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Mishpachah Yeshua Newsletter A Newsletter To The Family Of Jesus From Restoration Ministries The Hebraic family is not simply an individual or private matter. [click here for a printable copy] July 2001 Topic: Wholeheartedness
Toward God — A Life of Adaptation Dear Brothers,
A few weeks ago, after nearly 3 months of
life on the high prairie, I was sitting on our back porch
looking over the work our Lord has enabled us to complete.
We’d made many changes to the property based on
recommendations from the “locals.” I was
drawn to the plant life springing up that must survive
some of the harshest conditions found in this country. As I
pondered my surroundings, the Holy Spirit began to reveal to
me, “Life here requires adaptation to not only survive but also to reproduce.
That’s the way it is for those who would follow
Jesus.”
Seek Advice From Those Who Have Gone
Before
When you move out onto the high prairie,
the locals watch to see if you’re wise or foolish. No,
this isn’t like living on the moon, but there are constraints
to living here. Unless you seek wisdom, you can blunder badly.
As is our custom, we asked our Father to guide us in wisdom. He
brought to us two key men. Don Mellen, a high prairie resident
for many years, lives a few acres down the road.
He’s an expert on plants, trees in particular. Don
introduced us to Dave Gallinger, another neighbor who is a
building contractor. These two men, along with Ken at the
general store/post office, have been invaluable resources in
helping us make wise decisions. Some prairie adaptations
we’ve made:
• Sue loves to garden, but between
the local elk and deer and late frosts, you can’t raise
anything unprotected. Along with our friends Griff and Reva who
visited us this spring, I ripped off the south half of an old
shed and put in plexiglas. Sue’s greenhouse is now
brimming with produce!
• I love fruit trees but you
can’t do that here. Frost hits when they’re in
bloom and the elk and deer eat what survives. Instead, I
planted aspen, maple, and evergreens. At the counsel of the
locals I wrapped them in wire fencing to protect the tender
saplings from antler rubbing.
• Water is a premium here on the
prairie. A used 1,000 gallon tank behind our barn catches
rainwater for the greenhouse. Under our front deck is a 5,000
gallon cistern to hold rainwater from new gutters to flush the
toilets—more experienced counsel!
These measures, along with burning wood
and installing dark shingles on our roof, are lifestyle lessons
specifically suited to this area. Adaptation has enabled us to both survive and reproduce in
a new environment. The Holy Spirit pointed out to me these
particular lessons to encourage you to consider how vital adaptation is to following Jesus.
“‘For my thoughts are not your
thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the
Lord. ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are
my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your
thoughts’” (Isa.
55:8,9).
People sometimes ask how I know what to
write in these newsletters. Often the Holy Spirit quickens a
topic that is on His heart. Our last three letters on the
anti-Christ spirit and Queen of Heaven were the result of His
prompting. Yet even though the Lord wanted them written, they
exacted a tremendous emotional toll on Sue and me. The
principalities knew that their inroads into Christiandom were
being exposed. During times like these we’re keenly and
gratefully aware of the prayers being lifted up on our behalf!
Principalities can exercise power to
“schluck” you through coordinated attacks like a
demonic wolf pack to hinder your willingness to be obedient in
the future. Do you ever feel as if you just need to get alone
and cry? I do. All hell broke loose getting out our last
letter on the Queen. I faced tremendous despair. We’ve
come to realize that our Father permits opposition so that
we’ll depend on Him more and more... The prayers of
others enable us to stand the test. Think about Paul’s
frequent pleas for prayer to help him stand in holy boldness!
Without knowing about each other’s
prayer, both Sue and I were crying out to our Father for some
word of encouragement. In a few days our dear friends Griff and
Reva called and read to us a rhema from Numbers 25 that applied to Sue and me. As
a result of Phinehas’ obedience, the Lord told Moses: “Therefore tell him I am making my
covenant of peace with him.” As soon as Sue and I heard the words “covenant of peace” our spirits soared with joy! It was after we hung up
the phone that we found out that we’d both been praying
for a word of encouragement. God is good!
“To this you were called, because
Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you
should follow
in his steps” (1 Pet. 2:21).
The Bible is the written record passed
down to us of God’s divine purposes and of men and women
just like us who faced choices. Concerning the Hebrew Bible,
the Newer Testament notes, “These
things happened to them as examples and were written down as
warnings for us...” (1Cor. 10:
11,12).
Consider the wholehearted choice Joshua
made: “But if serving the
Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this
day whom you will serve...But as
for me and my household, we will serve the Lord" (Jos. 24:
15). Would your family and others close to you use the term
“wholehearted” to describe your Christian life?
To Live Wholeheartedly We Must ADAPT
To follow Jesus we must adapt our goals
and motives to an entirely new way of living. His Word, through
the enlightenment and empowerment of His Spirit, enables us to
make changes. Remember, God never accepts us just as we are.
Our hearts must be willing to recognize our awful burden of sin
and to turn from it to the only One Who brings forgiveness and
cleansing.
Trying to patch belief in Jesus onto the
shabby fabric of self-will and sin is like putting a bandaid
over a bullet wound. No healing, just an illusion that all is
now OK. Even though God loves us, His acceptance of us into a
covenant relationship with Him depends on our repentance, that is, turning away from a way of life which is contrary to His Word and turning to Him
and His ways. The modern gospel that claims God accepts you
without repentance is the gospel of the Queen, not the KING.
This “other gospel” that is no good news at all
bears only the bitter fruit of a life unchanged by the Spirit.
Before the Israelites entered the Promised
Land Moses forewarned them that the ways of Egypt and the ways
of living in the Promised Land were not the same:
“The land you are entering to take
over is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come,
where you planted your seed and irrigated it by foot as in a
vegetable garden. But the land you are crossing the Jordan to
take possession of is a land of mountains and valleys that
drinks rain from heaven. It is a land the Lord your God cares
for; the eyes of the Lord your God are continually on it from
the beginning of the year to its end. Faithfully obey the
commands I am giving you today—to love the Lord your God
and to serve him with all your heart and with all your
soul” (Deu. 11:10-13).
Permit me to paraphrase the above passage as it applies to us
today:
“The way of life on which you are
about to embark if you are to follow Jesus is not like the life
you once lived. You will no longer pursue your own interests
nor rely on your own strength. The Covenant that I establish
with you enables you to live in the power of My Spirit. No
longer will you depend on your own rationale but on obedience
to every Word I reveal. So if you faithfully obey the commands
I am giving you today—to love the Lord your God and to
serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul—I
will bring about goodness into all areas of your life.”
It’s not WHAT He is telling you to
do that matters,
but WHO is doing the telling
I found these words coming out of my mouth
a few days ago with our friend Gerry, a single man in his
40’s. As many of you know, from observation and from
personal experience I ascribe to the stages of male development
that Robert Hicks in his book The
Masculine Journey describes based
upon the six different Hebrew words used in the Bible for
“male”. We wrote about these stages in Restoring the Early Church. In order to progress through each of the six stages,
a man must adapt or he will find himself unable to move on. Few
men make it to the final stage, the zaken or biblical
elder who pastored the faith communities of the earliest
church.
Those men who do make it to biblical elder
have somewhere along in their adaptations ceased to
concern themselves with WHAT their Lord is directing them to
do. Instead, they’ve delighted themselves in WHO is
commanding them! They’ve arrived in the stem of the
funnel about which we wrote in RTEC. Isn’t this what Paul
discovered from personal experience? “For Christ's love compels us, because we are
convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he
died for all, that those who live should no longer live for
themselves but for him who died for them and was raised
again” (2 Cor. 5:14,15).
We grieve for Christians who have deluded
themselves into self-made prisons by blaming others for their
hurt. The way of sacrificial love makes no sense to them.
They’re still stuck in the WHAT. On the other hand, the
Sovereign WHO tells us, “Blessed
are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say
all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be
glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same
way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. But I
tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you
on the right cheek, turn to him the other also” (Matt. 5:11,12,39).
God’s greatest power is not seen in
our performing signs and wonders, but in our loving those who
hurt us. Sue’s and my daily prayer for our persecuted
brothers and sisters around the world is that they would love
and forgive their persecutors, and that their trust in Jesus
would endure to the end. Isn’t this the same prayer we
need for ourselves? Within our family and faith community we
need to help each other turn hurts around to align with
God’s way and purpose for us. His ways are both
redemptive and powerful to change lives. Only the wholehearted
discern His ways and live by them, for they are found only
along the narrow path.
MY BIGGEST BATTLE IN LIFE IS TO FORGIVE
AND LOVE OTHERS NO MATTER WHAT THEY DO TO ME. I HAVE NO GREATER
BATTLE TO FIGHT. WITHOUT LOVE I AM NOTHING. Pause here and ask
the Spirit to reveal to you anyone you need to forgive from
your heart. Then take the next step on the narrow path and ask
Him to show you how to bless that person in love!
Willful Disobedience Stops Our Progress
The Book of Deuteronomy, in which the
Israelites were repeatedly asked to
remember and to keep the
commands of God, is followed by the Books of Joshua and Judges.
All throughout Joshua are triumphs except when God’s
commands are disobeyed (such as Achan’s sin in Joshua 7).
Joshua, wholehearted toward the things of God, succeeded Moses
and was permitted the joy of leading Israel into the Promised
Land.
The Book of Judges begins with the tribes
of Judah and Simeon joining forces to acquire the land promised
them. But that’s where the triumphs end. You don’t
get too far into the first chapter before you see
wholeheartedness evaporate. The rest of the chapter lists what
the remaining tribes failed to do. These accounts are written as an example for us, and
I would say, especially to us men since so many of the stories
pertain to men—men who faced the same choices we must
make today.
Our Father Does Not Sit Idly By and Watch
You Sin
When His children compromise, Father sets
about a pattern repeated throughout the Scriptures. What did He
say to the tribes that disobeyed Him? Like a good parent he
specifically notes their wrong and the consequences: “Yet you have disobeyed me. Why have you
done this? Now therefore I tell you that I will not drive them
out before you; they will be thorns in your sides and their
gods will be a snare to you...In his anger against Israel the
Lord handed them over to raiders who plundered them. He sold
them to their enemies all around, whom they were no longer able
to resist. Whenever Israel went out to fight, the hand of the
Lord was against them to defeat them, just as he had sworn to
them. They were in great distress” (Judges 2:2,3,14,15).
When we fail to repent, our Lord uses
spirits of oppression in order to turn us back to Him. Can God
be driving you and your family back to Himself at this time?
Take the time to discuss these questions with your family or
small faith community (“For
where two or three come together in my name, there am I with
them” Matt. 18:20):
• Are thorns plaguing you right now?
• Are the values of your family or faith community similar
to those who do not claim to be Christian? • Has your
life hit a series of dead ends in which our Lord has withheld
His blessing? • Is your faith walk hollow?
Being WholeHEARTed
David was a man like us. Even though an
adulterer and a murderer, he was still known as “a man
after God’s own heart.” What a wonderful way to be
known! I believe David’s love for God’s Word was
part of his intimacy with his Lord: “I seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from
your commands. I have hidden your word in my heart that I might
not sin against you” (Psa.
119.10,11). When he did sin, he was quick to repent when the
Lord convicted him. If you find that God is stirring to bring
you to Himself wholeheartedly, then get into His Word
earnestly. It is because of our Father’s jealous love for
you and your household that He is using these chastisements to
bring you back. As you repent and learn from His Word you may
find yourself agreeing with the Psalmist, “It was good for me to be afflicted so that I
might learn your decrees” (119:71).
Men who are wholehearted for the ways of
God find themselves eagerly discussing them as opportunities
arise. As Jesus declares, “For
out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matt. 12:34). It’s easy to tell what a
man values most—it’s what he talks about first or
most often. What does your mouth reveal?
Caleb entered the Promised Land along with
Joshua. The Lord describes him as having “a different spirit and follows me
wholeheartedly. I will bring him into the land he went to, and
his descendants will inherit it” (Num.14:24). Your wholeHEARTedness will do more to
bring about God’s blessing for you and your family than
anything else you can give them. It will not only bring
blessing but will role model for them the way of the Lord.
Isn’t this why God choose Abraham (see Gen. 18:19)?
A key facet of the Hebraic Restoration is
understanding life as a pilgrimage with salvation offered to those who
persevere on the narrow path to it. Let’s walk it
together!
A pilgrim like you, Mike
Dear Sisters in Jesus,
When Mike and Matt and I moved up onto the
prairie we realized quickly how different the demands were on
our very existence compared to the comforts of city apartment
life! Depending on a very inefficient wood stove tucked into
one corner when you have no supply of wood stacked away gives
new meaning to “Be prepared!” Since we knew with
numerous confirmations from praying friends who heard from our
Father that this indeed was a place to settle in, we eagerly
humbled ourselves to learn all we could from the human
resources he surrounded us with.
How do you feel about your neighborhood?
Are you opportunistic for our Lord’s purposes? I know a
dear woman who can’t wait for the day her family can
move, yet when we visited her and met some of the neighbors, I
remarked, “What a fertile area for the Word of Life to be
lived out!” Have you lived in the same area for years and
years, yet other than a smile and a wave, know next to nothing
of the hurts and joys of the people around your home? Have you
missed wonderful opportunities to BE the Church of our Lord
because you were so busy DOING church elsewhere?
“Be wise in the way you act toward
outsiders: Make the most of every opportunity. Let your
conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so
that you may know how to answer everyone”
(Col. 4:5,6).
We only get into Flagstaff once a week,
since it’s 20 miles away (unless we need an emergency run
to Home Depot, which I admit has happened more than once!). But
I’ve found that despite the hurry to get every single
errand done before the frozen food thaws, our Father usually
seems to have a divine appointment set somewhere for me to
[SISTERS] exercise the salt of His Spirit.
It may not be earthshaking, but if I listen to His voice
carefully and don’t get carried away with the task
details, I can relish the absolute fun of bringing His light
into someone’s life. A case in point: I happened to be in
our doctor’s office twice this past week (a very unusual
occurrence for me). The first time, I was in the waiting room
while Mike was having a test done.
A gentleman in obvious pain was seated
near me. As I initiated a conversation with him, it came up
that we had something in common: we were both born in
Connecticut. Not a big deal except that that little connection
seemed to be a door cracked open for me to bring Jesus into the
picture. His pain was from a car accident two years ago in
which he’d badly injured his neck. I mentioned to him
that I knew that our Lord has the power to heal, and that the
doctor was a follower of Jesus. So I suggested to him,
“Why don’t you ask the doctor to pray with you for
healing? He’s a man who trusts God!” The fellow
looked a bit startled at that as he responded to the
receptionist’s call. Whether or not he followed through
was not my responsibility, but a small seed of my trust in
Jesus the Healer was put out onto the soil of his heart that
might not otherwise have been cast forth. It cost nothing but
brought immense joy to my heart to have let our conversation be
seasoned with the salt of His goodness!
The next opportunity to be in season with
His Word, as Paul encouraged his protege in 1 Tim. 4:2,
occurred the very next day, same place, different result: Being
of “a certain age” I felt it prudent to have a bone
density test done to determine if I need to alter my diet or
whatever in order to be as fit as possible for whatever He
calls us to do.
As the technician (a representative from a
supplement company) tested my heel bone, we chatted. I inserted
some comments about our Lord to see if he’d pick up on
it. He did. We had the most wonderfully refreshing and
stimulating conversation about various experiences with Native
American communities (he’d lived in Alaska for 27 years
and had often interacted with Native peoples). As we discussed
the need for dignity to be restored particularly among the
tribal men, his spirit resonated. When I mentioned the website,
he scrambled for paper to write down the address! Again, His
Spirit filled me with joy at the opportunity to not only
identify with the Lord of Life but to also enjoy the
give-and-take fellowship of giving Him praise with another
follower of Jesus!
Back in the “prairie
‘hood” we’ve found that not many are part of
a local Body, but many are fascinated with what our Father is
calling us to share in the Hebraic Restoration! One neighbor
recently had surgery and gladly accepted from us a loaf of
home-[SISTERS] baked bread and two videos that humorously
discuss yielding personal rights in obedient trust to our
Father. Another opportunity to rejoice in His ways and to thank
Jesus for the freedom He’s given me to overcome the
stifling spirit of rejection!
“Faithfully obey the commands I am
giving you today—to love the Lord your God and to serve
Him with all your heart and with all your soul”
(Deut. 11:13).
Jesus repeated this greatest commandment,
since the teachings from the Hebrew Scripture as well as from
the Newer Testament are as potent today as when they were
given. The core idea is the same from both references: our love
and service to our Lord are meant to emanate from our HEART and
from our SOUL—our mind, will and emotions.
Loving and serving Him entails far more
than reading the Bible, praying and participating in
congregational gatherings. WHO HE IS to us is demonstrated very
clearly with every decision we make, every TV show we watch,
every unkind comment or piece of gossip in which we ignore the
convicting probe of the Holy Spirit and rationalize His way
away.
We are in the midst of a culture that is
totally self-absorbed. A poignant letter from a young couple
arrived recently in which the dear woman mourned that her faith
community had lost sight of God’s way—that
compromise ruled and shades of gray had weakened fellow
believers’ resolve to walk in His steps of obedient
trust.
The reminder to be wholehearted in loving and
serving our Lord needs reiteration! Myriads of sermons and
tapes about God have replaced walking
in Him in a way that shows His way
IS different from that of the world! I like the way Peterson
expresses this in The Message: “My
counsel for you is simple and straightforward: Just go ahead with
what you’ve been given. You received Christ Jesus the
Master; now live Him. You’re deeply rooted in Him.
You’re well-constructed upon Him. You know your way
around the faith. Now do what you’ve been taught. School’s
out; quit studying the subject and start
living it! And let your living
spill over into thanksgiving” (Col. 2:
6,7, emphasis added).
Father, who can I email or write to today
who will be uplifted or challenged or encouraged (instead of me
feeling I must read more or listen more or watch more before
I’m prepared)? Who can I surprise with joy in my
neighborhood (or workplace) by bringing a little something
I’ve made or picked up while at the market? Whose kids
can I bring to my house for a game of cards or a simple craft
or story so some exhausted mom can take a bath in peace knowing
her little ones are happy? And [SISTERS] how can I more
effectively yield my heart to YOU, Father, so that all this is
done with joy and peace, with thanks that I can be You in the flesh to
bless someone?
I’m certainly not offering these
questions to bring on guilt or inadequacy but as a gentle
admonishment to ME as well as perhaps to you. Have I become
infected with the selfishness of the religious tradition that
thinks it’s obeying God by what it doesn’t do rather
than by pleasing Him with walking in His light as He is in the Light?
A thought came to me earlier in a
discussion with a friend: Is there enough of Jesus being seen
in me by others so that they’ll either reject Him in me
or accept Him in me? Or will those I talk with instead see me
as a harmless religious person no different than they are in
choices and standards and attitudes?
The man who delivers our water every two
weeks very frankly opened up about his difficult family
situation when he discovered that we too had experienced
similar pain but had found healing and restoration of
relationships through the intervention of Jesus. He knows we
pray for him daily and that his family is important to us, even
though we haven’t yet met them. But never once has he
asked us to stop praying, or to mind our own business.
Mike and I firmly believe that as we pray,
our Lord releases His power and intervention into each
situation so that the ones for whom we pray have an opportunity to choose. They may respond toward Him, they may not. But our
part is to voice our trust and to walk in it and share the
testimonies that validate it. We realize that there’s
always more to learn about our Lord from others, whether from
testimony or written word, but if given a choice of time use
between learning more about Him or living more for Him, I do
believe our Father prefers the latter!
His earliest disciples breathed Him out
with every conversation and lived Him out with every action.
Like David, when they fell to fleshly desires, those who
yearned for continued intimacy with Him turned from sin and
humbly received His cleansing and forgiveness. That’s who
I want to be: a beloved sheep responding to my Shepherd’s
voice and following in His power.
The lyrics of an Annie Herring song
express this yearning in my heart:
“Oh, I know the time is near when
everything that I hold dear will lay before the holy consuming
fire. All my works and all my deeds and every prayer said on my
knees will lay before the holy consuming fire. But all I want
to see is Jesus, all I want to see is Him in me, All I want to
see is Jesus shining through me. And hear Him say well done, my
precious one. Well done, well done, my faithful one.”
[SISTERS] Creative
Provision: Learning the Contentment of Obedient Trust
As I meditate on our Father’s Word,
I’ve discovered that the only thing we’re to truly
look forward to with eager anticipation is the return of Jesus! Yet
do you ever catch yourself moaning that your current situation
or circumstances can’t get over soon enough? As Mike
wrote, the WHO in our lives is the all-important factor, not
the WHAT of our discomforting agitation. We might not be filled
with joy at what He’s asking of us, but when we pause
long enough to realize WHO is doing the asking—our
all-caring, all-providing Lord of all Creation, then the
marching orders pale in significance to the plans and purposes
He has, even if we’re not so sure how it’s going to
turn out for good!
Let me use as an illustration a wonderful
opportunity our Lord gave to dear friends who are just
beginning in their pilgrimage with Him to discover how creative
His provision can be. This couple knew from prayer and
confirmation that our Lord was taking them along a pathway less
traveled. The work to which He was calling them would be
dependent on others coming alongside with the resources
necessary for their expenses and bills to be paid.
They were somewhat nervous about this, but
as He’s privileged us to live in this manner for the past
18 years, we encouraged them to love and trust Him and look
expectantly for creative provision from His hand. They didn't
have long to wait.
Within a few days, friends from a family
camp in Montana contacted them with an all-expenses-paid
invitation to relax and share with them for a week. One of the
campers, a waitress at a local restaurant, then unexpectedly
picked up their tab out of her earnings, not even knowing they
were short on cash. Then other friends called to say that
He’d prompted them to give the couple their car, since
they were getting another one. Did they see the loving hand of
their Father provide in ways they never could have pictured? Oh
Yes!! The WHO never fails, and we must remember that promise
whenever we get anxious about the WHAT He’s allowing us
to experience!
NavRugs Update: Amazing Connection!
Near the tiny town of Mitchell, NE where
James and Joyce Skeet were visiting our dear ones Griff and
Reva is the main wool processing plant from which the NM
trading posts buy wool to sell at huge markup to the Native
weavers. When the Skeets visited the plant, James prayed a
blessing for the manager and may now be able to acquire wool
wholesale for the rug weavers! What wonderful encouragement for
the ladies to then receive a greater percentage of the cost to
make their rugs when they sell!! Praise to our Father!
With a song of thanks to our Lord, Sue
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