The Clarion, Apr. 2021
Welcome
Welcome to spring. After a long winter it is so nice to see the flowers peeking through the ground and the days are getting longer. It’s the time for the resurrection of the “Dead from Winter” and everyone cries Hallelujah! People feel renewed as they begin to spend more time outside I would like to share this Sandiegram with you.
Spring is Here
Lord, as the earth renews itself in the spring, let me be renewed as I accept You in my life. As winter lets go to spring, let me shed my old ways and allow Your Spirit to live within me so that I may have life again. Like the buds on the trees that burst so that leaves may grow, let Your love burst within me. Fill me with Your living water that I may grow. As the flowers give forth a beautiful fragrance, let my praises to You give out a beautiful fragrance that will rise to reach You. Cut out the evil in my life, Lord, just as the weeds are cut down that I may come to You with a pure heart. Let this spring in my life be the beginning of new life that will one day lead me home to You. Amen
From the Sandiegram, What Season is Best of All? Copyright 2010
It’s Time to Renew
It seems that there are so many things in our lives that we have to renew from time to time. One thing that we do not get a notice of renewal is in our own lives. We must be renewed. Titus 3:5-7 tells us, “He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we did in righteousness, but in accordance with His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He richly poured out upon us through Messiah Yeshua our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”
At this time of Resurrection, and Springtime, we tend to think of new life. We countdown the days till Pentecost, so that we can prepare for the coming Holy Spirit. Yes! The Holy Spirit already came, but we celebrate every year at Pentecost, or at least we should, to remind us that we need to be renewed in the Holy Spirit. We are going to take a closer look at the Holy Spirit and why we need Him in our lives. Yeshua tells us in John 15:26 this about the Holy Spirit, “I will send you the Helper from the Father. The Helper is the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father. When He comes, He will tell about me.”
So the first thing we see is that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth. We know that the sword in the armor of God is the sword of the Spirit, it is the Word of God. God is truth, His Word is truth and the Spirit is truth, He leads us in all truth. John 16:13a tells us, “But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth.” The Helper Holy Spirit helps us to pray as it says in Romans 8:26-27, “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.” The Holy Spirit helps us to mature in our walk with God.
Colossians 1:9-12, “For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of His will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please Him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to His glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of His holy people in the kingdom of light.”
Ephesians 4:11 -16 tells us, “So Messiah Himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip His people for works of service, so that the body of Messiah may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Messiah. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of Him who is the head, that is, Messiah. From Him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.
This all happens through the Holy Spirit, for He gives gifts to all of God’s people as 1 Corinthians 12:1-11 tells us, “Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed. You know that when you were pagans you were led astray to mute idols, however you were led. Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says “Yeshua is accursed!” and no one can say “Yeshua is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit. Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as He wills.”
Romans 12:3-8 says this, “For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Messiah we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith; if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully.”
The Holy Spirit not only gives gifts but through Him we bear fruit as Galatians 5:13-25 tells us, “You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other. So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Messiah Yeshua have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.”
The fruit, gifts, truth, prayer, this is our whole walk with God. This is who we should be and need to be, but we can only do it though the Holy Spirit. As we countdown to Pentecost, let us prepare our hearts to receive a fresh outpouring in our lives. Let us examine ourselves as 2 Corinthians 13:5 tells us to do. “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Messiah Yeshua is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!”
Let us look at Titus 3:5-7 once again, “He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we did in righteousness, but in accordance with His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He richly poured out upon us through Messiah Yeshua our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”
We see here that we are not saved by our righteous deeds, but by the washing of regeneration and the renewing by the Holy Spirit. This means that we need to be new as Ephesians 4:20-24 tells us, “We need to take off the old man and put on the new. But you did not learn Messiah in this way, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Yeshua, that, in reference to your former way of life, you are to rid yourselves of the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you are to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.”
So you see it is not about just being a good person, but you need to be a new creation as 2 Corinthians 5:17 tells us, “Therefore, if anyone is in Messiah, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” And to be a new creation you need the Holy Spirit. Only He will lead you in all truth and He will teach you and give you gifts and fruit so that you can mature and be that new creation. We must repent of our sinful ways and no longer run after the world. 1Peter 4:3-6 tells us, “For the time already past is sufficient for you to have carried out the desire of the Gentiles, having pursued a course of indecent behavior, lusts, drunkenness, carousing, drinking parties, and wanton idolatries. In all this, they are surprised that you do not run with them in the same excesses of debauchery, and they slander you; but they will give an account to Him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. For the gospel has for this purpose been preached even to those who are dead, that though they are judged in the flesh as people, they may live in the Spirit according to the will of God.”
So let us be washed in the blood of the Lamb as John and the book of Hebrews tells us, 1 John 1:7, “But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Messiah Yeshua His Son cleanseth us from all sin.” Hebrews 9:14, “Just think how much more the blood of Messiah will purify our consciences from sinful deeds so that we can worship the living God. For by the power of the eternal Spirit, Messiah offered Himself to God as a perfect sacrifice for our sins.”
And let us say, “Come Holy Spirit and fill my heart today.”
Excerpts from A Commentary on the Jewish Roots of Romans by Joseph Shulam
Romans 8:27, “and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”
The expression “He who searches the hearts” is frequently found in the Tanakh (The Hebrew Scriptures), and normally describes God’s sovereign power to judge man because He knows his innermost thoughts and attitudes. Here, however, Paul appears to be following a tradition based on Proverbs 20:27, in which God’s Spirit is the one who divines man’s intentions. This tradition is reflected in a passage from Clement of Alexandria’s First Letter to the Corinthians, in which he interprets the original text of Proverbs 20:27 (“The spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord, searching all the innermost parts of his body”) as though the “lamp of the Lord” is the “Spirit of the Lord” rather than the “spirit of man.” This transposition is easily made, since it is through God’s light that man’s spirit is disclosed:
Take heed, beloved, lest his [Messiah’s] many good works become toward us a judgement on us, if we do not do good and virtuous deeds before him in concord, and be citizens worthy of him. For he says in one place:- “The Spirit of the Lord is a lamp searching the inward parts.”… For he is a searcher of thoughts and desires; his breath is in us, and when he will he shall take it away. (1Clem.21.1-2,9)
Flusser suggests that this tradition based on Proverbs 20:27 also lies behind the words in Luke 2:35, which speaks of the “sword” (Yeshua) which will “pierce Israel’s soul” so that the “thoughts of many hearts may be revealed,” as well as in Hebrews 4:12, where as the “word of God” it pierces as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and [is] able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. The interpretation of Proverbs 20:27 reflected in 1 Clement understands man’s “thoughts and intentions” as pertaining to his “soul,” “spirit,” and “flesh” (cf.”bones and marrow”). In the preceding verse, Paul says the “he who searches the hearts” knows the “mind of the spirit.” The “spirit of the Lord,” as both the “candle” and the “sword,” searches men’s thoughts and intentions. The Spirit of God thus “searches” and “knows” man’s thoughts, according to Paul, because he intercedes on their behalf, cleansing them from their evil inclination and enlightening their eyes with “knowledge” according to God’s will.
Ann’s Lemon Pie
Nothing says spring like a good lemon pie, and we think that you will enjoy this one.
Crust: 1 cup of flour 1/2 tsp salt 1/3 cup of Crisco or butter 3-4 Tbsps of water
Mix: flour and salt and cut in Crisco or butter. Add water, mix with fork.
Roll out dough and put in a pan and crimp sides.
Bake: 10-12 minutes at 450 degrees. Let cool.
Lemon Non-Cholesterol Filling: 1 cup of sugar 1/3 cup corn starch
1 1/2 cup water 1 cup egg beaters or regular egg yolks 1/2 cup lemon juice
1Tbsp grated lemon peel 2Tbsps butter or margarine
Mix: sugar, corn starch in pan, stir in water till blended. Bring to a gentle boil over medium heat/boil for 1 minute. Stir constantly till thick and transparent. Pour egg beaters in a small bowl and slowly stir in hot mixture, stirring constantly, adding all the mixture. Pour in lemon juice,and return to pan , stir over medium heat…3-4 minutes till thick. Add lemon peel, the butter or margarine and stir till well blended.
Pour into cool baked crust
Meringue: 3 egg whites 1/2 tsp of vanilla 1/4 tsp cream of tartar
6 Tbsps of sugar
Beat egg whites, vanilla and cream of tartar till peeks form, then gradually add sugar and beat at high speed until stiff, and shiny. Spoon onto pie filling and bake at 350 degrees for 12-15 minutes until golden brown and then let cool completely. Keep refrigerated, and ENJOY!
Hebrew Corner
This month’s letter is the letter
Kaf/khaf
The difference between kaf and khaf is a dot in the middle of the letter. Kaf without the dot has a “k” sound but with the dot, khaf sounds like a “ch” Kaf is the eleventh letter in the Hebrew alphabet. It has the numerical value of 20, which is the same for the letter Yod, the hand. Kaf looks like a palm of a hand and the literal meaning of Kaf means palm of a hand. Isaiah 49:15-16 says this about Jerusalem,“Can a woman forget her nursing child and have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, but I will not forget you. Behold, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands; your walls are continually before Me.”
The word for spoon in Hebrew is also the word kaf and what do you put in the palm of your hand but a spoon. The value of twenty also is a symbol of crowning accomplishment. The Torah mentions four crowns:
*The Crown of Torah,
*The Crown of the Priesthood,
*The Crown of the Kingdom,
* The Crown of a Good Name.
In the Apostolic Scriptures it mentions five crowns:
The Crown of Life, “Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.” (James 1:12),
The Crown of Righteousness, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith; in the future there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day; and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing. (2Timothy 4:7-8),
An Incorruptible Crown, “Everyone who strives for the prize exercises self-control in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible one.” (1 Corinthians 9:25),
The Crown of Glory, “And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory.” (1 Peter 5:4)
The Crown of Thorns, “And after twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on His head, and put a reed in His right hand; and they knelt down before Him and mocked Him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” (Matthew 27:29, Mark 15:17 and John 19:5)
And we know that our Messiah is the Torah, and He is the Great High Priest, and He is the Righteous King of Kings, Who is full of glory. Praise His Name!
Just a Note
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