Greetings Fellow Saints! Today is the 30th day of the 2nd Biblical Month and the 41st Day of the Counting of the Omer. May this great day of preparation be of most blessing to you and your family.
My Torah studies today took me to a most profound place in the Children of Israel’s history–Numbers 24: 14-25: 9. Encamped just outside the region of Moab, the king of Moab (Balak) had just concluded his failed attempt to have a prophet of Yehovah (Bil’am) curse Israel on Moab’s behalf. Being totally protected by the strong arm of Yehovah, Balak failed in having his future destroyer cursed and put away.
The insult to injury, however, was seen as: while Yehovah pledged His unwavering protection of Israel, the men of Israel began to whore after the women of Moab which ultimately led to the people of Israel assuming the worship of Moab’s principle god, Ba’al. This of course angered Father to no end and this terrible betrayal on behalf of the Israelites against their protector resulted in the death of some 24,000 people; many of them were executed by direction of Moses.
Yehovah has pledged His undying protection of us, His beloved. This of course doesn’t mean that we will never meet doom or harm, as the will of Yehovah and His providence will have its just way. What Yehovah’s protection does afford us, however, is eternal guarantees that we will not see death eternally, but some day arise to life everlasting and a renewed body and a new assignment in the kingdom of Yehovah. This all can come to a screeching halt, of course, when we forsake the protection and disobey Father’s Torah. Father has shown over and over throughout His Torah how much He despises idolatry and how jealous He is. Yet many of us struggle with the urge to violate and compromise His Torah and whore after Ba’al in our land of Moab. Each time we do such things, we offend and anger Yehovah as well as hurt Him.
It’s tough to be the Israel that Yehovah desires of us to be. We can’t always do it alone. But fortunately, we are in a better place than our forefathers, the Israelites at Ba’al-P’or. We have Yehovah’s Holy Spirit to provide us that extra oomph we may need to resist the urge to embrace other gods and violate Father’s Torah. We have been provided the tools to fight competently against this problem. But like everything else in life, it all comes down to how effectively we utilize those spiritual tools that have been provided to us by the Almighty. Prayer, fasting, meditation, Torah, fellowship, reading resources-all of these are lethal weapons against the enemy and remedies against evil. I struggle daily with my natural inclination to complain, worry, engage in idle talk at work, all of which leads to less than kingdom behavior. These and other shortcomings are my Ba’als as I try to live a righteous life in P’or and Moab. I know, however, that my strength comes from Father and His Spirit and I’m ever so conscious to be on guard and to be always questioning within myself: is Yehovah happy with my behavior today? Is my walk today with Messiah a pleasant and good one?
How about you?