My Life as a Pharisee
These images are of Potters Falls taken in the fall. I have photographed these falls before but after a hard rain. In fall there is low rainfall and the waters are tame and tranquil. The color of the water during this time can be better seen without the rushing flow of the rapids and it happens to be my favorite hue of green. It is like a deep, dark turquoise and the waters are low revealing the beautiful rocks so one can scamper across them. When walking in covenant with YAH, we never know what He’s going to reveal to us so we must stay vigilant and ready to respond. Regardless, we can be sure it will always be something beautiful. It might be powerful, and overtaking like the rushing waters of the falls, making us challenged and uncomfortable, but always beautiful.
Happy New Year brothers and sisters in the truth, faith and in covenant with The Most High YAH! 🙂 Yeah I’m extremely late with this and for those reading my devotion’s for the first time, I celebrate the new year in spring. Exodus 12:2 states that this is the 1st month of all of our months, and then Exodus 23:15 give us the name Abib, which means according to Strong’s “young ear of grain” which supports the new year beginning in spring. This does make sense to me because during this time, things begin to grow again and come back to life as opposed to January when everything is dead; why would the new year begin in the middle of a dying season; rhetorical question. Another supporting verse is in Daniel 7:25 as Daniel prophesies that the antichrist will “think to change times and laws”. The Gregorian calendar we follow today is not supported by scripture and at the end of the day, I will always mentally, physically and spiritually seek to follow the ways of The Most High YAHWEH with balance, and in keeping with His Word and RUACH.
OK, so, I have been wanting to write on this subject for several months but I do believe that I have been going through a process of purging. I’d like to take a step back again, back to when I came into the truth, and briefly discuss dying to self. Due to my background in christianity I already understood that we are called to “die to self”, Matt 16:24 however, somewhere along the way I did literally let myself die, the self that YAH created, the spirit and being who He fearfully and wonderfully made. Psalm 139:14. I do trust The Word when it says we are to deny ourselves because I did do that when I made a proclamation to The Most High that I want my desires to be His will for my life and I meant that. I forsook all MY dreams, MY plans, and all MY ideas which I “thought” was blessed by Him, and traded it all in praying for HIS dreams, HIS plans and HIS goals that HE has already established for me. I no longer wanted what I wanted for me, and I began to want what He wanted for me, and I prayed for the patience required to wait on Him, and for me, this started with obedience.
When YAHWEH gave us His commandments and laws, I’m positive that He meant for us to keep them, however it is not expedient to keep His ways absent of a relationship with Him. The alternative is to just blindly follow a bunch of rules. We don’t necessarily have to know all the reasons behind why He tells us to do what He tells us, but when you’re reading the scriptures from Genesis, it reveals YAH’S Character and heart for His people. It caused me to go from feeling like I was living in a house with harsh rules and standards, to living in a house of love and protection.
I began writing my devotions in 2022, and I was new to walking in covenant but I was not new to knowing and loving YESHUA. I was however new to knowing the Character of YAHWEH and understanding His dealings and relationship with the Iraelites. I was excited to share my journey of learning who our Creator is and sharing the things I began to understand regarding all the fighting and wars that took place in the Old Testament. All of it was Him going before the Israelites, protecting them, providing for and preserving them, giving them the land and freedom He had promised. I became and still am on fire for Him, I read everything in scripture from the beginning and I also read the removed books. I was learning so much and very excited to find that the scriptures are about me and my ancestors, and my ancestors are scriptural history. The unfortunate reality is that we have turned our backs on YAHWEH time and time again. The scriptures are literally about all of us, not just one sect of people over in Jerusalem. This is what caused me want to know all that YAHWEH has to say, and all of what He says is written in the pages of the Bible so many people have, but do not read.
I did what I could to share what I was learning with friends and family but at the end of the day I really didn’t have anyone to study with especially since all of this happened in the middle of the pandemic. However, let me be frank, my zeal was a turnoff for most, but in a few others it did cause them to want to read more intently. Regardless, it felt like YAH was saying “finally, I have your attention!” BUT, I was still craving physical people, someone, anyone to bounce things off of like a study group of people reading the scriptures with the intention to truly understand. Ultimately, I did find a group of people online and their wise counsel even caused me to refuse to get vaccinated which was the best decision I could ever make blessed by YAH. It was also wonderful communicating with people who knew The Word better than myself, and eager to share their testimonies and experiences since YAH woke them up. It was for me what seemed to be a ministry on the ground floor teaching truth in scriptures and I was excited to do my part to help it grow. I wanted to produce fruit and help others understand who they are in YAHWEH and YESHUA; but slowly I started losing touch with friends and family. I was still there and accessible but it was like I caught covid. Pretty much no one was responding to my emails or calling, but I didn’t let that get me down because I had a new group of friends who were as serious about YAHWEH as I was so, I believed losing family and friends was OK and eventually with prayer they would come around to the truth. I even convinced myself that it was what YAH wanted as He continued to direct my path. I literally thought YAH was replacing my family and friends even though I wasn’t looking to replace them. I only wanted to grow closer to Him, allowing my desires to be His will for my life, I just wanted to be obedient to The Most High YAH, and I also wanted that for my loved ones.
The interesting thing is that my family and friends still loved me, they just didn’t want any part of the legalism I had been unknowingly spewing about. I believed I was speaking only what scripture was teaching, and anyone in disagreement was in disagreement with The Most High, not me. I was reading the scriptures for myself from Genesis, seriously, for the first time and it was like a beautiful historical novel. However, I now know the difference between reading and studying but back then as I continued to read, while fellowshipping with the other believers, I was more so coming into agreement with their interpretations. All the while I’m “reading”, I’m thinking to myself regarding their interpretations, “Well that is exactly what the verse says, and it is what I’m reading so, of course that’s what it means, so let me fall in line with what YAHWEH wants”. This went on for 3 years and it’s apparent to me now that I wasn’t falling in line with what YAHWEH wanted, I was falling in line with what the group wanted based on their interpretation of scripture. I found myself getting into arguments online with random people over “their truth”, participating in what I would call extreme and aggressive apologetics which resulted in extreme unfruitfulness. All that bickering I was doing was not condoned by the group, and I am positive YAHWEH was not pleased with it either. While I did repent of it, what occurred to me was that I was not defending the truth of The Word, I was defending interpretations of The Word. I’m scripturally inquisitive, and teachable so I was soaking in all I could learn from those who I believed knew more than me; but as YAH would have it, something good did come out of it, I learned how to study, and study for myself I did. 2 Tim 2:15
Around the end of year two, I started to realize that many people were dropping out of fellowship with us. This saddened me because I had come to love each and every person I was fellowshipping with and still do. However, the scriptural novel reading ended and the deep dive studying began. With the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy-Spirit) at the helm, teaching, and confirming, my eyes opened yet again. I was forced to recall all the people I offended over the last few years with my new found truth, and how once someone texted me in anger saying “Don’t ever text me again, I don’t want to hear anything from you!” I wrote it off as they are lost, I pray YAHWEH leads them to the truth and thought nothing more about it. However, that really wasn’t the truth was it? In all the stories of YESHUA in the New Testament, everyone wanted to hear from YESHUA even the Pharisees, although they didn’t like the things he said. The woman at the well was intrigued and wanted to hear more from Him even after He exposed the fallen truth of her life. She still wanted to hear from Him so much so that she went out to tell others about Him. John 4:6-30 I had to ask myself how can I reach anyone if they don’t want to hear anything I say? I found myself possessing a beautiful truth and no one to tell it to. It got to a point to where I didn’t have to say anything about my faith, it was the uncharacteristic way I dressed in only dresses, it was the head coverings that made me look more like a maid than set apart, it was my insistence on calling Him YAHWEH causing people to not even know what I was talking about, sounding like I was praying to a foreign god. My presence alone, I’m sure made people feel judged, like I was “chosen” and they weren’t, as if He hears my prayers, and not theirs when I have no clue of the hearts of men; only YAHWEH does. I thought my zeal for the truth would draw people in, but it drove them away and it took 3 years to understand why.
It finally came to me as I started to review my situation and try to re-understand YAH’S purpose for my life. How did I end up with absolutely no one to study or fellowship with? Going over all the examples in scripture and examining the character of YESHUA whom we are to be like, I realized I was being more like a Pharisee than my Messiah. I swear I didn’t know it or see it coming, and it’s not what I intended because I myself had accused others of being a Pharisee. I didn’t realize I was shutting up the gates to the kingdom, but I was, I was a literal walking, talking Matt 23:13. I only wanted to be obedient, I wanted to learn from our Israelite ancestors failures and be in covenant with YAHWEH in the way that pleases Him, I wanted to hear and obey; but this group of people I was in fellowship with, I am sure now that He never meant for me to stay with them. I did learn a lot from my time with them because they honestly have a true love for YAHWEH and they want to get it right with Him too, but Paul tells us in Philippians 2:12 that we must work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. I was judging christians who actually have a true and profound faith in our Messiah just because they call themself christian. I don’t believe this is right because that is the kind of christian I was in the beginning. As a christian I always had a love for The Most High, a willingness to follow Him and a thirst for His righteousness, I just didn’t know the truth of who He is and I didn’t know How to have a relationship with Him. So when He woke me up, I pigeon holed myself into this set apart way of life as the scriptures say we must, but it was largely in the physical sense. 2 Corinthians 6:17 KJV does say that we are to come out from among them and to be separate, I 100% believe this but if we never go around unbelievers, talk to them, fellowship and reason with them, how will they ever hear the Good News? Is it truly by shouting a bunch of laws and rules at them on YouTube and Facebook? If that is the case how was it done before the internet? How did YESHUA do it? Scripture shows that He went out amongst the publicans and the sinners. This doesn’t mean He was hanging with them, throwing back a couple, and blowing trees. He was His perfect self among them, He didn’t become them. He spoke the Truth in their midst and departed and I believe that this is what is meant by Corinthian’s 6:17, this is how we are to be set a part, it is more spiritual than physical. Going out among them is not the same as being in agreement with them as YESHUA spoke on and modeled in Matthew 10:9-17.
Another revelation given to me is that I was spreading this truth I obtained to people who already know the Good News. So, in those cases I was also a living example of what it says in 1 Corinthians 13:1 “a clanging cymbal.” All I was doing was telling people how much out of the will of YAHWEH they are because they wear mixed fabrics, the women don’t cover their hair, and they cook and clean their homes on Shabbat. Where is the love in that if I am causing the most faithful christian to feel like all their love for YAHWEH is only going to get them thrown into the lake of fire because they are cooking on Shabbat, when most likely it was me headed toward those flames? If we are true believers, true followers of YAHWEH and YESHUA, the RUACH HA’KODESH will lead us in worshipping Him in the way that pleases Him. What I am about to say now is my opinion only, but I do believe YAHWEH gave us the laws to produce in us His spirit allowing us to be people who exude His Character and integrity ruling the world in the way that He intended. The laws have been established, period, and in His Kingdom to come they will take precedence over the laws in the world we follow now. They will be easier to follow then, if we start now, so stop all that lying because in His kingdom, lying may be punishable by death….just saying…😁 Acts 5:1-10
To conclude, I will continue to write on this because I believe it’s a very important topic in that we do not idolize the laws. However, I will make a clear stand and declaration today. I do believe in the 10 commandments and I keep them even by keeping Shabbat Kodesh or set apart .on the 7th day of the week, not the 1st day. I don’t purchase or sell or work my traditional job on the 7th day of the week, and for the people who know that I make and sell bath and body products, I don’t manufacture products or sell them on Shabbat. I keep the feast days because they are a celebration of our Creator and all He has done for us, and they are a gift from Him to us. Replacing them with the world’s holidays for all these centuries is why the majority of the world do not truly know Him now. The world uses those days to worship Him but in Deuteronomy 12:1-4 He literally tells us not to do this, so I don’t. I celebrate His appointed times instead, because He told us to and I now know exactly where my good feelings, comfort and joy are coming from. I follow the Leviticus, and Deuteronomy sundry laws because the ones requiring a burnt offering/sacrifice are scripturally no longer required, this is what was done away with and nailed to the stake. Isaiah 1:11-20, Hebrews 10:5-10, Psalm 40:6-8 . Anyone reading the sundry laws looking to seriously understand YAHWEH’S intentions will see that they are centered around community. When Moses handed down those laws the Israelites lived closely together in unsanitary conditions, and they were surrounded by other nations who worshipped foreign gods. His laws taught sanitary principles, community principles, how to worship Him in the way that pleases Him and, they literally teach us how to love our neighbors as we love ourself. This is the mark that the Israelites continued to miss and I as well missed living as a Pharisee. Satan is very sneaky, he is clever and he should be, because he has been playing this game since the beginning. He literally took my sincere honest desires for YAHWEH and my willingness to follow Him and turned it into a self-righteous, heart judging abomination before my Creator and MESSIAH, and I let Him by placing my idolatrous desire to be part of a group over allowing the RUACH teach and lead me as scripture says. I don’t believe YAHWEH wants me to continue alone in my studies, and on my journey, so I must listen for His voice in silence, remaining open, and discerning according to His Word, and He will lead me to His people that He means for me, or bring them to me. So no, I do not believe the law was done away with, and it is because I do believe in the life, death and resurrection of our Messiah YESHUA, me following the laws is the evidence of this belief.. I follow them, because I do believe in Him.
I have since repented and asked for forgiveness as I am still purging that way of life. What I learned in those years was how to live in bondage with no complaints, but YAHWEH lead me out and revealed to me that I was making an idol of the laws, much like the bronze serpent which eventually became an idol to the Israelites as explained in Numbers 21:4-9 and 2 Kings 18:4 .
I praise YAHWEH that I do continue forward seeking first the Kingdom of YAH earnestly keeping in prayer that HE continue to direct my path. I feel free in Him and am looking for opportunities to walk amongst those whom He would call lost, seeking to bear fruit in a way that pleases Him, and to introduce to those who do not know Him, the chastising, but loving, and patient YAHWEH and YESHUA I have come to know.
May we all rest in His favor, shalom and berekah!!