It's been a topsy turvy week for me as I rediscovered Meander Radio, a Hebrew Roots Network. I found myself once again wrestling on the question of how I should be worshipping Jesus and God.
God very definitely commanded "worship me only" and keep the Sabbath.
Jesus was always pointing to the father as the only object of his worship. Yet, last night at church we were praising Jesus as a full blown "God" and I felt uncomfortable.
He never once said "worship me" to the exclusivity of God.
Even if we go down the triune theory of: God makes the plan; Jesus calls it into being; and the Holy Spirit is the force that makes it all happen; it still feels to me like I am worshipping God's arm or his foot, not God in his fullness when we worship Jesus.
I guess this is my current wrestling with my understandings and why the road to a peace with God is more like a walk for us all. We are all in a different place on our walk that is for sure as I glanced around the room and saw others lost in their bliss in their worship of Jesus. Yes it is a journey.
Jesus and Paul were both Jews. They were practicing Jews according to the Torah, the old Testiment. They faithfully kept all the feasts and Shabbat (Sabbath Saturdays).
Twice, Paul was dragged before Jewish council, in Acts, and on both occassions insisted that he had always kept the Laws of the Moses, the Feasts and the Sabbath.
So how come we as followers of Christ and under the instruction of Paul don't follow the ways of Jesus and Paul and the early Church?
Millions of Christians feel comfortable making the Sabbath the first day of the week...the day of the god Mithra...Sunday, instead of Saturday as God had specified in the old Testiment and the last day of the week as His day?
How come we have adopted the pagan Feasts of the god Saturn: Saturnalia (christmas) and the Fertility festivals (easter) instead of the Feast of Weeks, Trumpets and Tabernacles and the Day of Atonement as God asked of us?
I found out recently that Jesus was born during the festival of Sukkot...Sept/Oct.
It's all confusing. I feel like Neo in the Matrix who has just woken up in the tank. Yet if you ask your "elders" you are told it doesnt matter, we are covered by a new covenant because of Jesus. nono of the old testiment including God's commandments apply. Everyday is the Sabbath. Just follow him, and you will be alright.
But that is not what the early church did. They went to the synagogues on Saturdays and learned about Moses and Gods law.
Jesus made it perfectly clear on a number of ocassions that he hadn't come to change one jot of the Law as delivered by Moses. He did have a problem with the extra oral Laws that man had added to Gods which made it a burden to keep them all. Hence Jesus's constant head butting with the Jewish leaders of the times the pharriseas and Sadduceas.
It leaves me with a troubled heart. For although I am not a Jew, I am a true believer in God and if he said this is what he wants his children to do, then I want to please him too, by doing what he asks.
I did ask this of a preacher recently and he took me to that passage in the New Testiment that said that "think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets: I am not come to destroy but to fullfill". Emphasising the "fulfill" like it doesn't matter anymore. Since when does God's word not matter anymore!
I just read the first bit over and over again. "I have not come to change one jot or tittle of law".
So I am still back at wanting to keep the Sabbath and worshipping God and understanding what he wants of me.
"Fulfill" to me means that Jesus stands in the fullfillment of all the predictions of being the Messiah but then he is still up for the second coming. So the law is not over yet because all is not fullfilled. He hasn't come again. So that means when he said" for verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tilttle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled." the Law as it stands is still on going for people of God, which includes me, until he comes again. Which fits in with the prophets and Revelation because they are still talking about the Jewish Sabbath, which is Saturday being kept wven in end times.
There were three laws that gentiles like me were expected to keep in the early churches as beginner steps.
The first was "pollution from Idols".
I believed having cleared my home a few years ago of all my buddhas and the like, I thought this part was done. But now as I look at the feasts I still keep I realise I am still there.
Christmas and Easter are all worshipping someone elses God. So is Sunday that is the day of Mthra the Sun god. I was putting these other so called Gods on par with my God by upholding their feasts and Festivals instead of his. EEK!
I am still being contaminiated by other Gods.
The other two laws about fornication, not eating animals strangled and about blood are all Mosaic Laws handed down in the Old Testiment.
I chose to follow clean eating months ago when I heard a professor talk about why these animals were actually not good to eat based on bacteria and uric acid levels. Made sense.. so I adopted it. Formication...back to Leviticus.