Episode Transcript
[00:00:17] Speaker A: I want to give you a couple of quotes to get you thinking.
Who has been listening to the Shabbat messages for the last couple of weeks? Okay, if you haven't, this might be a little tricky for you, but it's still going to make sense. But if you can go back and listen to those two, this is actually the sort of interesting conclusion to. Well, it's more than sort of interesting. I think it. I hope that it's more than sort of interesting. But we've been talking about the narrow gate and the hard road, so here's some quotes to get you thinking with that frame in mind.
Happy is the one who endures testing, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life, which the Lord promised to those who love him. Hebrews twelve says, now all discipline seems painful at the moment, not joyful, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Thomas Edison said, opportunity is missed by most people because it shows up in dressed like hard work.
Vince LombARdI the only place success comes before work is in the dictionary. Albert Einstein. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity. Seneca, difficulties strengthen the mind as labor does the body. Theodore Roosevelt. Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effortless pain and difficulty. That one's really uplifting, isn't it? But he goes on to say, I've never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I've envied a great many people who led difficult lives and lived them well, bringing us all to enter through the narrow gate.
For wide is the gate, and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.
But small is the gate, and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. Now, if you've heard the last two Shabbat messages, you might be thinking, oh, I know, I know it's tough. Can we just move on? And we can. It's a holiday, after all. Can we, like, celebrate?
Well, yes, we can. But this holiday in particular offers me the opportunity to bring what I've been teaching to you to a conclusion. What I hope, as I said, will be a meaningful and practical application in connection to the holiday. And I am aware that what we've been talking about is not exactly popular preaching material. As a matter of fact, it was a rare thing when I looked at, and I don't do this very much, but I looked at our YouTube page over the last couple of weeks a couple of times, and the subscribers actually went down, they went backwards.
We've since recovered, but people came on, listened, didn't like what they heard, and moved on. Because it's the hard road, it's the narrow gate, and no one, as a matter of fact, has come up and said, you know what? I want to thank you.
I want to thank you, Rabbi, for convicting me about the possibility of living my life to destruction and wasting it. I'm very thankful for this teaching. I really have enjoyed it. And facing the fact that I may have often chosen the wide gate and the easy road.
Haven't heard that this isn't popular stuff, especially for anyone who might be thinking that I'm promoting works or works based salvation, but especially people with a victim mentality don't like what I'm talking about. And I'll tell you about that later.
But I want to ask you, when's the last time you heard that verse? Matthew seven in an altar call.
Have you ever heard that verse in an altar call?
Come on up, kids. Accept Jesus into your heart today. And remember, it's a hard road and very few people are ever going to be able to do it. Come on up. Or kids, come on up. Let's celebrate Jesus. Remember to pick up your heavy cross and carry it down the really difficult road.
But I think for most of us, anyone who's really read the New Testament, really read it. And this is a key point, understands it from a jewish perspective, understands Jesus perspective on the Torah and what he's actually saying and the life of the, and the teaching of the apostles. We can accept, and we know that what I've said has truth to it.
It's in the writings. We may not love the idea, but we can agree with it and understand why we should do and not just hear?
Do and not just hear. We are disciples of Yeshua that comes with an identity and a responsibility.
And speaking of altar calls and baptisms, I received a memorable email from a member of Shalom Macon that actually made me chuckle, but it also made me think.
He said, personally, I've always struggled with the idea of getting saved, even before I had a seismic shift of the whole idea of what salvation means. I have friends who say I was saved at four years old or six years old.
Sure, my son says things like he loves Jesus, but on some days he also thinks he's a frog or a dinosaur.
The point is obvious.
Can a four or five year old really count the cost of discipleship?
Can a six or seven year old really understand the concept of picking up a cross and what that means, that is in no way to suggest that we don't have the responsibility to live out to Shema, to teach them in the way that they should go. There's no greater responsibility than to disciple the young generations that are behind us, to raise them up, to teach them to educate. Camp de rote, which we're going to have June 23 through 29th this year, is especially taking that concept and working to plant that new level within our children, to plant the seed of understanding for their young hearts so they would understand what a disciple is, what belief is, what a disciple acts like and why.
And more than just to get out of jail free or go float on a cloud.
But the point is this, in committing to the narrow gate, the hard road, the path of discipleship, this should be a big decision.
Building a tower, anyone building a tower, well, you should count the cost. That's what he says. Who doesn't do that? It's almost like, ha. Who would ever do something like that without counting the cost? That's what Yeshua says.
The Didache first century manual for gentile disciples.
It lays out a plan for immersion, for getting baptized before baptism. The didache emphasizes the need for thorough instruction.
Believers are to be taught the way of life as described in the document. Fasting. The person being baptized, and if possible, the one performing the baptism are supposed to fast before it's done. And even the whole community sometimes would fast for one person taking on the yoke of discipleship, to become immersed and become a disciple of Yeshua. Can you imagine that?
Hey, folks, in three weeks, Brother Bill's going to accept Yeshua as his messiah and take on the yoke of discipleship. So we're going to have all of us fast that over the next three weeks, he's going to really just be overcome with what he's doing and what it means.
That doesn't happen ever that I'm aware of.
And I'm not saying it has to, but I'm just making the point that from the beginning of the text that we define our life by, which is, well, the Torah, but the life and teachings of Yeshua and those first century communities, this is the way they treated discipleship.
They understood what it mean even on that unforgettable shavuot in Jerusalem after Yeshua's resurrection. Yes, there were about 3000 people saved at that moment. And they received the Holy Spirit, right? No big, huge, like it just happened.
But I want you to note a text that can be easily missed. Let me give you the context of that. In acts two, when they heard, they were cut to the heart. This is after Peter's sharing and talking about Yeshua and what's happened. They were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the emissaries, fellow brethren, what shall we do? Peter said to them, repent and let each of you be immersed in the name of Messiah Yeshua, for the removal of your sins, you will receive the gift of the Ruach Hakodesh for the promises for you and your children and all who are far away, as many as Adonai, our God calls to himself. Right? Okay. They got saved. They received the Holy Spirit. But wait, not yet.
Because then the text says in verse 40, with many other words, he warned them and kept urging them, saying, save yourself from this twist generation. In other words.
And then, so those who received his message, it says, those who listened, those who understood, we might even say those who potentially counted the cost, who received his message that he brought. Because I have a feeling, and it can't be proven, that Peter, in that time when he was, with many other words, warning them and urging them, I have this sense that he might have said things that he had heard from his yeshua, from his messiah, like, hey, guys, the road to destruction is broad. The road is narrow to life.
If you're building a tower, count the cost. Here's the thing, Yeshua and talking about it. And then this is what it means to be a disciple. And those who received his word became disciples and received the Ruach Hakodesh.
So that was an immersion on Shavuot. But that last statement of they received the Holy Spirit brings me to tonight's shavuot teaching. Repent and let each of you be immersed in the name of Messiah Yeshua, for the removal of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Ruach Hakodesh.
Peter's words right there. And the difficulty of the narrow gate and the hard road and the teaching of Yeshua and the hearing and the doing and the life of the disciple and the Ruach Hakodesh. All of that comes together right here for the doozy of Shavuot messages.
Last Shabbat, I made this statement. It's a bit controversial.
I quoted Ryan Holiday, a modern author, a student of stoicism. I'm sure you remember it word for word. The quote.
If I asked, I'm sure all of you would raise your hand and want to say it. But let me just. For those who don't remember, let me tell you what it was by committing to doing the right thing here and now. We create for ourselves an internal compass that guides and directs us home.
Okay.
Do we agree with that statement?
We create for ourselves an internal compass that guides and directs us home. Do we agree with the statement that we create for ourselves an internal compass? Compass?
Do we create that which points us and drives us to the good? I don't expect anyone to answer because it's actually sort of a trick question, which you've come to know from me by now.
The answer is no.
It's plain and simply no.
And that part.
That's part of what we're here to celebrate during the holiday of Shavuot, that the creator God created us and instilled within us a part of him. Because it's the very goodness of God that dwells within us. We were created with it.
But when we receive the gift, the promise, the seal of Shavuot, which is the Holy Spirit, the same spirit that they experienced in Jerusalem after hearing Peter's words, receiving it, acknowledge it, we were born and created with Neshama, God's essence. And then when you receive the Holy Spirit, you know what you get?
Your internal compass.
That's what you get.
Because it, like the blessing that came before it on the same day, is a divine gift. What am I referring to? We're celebrating the giving of the spirit as a divine gift. What was the other divine gift that came on Shavuot?
The Torah. Matan hatorah. The giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai. Both of which divine gifts. Let me explain.
What did we have to do with those things? What did we have to do with the creation of God's Torah and the wisdom and the instruction for life? What part did we play in that?
None.
What part have we created in the Ruach Hakodesh, sent from heaven through the work of Yeshua that dwells within us. What did we do to make that possible?
Nothing.
That's why they're gifts. They're divine gifts from heaven, both of which take up residence. Where?
Right here.
Internally.
Internal compass. Internally. As disciples of Yeshua and participants of the new covenant promises, I want to remind you one of the scriptures from the new. What's the most famous new covenant scripture there is?
Jeremiah 31. It starts with J. Very good, Charlotte.
Jeremiah 31. Right.
It's where he says, speaking to the internal comp, the internal component. But this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days. It is a declaration of Adonai. I will put my Torah where within them. I will place it in their heart.
I will be their God. They will be my people. There's another very famous New Testament scripture. This one starts with e yecheskiel. That's Yud in Hebrew, but in English, it's Ezekiel. This is the other probably most famous prophetic new covenant scripture, where Ezekiel says this. Moreover, I will give you a new heart. I will put a new spirit within you. I will remove this stony heart from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my ruah in you.
Then I will cause you to walk in my laws so that you will keep my rulings and do them. Do you understand what has just been put inside of you as a partaker of the new covenant? The Torah and the Ruah. What are we celebrating on Shavuos?
The Torah and the ruach? The gifts, the internal compass. But why? Why do we need to celebrate them?
Why do we need to celebrate them?
What difference does it make if we have this heavenly internal compass? I want to bring you back to the narrow gate and the hard road. And finally, I'm going to give you some good news about it.
You ready for some good news about it?
The calling of a disciple.
No, it's not easy. Picking up your cross, being salt and light, building your house on the rock, entering the narrow gate, walking the hard road that leads to life. But because of the gifts of Shavuot, the Torah and the spirit, you don't have to do it alone.
It doesn't depend solely on you.
You have been given the most powerful internal compass created by God that guides and directs you home. And all of this talk about exceptional and higher and walking hard roads, all of this, if you think about that, just as an earthly creature, you expect me to be able to do that as a human being.
The great news is, no, not really. God gave you incredible giftings to help you along the way, to have to rely completely on your instincts. It's the very reason that people shy away from teachings like what I gave, because they just. They're not capable of it. They just say, I can't do that.
But these gifts, they elevate you. They bring you higher. They draw. These things give us a new identity as a spiritual being, created in God's image, possessing something of God inside. And it's all fine and good that God gave us the Torah. And it's all fine and good that Yeshua said, you know what you should hear and you should do, right?
But guess what?
It's much better than that. Because you know what God did?
He wrote it down.
You don't even have to guess.
And Yeshua didn't just say, hear and do. He said, I'll send you a guide who will remind you of everything I told you.
That's a pretty good deal.
It really is.
In one corinthians, Paul is talking about himself when he says this, but he says, now it's God who establishes us with you. In Messiah, he anointed us, set his seal on us, and gave us the ruach in our hearts as a pledge. But there's an application for all of us. Right? There is this. God loves you so much that he wrote down the instructions for the good life on parchment as a compass for life. Then he promises to write them on your heart as an internal compass, and then provides, through Messiah, fuel to keep that internal compass functioning like the true north. Talk about true north.
A connection way up north.
But before we start eating cheesecake and celebrating. Oh, we already did that. I forgot. Too late. But you're still awake, so that's good. The sugar high. I got about 15 minutes before everyone's like, what?
Before, like, this is the shavuot celebration.
Back to the quote. By committing to doing the right thing here and now, we create for ourselves an internal compass that guides and directs us home. I asked you, do we create it? No. But are we freed from responsibility to our internal compass?
Once we have it, we must use it.
You see, I want to tell you something about a compass.
If you put it in your pocket, it doesn't work.
If you say, if someone gives you this incredible compass before a camping trip and you go off in the wilderness and you put your compass in your backpack and you never take it out, you are never getting out of the wilderness unless you have an iPhone. But don't bring your iPhones camping. They have a compass. Oh, no.
It can't do its job in your pocket.
You can talk all day about how nice your compass is and how thankful you are for your compass and how you love your compass, but you never let it work for you, you never use it.
We receive the gifts. You know. You know what a compass in your pocket is? You know what that is? Unsalty salt.
It's useless.
We receive these gifts, and we celebrate tonight the Torah and the spirit, and the next part is just important. And here's what we create. We choose to strengthen our reliance on and use of our internal compass. That is your part of the bargain.
There's a lot of other things, but in order to do those other things and in order to really walk the road and the narrow gate and build on the rock and all this. Your responsibility is to use the gifts you've been given.
I had a conversation with Blake. He shared a video with me.
I mean, from one sentence I said last week, he shared this video, and I realized I love it when this happens. It was so incredibly perfect for what I'm talking about. The video is called the toolbox fallacy. Anyone ever heard of or seen the toolbox fallacy? I like it. Here's the idea. This presenter, this guy who's filming the video, he says, when I was in college or just out of college, people would ask me, what do you do? And he said, well, I'm a video creator. I create videos. I had created five or six videos in college, and I presented myself as a video creator, but I'm a video creator, but I'm working in this dead end job that I hate until, or until we move to California.
Right now, I'm doing this, but until we can make I find someone to collaborate with. In other words, one day he realized I'm working a job I absolutely hate and have been and continue to tell people that I'm a video creator.
You are a video creator? I am a video creator, and I haven't created a video in five years.
I'm lying to myself.
And this is the lie.
I can't do x until. Yeah, I can't do this until that happens.
I'll be able to be what I want to be when I have the proper tools in my toolbox. Until then, I'll just languish wherever I am, knowing that I should be doing more. But I don't have what I need. And in most cases in life, I want to tell you something that's not true.
That is very rarely, not very rarely true.
And using what you do have to do what you can right now is the thing that will move you on to the next thing and becoming the person that you're supposed to be. To borrow from last week's Carl Jung quote, we must quietly do the next and most necessary thing. But the worst part of the toolbox fallacy is this.
Too often, even when you do acquire the tools, for instance, for the video creator, he gets the new camera, the new laptop, the new amazing software, he gets all the things that were supposedly holding him back, and he still never moves.
He still is not spurred to action by having all the tools.
And the summary is, having a hammer doesn't make you a carpenter.
Using a hammer does.
What in the world does that have to do with Shavuot or Jesus I'm now down to about seven minutes before everyone checks out. So let me cheesecake this thing just. And exactly, this is what it has to do.
There are too many disciples who lay claim in one way or the other to the toolbox fallacy, and they don't use the gifts of Shavuot. They don't use the tools to represent and rise above.
And there's a sort of victim mentality. I'm just no good. I say this a lot and I joke around and I do it in an old redneck accent. I'm not going to do that. I'm just going to say I'm just no good.
I'm a horrendous, poor, miserable sinner.
Born in it, saved from it.
But apart from Jesus, I couldn't do one good thing. In other words, I would if I could, but I just can't. So I won't.
And those are some of the people who probably unsubscribed from YouTube.
But you know the problem with a good lie, and that is a lie. The problem with a good lie is there's just enough truth to it to have you hold on to part of it and buy into the rest. Because here's the thing. Yeshua actually says you can't do anything apart from me.
He does say that in John, I am the vine, you are the branches, the one who abides in me. And I in him bears much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing. But as always, I want to encourage you. Please keep reading.
Please keep reading as you get into chapter.
Yeah, chapter 16.
Because then Yeshua goes on to say these types of things. But when the spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own, but whatever he hears, he'll tell you. And he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you. Everything the father has is mine. For this reason, I said, the ruach will take from what is mine and declare it to you. What an incredible promise. What an internal compass that he promises us.
The whole section of John 1416 is talking about commandments and connection and the Holy Spirit. You're connected to God through Yeshua, by the spirit.
That's the equation.
And in that way, you can produce fruit, which is what Yeshua says we should do.
But I remind us all, just in case we ever feel that we just can't, that we just, we just. We don't have it.
Yeshua died for you, yes. For the kingdom, for salvation, for forgiveness from sin, but also so that you could be, my favorite new word, exceptional.
That you would be empowered, that you could receive these incredible gifts we celebrate tonight, and that you'd never have to do it alone, but expecting that you'd still do it. That's important.
And even for disciples, we can be susceptible to the worst side of the toolbox, fallacy, some version of it, because this is that for us. You now have the tools, the Torah being written on your heart. No, we're not living out the new covenant. I understand that we're not in that. But I am a believer that part of that is happening for us through the spirit that's been. So the Torah is being written, and the Holy Spirit. We're receiving divine comfort and direction and guidance, reminders of Yeshua's teaching, all from the inside out. Baruch Hashem. But you know what? You gotta use them. You gotta use them. You can't leave it tucked in there and just say, oh, thank you for what you put in there.
I just want to hold it like little. Like little kids who, Kelly maybe is the one who told me this. When they said, you want to accept Jesus in your heart. I imagine that I had a little, tiny Jesus living in my heart.
You have a. I guess you do have a little bit of.
Anyway, that's something else.
Point is, thanks be to God, we have the tools. We didn't create them. We don't create the internal compass, but we strengthen it when we use it. Take it out of your pocket. The more you enter the narrow gate, the more you walk the hard road, the more you put the tools to use, the stronger its force to lead you? What possible excuse can we make when we know that Yeshua died for us to give us the opportunity to bear fruit, and then, furthermore, gave us the tools we need to overcome any obstacle. Though that seems really hard sometimes, I realize that. What excuse? What excuse can we make?
Why did I give you this narrow gate? Teaching before Shavuot? Because I want to empower your exceptional potential that we have through the gifts that we're celebrating, to remind you of your calling, but to point you to tonight that you are equipped, connected, able to abide, as I've taught before. Here's the thing. Do you want to be a victim or a victor? Which one?
I have observed many times that people go through life as victims, or at least falling short of the abundant life. I've learned something in so many conversations with people that victims need validation, and the exceptional people just need some empowerment. That's a difference.
Victims. And I'm very sensitive with that word because there are genuine victims of heinous things. I would never, ever minimize that. And I have walked through some of those things with people. I'm talking more about the kind of people that the famous Jonathan Sacks story, the people who say, well, you know what, I would.
But with the situation I find myself in, I just. That's what Jonathan Sacks said to Rebbe Schneerson, the Chabad, the Lubavitcher Rebbe. He was in college. He had this incredible appointment at Chabad with the most amazing rabbi. And the rabbi asked him, what are you doing for Judaism? He says, well, you know what?
I got this and I got that. And, you know, with the situation, I find myself. Stop.
No one finds themselves in a situation.
They put themselves in a situation. And if you don't like that situation, change it.
Now, that sounds very hard, that teaching, because you know what? Rape victims didn't put themselves in that situation.
Cancer patients didn't put themselves in that situation.
The point is, well, maybe they did. I don't know cancer patients. Maybe they smoked. Who knows what? But the point is, that's not the point of his phrase. The phrase is, don't be a victim, no matter the circumstance, because what happens next is the only thing you're in control of.
What you do next is the only thing you're in control of. And you are equipped with incredible tools to overcome whatever comes next.
You take it out of your pocket and you use it and you rely on it.
There is absolutely so many people that rely on excuses about why they can't change or why they could never be this or that. And yes, why? Their faith, their walk, their presentation of disciples is unattractive. My parents were this, you know, my mom was.
I get it, I think. And Irvin could probably agree with me as a PhD in psychology, a practicing clinician. I think that's a word. I think a large number of people's problems are their parents fault.
My kids are going to be totally screwed up in some areas because of me, I have to admit that.
But you know what the stoic philosopher Seneca said?
While we didn't have the power to choose our parents, we do have the power to choose whose children we would like to be.
Now, what in the world does that actually mean?
Well, it means, so what? Your parents screwed up and screwed you up. There are a whole bunch of other people that you can model your life after. But I want to show you one really important thing. We can choose whose kids we want to be.
We are children of the most high God.
We are sons and daughters of El Elyon, the most high God, disciples of Messiah, endowed with gifts from heaven, purchased at a great cost, given freely, and yet with a responsibility meant to guide us into letting our light shine. But we can't be victim. And here, victims. And here's what I say. There are absolutely those who've been victimized.
But it doesn't have to make you a victim. And you don't have to do anything other than quietly doing the next and most necessary thing to bring you up. And you have the tools. You don't have to wait till you get something else or till this happens or that happens, or someone says, I'm sorry, or you have a prophetic dream, or a dove lands on your shoulder and whispers in God's voice.
Sometimes you just quietly do the next and most necessary thing.
Shavuot is about power.
That's why I like it. I like power.
Not yielding it. I like power. I like the idea of feeling empowered, feeling strong, feeling capable.
It is about internal power manifested externally in the world. The tongues of fire were a sign of those internal gifts. Right? Fire is light and heat. That's power.
Torah and spirit. That's power. John 14. I'll ask the father. He'll give you another helper so he may be with you forever. The spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it does not behold him or know him. You know him because he abides with you and will be in you. The gifts we celebrate tonight are also equally tools.
Equally tools. Instruction, guidance for the abundant life of a disciple. Practical living. But I have to pause for just one moment there and say, this was the pause I had as I prepared this teaching. Great. That sounds so good. Rah. Rah. Power. Fire. Yes. Yeah.
Awesome. I'll forget that by the time I go to sleep. But I felt good during it.
How.
How do we really use these gifts?
The Torah is certainly instructional, but reading it, applying it, making it practical, many parts are, let's just face it, they're ancient, and it's very sometimes not appreciated, applicable in its plain reading.
And the gospels. These are stories of Yeshua's life with their short bits of his teaching. Really. I mean, parables. The sermon on the mount is from five to seven.
It's not a lot.
We've got proverbs and psalms and commentaries. But how do I really dial this in for practical living? I've been reading the Bible my whole life, right?
And I still find myself in the same situation. Don't you say that.
And then you come along, Rabbi, and you're adding in all this other stuff I'm supposed to do about hard roads and narrow gates. I mean, it's a lot, but how do I. How do I. How do we take what we do and learn in here? Out there? But there's the beauty of an internal compass. You ready?
It's yours.
It's yours. It's unique. It's only yours. Well, the Holy Spirit, that's a universal power. It sure is. But inside you, it's just yours. And it speaks to you in ways that only you can realize.
It's God has a personal voice with you that resides inside of you and communicates to you. Well, I never hear that. You're maybe not listening enough.
Sometimes I'm going to be just so blunt.
Sometimes it's something we call your gut.
Well, that's not very spiritual.
Sometimes it's going with your gut. I remember my father in law, Roger Miller. His memory be for a blessing.
I asked him, how do you know? How do you know?
He was 05:00 in the morning. He's reading the Bible for an hour all the time. He's always loved God. Grew up a missionary's kids. I asked him, how do you know when, like, I want to know what direction.
And he said, you know what, Damian? So many times in my life, I just had to get moving. I had to take a step to figure it out. It didn't always go just right, but you gotta sometimes go with your gut and see what happens.
God communicates to you through your gut.
So yes, you have the examples of Messiah. He talked, he taught, he lived. You can never go wrong. Modeling his life, we have biblical figures, the apostles, the sages, great pillars of faith, wise teachers through the ages.
But the gift we celebrate is your compass. Created for God by you and placed inside of you. Maybe it's not up here. Maybe the Holy Spirit resides right here.
Some people got a lot of holy spirit.
Spend time around them.
Where they go, I go. No, that's me. And I'm just kidding.
Nothing. Nothing over the last two weeks and even tonight that I've suggested to you about the narrow gate or hard road was ever intended to suggest that you had to go it alone, or that your, you know, your bad, or that it depended solely on you being some kind of supernatural saint. Yeshua made a way for our failures. That's part of the deal. That's an incredible part of the deal.
He made a way for our failures? Yes, as I said, forgiveness, atonement, covering.
But he made a way for your success.
You see, there's so much focus on failure and head down and mope and stay at the foot of the cross and all the songs.
He made a way for your failure, but he made a way for your success, and he expects you to walk in it.
And he's through him specifically, unique tools, an internal compass that guides you in Kuwait or Florida or coming Georgia, or wherever you are, it goes with you.
And this is where I'm going to end.
The days are coming, says the Lord. Behold, days are coming. It's a declaration of Adonai, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house Judah. This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days. It's a declaration. I will put my Torah within them. I will write it on their heart. I will be their God. They will be my people. No longer will each teach his neighbor or each his brother, saying, no, Adonai, for they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. It's a declaration of Adonai, for I will forgive their iniquity, their sin. I'll remember no more these days. Those days are surely coming.
This is Jeremiah 31, the new covenant scriptures. We as dwellers, parts of the vine, the branch we're partakers of, the new covenant promises those days are coming, and it'll be actually pretty easy then.
You don't even really have to rely on your internal compass that much, because everything's just going right, and everybody gets it. And may my prayer be answered that bacon cheeseburgers become kosher.
But right now, right now, no toolbox fallacy, no victim mentality, only spiritual vitality.
You get that?
No toolbox fallacy, no victim mentality, only spiritual vitality.
That's what you are capable of. Tonight we celebrate the gifts of Shavuot, the festival. Ready? Here's a new one. I didn't find this in Leviticus 23, but I'm going to think of it this way. The festival of the divine inner compass. Explain that one to your friends.
What'd you do last night?
Celebrated one of God's festivals. About a compass.
The toolbox festival.
Romans 814. For all who are led by the Ruach Elohim, these are sons of God and daughters, empowered to be, as I told you last week, exceptional every day. And for that, we can say, thank you, God, for the gift of your Torah. It is a lamp to my feet and a light.
Thank you, Yeshua for the gift of the spirit. He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you. I want you to enter this holiday with expectation of reconnection and awakening. And I want you to exit the holiday with expectation that you are called, that you are equipped, that you are capable of being exceptional. And I know that right now, at whatever time it is, after a bunch of cheesecake, you may not feel that exceptional.
But it's in you. It's in you. And we're celebrating it tonight.
We don't just do this one night. We take what we get and we go out from here.
It's in you. Can you live it out?
Of course you can. Using the gifts to enter through the narrow gate, walk the hard road that leads to life, and shine the light. Can you live it out? Yes, you can. Will you?
That much is up to you, hag.
[00:51:13] Speaker B: Shavuot Somayach please visit our website, shalommaken.org, to learn more about us. Join our live Services Access other teachings sign up for our newsletter join our private network that will connect you with our greater community from around the world or contribute to the work of Shalom Macon, thank you for watching, and we look forward to connecting with.
