Dear Ones,
It’s been awhile since I’ve written and I’ve got two subjects on my mind at this time – one personal and one corporate.
First, the personal: Like Dad and Mum (and many others in the FMM family), I’ve also been in boot camp. My available time has been limited, sometimes because of what’s been going on, sometimes because of my response to what’s been going on. So in the interest of transparency, I want to begin this letter with a confession… my ‘flesh’ reared its ugly head once again in the last few months and when my personalized boot camp got to feel like too much, I reverted back to an old numb out technique of ‘vegging’ in front of the TV. And unfortunately much of the content during those hours in front of it would definitely fall into the wood, hay and stubble category (cf I Corinthians 3), bringing no benefit to me and no glory to my Lord.
Why do I feel the need to tell you this? For two reasons… one is to bring it out into the Light where the exposure affords me accountability to step out (and stay out!) of that snare, and one is to share the beauty of the way in which our precious Yeshua deals with our failures. When we repent, He always restores and rebuilds. And in that, there’s great hope for each of us in our discipleship journey. Being a disciple of the Living God doesn’t mean that we suddenly become perfect. What it does mean is that when we fail, He uses even that to strengthen and encourage us while continuing to advance His glorious Kingdom in and through us. Our God is so amazing, isn’t He?
And now the corporate: I’ve been reminded of the greatness and goodness of our God in opening the door to the ‘whosoevers’ of the world. Even though Israel is His firstborn among the nations and our elder brother, we gentiles have always been welcomed into the family. It’s always been our Father’s heart to bring salvation to the whole world, not just to His beloved Israel. We see clearly from the beginning of the Bible references to ‘the foreigner among you’ and how God’s instructions apply to them (us!) too.
Do you recall in Acts 15 when the elders and leaders wrestled with the question of gentiles in the congregations of faith and how to deal with them, how much to require of them? Peter says in verses 7-9, “Brothers, you yourselves know that a good while back, God chose me from among you to be the one by whose mouth the goyim (gentiles) should hear the message of the Good News and come to trust. And God, who knows the heart, bore them witness by giving the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) to them, just as He did to us; that is, He made no distinction between us and them, but cleansed their heart by trust.”
Many of us in the FMM family began as goyim, chosen just like Peter to share the Good News of our God’s perfect plan of salvation. And it’s not uncommon for us to have begun our journey of faith in our ‘gentile world’ by receiving less than accurate teachings that are Torahless. Having come from that background myself, I know that what I received and believed and lived came out of a genuine love for the Lord and a sincere desire to walk in His ways. But those beginnings were built on a faulty foundation, one which wasn’t seen to be faulty until fresh and timely revelation came from our Father. He alone knows when a disciple’s ‘fullness of time’ has come, when that disciple will no longer keep a gentilized ‘filter’ concerning Torah, but will repent of that filter and embrace His Perfect Gift.
Like you, I am so blessed by the way in which our Father is unfolding Torah Truth to us, and I’m so grateful that He’s given me ‘ears to hear’ and a heart to obey. All those years I spent in Torahless teachings, and the times I’ve stumbled back into ‘fleshiness’ have never been for naught. He continues to use every speck of our lives toward His ultimate purpose of molding and shaping us into the perfect image and likeness of His Beloved Son, our Beloved Bridegroom.
Therefore, we can really never lose. Even when we blow it, even when we have our wilderness times, He is glorified. He just flips those things upside down and what the enemy meant for evil gets turned into an instrument for His life changing good.
I am convinced that as He continues to call more and more of us gentiles into a love for Torah, our lives will beckon His chosen people Israel back to their first love. One of the things that’s on my heart in this letter is an exhortation to my fellow gentile disciples… some of that Torahless teaching we may have been exposed to contains within it a mindset of what’s commonly called “replacement theology” and we must guard our hearts from that perversion of Truth.
Replacement theology in a nutshell is this – the Jews had their chance and blew it so now the Church is the ‘chosen people’ and all of Israel’s promises belong to us. Those promises are ours, but not because we replaced Israel; it’s because we’ve been grafted into that Root. Therefore, we from gentilized backgrounds are the ones who need ‘retraining’ in what God’s Word really says about Torah and Israel and our place in their midst. I’m encouraging us to study and soak in Romans 9 through 11 to be sure that we really grasp that Truth.
God has made of us one new man (cf Ephesians 2) and as that one new man, that joining of Jew and gentile, is made manifest on the earth, He is glorified. No one but God could do such a work – no one but He could bring Jews to an understanding that their Messiah has come in the person of Yeshua, and no one but He could bring gentiles who’ve begun by thinking Torah was done away with, to see that it is indeed His gift and plumb line for faith. And as we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28) in the whole counsel of the written Word rather than ‘camping’ in one testament or another, the Holy Spirit is freed to continue to reveal life changing Truths to us, in us and then through us.
As disciples, it’s important that we remember we have nothing to share on our own… we can only share what we’ve first received. So our hearts must always be open to His teaching, instruction, reproof and correction. We can trust our Father when we’re walking in His ways and even when we’ve stumbled off the path. In those times of stumbling, our restoration is only a prayer away. Therefore, we can join with the chorus of the ages, proclaiming:
“I will sing of the Lord’s great love forever; with my mouth I will make your faithfulness known through all generations. I will declare that your love stands firm forever, that you have established your faithfulness in heaven itself.” Psalm 89:1-2
Amen! So glad to be on the journey with you, my beloved brothers and sisters,
Nancy