I was just tagged in post by my good friend Martha and I was just set off by what I read about the republican mindset and what I have been seeing coming from the religious right in terms of post, comments, articles and editorials. That, coupled with the deterioration of respect for academia and education within Hebrew Roots circles has just left me bewildered. My question is how are people calling themselves Christian yet diametrically opposed to the things that Christ did towards humanity and commanded on the earth of those who would come after him and claim him as messiah?
The ideas and concepts around what makes a person “Christian” are nowadays by and large abysmal at best, heretical at their worst.
In the west I float among a network of people who believe that Days of worship, diet, High Sabbath worship, church affiliation, race and ethnicity make you “a Christian” and “Saved”. Problem is, those who despised Christ during the first century when he walked the earth were masters of weekly and annual Shabbat keeping, Dietary laws and all things physical that the same “Super Christians” I know today claim makes them “Holy and righteous”. Daily mandatory pursuit of Justice, exercising compassion, mercy and care for all disadvantaged seems to have been stricken from their Bibles as they zero in on one aspect of the law and relegate the “weightier matters of the law” to optional “nice things you can do in your spare time. Christ himself told us our righteous must EXCEED that of the Scribes and Pharisees, giving clear indication that it’s not about how well you do regular rituals and practices found in the law. Nor is it how well you annunciate the name of Yeshua/Jesus or other Hebrew words for God and Lord. The sacred bakers usually duck the highly educated linguist specializing in Hebrew or a linguist familiar with language progressions of the early A.D.’s that would clearly explain away and eviscerate the bill of goods your peddling. It’s not sacred names, sacred calendars or sacred text, whiteness, blackness, political affiliations, ethnicity or any other random subterfuge issues that make you a super Christian. No….nooo….nooooo.
A lot of the time these arguments are opposite sides of the same coin. A coin that holds no value and is down right dumb to even be bothered with. It brings about months, years and even life times of people being stuck on stupid, claiming righteousness, while all the time cementing their position among the goats on the left, setting themselves up to hear the most dreaded words a super Christian can hear…”Depart from me, you workers of Lawlessness”…..(yes I do believe that Hebrew Roots practitioners can be lawbreakers, but this is my personal opinion)

So what is a Christian? What saves “a Christian”. What is it that a Christian does as they follow the Messiah? In short blunt terms let’s start with what a Christian is not, which is an arrogant, obnoxious, uneducated, narcissistic, egotistical twat that does no research, obliges one sided research from uneducated basement scholars and “fake news sources” and does not invest in education for himself or his fellow believers. Nor is it anyone who sanctions ignorance to pervade their assemblies in the name of politics, political ambitions, partisanship or nationalism. Christianity is not creating insular cults founded on anti-intellectualism that will shun the expert in Hebrew and Aramaic for the novice who has never had any training in linguistics what so ever.
Christianity is not a “know it all can’t learn from anyone but those I like” pursuit.
Christianity is not I’m Republican or Ultra- conservative and I’m automatically saved. Christianity is not I’m white or black and I’m automatically saved.
Christianity is not I keep the Sabbath and Holy Days and the dietary laws and I am saved. Etc, etc, etc, etc….

In short what Christianity is revolves around Love, Love for God and the Christ, Love for fellow man and the desire to see all human beings uplifted and saved. In loving God you will keep his laws out of your desire to imitate Christ knowing you are being transformed into God. The Love of Christ will see you personally appreciating the sacrifice he has made for all mankind and yourself, personalizing it and letting it motive, inspire and transform you into an agent and emissary of the Kingdom of God.
Love for fellow man will see you having a heartfelt desire to see your neighbor do better, thrive, not suffer and be healed of whatever physically or psychologically is ailing them. In a sense, sincerely being in Christ makes you want what God wants. For the suffering to end and for all around you to experience peace and realize their potential in the divine. It’s a selfless existence fraught with compassion, mercy and kindness that stands in stark contrast to what is passed off nowadays as “Christian”.
One of the sayings of Jesus that just spell it out are found in Matthew 25:31-43. At the end of mans age God has divided man (the nations) into two groups, the sheep on the right and the Goats on the left. The sheep symbolize those that are saved because they basically had become the embodiment of Christ and an example or walking foretaste of the Kingdom of God. In Matthew 25:35-40 Christ says to the sheep on his right hand:
[35] For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: [36] Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. [37] Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee ? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? [38] When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee ? [39] Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? [40] And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. …”

So you say your saved and a super Christian, a perfect Sabbath Keeper, a staunch advocate of the annual sabbaths, the name Yeshua and Yahweh over Jesus and God and a master of the dietary laws. But if you have not love, for ALL ASPECTS OF GOD, you neighbor (Mankind) or are the embodiment of Matthew 25 then you are seriously deluding yourself. By your fruits HE will know you, and stoping short in your dedication, excuses or picking and choosing your points of obedience just won’t cut it. The Apostle John makes it clear in 1 John 2:3-6 KJV
[3] And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. [4] He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. [5] But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him. [6] He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.”
But whose keepeth his word?…isnt Matthew 25 his word? Isn’t the sermon on the Mount his words? Aren’t the Gospels his words? I think it’s quit necessary to say once and for all that Christianity is a way of life and those who claim to hold that way of life and truly have his spirit DO NOT DO the things that many “Christians” do everyday. On the contrary, if we believed and acted on the Messiahs words everyday and allowed the transformation to take place we would live in a much better place, with you as the individual believer being a representative of Christ on the Earth as well as a foretaste and embodiment of the Kingdom of God.