Rabbi’s Reflections – Saturday, December 10, 2022
Shabbat Shalom,
Day 23: Morning
Join Me in Loving the Father
by David Harwood
In our last meditation we examined some of the phenomena of the Living God at Sinai. Talk about awe. I wish I could put the awe I sensed into words. The challenge to me was similar to trying to pour Lake Michigan into a coke bottle. For me, words fail. In Scripture the words are sparse. How can anyone do justice to what happened? There is no parallel in sacred intensity in the entire history of humanity.
Yet… Join me in considering the hidden majesty of the fullness of God. Contemplate God in the despised Jewish flesh of Yeshua. All of God hid in the Messiah.
For God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him (Colossians 1:19 TLV)
For all the fullness of Deity lives bodily in Him (Colossians 2:9 TLV)
When Yeshua pointed all humanity to the Foremost Command, He was calling for fellowship. First of all, the Messiah loved God more than any person who ever lived. Those in whom the Command resounds get to be in fellowship with the Son of God. Here’s a secret, God the Father is behind the command and the call.
God is faithful, through whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Yeshua the Messiah our Lord. (1 Corinthians 1:9)
Secondly, as God in the flesh, He was beckoning us. He said: “Come to Me…” (Matthew 11:28a TLV)
Why would He issue that call? Yeshua wants our fellowship. He loves our love for Him. He loves loving the Father in fellowship with us.
To me, the direction Yeshua gave is more impressive than the Ten Commandments. Why? Well, I love how God, in the Messiah, got so low and drew so near as to be able to communicate His heart. As a Jewish man, God delivering my people from Egypt touches my heart. At the same time, I know that there is a greater deliverance that culminated at Calvary. There was a more desperate bondage to a more wicked tyranny that cried out for a greater deliverance. And God did it.
This is love—not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atonement for our sins. (1 John 4:10)
Always bring to mind that Yeshua did not offer Himself up for us against His will. The immortal words of Paul echo through the centuries. He wrote of “Ben-Elohim—who loved me and gave Himself up for me” (Galatians 2:20b TLV).
How amazing is that? Remember, we’re talking about the Living God Who caused creation to convulse when He brought Israel into covenant. When the Word became Flesh, the transcendent God became part of the human family. This love beggars description.
At Sinai people wanted to hide from the manifestation of God’s glory. Who can fault them? When that same God became incarnate, people were moved to leave everything just to be with Him. Who can blame them?
He set them free physically and freed them from deception through His word. As a result, they wanted to be with Him.
Yeshua was going throughout all the Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the Good News of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and sickness among the people.
And large crowds followed Him from the Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and beyond the Jordan (Matthew 4:23, 25 TLV)
He set their souls free. He changed their lives.
But so you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to pardon sins …” Then He tells the paralyzed man, “Get up, take your cot and go home.” And he got up and went home. (Matthew 9:6-7 TLV)
Those who knew Him best were willing to die with Him.
Then Thomas called the Twin said to the other disciples, “Let’s go too, so that we may die with Him!” (John 11:16 TLV)
Yeshua, the Light of the World, shone upon the Great Command. He always fulfilled it and grew in His expression of love for God.
And Yeshua kept increasing in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men. (Luke 2:52)
Consider the Foremost Command. Hear an invitation behind the revelation. It’s as if the Messiah says, “Join Me in loving the Father with all that you are.”
Ask: Yeshua, please reveal to me something that You really love about our Father. I want to love Him with You.
Daily Bread, reading plan by Lars Enarsson (https://www.thewatchman.org/)
Sat 10-Dec-2022 16th of Kislev, 5783 Parashat Vayishlach
Ge 36:20-43 Obad 1 Co 5:1-13