The Journey Continues

I come to another birthday this week. They really are not all that important to me as far as a celebration goes. I have more than what I need and the things I really want, from a material side, are way beyond my reach so the gift thing honestly doesn't even find its way to the front of my brain. The day does, however, give me pause as I have to recognize that over six decades have come and gone from the time I entered this world. Forty three of them have been after becoming a disciple of Yeshua, my Messiah and Savior. Most of those years have been in vocational ministry or in preparation for that ministry. It seems each new year brings new things to ponder. However, reflections this morning begin with the amazing blessings and grace of God. If I were God I would not have put up with me this long. I agree with Robert Robinson that  I am, "Prone to wander, Lord I feel it prone to leave the God I love". Yet I have been blessed with an amazing family. I hold a wife, that for almost 37 years, has been my partner, my soul mate, my love. She has loved me, cared for me, encouraged me, supported me, listened to me, and put up with me with tenderness and Godly grace. She has a tender heart of compassion and a gentle spirit that reflects our Savior. I have been blessed with five children. Each holds a desire to know God and to know truth. Each is on their own journey and growing in their own way, and that is how it should be. However they all have some things in common. They all have the same gentle and compassionate spirit they learned from their mother. They all care about the wounded and the wayward. They have shown compassion and a desire to serve others that put most followers of God to shame. They are not perfect, after all they are related to me, but they are intelligent, tender souls who use their gifts and talents with others in view.  They are unique, yet clearly have similar hearts and I am proud and richly blessed by each of them. 

For myself, I find that the things I have heard from my seniors is vividly true for me. The longer I live and read and study the more I know I don't know. Long haunting questions have risen to the surface, and the pursuit of the answers has left me with more questions. I find myself in agreement with the Apostle Paul, who at the end of his life tells the Philippians that his desire is, "To know Him [Christ] and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death." Just to know Him. For I know that He has been gracious enough to reveal Himself while I have been too dull to see Him. I look to the scriptures and find years of training that were always shrouded in some haze of the, "is that really so?" question. Even today the clouded questions are being forced into the light. The continuity of God's revelation brings lots of things to clarity while raising new challenges to things I have believed. What does it mean to me that, as a Gentile, I have been grafted into the commonwealth of Israel? What place does that put me in? How do I respond to the feasts, fasts, and festivals God designed for his people, Israel? What can I learn of and from that tradition? And what of Torah? How do I deal with Yeshua's claim that He, "came not to destroy the Law [Torah] or the Prophets, I came not to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled" (Mt 5 :17 - 18). All has not been fulfilled, the earth and heaven have not passed away, so what does that say of Torah? And in reading Acts I am faced with the challenge to be like the Bereans, who, Luke writes, "Were more noble than those in Thessalonica in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether these things were so" (Acts 17:11). They heard Paul's teaching and wanted to make sure it was true, so they daily searched the scriptures to see if these things were so. The only scriptures they had went from Genesis to Malachi so the measure for accuracy in what Paul taught was Torah and the Prophets. If that is so then there should be no contradiction between Old Testament revelation from God and the New Testament revelation from God. Continuity and never contradiction should be what we find. Yet I have been taught that there is a new faith that is contrary to Judaism, contrary to the Law, a new covenant, and by some even a new way of salvation. How can this be? And what does this mean to me as a Gentile? What of the passages that seem to indicate an end to Torah? Contradictions? Yet when I look at the 613 laws gleaned by the Rabbis it seems I keep the bulk of them and that they are supported by the teaching of all the New Testament writers. It seems I now am not sure of what I thought I knew. So there is new study and new perspectives and new appreciation for my Hebrew heritage. And yes, new questions.

"That I might know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death." So the Journey continues. As it should and as it will until the Lord takes me home.