“Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me, and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” (John 15:4-5 NASB)
What does this mean to us? How do we abide in Him?
Ya know, I have thought a lot about this the last couple of days. It is funny that we often think that we can follow Torah on our own. (I don’t know, maybe this is just me, so if it is, please humor me) I mean, we study and study, and do and do, and there is nothing wrong with that. However, if we are not taking the time to go to the Source of all that we are, then we will find death.
Yeshua says, “Abide.” It is really that simple. If we want to bear fruit, if we want to make a difference for eternity, if we want to sanctify this world, then we must abide.
This means taking the time to daily connect with God. Prayer is a huge key. Whether praying with a siddur, or spontaneously, or whatever, take the time to talk to the Father. Allow Him to reveal how ugly you really are, and then allow Him to remind you that in Him you are a new creation.
I guess that I’m on a bit of a soapbox, and for that I apologize. However, this is something that has been eating at me for a couple of days now, and I felt that it needed to be shared. Please don’t think that I have it all figured out, because if there is one thing that I’m NOT good at, it’s abiding.
This last Sunday, I had a very interesting experience that taught me a great deal.
I was sharing with a couple of friends about the Abir Warrior Arts, and one of them just didn’t seem all that interested. I was pretty excited about this, and my friend finally just shrugged and said something to the affect of, “So what the guy’s a Hassidic Jew and knows marshal arts. He doesn’t know Jesus.”
I immediately got very defensive. I retorted, “Yes, but without the Jews, we wouldn’t have a Messiah!” In my mind, I thought that he was just being anti-semitic, a familiar trait that we in the MESSianic movement like to project on to our fellow Christian brothers and sisters.
There wasn’t much else said, and eventually my friend went into the other room. I felt that I had offended my brother, so I followed and sheepishly, almost half-heartedly apologized.
What he began to share with me after that blew me away. He told me, “Aaron, I really feel that when you talk about Judaism and all things Jewish, you have a great passion, but that same passion is missing when you talk about Jesus.” (Ya know, I really could quit writing after that quote, because it hit me like a ton of bricks, but there is more to come.)
He continued, “Aaron, I used to think that the Jews were bad people until I met you. I had no desire to do anything related to them, but because of you, I’m excited to wear tzitzit.” (He doesn’t wear them yet, but it will happen when He’s ready, and when it is done from his heart to glorify the Father.) “After my wife and I spent one night of Hanukah at your house, we are talking about celebrating it in the future. We totally enjoyed ourselves.”
I was FLOORED. I have NEVER spent any time talking to this man about Torah or anything like that. We have just spent time building relationship. He is the last person in our church that I would have expected to make the statements that he made concerning tzitzit and Hanukah. However, because he did say those things, he will follow through. He is not a man who takes his words lightly.
As of this writing I just finished listening to Seth Dralle’s sermon entitled “Unity and Ethics.” He made a statement in there that I think is very fitting to this story that I’m sharing. He said that great things could be accomplished if we in the Torah movement would spend more time practicing and studying ethics and promoting unity.
I am so quick to get defensive about all things Jewish or Torah related. I really need to quit worrying about it, and live the way that God has called me to live. The particulars are not as important as how our hearts are changed. Remember, the New Covenant is that the Torah is written on our hearts. If our hearts are not changed, we have to ask the question of whether or not we are a part of the New Covenant.
This last Shabbat, our pastor shared on the topic mentioned above. I have to tell you, I felt like I was in a boxing match throughout the whole of the sermon.
This is a topic that our movement will do well to reflect on at length. I’m not talking about some kind of superficial unity, but one that is forged by going through difficulties together, learning how to love each other.
It hit me that so often, I am very quick to judge my brothers and sisters because they are not where I think I am spiritually. I fail to remember that the same Messiah that died for me, died for them as well, and my sin is just as bad (if not worse than) theirs.
We are often wont to condemn our brothers in the Messiah that are not Torah observant, because they are not obeying the Torah. I think that we have MUCH to learn from those that focus on getting their hearts right before the Father, more than they focus on the externals.
It is time that we begin to earnestly seek the Father to write His Torah on our hearts, so that all that we do reflects Him, and not our attempts to be like Him in our own efforts. I really appreciate what Bill Beyer has to say on this topic.
If our lives do not reflect the Fruit of the Spirit, then our study of Torah will yield only pride. We must truly seek to know the Father and have the Torah written on our hearts if we are ever to be successful in reaching the world with the Gospel of the Kingdom.
