Hesed

"I will sing of the 'hesed' of the Lord forever, with my mouth I will make known your faithfulness to all generations." Psalm 89:1


What does it mean to sing of God's loving kindness, His mercy, His grace forever? Does it mean we sing on Saturday night, or does it mean something more than that? I know what it's like to "go to church" on the weekend then live my life the rest of the week. I know what it's like to wonder, God where are you in the midst of everything going on right now. I have played that game before-wanting the God of creation to come in and fix my situation so i can get back to "my" life. To pray to Jesus because things aren't going the way "I" had planned them, only to find myself still stuck in the same problems, just a different day.


Maybe if I were to sing of God's hesed, I would be reminded of the mercy He has shown me. Maybe if I were to sing of His hesed today I would be reminded that He is involved in my daily activities right now. Maybe if I were to sing of His hesed, I would be reminded of the grace He has shown me which I do not deserve. Maybe if I were to continually sing of His hesed I would be reminded to show hesed to others. To give grace to those I want to judge and condemn. To give mercy to that one person who I want nothing to do with. To give steadfast love, to actively love my neighbor not only with words of kindness, but with action. 


May we be a community that sings actively of God's hesed in our lives. 


Grace and Peace,
Matt   

Connections, Connections, Connections

I continually find it amazing the more I dig into scripture how I see more and more connections that I never saw before. Hopefully you've been reading your homework from two weeks ago when I asked everyone to read Malachi. I said that there was a tremendous amount of nuggets that come glaring off the page after reading Yeshua in context for the past few years. Verses like "Behold i will send my messenger and he will prepare the way beforeme." Malachi 3:1 or "For I the Lord do not change"...3:6, then there is the same voice saying "Remember the Torah of Moses my servant, the statutes and rules I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel." 4:4

We then moved to last week where Yeshua himself says, "I am the way the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would also have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him." John 14:6,7 Here we see Yeshua doing a few things that if you only see the surface, you can easily miss the depth of this statement. First you should see the connection from Malachi. Who did God say would come after the one to prepare the way? Himself! God the Father would come. Yeshua says if you knew the Father you know me, if you know me you know the father, why? Because "I and the Father are one" John 10:30. 

Now let's go even deeper. Yeshua says I am the way, the truth and the life... As we have pointed out before, Yeshua is a Rabbi of the first century. He speaks in a way the people in his day would understand and he teaches as the rabbis did. Rabbis would often quote scripture or allude to different texts often by just using a sentence and sometimes even a word. Here we see the Rabbi Yeshua quoting three different passages of scripture in just one sentence. "For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching a light, and the reproofs of discipline are the way of life."Proverbs 6:23; Your righteousness is righteous forever and your law is true." Psalm 119:142; "In the path of righteousness is life and in its pathway there is no death." Proverbs 12:28 Here are three different passages proclaiming that the Word of God, The Torah, are the way, the truth and the life. We shouldn't be surprised at this statement because doesn't John himself tell us at the beginning of his gospel that "In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God." 1:1 and also "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us..." 1:14.  Yeshua is the word of God, the walking talking Torah in the flesh. He is God and He is Father.  

It's pretty significant to notice that Yeshua was raised in the Torah, lived by the Torah, taught others how to live their lives according to the Torah and who himself was the Torah. Our first question should then be, how important is the Torah in our daily lives? Do the words of Torah (i.e.. the words of God/Yeshua) play a role in our daily decision making?

May we be a community that lives following what is true, what is life and what is the way...

Grace and Peace,

Matt