There
are so many of us out there; so many of us believe that Jesus is the Messiah
and the One true Son of the living God.
But you wouldn’t know it based on how we live our lives.
We
try way too hard to blend in with everyone else, even though we are commanded
to be in the world but not of it. We
want to find all the loopholes and try to be as close as we can without really being
“of the world” or “worldly.” Some of us
don’t even bother trying to be different than the rest of humanity, with the
excuse that God knows our hearts.
Yes,
God does know your heart, and he can see that your heart is trying to choose
fitting in over honoring Him.
We
are told over and over in the Bible by God to be holy because He is holy. What does this mean? The word “holy” is a roughly translated word
from the Hebrew word best transliterated as “kadosh.” This is a word that means set apart, or
sanctified. God commands us to be set apart as He is set apart. Apart from the world, apart from people who
glorify other things like their jobs, TV, the internet, and their relationships
with others, over God. Set apart from
the rest of humanity.
How
do we do this? We obey Him.
The
Jewish people say a prayer multiple times a day called the Shema, which comes
from Deuteronomy chapter 6, the beginning of which is as follows:
“Shema Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai
echad.”
This
is translated in most English Bibles as “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God, the
Lord is One.” The word “shema” is the one translated as “hear,” which is really
a very poor translation. A more accurate
one would be listen and obey as in listen and obey Israel, for the Lord
your God is the One and only true God.
Well, we know from Romans 11:17 that we, as believers in Messiah, are
grafted into God’s people, Israel. Therefore,
God commands us to listen to Him and obey Him, and He tells us to be set
apart. Shema.
Another
thing we can do is acknowledge this “people” that we are a part of. It is true that our relationship with God is
a personal thing…but there is another part of our relationship with Him that
should be much more corporate. We are
part of the Body of Messiah, and we are supposed to be united. However, there is so much division between us
that it’s crazy!
In
mainstream Christianity, there are so many different denominations, and while
there are some who are welcoming to all, there are far too many that there is
much dispute between. We are divided
into different things based on our “doctrine,” which should be all the same anyway (or at least along the same lines) since
we are all supposed to be testing everything and letting the Holy Spirit guide
us..and then you have the Torah observant of us who are also divided into
mainly Messianic Jewish and Hebrew Roots, which are, in most cases, completely
separate from each other, not to mention separated from mainstream Christianity
by a lot although both have a lot of the
same core beliefs.
Where,
I ask you, is the unity? We all serve
the same God, and we all know the same Messiah and the same Truth. Are we not commanded to love one
another? We seem to be doing a poor job.
There
is going to come a time when we are going to need to stand together or not at
all, and how are we preparing ourselves for that? We are told in the Bible that many will hate
and persecute us, and I for one do not believe that that’s over yet. In fact, I feel that it is coming upon us
more than ever, and if we want to overcome it, there are a few things we need
to do.
We
need to listen to and obey our Creator; we need to shema.
We
need to be set apart. If we’re not, how will anyone know who we
are?
We
need to put our differences aside and stand
together. Jesus Himself said “Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against
itself will not survive.” We are the kingdom of
God Almighty; let us stand together.
