About Going to Montreal

I did a post on my other blog about our trip to Montreal in May-June. You can go here to read it.

Love and shalom,
Serena

Billy D Is Back! Yippee!!!

So now go visit him and give him a great welcome back and tell him how great his new look is.

Love and shalom,
Serena

Great Article...

I was going to post it, but my husband beat me to it, so go here to read it.

Love and shalom,
Serena

Go Visit Joelle

She has two new posts up on her blog telling about their travels and what is going on with them. I've been wanting to ask you all to pray for them and now she has asked herself. It isn't easy for a mom to have one of her children so far away, but I do see G-d working in their lives and that is my ultimate desire for them - that they would respond to His workings in their lives and walk in His will for them. So I commit them into His hands and ask you all to join in praying them through this time of their life.
Love and shalom,
Serena

A Matter for Prayer

My husband is a student at a christian university. They are going to be visited in a forceful visit by a "gay" advocacy group. The group claims the university does not admit "gay" students. Since it is known that there are quite a few "gay" students on campus, though they are not openly pushing it, that would not be true. The university requires their students to sign an agreement covenanting to practice their sexuality in the context of male-female monogomous marriage, as the scriptures teach. Since unwed girls do get pregnant there, obviously not all students obey the commitment they made, but that is not new.

Since my husband came out of that life by his own choice and because of the work of G-d in his life through the bloody atonement of Yeshua for him, he is quite concerned about this situation. He is getting more opportunities to share his testimony and the power of our G-d through the Cross of Messiah and His resurrection. Please pray for him that he is bold and full of wisdom in sharing what G-d has done in his life. Pray for the university to stand strong and have wisdom in dealing with these people.

These people have targeted christian ministries and universities to force their agenda upon them. They want to get endorsed as legitimate and without sin in what they practice. Of course, G-d loves them, just as He does any other person He created. What is at issue is whether He created their sexuality the way they claim He has. From what the scriptures teach, we all make choices in how we behave in that area, and we are able to restrain ourselves by choice. Any relationship of that sort outside of the confines of a monogamous marriage relationship between a man and a woman is sin. It always has been and it always will be.

To read an edited version of the letter he received from the president of the university (to not give away the location of the university or our location) and a link to the site of those that think they are working the works of Messiah in forcing this issue, go here. These people who are doing this claim to be christians and they disguise poison in their rhetoric and twist the scriptures, so be careful in reading on their site. It is not the work of Yeshua the Messiah, who shed His blood on a stake outside the walls of Jerusalem, but the work of the false messiah whose days are quite short by the evidences of these kinds of things.

Come quickly, Lord Yeshua, our Messiah!

Love and shalom,
Serena

Living by the Law?

A comment that a fellow blogger left on one of my blogs has motivated me to do a post about the law. I have found that most redeemed people that I know have been brought up as I have been with Greek thinking. We do not truly understand what the Law is because of our lack of a Hebrew mindset. So first, I want to establish that what we refer to as the Law is called Torah in Hebrew. If you will go to some other articles in my blog about Torah, you will gain more of an understanding than what I will write here about that Hebrew word and its meaning. Very simply, Torah is YHWH's teachings. It was given to His people, Yisrael, in a covenant that is likened to a marriage covenant by Hebrew scholars, in other words it was the Ketubah between YHWH and Yisrael when it was given. It was never meant for a means of salvation. It was given after redemption by the blood of a lamb put on the doorposts and after they were baptized in coming through the sea. I find most people that are having trouble with "the Law" are having trouble with the idea that the Yisraelites kept it for salvation. They did not. Any redeemed Yisraelite was redeemed by trust in YHWH and the blood that only stood for the blood of our precious Redeemer, Yeshua the Messiah. I want to make it very clear that Torah has never been for any person's salvation. The keeping of it will never save anyone.

The Torah was given as an absolute. YHWH, in His love, gave His teaching and His heart about how to live life to His people. It would separate them from the other peoples of this earth that did not know Him. If they lived it, they would show forth His glory. Sadly, because they were just like us today, they got the wrong motives for obeying the Torah. They thought it would make them spiritual, that they would gain favor with YHWH and some even thought that if they obeyed, it would result in their salvation. So, something that a loving G-d gave to them for their good became something that they would be prideful about. YHWH wanted His ways to be known unto the nations that they might know Him also. He wanted Yisrael to be a light unto the nations. Instead, His people who were lifted up with pride about having His Torah, looked down on those of the nations. They were not to live as those of the nations did, but they were to have His heart for them and show forth His love to them. Yes, they had the Torah, but they did not obey it and instead, they were rebellious. Because of turning from the words of life, they experienced the ways of death. BUT, there was always a remnant of those who honored YHWH and His Torah and desired to obey Him. Now, what is so different with us today? We just substitute the newer scriptures and our own traditions and we look with contempt so often on those who are "sinners" and "heathen" and are caught in the tarpit of sin.

Today, most of Western Christendom has been taught that "the Law" is done away with and there has been a derision that has developed toward it. They will even purposely break it to show that they are free from it. I have to think they do not truly understand the Torah and have ignored Yeshua's words when He said that He did not come to destroy the Torah (He would have been speaking Hebrew/Aramaic and would have called it Torah, not Law) but to fulfill it. They ignore that He said until heaven and earth passed away, not one jot or tittle of the Torah would pass away. They ignore what He said about men who would teach and keep His Torah as opposed to those who would break it and teach others to do so also (Matthew 5:17-19). They even teach that Paul taught a derision towards the Torah and that he taught men to break it. Did he? I can tell you, he did not. He taught against the legalistic keeping of Torah for salvation that the religious promoted. He taught against that it was by keeping the Torah that a person belonged to YHWH. He upheld the Torah and honored it. He also lived it in his own life, which I have also been taught about derisively by those who oppose the Torah.

There are at least three places in the Prophets that YHWH tells His people that He was going to write the Torah on their hearts.(Jeremiah 31:33, Ezekiel 11:19, Ezekiel 36:26) He also told them in Deuteronomy - "The LORD your God will circumcise your heart, and the heart of your seed, to love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, that you may live. The LORD your God will put all these curses on your enemies, and on those who hate you, who persecuted you. You shall return and obey the voice of the LORD, and do all his mitzvot which I command you this day." (vs 6-8) When you study these things out, you will see that the time that this happened was on Shavuot (Pentecost) when YHWH's Set-apart(Holy) Spirit was sent to indwell those who trusted in Yeshua as the One who was the bloody sacrifice and had risen and ascended to YHWH. Now, if the Torah has been written on our hearts, if He has circumcized our hearts so that we will love Him with all our heart and soul, if Yeshua has said "If you love Me, you will keep My commandments," how do we have an excuse to purposely break it? Why would we even WANT to purposely break it? Paul admits to the struggle in keeping the Torah because of the struggle with our sinful nature that manifests itself in Torah-breaking, BUT, Paul said we have the victory in Yeshua:

"So then, the Torah is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. Therefore did that which is good bring death to me? May it never be! Rather it was sin, in order that it might be brought to light as sin by producing my death through that which is good, that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful. For we know that the Torah is spiritual; but I am of the flesh, sold into bondage under sin. For that which I work, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would wish, but I am doing the very thing I hate. But if I do the very thing I do not wish, I consent with the Torah--that it is good. So now, it is no longer I that work it, but sin which indwells me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the wishing is present in me, but to work of the good is not. For the good that I wish, I do not do; but the evil that I do not wish, this I practice. But if I am doing the very thing I do not wish, it is no longer I that work it, but sin that is dwelling in me. I find, therefore, the law that evil is present in me, the one who wishes to do good. For I rejoice together with the Torah of God in the inner man, but I see another law in the members of the body, waging against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity of the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me out of the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Yeshua the Messiah our Lord! So then, I myself indeed with the mind am a slave to the Torah of God, but with the flesh, the law of sin."(Rom 7:12-25, Messianic Renewed Covenant version)

I have one more thought to consider here. If you know anything of Hebrew understanding, the Word is the Torah. The Jewish people refer to the whole of the scriptures that they hold as the Torah and specifically the first five books. But they do refer to the whole thing as the Torah. Now what we have been given since Yeshua was here is just an extension of that Torah. It is founded on the foundation of the first five books and is further revelation and commentary on the Torah and further history of those who love the Torah. Now, John says that the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. In Greek, that is "logos," but John was Hebrew and I can tell you that He was thinking Torah because the Hebrews loved Torah. Yeshua is the Torah made manifest. He is the fulfillment of it because He embodies it. He is the Author of it and He is the keeper of it. Now if the One that we love because He gave Himself for us is the Living Torah, how can we treat the Torah that He wrote contemptously? In that light, do we keep the Torah or does the Torah keep us?

When it comes to Torah, we cannot live it in our own strength. Paul teaches us that and so does our experience. BUT, we have that Torah written on our hearts. It is our loving Father's instructions for us to live in harmony or shalom with each other and with Him. We do not gain any favor or salvation by obeying it, but we do gain the abundant life that it shows forth. We do know His absolute when we give the Torah its proper place. We cannot even substitute the obeying of Torah for our relationship with the Living Torah. It is by our relationship with the Living Torah, Yeshua the Messiah, that we can obey it at all. Even then, it is a life-long process of having our minds and hearts renewed and stumbling and His picking us up and saying "this is the Way, walk in it." What I want to see is that those who claim to know Him have a reverence, a respect, a love for His Torah instead of treating it as a little thing or even as some do, with derision. The newer scriptures did not replace the older ones as I already said. They are further revelation and commentary and if we do away with the older ones, we have no foundation for the newer ones. We also will have no foundation for our lives. There is a mystery in the tie between the written Word of G-d and the One who is that Word made flesh. Hebrews says that the Word is alive and powerful. Well, there is only One who is that! Let us honor and love Him by honoring and loving what He has authored.

Love and shalom,
Serena

My Testimony - Redemption

I graduated in the spring of 1973. I was a strong-willed, rebellious young woman. I know now my parents were so tired of dealing with me, and as the parent of more than one strong-willed child, I can understand that. In the summer after I graduated, my dad hauled his travel trailer out to our favorite nearby camping place and parked it for 2 weeks for my friend, Carrie, and I to camp out. Looking back at it, he probably knew he wasn't going to change my behavior and it, at least, gave them a break from me.

Well, leaving two 18 year old girls in a State Park, unsupervised, is not a good thing. At that time, the legal drinking age was 18 and we took advantage of it. That encourages immorality and that went on, too. G-d used that time, though, to start something in my life. I met a young man who was camping there. He was home on leave from the Navy. I was very attracted to him and amazingly, he was to me. After he left to go back to his base and I went home, we continued to keep in contact. He came home for Labor Day weekend and he invited me to his grandparent's place on a lake not too far from where I lived for a cookout. He mentioned going to church and I invited myself along because I wanted to spend more time with him. It was an independent Baptist church about 3 miles from where I lived. I started going with him whenever he came home on leave. Then I started going even when he wasn't home. I did not know that his godly grandmother and mother were praying for me. I just knew that I felt loved and accepted there.

I learned that I was a sinner. I knew it in my heart because I was starting to feel guilt and shame for my behavior. This was a church that had a salvation message every Sunday. They sang "Just As I Am" most weeks, too, for the invitational. That song really worked on me. The messages really worked on me. Now I know that the Holy(Set-apart) Spirit was working in me, convicting me and drawing me to my Savior Jesus(Yeshua). This went on all fall.

I was also attending the local community college that fall, taking the Electronics Technology course. I was one of 2 females in a class of about 33. I know we were a distraction to the other students, especially since mini-skirts were in at that time. One guy, a little older student than the others, kept wanting me to go out with him. Even though I was very interested in the guy in the Navy, I finally agreed to go see a movie with him. He took me to a drive-in and it was horror films. I have never liked horror films and still don't. He also wanted more than to see the movie. It was not a very good date, I can tell you, and he did not get what he wanted since I felt revolted by him and the date.

In December, I remember taking a tract on "God's Simple Plan of Salvation" home with me. I read it and was strongly convicted. I fell to my knees and told G-d that I wanted His salvation, that I believed in Jesus. After that, I started noticing a change. Things that I was doing made me feel very uncomfortable and I didn't want to do them anymore. I started wanting to read the Bible and pray. It was the Christmas season and I realized that I knew the One who came as that little baby. It was a very precious time for me that year. All the christmas hymns took on a real significance to me. It felt like a little secret down deep in me. By the end of December, my boyfriend from the Navy rejected me. I no longer wanted to do the things with him that we had been doing and was no fun any longer. Even though, G-d had used him to get me to where I would learn of Him, he did not know Him or was not walking with Him, and he dropped me. I heard many years later that he had married a Catholic girl and had converted to Roman Catholicism.

The first of the new year, I decided I wanted to be baptized. The pastor had been speaking on it and I felt a tug to do it. I approached him and he questioned me about why and I told the first person of my decision I had made a few weeks previously. He arranged to have a baptism the next week on a Sunday night. I told my family that I was being baptized and asked them to come. When I was baptized, I gave my first testimony publicly. I found out after the baptism that Jim's grandmother and mother had been praying for me all fall. They were so excited! Those things had a profound effect on me and my life changed even more.

Right after I was baptized, a girl that was going to that church offered to disciple me. She was a student at New Tribes Bible Institute. What is really interesting is that I had worked for a while at a restaurant near my home as a busgirl. My best friend, Pat, took over the job when I got on the work-study program the second semester of my Senior year at highschool. She told me they had hired some girls from a Bible school and we would make fun and laugh together about them as she told me how they were memorizing bible verses while working. Now a young woman from that school was wanting to be my friend and teach me the scriptures. I was hungry to learn so agreed to get together to study the Bible. I met with Ellen every week.

I also had found the "My Daily Bread" devotional at church and started reading it. I would spend time every day reading the scripture and praying. No one told me to do this. I just wanted to do it. I also started learning the hymns that we were singing at church and singing them. My family started giving me some trouble over the changes in my life. I was quite outspoken about what I was learning and my newfound faith. This was during the time that "The Chariots of the Gods" was popular and there were several books out on it and shows on television. We got in quite a few arguments over it. My mother told me it was just another "kick" I was on and that I would get over it.

I was really enjoying visiting New Tribes Bible Institute when I met with Ellen for Bible study. They had some reading materials about missions and their mission to the tribal peoples. I took them and started reading them. As I did, I was drawn to doing that. I had lost my interest in the classes at the community college and decided to drop out mid-semester with the intention of going to New Tribes in the fall. I wanted to get a job and save money to go. When I told my parents what I wanted to do, they were upset. My father asked, "Why don't you go to a good four-year school and be a minister?" They did not like the idea of my being a missionary to a remote place in the world. It was also during this time that my best friend was getting married and I was very busy sewing her wedding dress and the bridesmaids' dresses , so I quit the college.

Right after the wedding, I applied for jobs and got one at a factory not too far from home. It was the midnight shift. I worked there for about 3 nights. The women I worked with were rough and course in their speech and I felt like I ought not to be there. I got a call from a nursing home that I had also applied to and they hired me. I found I was working with several people who believed in Jesus and it was a good nursing home compared to the one I had worked at on the work-study program in high school. It was actually owned by christians. I was encouraged as I got to know some of my fellow-workers and would look forward to work. The son of one of the nurses even went to New Tribes.

When I told my friend, Ellen, about my decision to go to bible school, she told me how she had shared about me in the chapel time at school and had the whole school praying for me. No wonder G-d worked in my heart to go that direction! He had over 200 people praying for me. I started saving my money and preparing to go to New Tribes in the fall on 1974.

To be continued...