plan have we come?
Among the Dead Sea Scrolls was a complete copy of the scroll of Isaiah that scholars have dated to 100 B.E. It had been hidden for two thousand years sealed in a clay jar in a cave near the settlement of Qumran. The Isaiah scroll has fifty-four columns of Hebrew text. It is twenty-four feet long and made of seventeen panels of goatskin, ten inches high, sewn together. It was rolled from right to left and one would need to put it on a table or podium in order to hold it steady for unrolling or reading.
Jews are the people of the Book and this is what made them different from any other people. Judaism can be summed up under four rubrics: G-d, Torah, Land, and Chosen People. As a Jew, Y’Shua would have affirmed His belief in one Creator G-d Yahweh; the divine revelation of the Torah as a blueprint for social, moral, and religious life. How often do you hear a sermon from the Torah? He affirms the holiness of the Land of Israel as a perpetual birthright to the nations; and that the people of Israel, descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, had been chosen by G-d to enlighten all nations. Their historic mission was to draw humanity to the one G-d and His Torah revelation. He avoided the eating certain forbidden animals or consuming blood, He celebrated the required pilgrim festivals, and He practiced ritual purity as commanded it the Torah. As a Jewish male Y’Shua wore the fringed tassels (tzitzit) on His outer garment, which indicates His strict observance of the mitzvoth or commandments of the Torah. In that sense, He was not liberal with regard to Jewish observances in any modern sense of the term. We are commanded to do as He does --- are we, or have we considered all that just for the Jewish people? Gentiles who turned from idols to the true and living G-d and observed the prohibitions against stealing, murder, and sexual immorality were considered righteous Gentiles or G-d fearers.
Josephus, our contemporary 1^st century Jewish witness, tells us that there were three main sects or philosophies of Judaism: Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes. The Essenes who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls expected the end of the world and were awaiting the coming of Two Messiahs – a priestly figure and a Davidic King. They called themselves the people of the New Covenant, believing they were representatives of a newly purified Israel at the end of the age. The practiced communal living, initiation rites involving immersion or baptism, and sacred meals, curiously, the Essenes are never mentioned in the New Testament, whereas the Pharisees and Sadducees regularly appear in opposition to Y’Shua. Y’Shua shared some important beliefs and practices with the Essenes but judging from the Dead Sea Scrolls His open attitude towards Gentiles and women were different. Josephus tells that there were only 6,000 Pharisees and 3,000 Essenes. Philo, another 1^st century Jewish writer, puts the Essenes at 4,000. Y’Shua would have grown up familiar with each of these schools.
In broad terms, Y’Shua is best identified with what might be described as the Messianic Movement of the 1^st century Palestine. It had a much broader appeal to rank-and-file Jews of all persuasions, united in their hope for G-d’s deliverance. What matters are not so much the labels but a certain vision of reality – a faith that G-d would intervene to fulfill those messianic predictions.
Scientist & Archaeology have given us a glimpse into the times of past.
Whom do you want to copy, today’s idea of religion or Y’Shua’s example?

Deep Wells

Trials are indeed a revelation. They are meant to be our teachers, but at the end of the day, it is up to us to choose what kind of students we want to be. I have the power to choose whether tests and trials will serve as messengers.
We have little to no control over what happens to us or what is said about us, but we are far from helpless when it comes to our actions. Taking each of life's waves head-on?
If we humble ourselves, then the trial allows the Holy Spirit to increase our depth and therefore our capacity for goodliness. The challenges of life reveal what we are made of without undermining who we are. Trials positions us to grow more Messianic  like and therefore unshakable. Messiah is the proverbial rock that is higher than I. He is our very core, the rock upon which we find rest each night and awaken to stand each morning.
When I am overly distressed by an offense, whether it is petty or looms large, I cannot escape the realization that my soil (ground under my feet) has been disturbed.  My husband likes to spread the dirt of excuser over them and sweep it under the rug, but they will still remain, and of course it will always be my fault.
Trials and tribulations clear the ground and remove what impedes future growth as individuals.  Our strengths and weakness are revealed in the discomfort of these experiences. Trials serve to teach us who G-d is. Everything we need for life and godliness is truly found in the Word of G-d, but it is the trials of life that drive us to our knees so that this truth can be worked in and through our lives. The Word of G-d is no longer read as suggestions for life's best practices but as the very words of life.
Trials and tribulations clear the ground and remove what impedes future growth. These encounters serve to refine and prepare us for future potential. Our strengths and weaknesses are revealed in the discomfort of these experiences. Trials also serve to teach us who G-d is.
Everything we need for life and godliness is truly found in the Word of G-d, but it is the trials of life that drive us to our knees so that this truth can be worked in and through our lives. The Word of G-d is no longer read as suggestions for life's best practices but as the very words of life. I have learned that G-d will use trials to deepen my prayers. Trials have the power to transform us from who we are into who we long to be.
Have you ever meet someone who is a deep well? Deep wells are mysterious and they have stories to tell. They are people who have been through stuff that would have muddied or polluted other wells, but their water remained untainted. Deep wells become fountains as they bring refreshing to others. A deep well means they have a greater capacity to reflect.
The Word of G-d alone has the power to give us clarity when circumstances have muddied the water. Without the counsel of Scripture, you will mistakenly call foolishness wisdom. How do you hear from? G-d or the serpent?  Remember the serpent's wisdom is wrapped in the subtle and cunning.
Laughing and spending time with family and godly friends fill the cistern. Reading the Word, keeping a journal, and prayer refresh me like a long drink from a cool fountain on a hot day. Admire yourself, see your self as the Father sees you. Admitting when you messed up can be tough, but taking accountability for your words or action is the only way you can go forward, stop looking at the past. The past is gone and it is time to move onward and upward.
Journey well is this life requires us to dig deep, reinforced wells, which requires a commitment to finish what we started, faithfully. Anyone can create a wishing well, but we want to dig deep wells, cisterns of life that are reinforced with G-d's Word and renewed with the refreshing fountains of the Spirit.

The Inconsistent Commandments

People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered. -  Love them anyway.
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives. - Do good anyway.
If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies. - Succeed anyway.
The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. - Do good anyway.
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. - Be honest and frank anyway.
The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds. - Think big anyway.
People favor underdogs but follow any top dogs. - Fight for a few underdogs anyway.
What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. - Build anyway.
People really need help but may attack you if you do help them. - Help people anyway.
Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth. -  Give the world the best you have anyway. You only account to G-d the Father.  
When you really think about it ….how can love put you at risk when love cannot fail?
Love has the power to heal whatever life wounds. Regardless of where you find love, sooner or later you will likewise find challenges and even disappointment.
Why would Y'Shua suggest we are to love our enemies? It is because it is this kind of love that separates the sheep from the goats. We are distinguished when we love those who wish us harm. When you choose to love the ones who would bind and injure you … something shifts. Even if your circumstances don't change, you are no longer trapped; you are free.
You cannot control what people say about you or their perception of you or what you say, but you are able to choose your response to them.
Love chooses. Fear reacts.
Love is freedom. Fear is bondage.
Perfect love casts out fear.
Prov. 24:16 says Love always chooses to rise above again.
Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow in every way into Him who is the head, into the Messiah, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. Eph. 4:15-16.

Lioness Arising

We all want to break free from negative thoughts and paralyzing mindsets, so I am giving you my insights from Scripture – are a lethal combination to crush the enemy’s lies. Prepare to be fully awakened to your G-d given identity. Who we uniquely are in the Messiah transforms us from playing it safe to taking our place in G-d’s great plan of redemption.
Dearest one, You are a child loved by a Father without reval, entrusted with a message and promise beyond compare, in a time without precedent. You have been hosen for this moment that is at once great and terrible. For this reason, you must love fearlessly … believe outrageously …and hope without measure.
If you discovered that the life you have always wanted was outside the realm of competition, this is for you.  If you struggle with feelings of worthlessness or lack a sense of purpose, know G-d has positioned you to find contentment during any circumstance and live a life without comparison. Can’t you feel G-d putting His hands on both sides of your face, turning our attention toward Him, and then saying slowly and firmly, ‘I love you.’
Your first step in knowing your identity is found in who you are to Him. Gal. 3:26 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in the Messiah Y’Shua. All of them are equal implies G-d does not love sons more and daughters less. He loves male and female uniquely. Marvelously loved, there is absolutely nothing accidental about you and you don’t have to fight for your place at His table. No one can take you out or replace the gifts He has given you … you have no rival.
We were gifted salvation, for G-d saw us in our wretched, caged state, cowering in the corner of some religious humane society, and paid the price to save us to use our G-d given gifts.
Rom. 12: 5-8 So we, being many, are one body in Messiah, and every one members one of another. Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith; Or ministry, let us wait on our ministering: or he that teaches, on teaching; Or he that exhorted, on exhortation: He that giveth, let him do it with simplicity; he that ruled, with diligence; he that shows mercy, with cheerfulness.
It is time G-d’s daughters celebrated ‘unique’ and stopped settling for the ‘same’ religious Pharisees. As we read the Bible, it is G-d’s Holy Spirit who instructs and leads us into all truth. Your eternal Father is the only one who has the right to define you, place His gifts in you, as we worship G-d, you are transformed into His image from glory to glory. Were one chooses to fellowship with should be G-d lead, for you want to be corrected by people who will bring out the best in you and recognize your G-d give gifts, having gender without rival. We cannot be opposed to racism, in which people are discriminated against as a result of something about which they can do nothing – their skin color and then accept with equanimity the gross injustice of penalizing others for something else they can do nothing about – their gender.
Male lions are the best killers, but lionesses are the best hunters. If you can’t speak to the women, you can’t win the war. Women have a voice and value just like the lionesses. Lionesses needed to know they were not simply following male orders but that they were part of something more eternal, the mandate to bring healing and life to their sisters who were isolated and often despised simply because of their gender. Without the involvement of women, there are many battles that cannot be won.
If the United States military understand that without the involvement of women a nation can fight but it will not win, then isn’t it high time the church empowers its daughters to come alongside the men. Gender rivalry has been known to swing both ways, but more often than not women are on the receiving end of the discrimination.
I have carried in my heart the women who’ve been wounded in the rivalry of the sexes. Women who have suffered in her marriage, family, workplace, or house of worship. I regularly read hateful comments directed at women on social media. This does not even begin to address the issues of sex trafficking, gendercide, and pornography.
Sadly, gender prejudice still blurs the lines of our gospel; we seem to use it to extend full redemption and freedom to men while measuring controlled portions to women.
Gender prejudice by stepping back to a time when the church was newborn, alive and growing after the resurrection, and there was an outpouring of G-d’s Spirit on both sons and daughters. The gospel was being released in both word and deed as the resurrection of Y’Shua was proclaimed. Panicked temple leaders, in an attempt to calm the storm of gender ruled only males could serve, for someone had to had to take care of business at home. Women could not even read the Torah (they might find out G-d’s Word was for both genders) but women could serve in their old age because their home duties are done.  
Sadly, that is how doctrines are being made, for most church’s do not study the times and culture of when the Bile was written, to get the full understanding of what was being said, so they obstruct its members and silence their voices. For more than two millennia religious leaders have limited and at times prohibited thousands of church’s daughters from preaching and teaching in the sacred spaces under its governance.
Can’t you hear the Spirit whispering, ‘far too many of the daughters I have called and gifted by My Spirit for ministry have been held back, and denied their call by the church’.  
You might have heard religious leaders say, ‘Women can teach other women but not men’. Or, ‘Women can share but there is to be no preaching’. And: ‘Women can lead, as long as it is outside the church’. Women who are bold with their faith are too quickly labeled aggressive. Women who are confident in their G-d are mistaken for ambitions. Is it right in the sight of G-d to listen to men rather than to obey G-d?
We can find our answer in the words Y’Shua spoke right before He ascended in Mark 16:15-19. Go into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: in My name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not harm them, they will lay their hand on the sick, and they will recover. So then Y’Shua HaMashiach, after He had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of G-d the Father.
This directive was given to ALL who believe. The Great Commission is permission, it doesn’t even require a building or an organization, and this mandate is inclusive of both genders. In the Messiah, all are called and liberated to declare G-d’s good news. Once we’ve known G-d’s freedom and truth we should never allow human threats to silence us. G-d is our high and holy King. Our King has commissioned and empowered you. He has asked you to speak to His people on His behalf. This being true, how could you ever allow those who lead under the King to deter you? Each of us must be a living, breathing declaration of Matthew 4:10: We will worship the
L-r our G-d and serve only Him.
If obeying the King’s subjects means disobeying the King, then your real problem is with the King. In Esther (Hadassah) the king of Persia had not called for her, and the statues of his court forbid her to come before him. But Hadassah understood that obeying the ki8ng’s parameters meant disobeying G-d. Hadassah feared G-d more than she feared the displeasure of people, and she went. She approached the king strategically, but she did not dare remain silent when so many lives were at stake.  There is a very real enemy who will not be content with simple silencing you. he is after your life and the lives of your daughters.
I’m not talking about ascending the pulpit by force, but you can use your G-d given gifts on those who have an ear, and not be afraid of the backlash. This is not the time for the faint of heart or the image bearers of G-d, both male and female.  The last thing we need to be caught doing is fighting amongst one another! The learning curve is steep because until recently the women in this world have been few and far between.
The answer is not the elimination of the feminine voice; it is the education of women, gaining wisdom so the daughters with their Father’s Word in their mouths can speak. Should those with a portion of the answer be silenced? Be prepare to be shunned and resisted. This means you will run the risk of being misinterpreted, and very often you will suffer verbal attacks and isolation, but gender has little to do with someone’s capacity to lead. Humility, experience, faithfulness, education, and virtue are just some of the qualities that qualify leaders. But gender alone does not a leader make, apart from the Messiah we are all unfit.
Y’Shua teaches and instructs, it is with love and acceptance of all. He likened His church to a bride, His bride is made up of male and female. Eph. 2:10 For we are His workmanship, created in Y’Shua HaMashiach unto good works, which G-d hath before ordained that we should walk in them. Males and females were created to be separate in expression but never to be divided in purpose. G-d’s daughters are under vicious assault by the spirit of this world, and far too many houses of worship do not know how to foster the gifts of G-d has given to women. Far more than twenty centuries men and women have been learning side by side in the church. It is time we realize who we are in Y’Shua and lead side by side just a we were originally created to function in the garden. Men leading as men and women leading as women. We are to echo
G-d’s words rather than become mired down in a reasoning match. Let’s serve G-d so stunningly that we are living, breathing arguments for living a life of faith.
In heaven’s design, gender is neither an issue of wounding nor a battleground of rivalry. G-d’s sons and daughters living as one may yet be revealed on this earth. And through our unity, the image of G-d will be unveiled, and the glory of G-d will at last shine forth n all its dazzling splendor.