Category: Inspiration

Why, Go Out?

On By Bp. Justin ElwellIn Applied Theology, InspirationLeave a comment

In Hebrews 13:14 we read, “For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the one that is to come.” This, of course, is echoing Hebrews 11:10, “For he (Abraham) was waiting for the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.”

In the Torah portion of Lech Lecha this week, the Lord calls to Abraham saying:

וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֶל-אַבְרָם, לֶךְ-לְךָ מֵאַרְצְךָ וּמִמּוֹלַדְתְּךָ וּמִבֵּית אָבִיךָ, אֶל-הָאָרֶץ, אֲשֶׁר אַרְאֶךָּ.

“And the Lord said to Avram, ‘Go to you, from your land, from your extended family, from the house of your father; to the land that I will show you.’”

The Lord calls to Abraham, “Go to you — with Me.” In other words, you can only know who you are when you travel the way with Me. The Torah gives us an amazing clue to the Lord’s intention to transform, not only Abraham’s life, but also ours. When we read Genesis 12:1, the word order is unusual to begin either a physical or spiritual journey, as the order is:

1. Land.

2. Relatives

3. Father’s House.

From our perspective, it may seem more logical in this order:

1. Father’s House.

2. Relatives.

3. Land.

As you are exiting your current location, the natural order would be to depart the house of your youth, whereby you also leave behind your relatives as you depart the land. However, the Lord is explaining to us that the influence of our earthly father’s house leaves a lasting impact on us, which is often very difficult to detach from.

While many of us have wonderful father’s, many others have not shared the same experience. The subject of this devotional is father’s, good or bad, per se, but the division that following the Lord often brings, even with the most loving family.

In Genesis 11:31, we read, “Terah took Avram his son and Lot, Haran’s son, his grandson, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Avram’s wife, and he took them out of Ur of the Chaldeans to the land of Canaan. But when they came to Haran they settled there.”

Abraham’s journey to Canaan, the Promises Land, actually began with his father Terach; but Terach’s journey ended in Haran. The rabbis have wondered about this, why could Terach not finish the journey?

Terach was perhaps looking for business opportunities in Canaan, which would have caused Abraham to be labeled, not as a monotheist by the inhabitants of Canaan, but as a polytheist just as they were. With this identity, there would be nothing different about Abraham. Abraham’s journey to and arriving in could not be influenced by his father’s house – he needed to trust in a new Father – the covenant Lord.

See, the Lord was saying to Abraham in Genesis 12:1-3, “You are cutting ties with all you have depended on – father, cousins, and familiar places – to travel to a place that I will show you, so that I will be the source of your blessing there, and you will be a blessing to all the families of the earth.” This promise was given after Abraham sees the scattering of the nations far and wide.

The most difficult place for Abraham to leave behind was his father’s house; as the memory/influence of Terach would travel with him. Abraham needed to cut the connection between who he had been and was influenced to be, and who the Lord called him to become: a father of nations.

Abraham would be the new beginning of generation promise and influence.

The apostle Paul writes: “And if you are Messiah’s, then you are Abraham’s seed/offspring, heirs according to promise” (Gal. 3:29).

In a dramatic way is helping those coming to faith in Messiah walk out to themselves, just as Abraham was called, to a new life and people previously unknown: away from the security and safety that we have previously known. As I wrote above, the Lord called to Abraham, “Go to you — with Me.”

Abraham, and in faith those in Messiah, go out to a new protection, a new inheritance, a new people, a new Savior and Friend, and a new Father. We leave behind who we were, in order to be who He has called us to be in Him. But, we must “go out to you.” Leave behind the old, destructive influences, and walk into a new identity, where others will say of you, as they said of Abraham: “Hear us, you are a prince of God” (Gen. 23:6). Why? Because the Lord will go before you, and He will be with you.

Be encouraged, when the Lord calls you, He always calls you out of where you have been, as He leads you to where you will be: “In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also” (Jn. 14:2-3). It’s not easy, but He will be with you.

Be well. Shalom.

Being Noah (Comfort)

On By Bp. Justin ElwellIn Applied Theology, InspirationLeave a comment

Genesis 6:9 reads:

אֵלֶּה, תּוֹלְדֹת נֹחַ–נֹחַ אִישׁ צַדִּיק תָּמִים הָיָה, בְּדֹרֹתָיו: אֶת-הָאֱלֹהִים, הִתְהַלֶּךְ-נֹחַ

“These are the generations, the story, of Noah. Noach was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with the Lord.”

Noah plays a vital part not only in biblical history but also in end-time theology. Messiah likened His return to the days of Noah, as He said, “And as the days of Noah, so also shall the coming of the Son of Man be.” We know that the days of Noah was a time of wickedness, but this one man, Noach, נֹחַ, יְהוָה בְּעֵינֵי חֵן מָצָא, “found grace in the eyes of the Lord” (Gen. 6:8).

From the beginning of his life, Noah somehow provided “comfort” to those close to him. His father Lemek calls his son Noah/Noach noting, “This one does comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord has cursed.”

Noah is called by God, as the apostle Peter explains, to be “a proclaimer of righteousness,” but out of all those who heard him, only seven (7) other souls were comforted by his message and entered the Ark with him.

The message revealed by the flood is both terrifying and comforting; judgment and destruction for disobedience and wickedness, but comfort for belief-obedience.

Noah’s birth was a comfort to the heart of his father Lemek. The name Noah, Noach, is from the family of verbs meaning, “rest” and “comfort.” The picture created by the verb root of Noach is: a place to rest to receive comfort. Therefore, we find that “comfort” is an important theme in the life and narrative concerning Noah. Let us therefore consider the related verb root נָחַם, “comfort.” נָחַם/nachem, “comfort” means “to be sorry, to be moved to compassion or pity,” but can also be translated as “repent or regret.” It marks a condition in need to tending.

The word-picture is drawing breath forcibly, panting or groaning, as if ones lungs are compressed by a heavy weight restricting the breath. In Scripture נָחַם/nachem is used to describe two conditions: 1) our distressed condition, and 2) the Lord’s compassionate response to our condition.

At the beginning of the Book of Consolation in Isaiah 40:1 we read, “Comfort, comfort My people!” says your God.” And how the Jewish people are comforted is revealed in Isaiah 40:2, “Speak to the heart of Jerusalem, and cry out to her, that her hard service (toil) is completed, that he crookedness is pardoned, that she has received from the hand of the Lord double for her sins.”

The Lord is announcing the end of Israel’s chastisement, for her sins have been pardoned.

In 2 Corinthians 1:3 the apostle Paul calls the Lord, “the God of all comfort,” the God who responds to our toil, trial, loss of breath, and distress.

נָחַם/nachem is a very primal sound, a groan or moan or sigh. The sound of נָחַם is seems to be cross-cultural, as not only do we moan or sigh when we are in distress, but also, those who are responding to distress often do so by returning a deep and warm sound of breath: a sound that stirs compassion.

How many of us have witnessed or ourselves responded to the cry of a child with “they’re there,” drawing them close to us and patting the child on the back as we draw them in tight. This is a compassionate response, and to understand this response that helps us to correct a misunderstanding created some translations of the Bible.

In Judges 2:18 we read, “And when the Lord raised them up judges, then the Lord was with the judge, and delivered them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge: for it repented the Lord because of their groanings by reason of them that oppressed them and vexed them.”

The underlying text is נָחַם/nachem, it may also be read, “for the Lord had compassion on their groanings.” The Lord comforted, a compassionate response to the groaning of His people.

In Exodus 32:14, after the sin of the Golden Calf, the Lord desires to destroy Israel, as we read, “And the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people.” Again, not repented as we would understand it, but a change in response based upon the condition, the sorrowful groaning, of His people.

This is a quality, to respond with compassion and comfort, that we as followers of Messiah are to display and exercise. Why? Yeshua/Jesus said in John 14:16, “And I shall ask the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, to stay with you forever.”

Why? So that we would not be left as orphans, unable to endure the pressures of this life. So rather than being breathless, we are breath-full. Only God knows the depths of another person’s pain, and only He can heal that pain and give lasting comfort.

Yeshua asked the Father to send the Comforter to be with us and in us so that we can comfort others as He comforts them. When we are comforted, we are reminded how good it is to be able to breathe again, and we need to give that relief and comfort to others.

When those around us are groaning—will we be stirred with a response to mark, tend and comfort the need? As we mature in Him, yes we will, as we become more like Him (Ro. 8:28-29).

Be well. Shalom.

Why So Busy?

On By Bp. Justin ElwellIn Applied Theology, Inspiration1 Comment

The Jewish month of Tishri is a busy one. Three major festivals occur during this month, including the festival holy of holies itself, Yom Kippur, the day of atonement(s).

Why so many in one month? Why does it have to be so busy? Now, in the midst of Sukkot, Tabernacles, I can tell you, I’m tired.

At Rosh Hashanah, the Feast of Trumpets, we hear the call of return, beautifully articulated, “Return to Me, and I will return to you” (Mal. 3:7). Then, the Lord gives us ten days to “consider our ways” (Hag. 1:7). It is a time to look, metaphorically, at the condition of our garments. How will we appear before the King in soiled garments? Then on Yom Kippur, not only are we cleansed, but we are wrapped anew in gleaming white garments (Rev. 7:9). Having been forgiven, we begin again.

Yet, we are not allowed to go off too far. The Lord calls us to put all that we experienced and learned at Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur into practice at Sukkot, the final feast of ingathering, just five days after the Day of Atonement. Sukkot is a joyful banquet of the King of kings, or in messianic hope, the Marriage Feast of the Lamb (Rev. 19:9).

Here, we leave our homes, and build temporary shelters out in the midst of our extended family, friends, and neighbors, those we are likely to have had disputes with in the past. Renewed in heart and spirit, will we put the forgiveness we have received into practice?

The message is twofold. First, we put faith into action, not hiding it away hoping that it will go undamaged by life, but walking with our faith in the Lord in the midst of life and its complexities. Second, we walk faith out in active life remembering, from the experience of the three feasts in Tishri, that we are called to a life of holiness. Authors note: holiness, not haughtiness.

Adorned in our gleaming white garments, as we walk in life, we are bound to see dust, dirt, and assorted filth diminishing the shine. Yet, in Messiah we have a blessed hope. We need not wait until the next Yom Kippur to go to the spiritual dry cleaners, as John writes:

“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 Jn. 1:8-9).

Forgiveness allows us to enter, once again, the flow of spiritual and communal life. We are not attired in the garments of our shame, but His righteousness. Dispute should not be our practice, but when disputes arise, we have an eternal way of restoration and return that He expects we will put into immediate practice, not a protected closet.

Rather than the “King is in the field” as we pray Rosh Hashanah, at Sukkot, the King is in the midst of us and our joy (Ps. 16:11). It is, after all, the time of our rejoicing.

But why so busy? Because we are to be about our Fathers business.

Be well. Shalom.