Shabbat shalom, everyone.
This week one of our online students sent me a transcript of something I said after a teaching. Typically, I turn off the recording for after-class discussion or trim, which leaves the floor open to throw out ideas or ask questions that we don't want the wider world to hear without understanding the context or private matters for prayer with those closer to us. As with Yeshua, who had 70, and then 12, and then 3, certain teaching moments are shared with those who walk alongside even in the difficult places. Yeshua told his disciples that he taught in parables so that some people wouldn't understand!
After I read it, I only remember saying some of it, but I found it personally encouraging, especially when the challenges of so many things to do in ministry and personal life often make me despair of ever catching up to the things that need to be done or learned or taught before I exit this earth. So with a thank-you to Patricia for making a transcript of this, I'd like to share it with you:
2021-12-18 Encouragement by Hollisa After the Teaching:
This is a good place to stop. Next week, I want to get into ... now that we can understand the importance of putting the blood on the lintel, because it represented a place of judgement ... the mezuzot, the prophecy of the mezuzah, is a little more involved. So, we will save that for the next livestream. What that is going to help us link it together is some of these statements about the “mark of the beast.”
If we are going to understand “mark of the beast,” it is going to be helpful to understand what the role of the mezuzah on the doorpost is for a believer. Now we see what it meant for salvation. Once you are saved, then you need to know how that mezuzah factors in to your daily life because of the blood of the Lamb that it represents. The blood of the Lamb broke the judgment that was decreed upon you. You have a responsibility every day after that to look at that mezuzah on the doorpost and regard the blood of the Lamb - how you are to pass into and out of that “house.”
It is going to mean some things that will separate you from what is represented on the outside of the house. It is going back to the Egyptian Passover, giving you a clue concerning the “beast”: how the people, in here [the house], are protected from the beast, even as they pass through the door to go out into the “field of the beast;” and how that represents their protection and their sealing even out there in the field from the “destroyer.” I hope that gives you something to look forward to next Shabbat.
We plan to be here, b’zrat HaShem, next Shabbat. I have been improving by leaps and bounds in the past couple days. It is good to be back on track. Let me just repeat this for anybody who missed it. This is what you want to write down: “get so far into the Torah portion that you cannot find your way out.” “Get so far into the Torah portion that you cannot find your way out.” These proto-prophecies in the Torah are giving us the information we need at the proper time.
It is not that these things wouldn't have been important in a 1,000 years ago, or 500 years ago. They are important in every time, but if times were not important, then the Scripture would not say, “for the time has come.” When the time has come, I think that your spirit bears witness to these particular prophecies. It is not just because you can look around and see the physical events falling into line; but because that circumcision is working on your heart and telling you, this is for you, right now. This is to prepare you right now. This is your right now; this is your appointed time. So, keep that in mind.
If you feel like you are behind...some people feel like: "oh, my goodness, I did not really learn about the Torah until later in life; I feel like I am so far behind; I cannot catch up," do not try to take more in than what you can absorb. You are a human being; you are not yet resurrected. You are being resurrected daily, but your poor little mortal brain can only absorb so much. Give yourself permission not to absorb everything in one day or one week or one year.
That is why I say, just get into the Torah portions and stay in them, but do not try to learn it all and say I just have to make up every deficit. Do not be maniacal, because what will happen is you will try to take in more than you can absorb and apply in a healthy way. If it helps, think of it like this: you stop for gas; your tank is empty; you pull up to the gas station; you take the cap off; you take Genesis out of the pump; you stick Genesis into your tank; you squeeze the handle; and you say, I am so far behind him, I am so far behind, as your tank fills up; but, you do not let off the hammer, you just keep pumping.
What is happening is that you are not getting any more gas in the tank that day than what it can hold, and you are creating a fire hazard. All that extra gasoline is spilling around, and it is not doing any good. Do not try to make up for more than your brain can absorb. Do not feel like, oh, my goodness, I am going to be left behind if I do not learn everything you are saying. You won't, you just won't.
There are some pretty basic things. Remember, in Exodus, the blood on the doorpost was where you started, and that was your earnest sign. I intend to follow after You and I will follow You step-by-step through the wilderness; but there was no way to go straight from Egypt to the Promised Land. So, if us old folks are telling you it is just day-by-day, do not try to put too much in the tank! Try to use what you have in your tank. You will be okay.
The main thing is no complaining, no rebelling, no revolting. Those are the sorts of things that do not pass under the Shepherd's rod in good shape. If you go under the rod and say, I am not perfect, but I am not complaining either, then you are in really good shape for the journey. He can do something with that mindset. I hope that encourages you. It is just being willing; that is an old adage, I know. You have heard it more than you want to hear it, but just have a willing heart. The reason it is repeated so much is because it is so true.
If you are just willing to learn with Him day- by-day, then He is willing to go at the pace of the nursing children day-by-day. He is not willing to walk with the rebel. He is not willing to walk with the complainer. The older I get, neither am I! I do not know that it is being like Messiah, I think that is just being old. Life is too long and too short to spend it with untruthfulness!
Click here to join the livestream at 4:00 pm Eastern TIME.
**
Want to print these newsletters or read previous ones online? Go to our newsletter archive, which is updated once per month, or click at the top of this email for a print-friendly version.
Shabbat Shalom!
