I shared some pretty vulnerable stuff in my last entry. I knew it was risky; it always is, when you put personal stuff out for all the world to see. I haven’t been openly rebuffed, more of just silently ignored. But, in spite of some people’s assumptions, I did not do it to seek attention, but to help one person out there. And if that’s all I ever achieve with every effort I put forth in His Kingdom, then I am happy. And if it costs me a social ‘reputation’, so be it. As I stated, I have been marginalized everywhere I go. If it is for the cause of Messiah, then “happy am I”.
4“What man among you has a hundred sheep, and if one of them should get lost, would he not leave the ninety-nine in the open, and go in search of the one which is lost, until he finds it? 5And when he finds it he rejoices and takes it on his shoulders. 6And he comes to his house, and invites his friends and neighbors, and says to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost.’ 7I say to you that such will be the joy in Heaven over one sinner who repents, more than over ninety-nine righteous who need no repentance. ~ Luk 15
There are people out there who serve[d] in God’s kingdom who have left the fold. If by sharing that I have been tested in similar ways I can help even one, I am happy. And I am. If all I ever get is one response, one acknowledgment, let me be content.
God pursues His people. Yeshua pursues His sheep. But, He does so mostly through His other sheep these days. “As much as you have done it unto the least of these, my brethren, you have done it unto Me”, He said. He sends us out to ‘declare’, to do all the things He came to do:
7And the book of Isaiah the Prophet [Yesha-Yahu HaNavi] was given to Him. And Yeshua opened the book and found the place where it is written, 18“The Spirit of Master יהוה [Ru’akh of Adonai יהוה ] is upon me; because of this He has anointed me to declare good news to the poor; and He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, and to proclaim liberty to the captives and sight to the blind; to strengthen with forgiveness those who are oppressed, 19and to declare the year of the favor of יהוה .” And20 He rolled up the scroll and gave it to the Shamash, and went and sat down. Luk 4
In former days, God sent His Messenger to them, the “Malakh יהוה ” [Angel of the LORD], which is Yeshua, The Word, bearing God’s Name before He became a man, to seek out those who found themselves wandering:
Jacob, who was raised in the home of a righteous father, wandered. He knew God, but he erred. He stole the birthright and the blessing from his brother, so he was on the run. Jacob knew he was the son of the covenant. His mother knew. But, instead of trusting God, they manipulated Isaac. But, God came to him and renewed the covenant. [Gen 28:12-15] It wasn’t that Jacob sought God; it was that God sought him, and found him sleeping with his head on a stone. Jacob’s story demonstrates that in spite of that very powerful encounter, he still had to be guided through the rest of his life to a point of breaking, before he finally wholly submitted himself to God, and it took being broken, physically, to get there. For some, who trust, and who have walked with God, but made mistakes, they run. They are not broken yet, they’re just scared. They don’t realize that it is God waiting on their brokenness, when they finally realize that God does love them, and He will use them, in spite of their error. Jacob had to get to a place where he put all the idolatry out of his life. It took him more than twenty years to get there.
God continued to pursue him! God came to him, more than twenty years later, and picked the fight! And broke his hip, and it was after that when he finally cleansed his household of all their idolatry.
Moses ran. In spite of movies that say otherwise, Moses knew he was an Israeli when he was serving in Pharaoh’s palace. He killed an Egyptian who was persecuting Jews. He knew he had to run, because he knew he had broken the law of the land, and God’s law. But, God came to Him! God is the one who had to call out to Moses.
2And The Malakh יהוה appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush; and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. 3And Moshe said, “I will turn aside now, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt.” 4And when יהוה saw that he turned aside to see, Elohim called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, “Moshe, Moshe.” Ex 3
Yes, God got his attention with the ‘man’ standing in the bush that was on fire but not being consumed. God made a display of His power in an odd way. But He had to call out to Moshe.
In the same way, those of us who are saved have the ‘Light/Fire’ of God burning within us. Further, we have trials in this life, and when we endure, and our faith survives all the onslaught of the world that causes doubt in most, it befuddles His people. This life does not ‘consume us’, just as the bush wasn’t consumed. That was Yeshua standing in that bush, before He became a human being. “If I am lifted up, I will draw all men unto myself.” The messenger ‘called out’ to Moshe: קָרָא is the root for ‘vayikra’, and he called out. That is the root word for ‘karoz’, or ‘herald’, one who ‘proclaims the gospel’, which Paul says of himself in 1 Tim 2:7. We thus ‘call out’ with Messiah burning inside of us.
7For that testimony I was appointed a Herald [Karoz] and an Apostle [Shali’akh ].
Most people render that ‘preacher’, but a preacher is exactly that: a herald. One who ‘cries out’, like John the Immerser did in the wilderness. And look how foolish John looked! But he had a duty.
Sometimes I look foolish. I have certainly been accused of it, and many, even those who I am close to, think me foolish when I post things on here. But, ‘it is like a fire shut up in my bones’. And I am not seeking fame or fortune, but for that one soul to return to God. Far too many people think that God is unreachable.
God is calling out! And He is doing so in many ways. But mostly, in these ‘last days’,’ He is calling out through His Son, Yeshua the Messiah, from the mouths of those willing to be made a fool, so that someone can be saved, or some wayward saved person can come back to service to God.
We do look the fool sometimes, when we speak up for the truth, and try to bring people to the burning bush. Yeshua is standing in it. He is the Word of God, the very will and heart of His Father, God, in a human body, and, he is inside of those who trust in Him, and through them the ‘word of proclamation’ has gone out into all the earth. And those who declare His Truth have always been the most marginalized, ridiculed, and persecuted group of people in the world, along with the Jewish people.
21Because all the wisdom which God [Elohim] had given was not sufficient for the world to know God [Elohim], it pleased God [Elohim] to save those who trust by the folly of proclamation. 1 Cor 1
All the prophets were ‘proclaimers’, heralds of truth, heralds of the Gospel. And all of them were killed by the religious class, including Yeshua. They were counted as fools. Our telling the world that God sent His own Son into the world is folly. To the irreligious, they doubt there is a God. To the religious who scratch the itch of the knowledge of God with backscratchers created by religion, they doubt that God sent His Son, because they can’t conceived that God can manifest in more than one way. So they tell themselves there are three of them, and they do not hear the call of the Son of God saying,
28“Come to me, all you who are tired out and carrying burdens, and I will give you rest. 29Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and meek in my heart, and you will find rest to your souls. 30For my yoke is very pleasant, and my burden is light.” Mat 11
In the face of silence, rejection, and the appearance of foolishness, God’s call remains clear and relentless. Like the Good Shepherd who leaves the ninety-nine to seek the one lost sheep, He calls us to be heralds — voices that cry out in a weary world. Though we may be misunderstood, marginalized, or ignored, our mission is not to win approval but to serve the Kingdom with faithfulness and joy. If even one soul turns back because of our courage to speak, we have fulfilled our calling.
May we embrace the fire that burns within us — the anointed courage to proclaim good news, to heal the brokenhearted, and to invite the weary to rest in the loving arms of Messiah. For in that calling, we find purpose, peace, and the joy of heaven.
After all, Yeshua said, “Happy are ….” when He described his followers as meek, pure, poor, mournful, hungry for righteous living, persecuted….