Finding My Roots...

SH'MA
Deuteronomy 6:4-9

SH’MA YISRAEL, ADONAI ELOHENU, ADONAI ECHAD!
BARUCH SHEM, K'VOD MALCHUTO L'OLAM VA-ED!

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is One!
Praised be His Name, whose kingdom is forever and forever!

4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

I love the Name and Power of GOD! I learn a bit more Hebrew every time I go to my congregation, Sha'ar Hashamayim (The Gate of Heaven) http://www.shaarhashamayim.org/ and I get so excited when a Hebrew song or prayer randomly pops into my head! For most of today the Sh'ma (above) has been in mind and on my lips. I am freshly blown away and in awe of how God is I AM. He is all, in all and above all things. I shake my head in wonder when I try to comprehend all that God is.

1 Corinthians 2:6-16 (NIV)

Wisdom From the Spirit

6We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. 7No, we speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. 8None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9However, as it is written: "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him"— 10but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. 11For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. 13This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. 14The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. 15The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment: 16"For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?" But we have the mind of Christ.

There comes a time in a person's life when they do some searching. They may wonder where they come from, what their lineage is, who their ancestors are. In my congregation, I am in a great 'eye, mind, soul and heart opening' place of finding out where the Christian roots come from. These are great truths and help me to understand the Word of God so much better. Everything has finally clicked on in my brain and come to life and I wonder why the heck wasn't any of this ever taught to me before in 'the church'? I am starting a book called, "Our Father Abraham, Jewish Roots of the Christian Faith" by Marvin R. Wilson (http://www.amazon.com/Our-Father-Abraham-Jewish-Christian/dp/0802804233) which I'm sure will be eye-opening.

I'm really encouraged as I continue on my journey with God and as in Ephesians 1:17-19 I pray this for myself and for you:

17I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. 18I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 19and his incomparably great power for us who believe.