Unity in the Home

Ephesians 5:22 Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord, 23 for the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of the body. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so wives are to submit to their husbands in everything. 25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her with the washing of water by the word. 27 He did this to present the church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or anything like that, but holy and blameless. 28 In the same way, husbands are to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hates his own flesh but provides and cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, 30 since we are members of His body. 31 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. 32 This mystery is profound, but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33 To sum up, each one of you is to love his wife as himself, and the wife is to respect her husband.(HCSB)

Many people in our culture take offense at this passage because of how, on the surface and detached from the rest of the book, it would appear to be subjugating women. That is far from the reality of this passage. Never does God tell husbands to subjugate or lord it over their wives. NO Where! This passage is actually doing the exact opposite.

Imagine for me a human being. They have a head and a body, correct? If you detach the head from the body, what happens? The body dies. Both are vital and needed. Remember that Paul has already, back in chapter one, said that the Messiah is the head of the church, His body. Marriage here in chapter five is being used to illustrate a much larger truth than just how husbands and wives are to live with each other.

I want to deal with the specific issue of husbands and wives for a minute before moving on to the bigger picture. Notice what each are called to do. The wife is to respect her husband. She is to submit to her head. She needs him. To not respect is to say she does not need him and to effectually cut him off. She would be killing herself and him in the process.

Yes, she is submitting to the needs of her husband, his need for respect. This is a huge issue for men and it is the way God made them to be. It is their emotional blood flow, so to speak. They have a need for their wife to respect them because for them it is the wife saying, “I need you”. She is submitting to his needs above her own. Paul tells us that as believers we should all think of each other as more important than ourselves.(Phil. 2:3) Obeying this mandate as a wife is doing nothing more than obeying the one in Philippians as a believer.

Next, God tells the husband to love his wife. Why? Because that is her need, her emotional blood flow. In order to live and thrive a wife requires love. It is how God made her. It is the husband saying, “I desire you in my life, in every area of my life. You are wanted”. In this the husband is to submit to her need above his own. Otherwise, he would be cutting off his own body and thereby killing himself.

In a marriage there must be this unity and this passage gives the way that is achieved. He, the head, belongs to the body and she, the body, belongs to the head. If they are going to survive they need each other and so each must be sure to give the other what the other requires to survive, respect or love. If this is done then the head and body function together with much greater ease and unity. In so doing they each survive and thrive.

That leads us to what God is illustrating to us. This relationship is what He wishes to have with His people. This is the story of the Bridegroom and the Bride. Yeshua is our Bridegroom and we who put our faith in Him, who follow Him, are His Bride. According to this passage, this is a profound mystery. Notice that our oneness with each other is called the mystery in Ephesians and our oneness with Him is called a profound mystery. This is beyond anything we could have thought of or imagined.(Chapter 3)

That is why it is so important to preserve the true picture of marriage because it speaks of the relationship He desires with us. To change the picture is to attempt to tarnish or twist the reality. For the last 50 years our culture has seen deliberate distortions and downplay of marriage.

Most prominently today, our culture, along with the enemy’s help in deceiving our culture, is beginning to accept more and more the distortion and calling it good.

Marriage is and from the beginning has been between a man and a woman, but our culture is debating redefining marriage to include being between a man and a man or a woman and a woman. What picture does that give of God? It is not two bridegrooms or two brides that offer us the accurate picture of the relationship God wants with us.

I am not saying that people in these relationships realize what they are saying, but to be sure the enemy does and he seeks to distort and twist all God wants for us. And to be sure God knows what it says, that is why this particular sin is called an abomination.

The enemy wants people to concentrate on their
“rights” to be happy and purposefully turns them away from what the reality of what they are doing says about God. That is why it is called deception. Eve sinned based on deception, but it was still sin.

The first relationship we see in Scripture is marriage of one man and one woman. The man represents the Son of God (Luke calls Adam the son of God) and Eve represents the Bride of Christ, the Bride of the Son. In the end we see the marriage of the Lamb and His Bride. One is the picture of the other and to distort and twist it into anything else is the enemy’s attempt to distort and twist what it represents, what it will be in the end.

It is for this reason the church must hold the line on true marriage because we must insist on reflecting the light of the true relationship God wants with His people. Anything else is from the realm of darkness and based on deception.

Bride of Christ – Hold the Line, no one said it would be easy to insist on the accurate picture to a world who desperately needs our Bridegroom when all it seems to want to do is reject Him.

Our Bridegroom wishes to have a spotless Bride, one without wrinkles or blemishes. He paid for us with His own blood. It is the least we can do to hold tight to His promise as His bride. One day He will come for us and call us to Himself.

This picture is a profound mystery.

Vicky

Children of Light

Ephesians 4:17 Therefore, I say this and testify in the Lord: You should no longer walk as the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their thoughts. 18 They are darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them and because of the hardness of their hearts… 20 But that is not how you learned about the Messiah… 24 you put on the new self, the one created according to God’s likeness in righteousness and purity of the truth. 25 Since you put away lying, Speak the truth, each one to his neighbor, because we are members of one another. 26 Be angry and do not sin. Don’t let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and don’t give the Devil an opportunity… 29 No foul language is to come from your mouth, but only what is good for building up someone in need, so that it gives grace to those who hear. 30 And don’t grieve God’s Holy Spirit. You were sealed by Him for the day of redemption. 31 All bitterness, anger and wrath, shouting and slander must be removed from you, along with all malice. 32 And be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another, just as God also forgave you in Christ.

Ephesians 5:1 Therefore, be imitators of God, as dearly loved children. 2 And walk in love, as the Messiah also loved us and gave Himself for us, a sacrificial and fragrant offering to God… 8 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light — 9 for the fruit of the light results in all goodness, righteousness, and truth — 10 discerning what is pleasing to the Lord…15 Pay careful attention, then, to how you walk —not as unwise people but as wise — 16 making the most of the time, because the days are evil. 17 So don’t be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. 18 And don’t get drunk with wine, which leads to reckless actions, but be filled by the Spirit: 19 speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making music from your heart to the Lord, 20 giving thanks always for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, 21 submitting to one another in the fear of Christ.(HCSB)

I admittedly skipped over parts of the passage and I encourage you to read the whole passage in Scripture, but I did it this way to point out some specific things. I want to start at the beginning of the passage with the discussion of Gentiles. If you notice Paul is saying that his readers are no longer Gentiles because Gentiles are “excluded from the life of God”. They are not apart of His family. That may sound harsh, but Paul is definitely using them as a stark contrast to what a believer is and looks like. Gentiles live in darkness, in every aspect of their life, and a believer in Yeshua is the exact opposite, they are people of the Light.

When a person becomes a disciple of Jesus Christ they are a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17) and what a masterpeice God makes of them. In this passage Paul says that they are created in God’s likeness in righteousness and purity of truth. Did you catch that? They are created in God’s likeness, in His image. What was twisted and marred with the fall, God repairs. We were always intended to be in Him, to be like Him, to be imitators of Him. We are to reflect Him and so our actions must match that.

That is truly what this passage is about. We are His and we are to be like Him. Therefore, we are to look dramatically different than the rest of the world who live in darkness. We are to live differently and live in such harmony with our fellow believers that it marvels this dark world.

We are members of one another and as such we are to live with each other in certain ways. We are to be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another, just as God also forgave us in Christ. We are to speak to each other in such a way as to only say what is good for building up someone in need, so that it gives grace to those who hear. How do we do this? We speak to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making music from our hearts to the Lord, giving thanks always for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. All the while submitting to one another in the fear of Christ.

Is that to say that one believer never gets angry at another? Not at all. But we do not allow that anger to take root by “sleeping on it”. We speak the truth to one another, in love. And yes, expect them to do the same. The main game of the enemy is to divide us. He wants to put a wedge between us. Makes since doesn’t it? Jesus prayed that we would be one and so the Devil seeks to do the exact opposite, tear us apart. Question is, who do we allow to win those battles in our lives? I pray the answer is that we always seek to make the prayer of Yeshua a reality through the power of the Spirit, who fills us and seals us.

As we live, filled with the Holy Spirit, we are not only capable of living as children of light (discerning what the Lord’s will is), but we are expected to. Children of the One Light, whose light they reflect, are expected to walk step by step with that One Light. Otherwise they stray into darkness and when there we become easy targets for the enemy to pick off and destroy.

And what is the Lord’s will for us as children of Light. It is to be one with one another, living out the mystery. Submitting to one another. How we do that in our daily lives in everyday relationships is what Paul deals with next. I look forward to talking to you about that.

In the Light,

Vicky

Forward in Love

Ephesians 4:7 Now grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of the Messiah’s gift. 8 For it says:
When He ascended on high, He took prisoners into captivity; He gave gifts to people.
9 But what does “He ascended ” mean except that He descended to the lower parts of the earth? 10 The One who descended is also the One who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things. 11 And He personally gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, 12 for the training of the saints in the work of ministry, to build up the body of Christ, 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of God’s Son, growing into a mature man with a stature measured by Christ’s fullness. 14 Then we will no longer be little children, tossed by the waves and blown around by every wind of teaching, by human cunning with cleverness in the techniques of deceit. 15 But speaking the truth in love, let us grow in every way into Him who is the head —Christ. 16 From Him the whole body, fitted and knit together by every supporting ligament, promotes the growth of the body for building up itself in love by the proper working of each individual part.(HCSB)

It was the Messiah who gave the duties of being an apostle, a prophet, an evangelist, a pastor and a teacher. He did not give them just because He felt like it, but for a very specific purpose. The One seeks for His people to be one. Do not miss that.

On a corner of one of our seminary buildings was verses 11 and 12 and it always bugged me because it stopped there. But Scripture does not stop there. These duties are assigned so that the saints can properly do ministry in such a way that grows the body up. You see, ministry can be done in such a way where the body does not grow up and it stays an infant. So, the question is, what does it look like when the body of Christ is grown up?

Verse 13 gives the answer to that question. You see, we are headed in a specific direction, not meandering aimlessly around on our own. With the help of the Spirit and those God equipped to lead the body the church is supposed to come to a place where they reach unity in the faith and the knowledge of God’s Son.

This part is very important, this unity is in doctrine. This is the area we like to ignore, but according to this passage we cannot. We must have unity in how we live for Him and in our doctrine. We cannot have unity in one and not the other and expect the world to see the Light of Truth in our lives. That is why so much of this book is given to this subject of oneness and unity.

I have often wondered how it is that so many people inside the church want to insist that there can be unity of the body and not unity of doctrine. It has also amazed me that no one really seems determined, within orthodox Christianity, to sit down together and pray together and pour through Scripture together until unity becomes reality.

You know, do the hard work our founders here in The United States did when they shut themselves up in a room, prayed, searched the Scriptures and talked together coming out of that hall with the Constitution. Where are those in the faith willing to do that?

The issue to my past wonderings may be found in the next phrase in verse 13, “growing into a mature man with a stature measured by Christ’s fullness”. This can also be translated this way, “into a complete man with a maturity measured by Christ’s completion.” Look at that again, it says, “a complete man”. Does this remind you of anything already talked about in the book.

Back in chapter two Paul talks about the Messiah taking the two, the Jew and the Gentile, to make one man. You see we are not complete without each other. Up until recently in history the Jews were not coming into the faith of the Son of God in very large numbers. However, that is changing and with them we are seeing a resurgence of understanding in the faith.

Could it be that they had to be grafted back into there own tree before we who are in the faith could sit down and really seek unity, complete unity. Did they need to be at the table? I believe so. Why? Because they hold the key to so much that the Gentile church had left behind long ago and frankly no longer made much sense to us. That is why some could think it O.K. to abandon the Old Testament. But it is not O.K., we need each other.

I have often said that Yeshua/Jesus does not want a dysfunctional Bride, yet that is what we have been giving Him for quite some time. No, He seeks oneness, complete unity (John 17) for His Bride. The pieces are in place and we can learn from one another again. Jew and Gentile are no longer separate, but in Christ have become one man, a complete and mature man.

This is why we will not be tossed to and fro by the waves that sail our way. As one, knowing our faith and standing firm up against one another, the waves break on us instead of us breaking on them. False teaching does not stand a chance when the body stands together as one.

No, we speak the truth in love instead of following after false teaching and saying it’s O.K. to do so. We follow the one who is the One. We grow to be like Him who is our head. We grow by each one of us doing our assigned duty in love.

We have been given our marching orders and they are to stand up against one another in love and not to allow any false teaching in.

We must act and think as one, a properly trained military unit. We are His body. He is the head, the commander of the unit. No unit can do anything without the commands of it’s commander. And no unit will succeed when it disobeys its commanders explicit instructions. That is what we have, explicit instructions, commands, to follow. It is up to us to do the following. That is why Jesus said to His disciples, “Come, follow me”.

In the weeks ahead I hope to create a page on this website where we can come together in love to discuss our differences and learn from each other as we hear each others hearts.

It will be a place where we can be honest about what we think we understand, but at the same time are willing to hear from others who disagree with us.

It will be a place, not to win an argument, but a place to follow the leading of the Spirit.

Please invite people to come and join us here at Esther’s Legacy, people from different orthodox Christian backgrounds.

We need each other. The Gentile Christian needs the Messianic Jew and the Messianic Jew needs the Gentile Christian. Lest we forget, the different Gentile denominations need each other too.

Forward in Love,

Vicky

Hold The Line

Ephesians 4:1– “Therefore I, the prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk worthy of the calling you have received, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, accepting one another in love, 3 diligently keeping the unity of the Spirit with the peace that binds us. 4 There is one body and one Spirit —just as you were called to one hope at your calling — 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.”(HCSB)

Knowing the mystery and that he had been given the administration of this mystery, having prayed for the believers to know God’s power and love, Paul basically says “with that in mind let’s get down to brass tax”.

That is what he means by the “therefore”. To add weight to what he is about to say, to let his readers know that he understands how hard it is and will be he calls himself the prisoner of the Lord. He has chosen to walk this path that has taken him to prison and he is calling the others to walk it with him.

This is the life they had been called to and are expected to walk in a way that is worthy, worthy of the calling. And who called them?

The Lord did, not Paul – God called them to this life.

Is living the mystery as God wants it to be going to be easy?

Absolutely not. Loving and living as one will require their all and nothing less. It will take the Spirit filled life.

I want to break down this passage because it is so much weightier than how we often translate it to be in the English.

Beginning with the word “humility” we see that God is asking us to do something very contradictory to the flesh. This word means to think lowly of ones self, having humiliation of mind.

This is the exact opposite of the worldly message of self-esteem where we are called by the enemy to think highly of ourselves, to esteem ourselves instead of others and God. This is by no means easy, but highly necessary.

Our next word is “gentleness “. It is really the word “meekness”. Unfortunately we do not really understand this word.

It is not an absence of power, but a very intense power that is restrained and in control. Meekness means knowing you have power, but not always exerting that power, or right, on others.

Jesus is our greatest example of this. He had the angels at His disposal before His arrest and He restrained that power for the joy that laid before Him, for the sake of His Bride and in obedience to His Father. This is what this word is calling us to be.

Then comes “patience”, a word we simply do not understand. This word does not mean just sit around and wait while we twiddle our thumbs.

This word is the idea of fortitude, standing guard, being fortified. It is being longsuffering in action. Knowing you may be fortified, standing guard, for a long time, but willing to keep standing guard until God moves you.

Are you beginning to think, “O.K. that’s enough, please that’s enough”? Like I said this is not easy, but God does not stop here.

He talks about accepting or bearing with one another. However, the word for “accepting” really means to “hold yourself up against”, in this case, one another.

Are you getting the picture? We are to hold ourselves up against each other in love.

Now here is the idea. The idea Paul is trying to create is a military line. Like troops in formation, we are holding up against one another as a military line and the thing that glues us together is love.

I want to take the next phrase together.

It is “diligently keeping the unity of the Spirit”. The word “diligently” means to make every effort with speed.

O.K. what are we doing with speed and with every effort? We are keeping.

The word “keeping” means to watch as in a watchman on the wall, to guard from loss or injury or to hold fast.

We are on the ball, so to speak, and keeping watch on, guarding, and holding fast the unity or oneness of the Spirit. We do this with the peace or oneness that binds us together– our love for one another.

Oneness or Unity is hard work, work that requires every effort and determination to stay the course.

It is also something that does not automatically happen just because we are one body with one Spirit who lives in each of us.

No He will not force this upon us but gives us the directions to achieving it through the power of His Spirit.

We as the body are not one because we do not want it or seek it.

We do not think lowly of ourselves. We do not restrain our power or rights. We have little fortitude and longsuffering and are unwilling to hold up against one another in love.

We do not stand guard over the unity and oneness of the Spirit through any bond of peace. We do not love one another as He has commanded us to do.

We do not do this and I am sad to say that for the most part I am afraid we do not even really attempt it. We are comfortable being apart especially in our different denominations. This should, just as it was for Paul with the Ephesians, be a matter of prayer and concern for us today.

We are to hold fast or hold the line, so to speak, on the matters of doctrine and life that follow in the book. Staying firm on the fact that there is one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, above all, through all and in all.

Church… you must hold the line, hold fast. You must stand guard over the oneness of the Spirit with all diligence.

Let us live the mystery in such a time as this.

Vicky

The Administration of the Mystery

Ephesians 1:9 He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure that He planned in Him 10 for the administration of the days of fulfillment —to bring everything together in the Messiah, both things in heaven and things on earth in Him.(HCSB)

Ephesians3:3 The mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I have briefly written above. 4 By reading this you are able to understand my insight about the mystery of the Messiah. 5 This was not made known to people in other generations as it is now revealed to His holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit: 6 The Gentiles are co-heirs, members of the same body, and partners of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.(HCSB)

Ephesians 3:8 This grace was given to me —the least of all the saints—to proclaim to the Gentiles the incalculable riches of the Messiah, 9 and to shed light for all about the administration of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things.(HCSB)

Ephesians 3 defines the mystery for us as Gentiles and Jews sharing in the promise as co-heirs together in Christ Jesus. This is a true mystery that for ages past had been kept hidden although hinted at. The Old Covenant spoke of people of other nations and tongues coming to worship God, but the actual understanding that Jews and Gentiles would share equally in the promise was not even thought of by those who worshiped The Name.

As we saw in chapter 2 not only were these two to be co-heirs, but would become one man. Yeshua came to make us one together so that we can be presented to Him as a spotless bride without wrinkle or defect. Our God is so awesome and His ways are truly above our ways and His thoughts truly far above our thoughts.

God, however, does not stop by just revealing this mystery to us and then leaving us to figure out how to make this reality in our time for ourselves. Most of us, I would venture to say, do not even think it is really possible for us to truly act and be as one this side of the Messianic Age or heaven. We tend to leave things alone as they are and not strive for true oneness in this world where sin is still a reality. But Beloved, God’s plans are greater than ours and not only does He expect us to act and be as one now, He also gave us the road map of how to achieve it. That is what the rest of Ephesians is about.

Chapter 3 lets us know that God gave Paul the administration of this mystery or to say it another way, He gave Paul the way in which the body of Christ, the blessed bride of The Lamb, could actually carry out this mystery. It is that reality that speaks of God’s wisdom to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms. When they see God’s Spirit filled people living out the mystery of being one with each other and with Him it screams volumes to the unseen realms of how only God could have thought of this awesome mystery.

It is with this truth that Paul prays the prayer of Ephesians 3.

14 For this reason I kneel before the Father 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named. 16 I pray that He may grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power in the inner man through His Spirit, 17 and that the Messiah may dwell in your hearts through faith. I pray that you, being rooted and firmly established in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the length and width, height and depth of God’s love, 19 and to know the Messiah’s love that surpasses knowledge, so you may be filled with all the fullness of God. 20 Now to Him who is able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us — 21 to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.(HCSB)

Paul begins pretty much where He left off in the prayer of chapter 1, with praying for power among God’s people. Remember this is no ordinary power as the world defines power, but the power that raised Jesus from the dead. That is what he prays will be in us, in our inner being through His Spirit. He prays that through faith, being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see, faith that leads us to action not just intellectual awareness that Yeshua the Messiah will dwell, be tabernacled in us (we are the temple of God).

Paul assumes our rooting and firm establishment in love. The believer is rooted deep in God’s love, the love that sent His Son to die for us, and firmly established in our love for one another, a requirement for the believer based on the command of Jesus. He (Paul) knows that it is only in this love, the love God has for us and our love for each other, that we will together with all God’s people even begin to be able to comprehend the love of Christ – the width, depth, length, and height of His love.

It is only together that we will have our full strength to eagerly take hold of that kind of love. It is His love being made manifest in all of us toward each other that makes His love knowable to us just as us living out that life of the mystery makes His wisdom known to the unseen realms.

Paul prays for us to be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God, which harkens back again to the prayer in chapter 1. We can only be all that God desires us to be as we live in power, faith, and love together. This life baffles the world, but also lets them know that the Father sent His Son.

Can this generation of believers live this life? Yes it can! And the rest of Ephesians instructs us in just how to live out this mystery. So as we study the rest of the book we will be approaching it from this perspective.

In His love,

Vicky

My Thoughts

My family and I took a trip to Nashville this past Saturday and worshiped our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ/Yeshua the Messiah, with Kol Dodi Messianic Congregation. It was a heart warming experience. Heart warming because the people of Kol Dodi were very loving and welcoming from the first Shabbat Shalom to the last goodbye.

We spent six hours with them and by the end of our time with them felt like we were one of them. The first two hours were spent in worship with songs in both Hebrew and English, readings from Scripture, teaching, communion and prayer. I have to tell you it did not seem like that much time went by.

Our daughter spent the teaching time with the children after a blessing upon the children was given under a prayer shawl/canopy. While with the children she made a pottery communion cup and met a new friend. One of her teachers has a son who helps with the BCM here at our local university, what a small world.

It was a congregation made up of both Jew and non-Jew. A congregation worshiping in the Hebrew way together with the walls of hostility gone in the Name of Yeshua. It reminded me of the passage in Zechariah 8 where God says that ten men would take hold of one Jew because they know the Lord is with him. What an awesome sight to see Jew and non-Jew worshiping together and being a part of it.

The rabbi’s wife was very welcoming at the picnic as we talked and she invited me to visit with the other ladies and introduced me. I thought, “this is how it should be”. It was a great honor to visit with those ladies and hope to do so again soon.

The mikvah was amazing and started with the call of the shofar. We stood on the bank of a creek as two children and two women went into the water to be baptized in the Name of Yeshua. The two women gave awesome testimonies, one even including a confession that was something only God could accomplish, I pray she will continue to allow God to change her and transform her into the image of His Son.

I could not recommend more highly that each of us find a Messianic Congregation in our region to visit, worship with and participate with in their work. It will bless your heart and you will be awestruck at what God is doing in His Bride.

Shalom,

Vicky

Messianic Congregations

Today’s post is one of encouragement. I want to encourage each of you to reach out to a Messianic Congregation in your region. Not all of us have one close by so we have to think from a more regional perspective. You can find the one closest to you by going to the Messianic Alliance of North America at http://www.man-na.com. Go visit the congregation of your choice and ask how you can participate in their ministry.

My family and I are going to visit a Messianic Congregation in Nashville this Saturday, Kol Dodi. We plan on attending worship and then a Mikvah (baptism) service at the park. I am really looking forward to this, it will be the first time I have been to a Messianic worship and Mikvah service. Join me and my family in learning from these amazing people of God.

As I was doing some research this week on Messianic Congregations I also found congregations in Israel. I have to tell you this was very exciting for me. The first one I would like to introduce you to is Adonai Roi (The Lord is My Shepherd)/Dugit Messianic Outreach Centre found at:

http://www.dugit.org/dvd.html

I am giving you their dvd page because I would like you to watch these videos and praise God for what He is doing in the land of Israel. I have had some trouble seeing all of the top video, but the other three work fine. These videos will amaze you and you will be left with no other response, but praise. My response was, “And God smiles”. God is breaking down their wall of hostility and making them one, making them family.

Our prayers need to be with these brothers and sisters in the Holy Land. I hope you enjoy these videos and also take the time to browse the sites.

God bless you as you walk in the Light of His grace.

Vicky

The Two ONE

In the book of Acts we see the apostles having to learn to accept Gentiles into the faith. This took a dramatic event in the life of Peter when God lowered a sheet with unclean animals for Peter to kill and eat. God did this three times and the message was not the food, it was “do not call unclean what (God has) made clean”, meaning the Gentiles. Immediately following this Peter goes to a Gentile home and shares the good news of Jesus with them in their home, something that was forbidden for a Jew to do.

We then see Paul becoming the apostle to the Gentiles. He took the good news as far as he could, no matter the personal cost. Immediately on his heals were the Judaizers who claimed that the Gentiles first had to become Jews before becoming a believer in Jesus. Paul flatly rejected this in very graphic terms. In fact, I want to be clear on this point, once one is a believer in Jesus they are no longer a Gentile because a Gentile is a foreigner and alien, but in Christ we are made citizens of His nation, the holy nation of Israel over which He is king. This was the situation in Bible times.

Fast forward 2000 years and what do we see happening in the land of Israel today? We see many who want to separate the Arabs and Israelis living in the land onto different sides. Truth is they are on different sides. On one hand Jews have the right of return to the land of Israel, the land promised to them, and on the other side the Arabs want the Jews completely out of the land and consider the Israelis to be occupiers and colonialists. There are those who wish to divide the land calling a part of it the West Bank. What some like to call the West Bank in indeed a part of the historical land of Israel once known as Judea and Samaria.

This land is proportioned specifically in Scripture among the tribes of Israel. It was to eventually be the Israelis land. So how can this be resolved? How is reconciliation in a land that just about everyone seems to want to divide possible? There is only one answer to this question.

Those who believe in Yeshua the Messiah are the light in a dark situation. For the Arab believers in the land there is a group called Musalaha (www.musalaha.org), which is Arabic for reconciliation. They organize camps for Messianic Jews and Palestinian Christians to come together as brothers and sisters in Christ. This effort needs our prayers.

Musalaha also puts events together so that Messianic Jews and Palestinian Christians can come together in worship experiencing how both sides worship Messiah. At the same time they also reach out to Muslim Arabs in the land to show them the love and truth of Christ through different outreach opportunities.

On the other side there are Messianic Jews in the land who want a strong bond relationship with Arab Christians as well. These Messianic Jews are trying to reach out to their fellow Jews with the love and truth of the Messiah. One such ministry in Israel is Heart of G-d Ministries (www.heartofg-d.org). While Heart of G-d seeks to encourage Aliyah (Jewish right of return) of all Jews both Messianic and not Messianic, there are some elements of the Israeli government that are trying to keep Messianic Jews from having the right of return, claiming they are not real Jews. They too need our prayers.

Both sides report a good relationship with the other. A relationship that is only possible through Christ. These two sides are coming together. As they do they will begin to look more and more like each other. Why? Because they will look more and more like the Savior.

The Arab does not have to become a Jew and the the Jew does not have to leave behind his roots, on the contrary they are both the spiritual nation of Israel. Both grafted into the one tree that is Israel, God’s nation of princes, His holy nation and priesthood. The root of that tree being the Old Testament (Covenant) fulfilled in Yeshua who spilled His blood, the blood of the New Covenant.

It should be our prayer that as more and more Jews come into the land they will come to know their Messiah as they are surrounded by the truth of who they are and who He is. Also, that the Arab Christians will spur them on to jealousy as they continue to grow in their own faith and grow closer and closer to the Messianic Jews.

Jesus is the answer for the peace of Jerusalem and the land of Israel, ONLY Yeshua. What an awesome time we live in. We have before us a living example of the two becoming one if only we will take the time to see.

Yes, Jesus has put to death their hostility. Now it is up to these believers to live that out in a land and an environment that would rather them not. Yet it is the life that Yeshua calls them to live. A life that the cross of Christ demands. They must pick up their cross daily and follow Him where others do not want to go. How blessed they are as they daily live out the mystery. May God grant them His grace and His power to live this life.

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem and all the land.

Vicky

That is why it is so important to preserve the true picture of marriage because it speaks of the relationship He desires with us. To change the picture is to attempt to tarnish or twist the reality. For the last 50 years our culture has seen deliberate distortions and downplay of marriage.

Most prominently today, our culture, along with the enemy’s help in deceiving our culture, is beginning to accept more and more the distortion and calling it good.

I am not saying that people in these relationships realize what they are saying, but to be sure the enemy does and he seeks to distort and twist all God wants for us. And to be sure God knows what it says, that is why this particular sin is called an abomination.

The enemy wants people to concentrate on their “rights” to be happy and purposefully turns them away from what the reality of what they are doing says about God. That is why it is called deception. Eve sinned based on deception, but it was still sin.

It is for this reason the church must hold the line on true marriage because we must insist on reflecting the light of the true relationship God wants with His people. Anything else is from the realm of darkness and based on deception.

Bride of Christ – Hold the Line, no one said it would be easy to insist on the accurate picture to a world who desperately needs our Bridegroom when all it seems to want to do is reject Him.

Our Bridegroom wishes to have a spotless Bride, one without wrinkles or blemishes. He paid for us with His own blood. It is the least we can do to hold tight to His promise as His bride. One day He will come for us and call us to Himself.

This picture is a profound mystery.

Vicky

That is truly what this passage is about. We are His and we are to be like Him. Therefore, we are to look dramatically different than the rest of the world who live in darkness. We are to live differently and live in such harmony with our fellow believers that it marvels this dark world.

And what is the Lord’s will for us as children of Light. It is to be one with one another, living out the mystery. Submitting to one another. How we do that in our daily lives in everyday relationships is what Paul deals with next. I look forward to talking to you about that.

In the Light,

Vicky

It was the Messiah who gave the duties of being an apostle, a prophet, an evangelist, a pastor and a teacher. He did not give them just because He felt like it, but for a very specific purpose. The One seeks for His people to be one. Do not miss that.

You know, do the hard work our founders here in The United States did when they shut themselves up in a room, prayed, searched the Scriptures and talked together coming out of that hall with the Constitution. Where are those in the faith willing to do that?

This is why we will not be tossed to and fro by the waves that sail our way. As one, knowing our faith and standing firm up against one another, the waves break on us instead of us breaking on them. False teaching does not stand a chance when the body stands together as one.

No, we speak the truth in love instead of following after false teaching and saying it’s O.K. to do so. We follow the one who is the One. We grow to be like Him who is our head. We grow by each one of us doing our assigned duty in love.

We have been given our marching orders and they are to stand up against one another in love and not to allow any false teaching in.

In the weeks ahead I hope to create a page on this website where we can come together in love to discuss our differences and learn from each other as we hear each others hearts.

It will be a place where we can be honest about what we think we understand, but at the same time are willing to hear from others who disagree with us.

It will be a place, not to win an argument, but a place to follow the leading of the Spirit.

Please invite people to come and join us here at Esther’s Legacy, people from different orthodox Christian backgrounds.

We need each other. The Gentile Christian needs the Messianic Jew and the Messianic Jew needs the Gentile Christian. Lest we forget, the different Gentile denominations need each other too.

Forward in Love,

Vicky

Knowing the mystery and that he had been given the administration of this mystery, having prayed for the believers to know God’s power and love, Paul basically says “with that in mind let’s get down to brass tax”.

This is the life they had been called to and are expected to walk in a way that is worthy, worthy of the calling. And who called them?

The Lord did, not Paul – God called them to this life.

Is living the mystery as God wants it to be going to be easy?

Absolutely not. Loving and living as one will require their all and nothing less. It will take the Spirit filled life.

I want to break down this passage because it is so much weightier than how we often translate it to be in the English.

Beginning with the word “humility” we see that God is asking us to do something very contradictory to the flesh. This word means to think lowly of ones self, having humiliation of mind.

This is the exact opposite of the worldly message of self-esteem where we are called by the enemy to think highly of ourselves, to esteem ourselves instead of others and God. This is by no means easy, but highly necessary.

Our next word is “gentleness “. It is really the word “meekness”. Unfortunately we do not really understand this word.

It is not an absence of power, but a very intense power that is restrained and in control. Meekness means knowing you have power, but not always exerting that power, or right, on others.

Jesus is our greatest example of this. He had the angels at His disposal before His arrest and He restrained that power for the joy that laid before Him, for the sake of His Bride and in obedience to His Father. This is what this word is calling us to be.

Then comes “patience”, a word we simply do not understand. This word does not mean just sit around and wait while we twiddle our thumbs.

This word is the idea of fortitude, standing guard, being fortified. It is being longsuffering in action. Knowing you may be fortified, standing guard, for a long time, but willing to keep standing guard until God moves you.

Are you beginning to think, “O.K. that’s enough, please that’s enough”? Like I said this is not easy, but God does not stop here.

He talks about accepting or bearing with one another. However, the word for “accepting” really means to “hold yourself up against”, in this case, one another.

Are you getting the picture? We are to hold ourselves up against each other in love.

Now here is the idea. The idea Paul is trying to create is a military line. Like troops in formation, we are holding up against one another as a military line and the thing that glues us together is love.

I want to take the next phrase together.

It is “diligently keeping the unity of the Spirit”. The word “diligently” means to make every effort with speed.

O.K. what are we doing with speed and with every effort? We are keeping.

The word “keeping” means to watch as in a watchman on the wall, to guard from loss or injury or to hold fast.

We are on the ball, so to speak, and keeping watch on, guarding, and holding fast the unity or oneness of the Spirit. We do this with the peace or oneness that binds us together– our love for one another.

Oneness or Unity is hard work, work that requires every effort and determination to stay the course.

It is also something that does not automatically happen just because we are one body with one Spirit who lives in each of us.

No He will not force this upon us but gives us the directions to achieving it through the power of His Spirit.

We as the body are not one because we do not want it or seek it.

We do not think lowly of ourselves. We do not restrain our power or rights. We have little fortitude and longsuffering and are unwilling to hold up against one another in love.

We do not stand guard over the unity and oneness of the Spirit through any bond of peace. We do not love one another as He has commanded us to do.

We do not do this and I am sad to say that for the most part I am afraid we do not even really attempt it. We are comfortable being apart especially in our different denominations. This should, just as it was for Paul with the Ephesians, be a matter of prayer and concern for us today.

We are to hold fast or hold the line, so to speak, on the matters of doctrine and life that follow in the book. Staying firm on the fact that there is one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, above all, through all and in all.

Church… you must hold the line, hold fast. You must stand guard over the oneness of the Spirit with all diligence.

Let us live the mystery in such a time as this.

Vicky

Ephesians 1:9 He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure that He planned in Him 10 for the administration of the days of fulfillment —to bring everything together in the Messiah, both things in heaven and things on earth in Him.(HCSB)

Ephesians 3:8 This grace was given to me —the least of all the saints—to proclaim to the Gentiles the incalculable riches of the Messiah, 9 and to shed light for all about the administration of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things.(HCSB)

It is with this truth that Paul prays the prayer of Ephesians 3.

It is only together that we will have our full strength to eagerly take hold of that kind of love. It is His love being made manifest in all of us toward each other that makes His love knowable to us just as us living out that life of the mystery makes His wisdom known to the unseen realms.

Can this generation of believers live this life? Yes it can! And the rest of Ephesians instructs us in just how to live out this mystery. So as we study the rest of the book we will be approaching it from this perspective.

In His love,

Vicky

We spent six hours with them and by the end of our time with them felt like we were one of them. The first two hours were spent in worship with songs in both Hebrew and English, readings from Scripture, teaching, communion and prayer. I have to tell you it did not seem like that much time went by.

The rabbi’s wife was very welcoming at the picnic as we talked and she invited me to visit with the other ladies and introduced me. I thought, “this is how it should be”. It was a great honor to visit with those ladies and hope to do so again soon.

I could not recommend more highly that each of us find a Messianic Congregation in our region to visit, worship with and participate with in their work. It will bless your heart and you will be awestruck at what God is doing in His Bride.

Shalom,

Vicky

As I was doing some research this week on Messianic Congregations I also found congregations in Israel. I have to tell you this was very exciting for me. The first one I would like to introduce you to is Adonai Roi (The Lord is My Shepherd)/Dugit Messianic Outreach Centre found at:

Our prayers need to be with these brothers and sisters in the Holy Land. I hope you enjoy these videos and also take the time to browse the sites.

God bless you as you walk in the Light of His grace.

Vicky

This land is proportioned specifically in Scripture among the tribes of Israel. It was to eventually be the Israelis land. So how can this be resolved? How is reconciliation in a land that just about everyone seems to want to divide possible? There is only one answer to this question.

Both sides report a good relationship with the other. A relationship that is only possible through Christ. These two sides are coming together. As they do they will begin to look more and more like each other. Why? Because they will look more and more like the Savior.

The enemy wants people to concentrate on their
“rights” to be happy and purposefully turns them away from what the reality of what they are doing says about God. That is why it is called deception. Eve sinned based on deception, but it was still sin.