¯`•. October 26, 2012

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What is ‘the Father’s Will’?
((Part I: or ‘Christians are Law-less’))

Back when I was a Christian, I had a very secure handle on eternity.  The things I was taught by my parents, family, church, and study groups had it all neatly wrapped up with a pretty gold cross on it.  It was simple:  If you believed that Jee-suz died for your sins on the cross, then you were going to Heaven.  Pray and accept Him, and you’re in!

It was a very nice, assuring, happy stance.  Everyone I knew had prayed the prayer, had ‘been saved’, so even if they weren’t living a life in the Lord’s will?  Well, that just meant they’d have less crowns to throw at the Lord’s feet, darling.  A mournful loss, but nothing catastrophic, to be sure.  And in truth, this whole doctrine is only one prayer away from the even happier doctrine that many other people believe – and that is that there IS no Hell, and people are basically good, and you do your best, and that’s all there is to it.  Christianity and Atheism… bet you never knew just how similar they really are.

It’s why it’s so easy for people to be ‘Sunday Christians’.  Because you’re just doing your own thing with your life, either way.  One just needs a prayer somewhere in the past to validate a ‘membership’ in Heaven.  Unless you’re goal-driven and were aiming to see just how good you could be, how many merit crowns you could earn.

But I have to admit something to you – it was easier on me, back then.  I didn’t have to worry a whole lot about the lost.  Well, there were the ‘nonnies’ (as I used to call them… MAN!  I haven’t typed that word in years!!), but I was pretty far removed from them in my sheltered, chrischun existence.  Oh, I’d witness, but I knew that they were just blowing me off, and that was that.  I did my part, it’s your choice, bub.

Then when I got older, I started seeing a few verses that put the whole ‘getcher ticket at Calvary and you’re in!’ stance into question.  Verses like:

Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble. But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?  — James 2:19-20

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.  Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?  And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye who are lawless.  – Matthew 7:21-23

What’s astounding to me now is that… I never once thought about what ‘works’ were back when I was a christian.  What does the church tells christians ‘works’ are?  It’s witnessing, and tithing, and going to church every week, and being ye kind, and maketh-ing a joyful noise… and pretty much anything else that you can find in the NEW Testament.  I never thought about what the ‘will of the Father’ was… I just was handed vague but scriptural references like ‘fight the good fight’ or ‘run the race to the high calling’… ‘Going ye therefore’ and ‘putting on the armor’.  Fun little statements that sound so noble but are kind of light on the specifics.

It never ONCE occurred to me that when Messiah said to “do the will” of His Father in Matthew 7?  The New Testament hadn’t been written yet!  So all of those things that the church was telling me was the explanation of His words?  Was a lie.  It was taking something from WAY after His death and trying to apply it to a situation in His time.  It’d be akin to telling people that Messiah said the way to Heaven was to punch in a code on your iPhone.  The people didn’t HAVE iPhones – that came AFTER His time… so how could it possibly be what He was talking about?

NoTe:  The church does this, often.  Another example is when Messiah says, ‘No man knoweth the day or the hour, not even the Son of Man’.  That was said in about 32AD, right?  But then in 90AD (ish), Messiah says in Revelation 1:1 that Messiah went back to Heaven, got the skinny on what was going to happen and when it would happen, and then He turned around and gave it to John.  But the christians can’t think chronologically, so they’re stuck quoting ‘no man knows’ when man DOES know.

It also never occurred to me that Messiah Yeshua was in Israel when He spoke in the Gospels, and therefore the vast majority of the people He was addressing were Jews.  Pharisees?  Were Jews.  Sadducees…?… Jews.  Samaritans, Galileans, Nazarines, Nazarites?  ALL Jews who believed in the Father.  And He wasn’t telling them something new when He said to ‘do the will of My Father’.  There was no NEED for an explanation – everyone knew what Yehovah’s will was.  They all knew what ‘lawlessness’ was.  It was living without an obedience to Torah – the Law of Adonai.  What was the ‘will of My Father’?  The same as it had always been, for thousands of years – Torah.

All Jews.  And they ALL knew what the Father’s will was.

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.  Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?  And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye who are lawless.  – Matthew 7:21-23

We read about ‘spiritual gifts’ like prophecy and evangelism and tongues, we read about the disciples healing people and casting out demons… and we assume that the ‘will of the Father’ is in regards to those New Testament things, right?  Our ‘works’ are using our New Testament spiritual gifts to further the Kingdom… because the church teaches us to compartmentalize the Old Testament and Laws away from the New Testament.   Old Testament is for Jews stuck before Christ, and New Testament is for Gentile Christians.

Except that the spiritual gifts given in the NT are talked about AFTER even the Ascension!  Yeshua NEVER said that the Father’s will was to utilize spiritual gifts for the Kingdom… that’s what the church says.  What did Yeshua say about spiritual gifts?  Look at that verse again, I made the ‘spiritual gifts’ in it blue.  They hadn’t even been GIVEN yet, and He’s making sure we ALL know that those are NOT what the ‘will of the Father’ is.  What is the Father’s will?  Obedience to Torah.  And Messiah point-blank says that if you aren’t keeping the Law (Torah), you won’t go.

Now, I didn’t get ANY of this for thirty years of my life.  Up until then, I didn’t think of the OT as anything more than historical accounts used to teach lessons today.  Like Aesop’s Fables – a moral to each story.  And a lot of old rules that no longer were important (and were legalistic), because Jee-zus covers it all, right?  ((Read the above verses again, please, if you just caught yourself agreeing.))  You’re FREEEEEEEE in Christ!  Sure, there were things in the Old Testament that Yehovah commanded be kept for all generations, but that was aimed at the Jews, right?  (If you’re agreeing, please see Romans 2:28-29.)

Now when I realized that the commands/laws of Torah weren’t just for Jews, it was back in… 2003.  Isaac was just born, and my grandma brought over some papers for me on the feasts, knowing that I was asking questions.  She wanted to help me, and she also was asking questions – after fifty years of being a Sunday School teacher, she was beginning to see that something vital was missing, and that maybe we’d just stumbled on something imperative.  She gave them to me for Christmas, and it was probably THE best gift I’d ever been given.  One that started a journey for me that I’m still on.

It was then that I discovered that these things that the church slogs thru in Leviticus?  They had INSANELY immense significance, and the more I dug, the more I realized just how relevant they were to my faith/walk, even right now, today!  Why would Messiah tell us to keep Torah (the Will of the Father)?  Because it’s vital to our futures.  It reveals future secrets.  It prepares us for what’s ahead.  And isn’t that KIND OF something that should be front-and-center in church teaching?  Shockingly, though, it’s not – it’s not there at all!  It was my first clue that everything I’d been taught was off.

But if I started talking about the Old Testament Law and keeping them… ah, there’s the fun.  Because ‘law’ now equals ‘legalism’ to anyone who steps regularly into a church.  And I’ll talk more about that, next time…

Posted by annamatrix on October 26, 2012

https://annamatrix.wordpress.com/2012/10/26/304/