We find what we look for.

Digging up the Hebraic Roots of Christianity has revealed many new Scriptural treasures for me. I guess I'm just one of these people with an overwhelming compulsion to get this Christianity thing "right". I want to know God and to know what He wants, expects, and approves. I can't just "wing it" on this earthly journey. Living the Christian life is not about taking the lazy way and guessing at things, or trusting my own opinion or the opinions of others. Deuteronomy 4:29 says that "You will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul." Psalm 14:2 tells me that God looks down from Heaven to see if I am seeking Him. Psalm 105:3 tells me that my heart will rejoice if I seek Him. Proverbs 2 says that if I seek God, I will find the knowledge of Him. And Hebrews 11:6 confirms that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. One way to seek God is in His Scriptures for He reveals Himself to us in them. I think that Biblical ignorance leaves us starving Spiritually. I read somewhere that, to the Jews, the highest form of worship is to study the Word of God. That just makes sense, doesn't it? Some of the Scriptures can be more difficult to understand, yet if it is important enough to us to understand His word, then we will do the study and the digging and He will reveal this knowledge, again - "you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart..." No time or effort spent seeking God in His Word is wasted because "He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him." To sum it up, I guess my favorite verse about this topic is: “Now set your mind and heart to seek the Lord your God.” (1 Chronicles 22:19) (Funny, I thought I was going to write about the Names of God today, but this topic took over completely. I guess "seeking" was supposed to be today's subject, God must think it's pretty important.) Maybe I'll do the Names tomorrow( if God doesn't have other plans for me). Anyway, .....Shalom.

The profound meaning of the word Torah.

I am saved by God's grace. I cannot earn my salvation. However, the Torah(the Old Testament Law) is God's guidelines for holy living. Observing the Torah does not save me, but helps me to know how to please and honor the One I love. To make it clear, being Torah Observant is not a means to salvation or an attempt to work my way to Heaven. The Messiah has already paid the price for my sins and made it possible for me to go to Heaven. Having said that, I would like to share with you a discovery that thrilled me:

Hebrew is read from right to left. Modern Hebrew looks a little different than ancient or Paleo Hebrew. The original Hebrew written during the time of Moses would have been the Paleo Hebrew. The word "Torah" in ancient Hebrew is the graphic you see below. Here we have the Hebrew letters tav, vav, resh, and hey. Reading right to left they are a cross, meaning to seal or covenant. Then a peg or nail, meaning to secure. The second letter from the left is a head, meaning a person, then the first letter on the left is a person with hands raised which means to behold, or it can also mean what comes from. When these symbols are combined, the ancient Hebrew word for Torah is quite profound: "behold the man who secures the covenant." It can also be read as "what comes from the man nailed to the cross." Think the Torah has no relevance for Christians today?

The "Law" is a Biblical term for the first five books of the Bible, also called the Books of Moses, and collectively called the Torah. Torah means "instruction". God's intention for giving me the Torah was not to hold me back or make me a slave to His LAW, but to instruct me in holiness. Exodus 24:12 - "the law....which I have written for their instruction." For over 1,400 years, from Moses to Jesus (Yeshua), the Torah was the standard of godliness for His chosen people. The Torah is God's rulebook and if I do not know it, study it, or apply it, I am playing by some other rules, not God's. I can claim to be a good Christian, but if I am ignorant and - through my neglect - disrespecting the Torah, I am not applying Biblical Christianity to my life. Through the years, while in the professional ministry, many people have told my husband and me "well, I'm just not a reader, so that's why I don't read the Bible." However, we should all take responsibility to study the Scriptures, ask questions, learn, and grow. It is not Spiritually healthy to take anyone's word for our beliefs, it falls upon all of us to take personal interest in our beliefs and Spiritual growth. The lazy way, ( the way which will gain us no rewards), is to take on faith what a priest, pope, preacher, or rabbi says without searching the truth out for ourselves. Many many copies of God's Word can be had practically for pennies, in modern easy-to-read translations. There are no excuses for not knowing the instruction of God. This, of course, includes the study of the Torah. Knowing the Torah is to know the full Biblical heritage of the Christian, to make us better disciples of the Jewish Messiah. The Torah is the foundation of the Bible, yet woefully neglected by Christians, to their great disadvantage. Nothing in the New Testament cancels the Torah. The Torah reveals God's wisdom and His will. Even before I knew the first five books were called the Torah, I would read and study these books knowing that in them I would get to know God intimately. They became the books I studied more than any other in the Bible, and became my Theological foundation. As a Roman Catholic and later as an Evangelical Christian I would say to myself "why don't we get into these books more deeply in Bible studies and pulpit messages?" I knew we were missing something very very important. I will be bold here and state that to know Torah is to truly know God. His mind, His will, and indeed, His Son.