His Ways, Laws and Instruction
In August 2024 I put down a deposit for a 5 day photography guided tour in the Smoky Mountains to take place in Oct 2025. As the time approached I felt anxiety and almost backed out of the trip losing my deposit. I decided to go and approached it like any other vacation I have taken in the past. Sometimes I struggle with taking time to really enjoy myself, it’s like I feel guilty because all the enjoyment I used to have as my younger self was without YAHUAH. I no longer want to leave my home without Him so I did struggle. Once I committed to go, the anxiety left me and I enjoyed the 2 hour drive up to Gatlinburg with The Most High at my side. I met up with the group and right away we got started driving through the mountains, walking, and hiking trails to waterfalls, shooting bridges and rivers along the way. One particular hike, if it had been explained in detail in the itinerary, I definitely would have canceled the trip. It was just under a mile up and down a narrow, slippery rock, rooted trail. I was a mess, the instructor kept giving me a chance to stop and go back, but my will never allowed it. I struggled through as everyone even people twice my age skipped over them rocks passing me by. LOL I laugh because I’ve always been a slow hiker but I see now that these TN hikes are definitely not the Claremont Loops and Rubidoux trails of CA.. While CA trails do have an elevation gain, there is always a well defined path of dirt, some gravel and even stairs in some cases. Easing myself up and over every large slippery stone, I listened to the instructor and meticulously focused on my footing and relied on my walking sticks to lift me up and down over the rocky, muddy, tree rooted path. I kept going in an out of surrealism as if maybe I’m dreaming but I wasn’t; as I constantly looked over the narrow path to see just how far the fall might be. I finally made it to the waterfall. I sat on a rock for a moment contemplating what I had just done forcing myself not to even think about the hike back.. I started to cry, not a cry face blubbering cry, but indeed a cry. That hike reminded me of my walk with YAHUAH. I was alone, because I was so slow but the instructor stayed with me, guiding me, cheering me on. I told him many times to leave me, but He would not. He never gave up on me and assured me that he knew I could do it or he would have forced me to turn back long ago. Instead he gave me a choice to keep going or turn back. Isn’t that just like YAHUAH? We always have a choice, to follow Him and do what He says and if we do, we will make it. If we obey Him, we will be safe, He will stay with us and never leave us and we will be successful in this life. I was in so much pain for the rest of that trip but I wouldn’t change anything about that hike. If we just go outside one in awhile, follow the ways of YAHUAH, we will have real life experiences that model and shape our relationship with our Him, allowing us to succeed in this life, sealing our fate in Him, and on to eternal life, with Him.
The last photo, bottom right is the waterfall, Spruce Flats. I am so grateful that I made the trip, I met a bunch of people who love this hobby as much as I do, I learned so much more about filters, using the right lenses based on my composition, and most of all how to properly edit my photos. All praises to YAH!
Thank you for those of you who take the time to drop by to check on my journey. I appreciate your visit and I pray that anything that I write is a help to your walk and not a hinderance; so let’s get right into it. Lately I am in a place where I feel like I understand better who I am in YAHUAH after all the purging I have been doing. I have been going through so many realizations and lessons learned only to further realize that this walk of learning and growing truly never ends and that is a good thing. I’m in this for the long haul which means that there will be another level; every time I level up.
The conversations I keep running into on this walk is the never-ending discussion surrounding the laws of YAHUAH detailed in the first 5 books of the Old Testament and are they done away with or as children of The Most High YAH, do we have to follow them and if yes, how do we follow them? Some of the questions unearthed during these discussions are, “is following the laws and commandments a way of earning our way into salvation?” “Did YAHUSHA say the law was done away with?” “Did Saul keep the Torah?” “Did Saul preach against keeping the Torah?” It’s a never-ending quest to understand whether or not we do what YAHUAH told us to do and I’m not sure why? Usually I write a detailed researched study on topics like this and whether I get a few points wrong here and there or not, I must say that I’m not writing these devotionals to try to teach people how to follow The Most High YAH. If these devotionals are confused with me trying to teach, please understand, this has never been my intention. I only pray that in reading them a truth seeker or a transgressor repents and does come to follow Him and maybe my experience will mitigate the solitude often felt on this road. With that said, in this devotional I’m only going to mention a few things on this topic based on prayer, meditation on the Word, and the study I’ve already done. I pray that what I say causes those here to pray, meditate and study on your own. The Ruach directly teaches us all if we read scripture, and our desire should be to enjoy and fellowship with one another discussing what He has taught us. With that said, here are my points of reference regarding following the laws and commandments of YAHUAH
Do we follow the laws and commandments of The Most High YAH? A better question is why wouldn’t we? Scripture talks about the Torah, righteousness, and obedience from the time of Genesis down to Revelation. What is righteousness? It’s His Ways. What are His ways? It is Torah. What does Torah mean? It literally means instructions, so why would we not want The Creator of all to instruct us in this chaotic, evil, matrix-riddled world?
To begin, is keeping the laws and commandments the way to earn our way into the Kingdom of YAHUAH? The way I see this is if one has a pure belief in and love for The One True Aluah(God) of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, His Ruach Ha’Kodesh (Holy Spirit) will guide us into naturally following His ways, but this won’t be known unless we come to know His ways which is the Torah, nor will we know we are breaking a law if we don’t know the law or have not become made aware of the law. Even David said this in Psalm 119:71 this it was good that He was afficted so that He might learn YAH’S statutes. There was a time where my conscience was seared like Saul spoke about in 1 Timothy, then when I learned His ways, my conscience became intact; now when I even think about transgressing against Yah, I am tormented to even sleeplessness. I would love others to share their experience with this in the comments.
YAHUSHA said that The 10 Commandments are the sum of the Levitical laws and I thought I did keep the 10 commandments until His Ruach led me to dig deep into my heart recalling when I used to lightheartedly read my horoscope, fornicate, listen to hard rock music with lyrics that spoke against the existence of the Most High YAHUAH. I had no clue what those things were doing to my spirit and to the heart of The Creator who loves me. I put these things above Him and ignored the fact that our day of rest was given to us on the last day of the week and not the first day; glossing over all of the Roman history that defiled and changed the ways of the Most High YAH given to those who are His. We have been taught not to take the 10 commandments seriously but they were given to us to remind us of who we worship if we so choose to worship the Aluah (God) of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, how to worship Him, and who we are in Him. They are not a way to earn salvation, they are instructions on how to live here in this fallen world, keeping us safe and setting us apart. Just like any parent with children, they have rules in their home that their children must follow, to protect them, why would we think that our Creator Father Aluhym is any different, especially when this type of relationship dynamic was created by Him.
What did YAHUSHA say? Did He in fact say that the laws are done away with? YAHUSHA quoted the old testament and the prophets continuously but people ignore that the old testament and the prophets taught and kept the laws and commandments. YAHUSHA kept the laws attending and teaching on Shabbat as well as the Passover. In Mark 15 He even rebuked the Pharisees asking them why do they transgress the commandments of YAHUAH with their traditions. Why would he say that if He himself didn’t keep the commandments? The only thing done away with was the laws of animal sacrifice. This is no longer required because of our Messiah YAHUSHA. In the Levitical laws there were specific laws for the children of Israel, specific laws for the Priests and specific laws regarding animal sacrifice. The death and resurrection of YAHUSHA did away with the laws regarding animal sacrifice. Another verse or account people tend to gloss over is the account of when the rich young ruler asked YAHUSHA “How must I obtain eternal life”, this is the question of the century. YAHUSHA told him several things including “Follow Me” however the first thing our Messiah did was to ask this young man did he keep The Commandments. Remember that part when He asked him did he love YAH with all his heart, have no other gods before YAH, honor his parents etc. He was riddling off the Commandments. Following YAHUSHA and keeping the commandments is how we obtain eternal life. See how He stated both, and this is in line with James 2:26.
There is not much else to say about this, except that even if reading the apocrypha it aligns with the 66 books and speaks heavily on obedience to the laws and commandments of YAHUAH. Enoch is another figure in scripture that YAHUAH thought so much of his obedience He like Elijah did not die; YAH took him up. The Torah are Instructions for YAH’S people the Israelites, to remember Him and to understand how to live in His house. They were in captivity for centuries and had forgotten Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and even Joseph. They were in captivity in Egypt a land where Joseph once ruled by YAH’S righteousness and His blessing, but they were tricked into disobeying YAHUAH and went into captivity. See that word disobeying? Disobeying what? The story in Numbers chapter 22 of Balaam and Balak is literally about what happened to the Israelites when they fell out of covenant with YAHUAH. Prior to that, the Israelites were flourishing in the land, growing in numbers and a strong people, this is why Balaam wanted to curse them. Balak feared these covenant keeping people of YAHUAH and as long as they remained in obedient covenant with YAHUAH, nothing could touch or curse them. YAHUAH’S given instructions showed the Israelites how to live in freedom and safety in a fallen, evil, murderous, things of Yah defiling world. Before Abraham, these instructions existed and Abraham lived with Noah, remember him? Scripture says that Noah was the only righteous man on earth before the flood, his righteousness and obedience led to his bloodline remaining undefiled. Noah lived 950 years and Abraham lived with him 39 of those years learning the ways of YAH during that time. Those ways kept Noah and his family safe during a flood that covered the whole world killing everything on dry land and we still don’t want to live in the ways of YAHUAH? We even saw the ways and instructions of YAH given in the garden, and we saw life in the garden when there was obedience to His instructions, then we saw disobedience in the garden and look where we are today; yet folk still want to fuss and fight about not keeping the laws and commandments of YAHUAH. People just don’t want to be told what to do and that comes from satan. However, it’s deeper than that because our everyday lives are riddled with laws. We can’t speed, we can’t drive drunk, they even have laws against committing crimes in hate; hate crimes, and nobody ever thinks where this concept of laws come from in the first place. It comes from YAHUAH. He created the construct and standard, and all man has ever done is steal and defile His standards and make them as his own. We fear committing murder and this is a commandment. Do we have a fear of committing murder because YAH said don’t do it or because congress says don’t do it? Many of our societal laws come from scripture, but we do not give YAHUAH the glory which is another transgression.
I will conclude with this. Anyone who says they don’t have to keep the laws of YAH, please dig deep on what is being said here if this is you. Take the time to read over His laws and try to understand His intention because at the very least the 10 commandments are being rejected in this statement and if that is the case then is it OK to cheat on a spouse, commit murder, or lie and steal? Anyone believing these acts are OK, is part of why the world is the way it is today. I pray we all make it into His Kingdom and eternal life. May the Ruach Ha’Kodesh continue to lead us into all truths.
Shalom & Berekah!
Liana…