For “if the truth of God abounded more to His glory in my falsehood, why am I still also judged as a sinner?” (Romans 3:7, mjlt)

Redefining what is true based upon one’s own self-centered perspective is nothing new. People have been trying to get away with this—rejecting objective facts and reality—forever. What Paul’s Roman audience hadn’t quite figured out yet (but were well on their way to discovering), was that there is no defense for changing the truth into a falsehood, nor a legitimate justification for it before God. No, in order to successfully twist the truth and feel blissfully uncondemned about doing it, we have to ignore God altogether.

And so here we find ourselves today—evading God’s righteous judgement, reinventing truth as we deem fit—and it is all being done under its audacious, new name: post-truth. Read more

If you’re like me, you have been troubled over the impending presidential election. Though past cycles have yielded some less-than-ideal candidates, this time around our alternatives appear, well, apocalyptic. While there was one candidate I never personally considered a viable option, the idea of voting for that candidate’s main opponent has not exactly brought me a great deal of comfort. After months of contemplating many peoples’ opinions on the topic, I finally decided to go to the Scriptures to see if they could provide me with any guidance about how I might cast my ballot in righteousness. Read more

Yeshua, then, having been weary from the journeying, was sitting this way on the well… and there came a woman out of Shom’ron to draw water. Yeshua said to her, “Give Me something to drink…” The Shom’roniyt woman therefore said to Him, “How do you, being a Y’hudiy, ask for a drink from me, being a Shom’roniyt woman?…” Yeshua answered and said to her, “If you had known the gift of God, and who it is who is saying to you, ‘Give me something to drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water….” The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not thirst, nor come back here to draw water.” (John 4:6-15, mjlt)

The woman at the well didn’t have much going for her on that fateful day that she met the Messiah. The first strike against her was that she was a Samaritan, with whom Jews—like Yeshua—did not associate. Second, she was a woman, which made it that much less likely that a strange man would even speak with her. Third, she was tired from having to haul buckets of water from Jacob’s well the long distance to her home. And fourth, she was thirsty—wanting desperately to quench her thirst for good, yet having no earthly idea how to do it.

But being a tired, thirsty Samaritan woman was just the beginning of her problems. Read more

It’s no secret—and, sadly, no surprise—that many of us as believers in Messiah still walk with the world. Much of that influence actually takes place in the innocuous parts of our lives—the parts that we take for granted and rarely give a second thought. More often than not, we share the same life-dreams as that of the society around us: career, status, house, significant other, comfort, leisure, security, etc. We exert effort and choose paths to achieve these ends, almost automatically. We’ve been taught to aim at such obvious targets, and we keep on shooting at them without question.

It is from these various areas of our life, then, that we mistakenly derive our identity and worth. We’ve been programmed to think and feel this way from childhood. They told us we needed to do well in school so that we could go off to college; then we could earn the qualifications for our dream job in a field that interests and fulfills us—even better, a field into which we feel called by God. Unfortunately, what this formula basically translates into is this: your personal happiness and satisfaction in life is the goal. If you can do good in the world, and perhaps even please God while you’re doing it, all the better; but ultimately, what you do is not nearly as important as how doing it makes you feel. Job fulfillment, feeling valued, doing things you enjoy, acquiring stuff you want, and having a good self-image is what defines a happy, healthy life…

…but is this what the Scriptures say? Read more

For what renown is it for you if you are sinning, and then, being beaten with fists, you endure it? But if you endure, doing good and suffering for it, this is favorable with God. For you were called to this, because Messiah also suffered for you, leaving Himself to you as an example, so that you may follow His steps—He WHO DID NOT COMMIT SIN, NOR WAS UNDER-HANDEDNESS FOUND IN HIS MOUTH… who Himself BORE OUR SINS in His body upon the tree, so that having died to the sins, we may live to the righteousness… (1Keifa 2:20-24, MJLT)

As we enter into the Passover season, we celebrate not only Israel’s salvation from captivity and oppression in Egypt, but also the individual salvation that this watershed event ultimately foreshadows. During this annual time of commemorating our freedom from sin, we are presented with the unique opportunity to refocus on, recommit to, recognize, and remember what Ye­shua selflessly did on our behalf, and the consummate purpose to which He has called us. Unfortunately, this high calling—which is clearly spelled out by the emissary, Keifa—is essentially foreign to and lost among today’s modern Body of Messiah.

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