Good morning everyone - lovely people. I wish you all the best too. To
continue on my blog about the “fear of G-d” I have gleaned from an old book by a Rabbi Nilton Bonder titled
“The Kabbalah of Envy - Transforming Hatred, Anger, and Other Negative Emotions.” Please do not be thrown off by the word Kabbalah. It simply means to dig into hidden meanings and research them out - not the magical red string thinking heard about in the media which is a perversion of the true Kabbalah type commentary on Biblical truths. It’s not some evil abstraction out to get you. It’s an old Hebrew word referring to wisdom that comes with spiritual maturity. This book has been a tough read not translated from the Hebrew comfortably for English speakers. I have gleaned some wonderful Faith ideas from it. So here goes - more on the subject of”Fear of G-d.” And it’s long. Get what you like and discard the rest.

The term “fear of G-d” is not about terror. It’s about having a great intimacy with G-d.
When we are influenced by abstract, subtle principles we can detach ourselves from what we observe in the obvious that doesn’t add up to what we know about Faith and G-d.
What abstract and subtle principles? The causes and effects captured in the term karma, the universal principle of cause and effect, where every action, thought, and word (the cause) creates consequences (the effect) that eventually return to the doer, shaping their destiny. As Scripture states: the principle of sowing and reaping, where actions (causes) directly produce consequences (effects), such as in Galatians 6:7 (“whatever a man sows, that he will also reap”).

To arrive at the “fear of G-d” we need to leave the cult of the god of rewards, the god of necessary, god of power, god of personal veneration (which can be a romanticized element of belief.)
All of that adds up to a symbolic perception of G-d - the idea that things represent other things.
What was the danger of an “idol”? Attributing to “a thing” the power to bless or curse and so veneration of the “thing” was necessary. The nations around Israel in its beginning made things they could see and name that represented what was believed to be their “god.” So Israel was warned - “Do not adopt the practices of the peoples around you.”

We must cast off the fear of others, fear of self, fear of pain and allow ourselves to fear only that which is possible to fear. Fears are not paralyzing emotions, but spur us on to action - mobilizing.

That mobilizing - we do what we know to do that is right. As Scripture tells us how to Love G-d - that first commandment. “If you love Me you will obey Me”
That is the beginning of developing a great intimacy with G-d and is the crown of wisdom.
To obey is becomes another conundrum because our emotions direct us to do what benefits us the most. So we rationalize what we know, “to do” with what we feel should be done for immediate gain.

This shows us where humility is the foundation to grasping the “fear of G-d that becomes wisdom - it’s ankle.
Humility is a deep internalization of our capacity to transform spirituality into a skill that becomes a way of life.
We can live the “Fear of G-d” without a sense of wisdom or any proud awareness of being wise.

To become wise is to be able to erase the fool within us. To become humble is to erase the traces of any wickedness in ourselves. Eliminate jealousy which opens the dimension of envy, aptly described as one of the 7 “deadly sins.” Proverbs 22:4 “The effect of humility is fear of the Lord, wealth, honor, and life.”

To me the “fear of G-d” is a comforting emotion. It’s comforting to know I don’t have to be in control of the world. I don’t have to fear the actions of others because SomeOne bigger than me knows the end of everything from its beginning. And that SomeOne all knowing, tells me to rest in what that end will be even when I don’t understand all the steps leading up to it that might cause me to suffer. Accepting discomfort is necessary to kill “the old man” within us and brings about the realization of a real joy in serving our Beloved Lord. That’s possible to experience even in the face of seeing so much ungodliness in the world. What little bit I can do in the way of right action and prayer is going to have a positive effect I may not see. That just means SomeOne wiser than me sees it and tells me to keep on truck’en on that path of holiness that is a quiet rebellion to any evil inclination.
Holiness - another word we have a hard time relating to because of the enemy out to shame us!
Six characteristics of holiness often cited include humility, love, obedience, self-control (temperance), faithfulness, and purity of heart, reflecting a life SET APART for God,

Psalm 55 David composes this Psalm upon escaping Jerusalem in the face of the slanderers. A past friend betrayed him and breached their covenant .- Talk about the signs of our times this Psalm describes what we are seeing in unlawful protests with people intent on harming other Americans caring out a mandate directed by our laws and our Constitution.
“I am panic -stricken as I make my complaint. I shudder at how the enemy shouts, at how the wicked oppress.”
“For I see violence and fighting in the city. Day and night they go about its walls, within are malice and mischief. Ruin is rife within it, oppression and fraud never leave its streets”
“Unload your burden on Adonai,
And He will sustain you. He will never permit the righteous to be removed.”
“Those men, so bloodthirsty and treacherous will not live out half their days.”
“For my part, Adonai, I put my trust in You.”
We know the US has enemies and yet something is a miss when fellow citizens rage against truth. There is more at work than just being upset about arrests. My prayer, for one, is the roots will be exposed. Truth cannot be done away with. In the end Truth will win. Only G-d can change the hearts of others. The best we can do is pray for them and claim the truth will bring the consequences needed to set the haters free.

A Farmer's Prayer Before the Freeze

Brethren, do you have a firm grasp on Scripture? Do you struggle getting others to understand? It is common for Christians even to argue with unbelievers, to try to get them to accept or comprehend God’s truth.

We should not do this. To this we were never called. This is neither our mission nor our purview. Only God can open eyes. Only God can open the mind. Only God can open the heart.

Recall after His resurrection when He stood in the midst of those who had walked with Him in His earthy ministry. Even they did not truly see until “He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures” (Lk. 24:45).

We cannot force understanding, even within ourselves. We must be enlightened; He must open our understanding. Likewise, we cannot force it upon others. Nor can we force the gospel through clever argument or marketing methods. For, “the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ” (2 Cor. 4:4). It is outside our power to change this.

Likewise, we cannot change hearts by force. It is God who opens hearts, just as He did with Lydia (Acts 16:14).

Thus, when you sit down to read, when you discuss with others, do not set your mind on your own understanding (Pr. 3:5); instead, pray for God, through His Holy Spirit, to open your mind and heart, and that of your audience, to receive His word according to His intent, and to do so as well for any to whom you preach the gospel.

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Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening Devotions

Evening, January 19

"Then opened He their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures." Luke 24:45

He whom we viewed last evening as opening Scripture, we here perceive opening the understanding. In the first work He has many fellow-labourers, but in the second He stands alone; many can bring the Scriptures to the mind, but the Lord alone can prepare the mind to receive the Scriptures. Our Lord Jesus differs from all other teachers; they reach the ear, but He instructs the heart; they deal with the outward letter, but He imparts an inward taste for the truth, by which we perceive its savour and spirit. The most unlearned of men become ripe scholars in the school of grace when the Lord Jesus by His Holy Spirit unfolds the mysteries of the kingdom to them, and grants the divine anointing by which they are enabled to behold the invisible. Happy are we if we have had our understandings cleared and strengthened by the Master! How many men of profound learning are ignorant of eternal things! They know the killing letter of revelation, but its killing spirit they cannot discern; they have a veil upon their hearts which the eyes of carnal reason cannot penetrate. Such was our case a little time ago; we who now see were once utterly blind; truth was to us as beauty in the dark, a thing unnoticed and neglected. Had it not been for the love of Jesus we should have remained to this moment in utter ignorance, for without His gracious opening of our understanding, we could no more have attained to spiritual knowledge than an infant can climb the Pyramids, or an ostrich fly up to the stars. Jesus' College is the only one in which God's truth can be really learned; other schools may teach us what is to be believed, but Christ's alone can show us how to believe it. Let us sit at the feet of Jesus, and by earnest prayer call in His blessed aid that our dull wits may grow brighter, and our feeble understandings may receive heavenly things.

Neither the Artist nor Author signed

Song of the Painted Wind

In the hush where starlight learns to breathe,
A horse of night moves through blue fire.
Gold remembers the paths of elders
etched along muscle and mane,
each line a prayer carried forward
by hooves that know the old names of earth.

Its eye holds the circle—
time folding back into itself,
river into sky, sky into seed.
We listen, and the wind listens too.
as the painted spirit passes,
leaving courage in the dust
and a promise braided into the dark.

The Road That Knows Her Breath

The night does not question her direction.
It opens, as it always has,
to those who listen with their whole body.

The old teachings say movement is a prayer—
each step a promise kept,
Each pause in a lesson accepted.
She carries both without counting them.

What guides her is not speed,
nor the wish to arrive.
It is memory traveling forward,
the quiet courage of continuing
When the path asks for trust.

The ancestors ride within her breath,
not behind, not ahead,
but beside—
where fear loosens its grip
And resolve grows steady.

This journey is not an escape.
It is belonging in motion.
A reminder spoken by the earth itself:
those who move with respect
are never lost.

Artist and storyteller: Dorothy Vera

Jeremiah
Chapter 7
VS 1-19

1 The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,

2 Stand in the gate of the LORD'S house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the LORD, all ye of Judah, that enter in at these gates to worship the LORD.

3 Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place.

4 Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, are these.

5 For if ye throughly amend your ways and your doings; if ye throughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbour;

6 If ye oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your hurt:

7 Then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, for ever and ever.

8 Behold, ye trust in lying words, that cannot profit.

9 Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom ye know not;

10 And come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations?

11 Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, even I have seen it, saith the LORD.

12 But go ye now unto my place which was in Shiloh, where I set my name at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel.

13 And now, because ye have done all these works, saith the LORD, and I spake unto you, rising up early and speaking, but ye heard not; and I called you, but ye answered not;

14 Therefore will I do unto this house, which is called by my name, wherein ye trust, and unto the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh.

15 And I will cast you out of my sight, as I have cast out all your brethren, even the whole seed of Ephraim.

16 Therefore pray not thou for this people, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to me: for I will not hear thee.

17 Seest thou not what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?

18 The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger.

19 Do they provoke me to anger? saith the LORD: do they not provoke themselves to the confusion of their own faces?

I am asking for prayer for Tommy DeWitt. He is a young man, that is going in for back surgery on the 21st of January.

A well known Christian leader has asked people of Faith to pray for our nation today, all together at 12 noon, in whatever time is 12 noon wherever you are, as reported on Fox News. Psalm 35 is a good way to pray for our countries leader’s. In our own words we can say, complain - we know every human being has been given a free will to decide to do or not to do, but we know the Eternal Almighty has put in checks and balances as His Holy Spirit is at work.

In ancient Israel G-d told the people to assign sheriffs and law protectors- a police force as they began to reside in the promised Land. Many nations have followed that Biblical example including the US. That tell’s us people who cannot control that free will they have been given to always choose the good, the lawfulness of NOT doing to another what you would HATE being done to yourself. Plus the Laws put in place that protect everyone from violations of a nation’s sovereignty, with protections for citizens from every crime under the Sun. Israel had to fight many enemies within and without.

What we are seeing in the US is a common human plight; there is always someone who will disagree with what is being done to uphold the Law and in the process fight against those who’s main purpose is to protect them. It makes no sense and we don’t understand it. How do we pray for G-d’s will to be done on earth over the will of the lawless?

G-d wants us to pray! Why? Is it lifting up our hearts in a way we honor and praise Him for the righteousness He has decreed in His Word to be the reigning principals on earth? It becomes important we follow our prayers with appropriate actions. We see a majority of our leaders doing that - action is in place.
It’s necessary to pray for the anointed “good guys” success while not neglecting prayers for their haters, our heaters, deceived hearts to be changed. Will we see that happen? We just don’t know, but we continue to pray anyway.

Truth cannot be done away with or ignored. Psalm 52 where King David lamented his suffering at the hands of an evil person can be very encouraging.

In Ps. 75 we are reminded concerning our Beloved G-d and Redeemer “You (G-d) are Illumination, mightier than the mountains of prey.” So please G-d get illuminating, your fighters believe You do not see or hear them so they think there will be no retribution. You will not save us as they believe they are successful, and there will be no accountability.
We need to do what ever is necessary in prayer and in action to tear down the strongholds of the evil Deceiver in the hearts of people and in our nation, so we can see Numbers 10:35 fulfilled:
“Arise Adonai! May your enemies be scattered! Let those who hate You flee before You!” (From The Complete Jewish study Bible - Isights for Jews and Christians.)
All Psalm versus come from “Tehillim - (meaning, prayers - book) , by O.Yosef Yitzchak with English translation of the Hebrew.

Believer, consider your salvation. It is not accomplished by human power, but by God Himself, and He is mighty, “mighty to save” (Isa. 63:1).

We could not earn our salvation. Just as Israel, though they pledged to obey God, turned away over and again throughout the Old Testament, so we once lived in sin and ourselves were estranged from Him, by nature children of wrath (Eph. 2:3).

Yet even while we were enemies, He reconciled us to Himself (Rom. 5:10). How mighty is our God, who, by the blood of His son, could turn sinners from their wicked ways and make them His children, and when He appears, we will be like Christ (1 Jn. 3:2).

No amount of work, no might of man nor human ingenuity could perform such a mighty deed.

Of course, God exhibits his might in saving physically as well. For how many times did He deliver a small contingent of His people from great armies (ex. Judges 7:7)? Or to save Daniel from the lions (Dan. 6:16-23), or Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego from the flames of the furnace (Dan. 3:19-27)?

Martin Luther penned in his hymn that “a mighty fortress is our God,” and mighty He is indeed.

Praise God that He is not only merciful to save us (Tit. 3:5), but mighty to do so as well (Isa. 63:1)!


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Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening Devotions

Morning, January 14

"Mighty to save." Isaiah 63:1

By the words "to save" we understand the whole of the great work of salvation, from the first holy desire onward to complete sanctification. The words are multum in parro: indeed, here is all mercy in one word. Christ is not only "mighty to save" those who repent, but He is able to make men repent. He will carry those to heaven who believe; but He is, moreover, mighty to give men new hearts and to work faith in them. He is mighty to make the man who hates holiness love it, and to constrain the despiser of His name to bend the knee before Him. Nay, this is not all the meaning, for the divine power is equally seen in the after-work. The life of a believer is a series of miracles wrought by "the Mighty God." The bush burns, but is not consumed. He is mighty to keep His people holy after He has made them so, and to preserve them in his fear and love until he consummates their spiritual existence in heaven. Christ's might doth not lie in making a believer and then leaving him to shift for himself; but He who begins the good work carries it on; He who imparts the first germ of life in the dead soul, prolongs the divine existence, and strengthens it until it bursts asunder every bond of sin, and the soul leaps from earth, perfected in glory. Believer, here is encouragement. Art thou praying for some beloved one? Oh, give not up thy prayers, for Christ is "mighty to save." You are powerless to reclaim the rebel, but your Lord is Almighty. Lay hold on that mighty arm, and rouse it to put forth its strength. Does your own case trouble you? Fear not, for His strength is sufficient for you. Whether to begin with others, or to carry on the work in you, Jesus is "mighty to save;" the best proof of which lies in the fact that He has saved you. What a thousand mercies that you have not found Him mighty to destroy!

Please read this post of Tonya's, keep her in prayer.