Do the Thing, You Know, the Thing..., 

I dropped my number 7 child at a church yesterday, where her choir sang. Being a Messianic Jew who is "against" man-ordained Sunday worship, I did not let her sing there, but they were going to WKU after that to an invitational. I walked into the church with her, waiting with her for the service to end. I walked out laughing, and when I got home, I was immediately convicted that it was no laughing matter. Here is the church's official statement.

A warm welcome to everyone! At (---------------------, of Christ), we believe God's love is expansive and unconditional and that through Jesus Christ, God has called us to love one another as God loves us. We welcome believers who seek to journey in faith with Jesus Christ, as well as questioners who have doubts or do not believe. At Central, we honor other holy histories and traditions as we celebrate the worth, dignity and gifts of every person as a child of God. We welcome all persons into membership who seek to follow Jesus Christ regardless of previous religious affiliation, mode of baptism, gender, race, ethnic background, age, sexual orientation, economic circumstance, family configuration or ability. 

– the Elders of ----------- ---------- Church, 2010

This is the part that scares me. When Yeshua said, "Wide is the road to destruction, and narrow is the path to life," he was speaking to HIS OWN PEOPLE. The church uses this against the general public, assuming all of themselves to be "in good with GOD."

That verse is NOT for the general public, it is specifically for the "church," which is a man-made and ordained institution. I was in it for 30 years, so I'm not just blowing smoke. I know what the "church" teaches, and YHVH GOD has seen fit to call me out and show me the truth of The Way, the way the Apostles walked and taught. The "church" today has its own "Halacha," a combination of man-made rules, doctrines, and traditions allegedly supported by Scripture. Folks, man can make the Bible say whatever man wants it to say. The pendulum swings dangerously both ways, leaving out billions of people who are absolutely convinced they are following Jesus; the only problem being is that their "Jesus" doesn't exist. I keep hearing from the Holy Spirit that the New Testament Gentile Christian church has created GOD and Jesus in their own image, in the image that is acceptable to them. Everything in the Hebrew Scriptures, i.e., the Old Testament is a foreshadow of the times to come, because my friends, "THERE IS NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN!"

The "church" skirts around many verses that do not please their palette of church doctrines, the the Word is clear. You cannot get around the verses where Yeshua said that those who do the will of his Father are those who will go on to everlasting life.

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many [s]miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; leave Me, you who practice lawlessness.’

  The church is no different than the two houses of Israel, one was conquered and dispersed among the earth, to this day, and the other, Judah was "punished" for 70 years. Both houses of Israel made idols out of other gods which did not exist, as well as redefined the Torah and who YHVH GOD said He was.

I think this COVID weapon, along with the deadly vaccine, which was intended to injure and kill, was nothing less than GOD allowing "Babylon" laying siege on the earth, i.e. all people, like they did for Judah in 605 BC. Eventually, Nebuchadnezzar came back and finished the job, and if we do not shape up, the majority of us will go down with the ship.

      THE FRUITS OF MY LABOR: And no one understands this better than an octomom!

     Sometimes, my own stupidity amazes even me.  I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer, why even the butter knives laugh at me.  I am so amazed at the patience of the Almighty who continually puts up with the idiotic behavior I sometimes exhibit, okay, I usually exhibit.  I complain constantly about my own personal trauma when I know darn well that He has assigned me a job that is so much bigger than myself and my own petty problems.  I had been sleeping the day away, because I became so self-absorbed in my personal trauma, again. That was until I had this horrible nightmare. I woke up from it, knew it was from GOD, but couldn't for the life of me figure out what it was about, but I knew it was from YHVH GOD.

THE NIGHTMARE:

I was pregnant at this late age, I gave birth, but the hospital took the baby from me, not letting me see it, or know if it was a boy or girl, and told me to go home, and when the baby was ready to come home, they would call. I went home, went about taking care of my eight children, and forgot about the baby for weeks. When I called the hospital, they said there was no record of me giving birth, but they would get back to me. Again, months went by, and I remembered the baby, again. It was then that I realized the hospital had stolen my baby for the black market. I knew no court in the land would side with me, because I had forgotten about my baby for months. I couldn't stop crying and had to have one of the kids dial my phone to get their father over here. I called him to come over so we could go to the hospital together, but then the pipes burst in my upstairs master bathroom.

Strange, huh? Well, just doing the dishes, the Holy Spirit said to me to think about it. What have I been neglecting? My writing, my assignment as a writer for the despaired. My ninth baby is my job as a writer. The books are the baby. I can't see the results of the books, because I won't be here to see the fruit of my labor. It is my fondest desire for the LORD to take me out of this world before He takes the words I have written world-wide. The last thing I want is fame or notoriety in this world where everyone pretends to be someone famous. No one pretends to be a dead person, well, unless you're voting democrat. Sorry, couldn't resist.

I'm so stupid most of the time. I haven't quite figured out the pipes bursting, maybe that's the cancer, which will be my Ticket Home, keeping me from getting to the hospital to retrieve the "fruits of my labor."

ADDENDUM: November 12, 2024, I just figured out what the pipes bursting is. Daggone it, it's not cancer, it's this brain aneurysm in my head that I was diagnosed with a few months ago. Makes sense, huh? GOD taking me out quick with one killer headache. Pun intended.

 

Stone Siblings 

Because Allen Means Stone!

    

    Biological connection does not make a family, love does. That was in very short supply in the family and home in which I grew up in, due to the fact that my parents despised each other.  They never taught us to love each other or anyone else. My mother taught us to hate everyone, my father taught us to love only ourselves. I'm not saying they indoctrinated us with that, I'm saying they lived that out before us.

     I used to be covetous of other families whose siblings were loving and intimately close friends, while mine were only related by blood. Once every ten years or so, they'd be a family reunion of sorts for some special occasion, and I always dreaded going, because I knew what I would be facing. I was always the odd man out, and the older I got the odder I became, to them. The closer I became with YHVH GOD the less I was liked by them.  It's to the point now, where I am not even welcome to a family funeral, and not only am I not welcome, but my children are not welcome, either.   

    I have looked at this picture hundreds of times over the decades, and I never noticed that I am "set apart" from the rest of them.  They are all in relatively close contact with each other, and I am off to the side a bit, I am the odd man out.  That never occurred to me before this moment.  Kodesh/Kadosh are Hebrew words that mean "SET APART."  The English Bible translators translated those words as holy.  Holy to most church people means pure, clean, good, and yet that is nothing like what the Hebrew word means.  The Hebrew words do not always translate properly into English, because Hebrew words have so much more depth to them than the English. Christians have misused and mistranslated the word holy for centuries. It simply means, SET APART. Something could be set apart for a good use or even a bad use. Someone can be set apart to do a work for GOD and some people could be set apart to do an evil thing, all for the purposes of the growth of the Kingdom of GOD or a person's spiritual growth and health.

     Having studied the Bible as a means of survival these past decades,  I have observed a lot of sibling dysfunction. The very first sibling rivalry ended in murder.  Cain, out of his jealousy for Abel's being favored of GOD, killed him, for no other reason than jealousy and hate.  Jacob and Esau were a mess because their parents pitted them against one another by favoring one over the other. Most of the Biblical heroes were not well-liked by their siblings, they were SET APART by GOD for His special purpose.  David is a perfect example, the "runt" of the family, and quite possibly not even from the same mother as the other seven, according to ancient Hebrew tradition.  It has been thought by ancient Rabbis that David could have been the son of an adulterous woman or even a prostitute,  None of that is in the Bible, but it does make sense, seeing how he was definitely the family reject. 1 Samuel 17 tells it all. (28 Eli’av his oldest brother heard when David spoke to the men, and it made Eli’av angry at him. He asked, “Why did you come down here? With whom did you leave those few sheep in the desert? I know how conceited you are and how wicked your heart is! You just came down to watch the fighting.” 29 David said, “What have I done now? I only asked a question.”)  

     Many times, the set apart one is called the trouble maker, is the hated one for no other reason than there is something different in them.  Jacob's son, Joseph, was just that kind of brother.  His brothers  were so full of hate they had no regard for how losing Joseph would devastate their father.  Their stone-hearted hate was more important to them then their father's heart of flesh. They had no remorse when they lied to him, telling him that his precious son was eaten by a wild animal, and bringing back only a bloody tunic. They were never convicted of their guilt, until such a time as near twenty years later when they were in a bind, and it occurred to them that this was their punishment for what they did to Joseph and their father.  Sadly, some family members are never convicted about their ill-treatment of the "set-apart" one. 

     GOD doesn't see the ugly others see, He sees a set-apart one.  Even if that set apart one is living in very ugly and not so pure circumstances.  YHVH GOD knows what He will be doing with His set-apart ones, and we are judged based on what His plans are, not the mistakes we make.   

    Even Jesus had a few renegade brothers who thought Jesus went mad by calling himself the "Son of GOD. (Mark 3: 21 When his family heard about this, they set out to take charge of him; for they said, “He’s out of his mind!”). I love Jesus response, which was basically, he dissed them in public, and they well deserved it. Jesus did not do it with malice, but with truth in love. Jesus said, in a nutshell, biology means nothing, but those who belong to GOD are my true family. 

      So, although, I have been envious of other families and their closeness, in a way, I'm glad that I grew up in the house of "stone," full of hate and rivalry, at least that's all I ever felt from them. When I was twenty-six-years-old, GOD changed my stone heart to flesh, (Ezekiel 37), and as the years passed, He blessed me with eight children of my own, two more than my mother had. Although, it is never pleasant to be rejected, falsely accused and blamed for everything from one's siblings, I was the one of the six who YHVH GOD set-apart.  I was the one called to a special work for Him, while they just revile me more and more each year. The key here is to always see how YHVH GOD sees us, not as man sees us.  

     

    

 How to explain the Spiritual to those who don't have the Spirit. 

       Recently, by miracles of miracles, my atheist 91-year-old father decided to come to visit.  We haven't ever been a really close family, and my relationship with my father has been somewhat strained over the years.  I grew up in a very dysfunctional home, where my mother and father came from two different extremes in thought and behavior.  It was a marriage made in hell, no doubt.  From that marriage, GOD brought forth six children.  For some strange in explicable reason, GOD chose me out of the entire bunch to be His exclusively, in other words, I am the only "born-again" believer in the entire line, going beyond both my mother and my father's lines.  If anyone understood how Abram felt when YHVH GOD called him out of his family and homeland, I do.  

     When it happened to me in 1989, I did not come seeking GOD, I did not have any kind of traumatic event in which I was desperately seeking some kind of life-saving miracle.  I hadn't hit rock bottom and realized there was no place else to go, nor was I converted in a church or pounded over the head by a Bible thumper with the ABC's of salvations. (Admit you are a sinner, Believe you need a Savior, Jesus, and the Confess him as your Lord and Savior.)That is the church's 3-step plan to becoming saved out of our lost state to people have no concept of being lost.  That's man's way of explaining the Gospel, it is not the Biblical and Spiritual way.  He, GOD just came for me.   All of a sudden, there was another world that I was aware of and drawn to, and there was no way to resist the pull. It was from there that I sought out the truth from the only "Bible thumper" I knew at the time. I asked him where it said that one had to be born-again, and although it took him way too long to find it, I read my first Scripture (John 3:3), and I believed it to be true.  From there, with the door open, GOD did the rest of the work to complete the mission of bringing me into a world I never knew existed before.  It was then that I went from lost to saved, even though I had no idea that I was lost in the first place. 

    1 Corinthians explains the difference between the "lost and the saved," far better than any church person can, but how do we explain 1 Corinthians 2 in the spiritual to one how has not the Spirit.   It's like teaching Greek to an English speaking student using only the Greek language with no translation tools.  Or like typing Scripture out in wingding font and expecting them to get it.  There must be some kind of translation tool that opens the world of Greek to an only English speaking person.  It's is the same in the Spiritual.  That tool is the Holy Spirit. 

     If the Holy Spirit doesn't translate from "wingdings font to cursive, and then to regular print (for those under the age of 40) we will never be able to understand the Scriptures.  Sometimes, the Holy Spirit will give someone like me a great metaphor that will explain to the unspiritual what it is like to travel and operate in the spiritual, and that just happened.  I am awake at 2 AM because I just had this vivid dream, and I woke up abruptly.  I know when I've had a dream like that, waking up abruptly out of it, my mind automatically starts to mediate on that dream to try and understand why I had it. When I can't get my mind off the topic or my body back to sleep, I know it is the Holy Spirit saying to me, "Think Kristina."  Sometimes, my dreams have no point, and then there are times like tonight when I can see the point clear as day, clear as looking at a photograph instead of the negative.  I am going to attempt to explain the unconscious mind and where it can go in sleep/dream state, because many of you know that when we dream, it's nearly impossible to explain the circumstances of the dream because it's almost as if it is in a different realm.  Quite frankly, it is.  

      I once heard a sermon that hinted that dreaming was much like entering the Spiritual Realm  where angels dwell.  We cannot see that world, but when our minds are free to go, because our bodies are at complete rest, we dream what scientist call REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep.  It is then that most of us have dreams.  Some of us have quite vivid dreams that we can remember, even if the details are foggy. Then there are some of us never seem to dream at all.  My husband is like that.  He said he never dreams, or remembers dreaming.  That's almost kind of scary, because it would make me question his salvation, but, maybe being saved isn't just about dreaming.  I think that some of us are "gifted" with the ability to go to that "dream place," the Spiritual Realm, while sleeping, and there YHVH GOD communicates with us.  That certainly is how it happened in the Hebrew Scriptures with prophets like Joseph, Daniel, Ezekiel, Zechariah, and the like.  I am one of those person who dreams almost before REM even starts.  I'll start to fall asleep and I'm already dreaming, even though my mind is still conscious of the physical realm.  It's that really deep sleep that I go to a place that I cannot explain in words that can be understood.   It's not every night, but it is most nights, and on a rare occasion like tonight, I'll wake up abruptly from a dream that has deep Spiritual connotations, and I'm forced to contemplate them over ad over, enough so that going back to sleep is out of the question.  

    So, to the best of my ability, I'm going to try and put into words what has no language.  In my dream I was in some kind of medical training.  Imagine being up on top of water, learning how to live underwater, even though one must keep their eyes closed under water because it's pitch dark under there.  In this school, I was learning how to function in the complete darkness under the "sea," and then, it was my turn to go under.  I went under the "water" in complete darkness into this hospital type and my personal trainer was saying to me from above, "Okay, now, you've been trained where the walls are, where the hallways are, where the rooms are, and how to hear the patients, use what you've learned in your head to function.  Use the map we gave you from your mind in the pitch dark."  

    In spiritual terms, walk in faith, knowing you've had the training and now get that hands-on experience with what has been placed in our heads.  Living in faith of YHVH GOD is much like living under that water.  Unless we are explained "boundaries and entrances" are we won't know where to go.  We have to be trained to listen to the "patients" when and where they call and be able to attend to them.  We can only be trained in the Scripture and the patients would the lost world needing us to tend to their sickness of original sin.  

     In my dream, I was learning all alone with my personal trainer, but when I went under, there was a fellow student who was trained elsewhere.  We were both going so slow in the darkness, using the skills we had been taught to get around.  It was just a short time later, an emergency came, and a patient was calling us for assistance.  We both couldn't walk slowly anymore, we had to run through the hallways to attend to this patient, so we both just started running in the pitch dark.  Within just a few minutes, we began to see where we were going, but not in black and white, but in negative form as in the picture above.  He was behind me, and he said, "I can see now," and I said, "Yeah, me too."   We bolted through the hallways and could see the patterns on the walls and the floor tiles, then I woke up. 

     We could see not the details of the "hospital," but the forms of the walls and floors and doorways.  At the same time, we both exclaimed that we could see and we needed to hurry to that patient.      The only way I can think to explain what I dreamed do that in metaphor, so hold on to your hats, we are about to enter the metaphorical world of this metaphor mama. In the world of photography, there is the picture in great detail on white film paper, and then there is the negative from which that picture was developed.  An experienced photographer in his red-light developing room can see more details of his work in the negative, and it is protected from being over exposed in the bright lights of a white fluorescent world.   I don't know if that makes sense, but that "negative" world needs to stay protected in the dark.  In other words, the Spiritual World is alive and active under the "red-light" protective power of GOD.  

     This is definitely not a blog post that one can skim through and understand, but it's going to take some time and imagination to understand.  The Spiritual Realm is under the control of the Almighty, only by the Holy Spirit are we invited to live in it.  Some have the gift, or what I rather call the burden of being able to see "under water" with our eyes closed what other cannot see when they are swimming. It is both a gift and a burden, because it is impossible to explain to the seeing physical world, and even more impossible to explain to those outside the realm of faith who have not the Holy Spirit as their translator. Fellow believers may get it, but they don't know if they believe it. 

     I was trying to explain the spiritual to my atheist father, knowing he did not have the Holy Spirit.  I showed him 1 Corinthians 2 passage and for the first time, as an adult, my father read the Holy Scriptures.  I told him, "Dad, I can't explain GOD and the spiritual things to you, because you live in the black and white world.  You haven't been given the ability to see the things of GOD, and only He can give you that ability, but this is how I am trying to explain spiritual terms in black and white."  

     His question to me was, "well, how then do you know what you are reading in the Bible is true?"  That is the most difficult question we get hit with a lot of times.  I showed him the passage about Moses.  GOD had to reach down and "show up" in the physical world with a burning bush that was not being consumed by the fire, and Moses had to "turn aside" to see.  He was willing to check out what this event was, and when GOD saw that he had turned aside to further investigate, it was then that GOD called to him.  It is like that with us when we try to explain the spiritual terms of salvation to an atheist.  YHVH GOD has to show up with a "miraculous" hand to do something statistically impossible to show that He can do the unbelievable and impossible.  It is when we open our mind, or as I told him, crack the door open to the possibility that GOD exists and is truly reaching out to us that he bursts open wide the door and fills us with the Holy Spirit, the translator.  He agreed to crack the door open, and now it is up to YHVH GOD whether to open wide the understanding of the Spiritual to him.  I explained to him that with those little bits of proof, we are invited to hold our breath and jump into the sea of faith, like jumping into a deep blue and dark ocean.  Unless we hold our breath and jump in, we will never be able to experience underwater, much less be able to see underwater.  That is the faith spoken of in Hebrews 11:6. (6 And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for the one who comes to God must believe that He exists, and that He proves to be One who rewards those who seek Him.)  It is that willingness on our parts to hold our breaths, jump in, trusting there is life under the sea.  That my friends is saving faith.  

     It isn't coming to the end of ourselves, because in the natural flesh, that is impossible. Only the Holy Spirit can show us that we are sinners in need of a Savior, and that happens when we hold our breath and jump out of the boat into the sea of the unknown.  We have to be told, trained and taught that there is life under the sea, then we have to trust the one who told us that they may be speaking the truth.  It is only after we jump off that boat that we ourselves will experience walking "under" the water, and able to see the life under there and thrive and breathe in the the truth of the Spiritual Realm.  Telling someone who doesn't believe in the Spiritual Realm that there is a Mighty GOD and beings that dwell there, then explaining their need for a Savior is the equivalent of typing this entire blog in wingdings font. 

 Who Adopted Whom?

     I have another metaphor that recently came to mind while reading a book called, If GOD Already Knows, Why Pray? by Douglas F. Kelly.  I highly recommend this wonderful book.  It is the second time I'm reading it, and it is basically and expanded dissection of the LORD's Prayer, line by line.  Its very first point is how GOD is our intimate Father, because He is the Intimate Father of Yeshua/Jesus His true and only begotten Son.  We on the other hand are not "related" in such a way to the Father.  We are strangers, orphans on a very large planet called Earth.  This is going to be what seems to be a very basic and primary metaphor and very simple to understand.  Yet the truth of it when truly contemplated is really very deep.  

     Imagine the world as one great big huge orphanage.  GOD is the prospective adoptive parent. He goes to the orphanage, because He desires to adopt some orphaned children.  He did not have to, because He already had a son, but He wanted to expand His family.  Having sought out the orphanage, knowing its full history, because He instituted it, He would know what kind of orphans and counselors (clergy/Bible teachers) are there.  He would know what they are teaching the children. He would know what they are learning, and He would know the heart of each child.  He, therefore, could confidently know who was learning, and who was robotically obeying for rewards.  Some children weren't even interested in rewards, rather they just rebelled against the authorities of those running the orphanage, because they did not like the rules of the road.   

     Having known the heart of each "child" in the orphanage, YHVH GOD Himself would choose which child He would adopt.  He would adopt that child by visiting with him and reaching out to that child. He would introduce Himself and  reveal Himself as their adoptive Father, thus showing that child His intimate and loving nature. That child never even knew that there was an Adoptive Father seeking that child, until the Adoptive Father revealed Himself.  Most times the Father caught him completely off guard.   Because He knew the child, He knew that the child would respond to the Father's revelation of Himself, and come to accept and know Him almost immediately.  Not only would the Father choose and adopt that child, but He would set a standard and rules to live by in order for that child to remain in good graces with Him. Some are just adopted into the family and some of His adopted children were chosen for extraordinary tasks.  They get an extra dose of revelation of Who their Adoptive Father is.  

     Knowing that no child would ever be a perfect child, He arranged for His natural son to be a mediator, a go-between for the sinful child who wanted a Loving Heavenly Father and to be a part of His family.  That child would recognize and gratefully respond in kind to the Son's intervention by doing his very best to live up to the Father's standards and rules.  In other words, the Earth is GOD's house, and if we want to remain living under His "roof," being a part of His family, we have to live by His rules.  Most parents and adult children can understand that rule because I doubt hardly a child who hasn't heard that at least once from his loving parents.  They understand the rules, they respect the rules and they respect the parent who set the rules.  Those who don't understand or respect them leave.  

    The question then remains, and will forever remain, that if the child is officially adopted by the Father, does  the adoption become null and void by the child's own will.  If the child chooses to emancipate himself from the Father, breaking the bond, and seeking out legal and permanent separation from the Father, forgoing the Father's rules and standards, and if he stops respecting Him as the authority and parent, does He get to live with the Father for all eternity?  That is a question that has been debated among Bible Scholars for thousands of years, and I do not intend to answer it.  No one knows who truly is a (permanently)  adopted child of the Father, except the Father.  I suppose the Father takes in some strays out of His hospitality and Grace, but knows ahead of time that they won't stay.  That is His loving nature.  

    He is The Most High, The Almighty, the Creator of all of us, whether we acknowledge that truth or not, but He is Father to those whom He adopts into His personal family.  Let's look at some examples of adopted children. Let's start with the very first one, that would be Noah.  Genesis says that the whole world was bent on doing evil, but Noah found grace in GOD's eyes.  It doesn't say that he was righteous and blameless, as many of us have been falsely taught.  It just said GOD had Grace toward Noah and chose to adopt him and his family.  Nowhere in the Bible does it even imply that Noah or his wife, sons, and daughters-in-law were righteous and deserving in any way of being adopted, it just says that Noah found Grace in GOD.  

     After Noah was Abraham, but the truth of the matter is it was Abraham's father, Terah who was first called, but he only went halfway and stopped.  I think that he would probably be qualified as a stray who chose not to be in the Father's family exclusively.  GOD picked him out of the polytheistic orphanage and gave him the privilege of coming into a true and personally intimate relation to the Father, but he chose not to take it to the level he was called to.   Terah chose not to live and go further on with YHVH GOD, but to stay in Haran and continue with all he knew, which was worship, acknowledgement, reverence, and obedience to many gods.  Everyone then believed in many gods.  Even after Abram was called out and sent forth to the land of Canaan, Abram did not understand that there was only one GOD. It was just that YHVH GOD was the One who called him to follow Him. GOD called him out of Haran and promised to made him a father of a vast family of GOD.  Abraham ended up having many sons by the time his life was over, but Isaac was the only one adopted by GOD to be His very own, and carry His name.  When Isaac became a father, before either of the twins was born, before either had any opportunity to do good or evil, GOD had already picked Jacob to be adopted into His family. (Jacob I have loved, Esau I have hated. Romans 9:13)  (“Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the LORD. “Yet Jacob I have (chosen/adopted)  loved, Malachi 1:2b  (my interpretation).  Does this make sense?  

     All of GOD's heroes in the Bible were called to and received a special personal, intimate and direct  revelation from the Father Himself. None of them were looking for any kind of heroic work of ADONAI, many did not even know He existed.  (Moses, Gideon, King Saul, King David, Jeremiah, Amos, Elijah, Elisha, all of Jesus's disciples, and Saul/Paul, among many more.) It is GOD the Father who looks down upon our lives before we are even conceived, and it is only He who decides whom He will adopt as His own.  As a church people, whether Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Protestant, or Evangelical, all our lives we have heard that we were either born/baptized into GOD's family as infants, or we asked Jesus into our lives and accepted him as our Lord and Savior.  NOTHING could be further from the truth.  We play no part in being chosen by the Father.  We play no part in our salvation.  We are chosen before we are even born, because the Father is not constricted to time and history.  He knows our nature and our hearts before we are even conceived in the womb, and we are the ones whom GOD chooses, based on His prior knowledge of who we will be.  All of the earth's future is laid out before Him, nothing is hidden from His knowledge, nor out of His total Sovereign control. 

     The next time an evangelical tells you that all you have to do is believe in Jesus, ask him into your heart and life, and make him your personal Savior,  know this, many believed in Jesus while He walked the earth, but to most, he was just a great Tzadik, a holy man, a teacher. Yet, to those whom YHVH GOD had already chosen, He was the mediator, the Messiah, the link between a far-off, out-of-reach, Holy GOD to our  intimate relationship with a yet still Holy and Loving Heavenly Father.  

     If you are reading this and know for sure that you are a part of this intimate family, know this, it was YHVH GOD who adopted you, it was not you who adopted Him.  

 I Got All D's in College English, But I got A+ in Metaphor

SHUTTERSTOCK

For some reason, I felt the Holy Spirit pushing me for a couple of days to read the book of Romans in my new Complete Jewish Bible. Like most people who have studied the Bible for three decades, I've read, studied, and "got" Romans for three decades. However, tonight, I saw something that never registered with me before. (Pun intended!)

I think I've got it, the answer everyone asks: Is once saved, always saved truth, or can we lose our salvation. I get it, I got it, Now, I'm gonna share it. This is so cool. We have all been lied to by the gentile church. That was the devil's doing. He doesn't want us to pass the class in the College of Life. He put that misinterpreted verse (we are under grace, not law) as a lie to confuse people and to entice people to drop out of school.

We are under both. Here's how it works:

YHVH GOD is the Professor in the class and He assigns EVERYONE an A before the first day of class, regardless of who is registered for the class. He does it, because Yeshua, Jesus already passed the class w/an A. So, GOD gives everyone Jesus's A. Everyone who takes his first breath is automatically enrolled in the class LIFE 101.

Now, only those who have still have their A at the end of the semester (life) will get to go to heaven. You must have Jesus's A. At the acceptable age, and only the Professor knows what that is, we have to start paying attention in class. At that acceptable age, the assignments begin. The Professor assigns the work and teaches the class. He who chooses NOT to do the homework, the reading, the studying, participating in class, or studying to pass the tests does not get to keep their A.

If B is good enough for them, that's fine in their eyes only, but they miss the mark. An example of a student lowering their A to a B is if they just show up in class to fill their seat. There are much more B students in the class than A students. My husband always said, "C's get degrees," and that may be true in traditional college, but not in the College of Hard-Knocks. A student who lowers his A to a C is called, Mediocre Student. He doesn't care about what the Professor is teaching, and he half pays attention. He rarely does the work, some will do just what they think they will need to get by. A student who lowers his A to a D is called, Sometimes Student. Sometimes he shows up for class, but paying attention, or doing any homework is out of the question. The student who lowers his A to an F is the Withdrawal Student. He figures it's better to get a W on their transcript than an F.

The hard fast rule is only Jesus's A graduates you to Heaven's Grad School. We have a whole lifetime to keep paying attention in class to keep our A. It is not how smart we are, it's the effort, the good ole college try that we put into it. The Professor knows every student intimately and is always watching. His TA (teaching assistant), the Holy Spirit is assigned to tutor those who want to keep their A.

So before Jesus came along, Adam took the class and he flunked it, thus earning everyone an automatic F. No matter how hard anyone worked in that class, they never got to the A, because they started with an F. They could achieve a D, or a C, or a B, but not the 4.0 required in the A,. No human is capable of earning the A, for the mere fact that they were born human.

When Jesus enrolled in the class, LIFE 101, (approximately on March 20, 4 BC) he did the work and achieved the A. His passing with flying colors took away Adam's automatic F and gave us Yeshua HaMashiach's (Hebrew for Jesus the Christ) A he earned. Everyone born after Jesus earned his A is automatically enrolled and automatically gets His A, so everyone has a fair chance. We don't get to automatically keep the A, however. Some students never show up for that class, they skip all the time, or they withdraw from the class all together. They think that they can avoid a F on their GPA by withdrawing, but they are sadly wrong. Only those who remain registered in the class at the University of Life and Redemption get an opportunity to keep their A.

That my friends is the Metaphor Mama's Gospel Metaphor! Now, HOW COOL is that!

 The Completed House of Israel: A GENIUS metaphor created by the Master Builder

Matthew 7

24 “So, everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a sensible man who built his house on bedrock. 25 The rain fell, the rivers flooded, the winds blew and beat against that house, but it didn’t collapse, because its foundation was on rock.

     The House of the LORD, the LORD's House, the two houses of Israel, My House..., and many more times is the metaphor of a house compared to the work of YHVH GOD.  Today, sitting in a new doctor's office, YHVH GOD showed me His house, metaphorically speaking, and again, His genius never ceases to amaze me.   I constantly question GOD, "Why are you teaching me all these things, and what am I supposed to do with this new exciting information if I don't have a voice?"   He kept showing me that as long as I am here on this planet, that will be true of me.  I could go into another whole blog post on why that is so, but I will spare you the rabbit trail.  What I will do is try to share you in the most foundational, elementary and metaphorically in plain English what I learn without vomiting all this stored up inside me, overwhelming my reader with some really boring stuff.

        I am no longer a Christian and I'm glad of that, just like I was no longer a Roman Catholic when I was twenty-six and born again, the first time.  I know, I can hear the rumblings going on in your heard.  You think I've turned my back on Jesus, and it's impossible to be born-again twice.  That depends on what your definition of born-again is, and what the definition of is is.  Being called out of the Roman church and now the Protestant church some 29 years later is like being born-again twice, because all of a sudden, the scales fell from my eyes, like they did with Paul the Apostle, but twice.  I've been able to see the deception in both churches that YHVH GOD has allowed to perpetuate for more than 2,000 years.  That's a difficult one to explain, because I still don't understand why YHVH GOD lets "His" people go so far from His original intent, when it comes to building our houses on the principles of GOD. I included both the Roman church and the Protestant church in this "house gone wrong," because one came from the other, both with the same lack of supports and protections from the evil one. 

     Most Christians refer to their church building as the house of the LORD, and that cannot be any further from the truth.  Buildings haven't been the "house of the LORD," since the Temple burned in AD 70.  The House of the LORD isn't a building, it is a chosen people, although, I will use a building to explain how it's not what Christians call the "church."   There are five vital components to building a house and any contractor can tell you that.  There is ground preparation, (sometimes plot selection), there is a foundation, and walls to separate each vital room in the house.  The last and most vital part of the house to top everything off, (pun intended), is the roof.  Here is where the GENIUS of GOD comes into play.

    If GOD wanted to build Himself a house of a special people, I will have to explain each step He crafted into His house, and what the steps represent, (pun intended) in the Whole Counsel of GOD. There are four major Covenants YHVH GOD made with His people, and sadly, many Christians wrongly toss out the first three,, and just keep the top one in their purview.  They live in a roofed house with no walls or foundation and the ground below them is slowing caving in on them like a sink hole.  Soon, there will be nothing left in the NT church/people house, and YHVH GOD will have rescued and called out His beloved from that collapsing invisible house with only a roof and the wrong kind at that.  

    Let's start with the first covenant.  A covenant is either an unconditional promise from GOD, or it's a conditional one.  Either way it is never broken by GOD, nor are they ever obsolete to Him. The first promise GOD made is called the Noahide Covenant, and GOD gave this to Noah through no merit of his own doing.  The Bible says that GOD found Grace for Noah, and out of that Grace, He saved only eight people out of millions if not billions to start all over again.  He flooded the earth to prepare the ground for a better house.  Do you see the ground preparation there?  His sign to Noah to honor His Covenant was the rainbow.  This was a sign only YHVH could do, and man could play no part in this outward appearance of a eternal covenant YHVH made with Noah and his descendants, that would be us.  

     After the ground is properly prepared, there is the foundation that needs to be built. He is building a "single" structure, calling out a single people, one nation He will covenant with, and everyone outside of that house is not part of the Kingdom of GOD.  They can enter the house and join in the Covenant, but again, by invitation only.  The Abraham Covenant is the foundation of the house on a set and prepared ground, which is the land of Canaan. The sign for this covenant was circumcision.  It was a physical reminder for man to know that he was chosen out of the general population to become a people of GOD all unto themselves.  

    The next thing YHVH  GOD needed to put up was the framework to support the walls which partition off specific rooms, different from each other with a different purpose, but all part of His house, and vital to this house, if it is to stand. The Mosaic Covenant is the framework and the walls, all 613 Laws.  Each beam/law is vital and weightbearing.  The sign for that Covenant was the Sabbath day for His people. This would be a house that all the residents would rest on the Sabbath day, and no one would leave it, or do chores in it.  This would separate the residents in GOD's House from those outside. This required obedience on the residents part, so it was a conditional covenant. Man had to play a part in it for it to be valid.  

     I think that is pretty obvious which covenant and vital piece to the home is.  The Christian church calls it the New Covenant, but actually each covenant was new when it was introduced to GOD's people and built into the framework of His House of Israel, His united house of ten tribes or clans if you will.  The Roof is Yeshua HaMashiach, or Jesus the Christ as the Roman and Protestant church know him.   He is the covering over the entire structure keeping it safe and under his name and his name only.  The sign for this new addition to the house of Israel is the Holy Spirit.  It is GOD dwelling in the house with us, like the Noahide Covenant, we cannot do this ourselves.  It's not a matter of physical changes, obedience to something. It is a spiritual invite into the house, and we receive it as soon as we cross the threshold.   Of course, the door has to open and the owner of the house must invite us into the His house, we surely can't burst in and breakdown the door.  Only YHVH GOD has the key to unlock the door for us, and that is Grace. He has to give us the key to get in, because the door is locked from the inside with Grace in with Yeshua holding the key.  The house has a back door for residents to leave who want to move out and go it alone out in the big bad mean world. 

       Let's look into the house and the walls and partitions the gentiles removed, erasing the purpose of each room, and creating their own work space. (Pun intended).    The Living Room, that is where the guests come to visit, and the residents are to be hospitable and love the guests when they enter, some even become permanent members inside YHVH's house. The next room is the kitchen, the food rules which help us decide which foods are good for the body, and kosher for cleanliness.  The family room is where we all gather as a united family to worship YHVH, and praise Him for building a house and inviting us into it.  The bedrooms represent the sexual activity, or rather procreation.  There are certain sex laws in the Mosaic Law, hence, strangers from outside the house are not welcome inside the bedrooms of the dwellers of YHVH's house.  Last but not least, is the bathroom, where are sins are washed away, either in the shower with Living Water, or flushed down the commode by animal sacrifice.  Now, that Yeshua has put a roof over our heads, we still have Living Water, however the waste isn't necessary to get rid of in the commode, because it is permanently removed from the residents in the home.  It is impossible to keep all 613 Mosaic laws, because there is no Temple, and we can't just go off and stone our rebellious children, however, those of the beams in the framework, and are covered by the Roof. 

     So, there you have it, the House of Israel, with it's ground prepared by the Hand of GOD, (Noahide Covenant), it's rock foundation on a plot of land, Canaan, built to hold up the walls and the house and be the main support for the House of Israel, (Abraham Covenant), and the framework and walls, separating each room for a specific purpose. (Mosaic Laws).  The Roof is the New Covenant of Yeshua covering over all the residents, keeping powers and principalities of the air away, above, and outside of the people safely tucked inside. One Covenant is built upon the previous covenant, which prepared the house for the new addition.  None of the covenants can be negated or removed, lest the house will fall.  

    

     So, where did it all go wrong?  It was as early as the 2nd century.  First the house was strong and healthy, but as some new people came in, (gentiles) they began to take over. They didn't like the original Architectural plans, so the very first thing they did was to remove the foundation. Next they knocked down the walls, to make it one big open space with no definition, no organized purpose. The walls and beams collapsed, letting the outside world free access to the inside of the house, without an invitation.  Last of course, was to  relocate the house to a new plot, in a new neighborhood, in a new land. The house went from the land of Canaan to Rome.  That land was not properly prepared, and it was also given a new name.  It was no longer the House of Israel, but it was the house of Roman Catholicism.  They even elected their own "builder" to redesign and renovate the house, in the papacy, as if there was something wrong with the original plans.  They had a foreign mother in a false goddess, renamed to Mary, the mother of their gentile Jesus, a roof with holes in it.  A house with no foundation, no framework, no walls, but just a roof cannot stand, and it is not the house YHVH built.  

    I'm sorry if this went a little long, but hopefully you were fascinated enough to keep reading, and now you have a better understand why the Old Covenant/Testament has been improperly labeled and discarded as if not needed. You cannot have a Roof without all those Covenants remaining in place.   I take no credit for this metaphor, because as I state before, YHVH GOD gave me this picture and labeled each part of His House of Israel, assigning a Covenant to each part.