Human Condition

Something I have been thinking about lately is how things that are good for you are difficult and the things that are bad for you are very easy, or so they seem. Let us begin with the things that are good for you. Exercise,  eating right, living for God, even learning. Now for some people in the world particular things on this list are enjoyable and in fact give them meaning. However for all us NORMAL people out there it is difficult. On the flip side bad things for you i.e. eating bad, not exercising, and living wicked lives is sooooo easy. For example you can gain weight in like a week but it will take 3 months to lose that weight. Ok maybe a slight exaggeration but you can relate. Since this is true why wouldn't God just make the easy things good and the bad things hard. Some may say that it is because he wants us to build character and doesn't want weak willed punks in his family. Duly noted and that may be the answer but it goes against everything innate in our fallen condition. This brings me to my next point of how we can be motivated and need some sort of motivation to do any action in our lives. I have talked with many of my friends and they say to figure out why I am doing the action and use that to fuel our action. But I run into the problem of figuring out why I do most things. So I determined you may not know why you do something but should and must do it for your own sake and if you are a believer God's sake as well. For me it is working out and trying (not really) to eat healthy. I hate the gym and it is on my top ten list of places that should be destroyed but I know that it is a necessary evil that I must embrace for my own good. So while those things that are bad for you are easier the price you pay in the long run GREATLY out weighs the pain or unhappiness at the onset of those good things. Life is choices and each one you make will have good or bad consequences so we all need to be conscience of that every second of every day.

Praise Offering in Action

Shout out to Farqu Taylor for showing me this

Messianic Judaism

For those of you that scratched your heads when you read in my About Me section that  I was a Messianic Jew, this is for you. Just as a reminder this is my opinion and view on what I believe to be Messianic Judaism if you disagree or want to clarify I encourage you to do some research. The purpose of Messianic Judaism is to restore the Jewish that the Bible has seemed to have lost in the past 2000 years. Also to call the Jewish people back to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Since I attended a Christian high school and have been confronted on what I believe and why I believe it I have come up with a pretty concise response. There are many Christians in the world, particularly new Christians, that Jesus was a Christian or a gentile. Well to rectify that misconception Jesus was as Jewish as Matzah on Passover at a Bar Mitzvah party. Now there is a lot of debate and skepticism on the law which we as Messianic Jews adhere to. The one with he biggest controversy or so I believe is eating Kosher. Now I have yet to decide what my stance is on following all of the 613 commands that God decrees through out the Torah (first five books of the Bible) however I have formulated a rough idea. Paul says many times that it is by faith not works but that dos not mean that works should be disregarded. I think that when it comes to following the commands of the Bible it is partially a case by case basis. In Romans Paul mentions the weak faith brother and the strong faith brother both have faith but live different lives. What I think is more important than determining what laws you should and shouldn't follow is knowing the history of Christ. The matter of the law is based mostly on peoples interpretations of many texts that are used repeatedly. The history and genealogical past that Christ comes from is far more important. My Dad explained his transition from Christianity to Messianic Judaism as such, "when I was a Christian it was like watching television in black and white, you could get the point but it wasn't complete. With Messianic Judaism it is like watching in color." Understanding the history that Christ came from and in fact lived out is essential in fully understanding his life and the story that God was telling through out the whole Bible and even today. One example of the understanding that comes from this knowledge is the "random" passages that Christ would quote from the Old Testament. Christ would attend service at the Synagogue every week and those passages were from the Torah portion from that week. In Judaism there is a Torah cycle which goes through the 5 books every year and there are specific readings for each week. Another example is the Last supper which was in fact a Passover Sedar. You can more fully understand the meaning of Christ being the sacrificial Lamb if you understand the connection to the first Passover when Moses led the Jews out of Egypt. So personally I don't care if you eat bacon or not but what I do care about is that if you are a believer in Christ that you understand everything he is and represents.