"As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten:

be zealous therefore, and repent."

Revelation 3:9

Humans are created in the "image and likeness" of Elohim (the Mighty One), which means that each of us are created with the inherent resources to connect to Mashiyach.  We are "spiritual antennas" but the interest and desire in making a spiritual handshake is an individual pursuit that rests on each of us individually. 

We have the ability and opportunity to know Elohim and we can also choose to push away because of our ego or negative peer pressure from circles of "influential" friends.  YHWH (Yahweh) says, "as many as I love, I rebuke and chasten", does that sound like He doesn't love everyone?  Why would He give his "image and likeness" knowing his own creation (people) would spurn Him?  Almost everyone believes that YHWH has given free choice, even those who believe there is no God admit this, in many ways we are like YHWH Himself who is Sovereign and can do what He wants.  So are we sovereign to make personal choices in this life, sure we are.  But precious few souls take the time to pursue YHWH and His Mashiyach, very few care to know Who He is, or how to have a relationship with Him, most are content to live a "relationship" with the Father through their Rabbi, Pastor, Guru, or books by best selling authors or anyone who they think knows more about God than they do.

Many think the Almighty "takes the fun" out of their lives and wants to keep them from doing the things they really want to do.  Many people are under the impression that "God" puts His people in boxes (confinement), certainly many of the younger generation feel limitations will be put upon them if they pursue an open and honest relationship with YHWH, this is the message they get from both the "adult" religious and secular worlds.

YHWH has often been described as the "heavenly parent" who brings life into the world and then watches what His sons and daughters do with their lives.  We have a Father in Heaven who loves all His Creation, but not all His Creation love Him, many of His creatures do not respect the Perfection of their Creator, never mind appreciate Him for how He put the Universe together and gave them life, but yet many find that love is escaping their grasp.  The love of many souls has grown cold because of turning their back on the Father.

YHWH says that love and obedience isn't optional, it is a Commandment and Scripture even says that if we don't choose to love YHWH that, "...for this cause Elohim shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness."  After YHWH has given everything He also gives us what we really want.  When people spurn YHWH and mock the Truth they are merely exercising their power of choice.  But according to this promise, Elohim will also "inspire" people towards more wickedness because He loves them. 

You're scratching your head over that one, right?  Have you not heard the parable, that if you love it, let it go, and if it returns then it belongs to you?  If this is something that is plausible for humans who didn't create love, then why is it not fitting for the One who breathed life into those He loves.  The strong delusion is obviously not only for the benefit of the wicked and egocentrical Godless person, it is for the benefit of everyone to witness a stubborn and rebellious soul who is great in his own eyes but a fool before YHWH and His people.  YHWH's Justice is perfect in love.

Putting a forbidden tree in Eden was how YHWH proved to mankind that we have choices, that tree of the knowledge of good and evil has planted its seeds over all the earth, everywhere you travel you'll run into the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil.  Mankind has done a thorough job exploring the depths of his own capacity to sin.  We've had one global flood and many catastrophic situations like Sodom and Gomorrah that tell of man's rotten fruit, but even in this the Love of YHWH is found.  The destruction of the wicked holds opportunity for the righteous, but this is something that very much troubles the wicked.  The wicked don't like to be reminded of such things.

Just below and east of Masada, Israel, are acres of sulfur ball infested (brimstone) inside the rocks.  Sulfur pellets burned into rocks and left a trail of molten lava in it's wake that choked the air and stopped the combustion preserving little sulfur balls to remind us all of history past.  I kept souvenirs for show and tell, some still think it's cool to promote their homosexual agendas and spurn YHWH's Justice.

NOPE, the wicked don't like to be reminded that according to YHWH there are weeds (wicked men) growing among the good wheat.  Judgment is a very important aspect of Love, one must judge with righteous judgment and make decisions that are based on the Word of YHWH in order to know and experience the Father's Love.

In some circles it is politically incorrect to speak of the wickedness and evil of past and present men, the modern guru (wise man) is so full of the relativism of his own definition of love that everyone is characterized as having potential to his own inner spiritual harmony, but potential is not the same as reality.  While it's true that everyone has potential, it's also true that religion has put a ceiling on love and justice.  Religious men have capped off the well, they do not enter and they restrict others from drinking.

YHWH gave Torah (instructions in righteousness) so that LOVE could be nurtured and shared among all earthlings throughout all generations.  Torah is the mirror that each one of us can see the Spirit of YHWH within ourselves.

No Torah, No Mirror

People can't see who they truly are in Mashiyach because they fear to live and look into the spiritual mirror of Torah.  People like Hillel, the founder of traditional "Judaism", and Marcion the Christo-Pagan who invented the "Old and New Testament" have turned Torah into a passé, outdated, taboo bunch of words on cigarette paper that they renovated according to modern secular (lacking spiritual content) opinion.  Whether we like it or not, these two fellas have contributed to extensively corrupting the entire world's justice system, as have many other religious men throughout history.  Both were fiercely interested in personal power, together they gained more subscribers to their "theology" than Moshe or Y'shua.  They are great men in the eyes of men, but one can see how they both cleverly spurned YHWH's authority and love. 

Many religious people automatically accept the teachings of either Hillel or Marcion simply because they follow Rabbinical Judaism or Christianity, whether they know what these men instituted or not.  There is no doubt that both did what they thought was "right" in their own eyes, but 2,000 years later there is a massive chasm between Jews and Christians and disdain for one another.  Many Jews think of Christians as pagans and many Christians think of Jews as the Christ-killers who rejected their own Mashiyach.

Love took some hard knocks when the rabbinical world began hoarding Torah and using it to wield traditional powers over the souls of others.  Jews rapidly became divided and fell into all manner of sectarian and secular and religious factions.  The Jewish community was as divided 2000 years ago, as it is today.  The world back then was headed for trouble, love had eroded and grown cold, Jewish people know that it was Jews fighting Jews that caused the Temple in Jerusalem to be destroyed.  Titus and the Romans wiped out the Temple and killed a million Jews and took thousands as slaves, to teach Jews a lesson, "as many as I love, I rebuke and chasten", YHWH says.  Torah took on a new life, it had to be restored by YHWH as He intended, not as within a segregated culture but as a Universal Charter that is accessible to everyone.

YHWH commanded that the GER (sojourner/stranger/non-Jewish person) be welcome to enter into the commonwealth of Torah, into the Malchut Elohim (Kingdom).  There are hundreds of verses that indicate this, Caleb the Kenezite was one of the most instrumental servants of YHWH, he was not a blood brother to the sons of Israel,

"One law shall be to him that is homeborn, and unto the stranger that sojourns among you."

Sh'mot/Exodus 12:49

"You shall have one manner of law, as well for the stranger, as for one of your own country:

for I am YHWH your Elohim." 

Vayikra/Leviticus 24:22

"One law and one manner shall be for you, and for the stranger that sojourns with you."

B'midbar/Numbers 15:16

"Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so,

he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them,

the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven."

Matthew 5:19

Because the human condition required this, the "seed of woman" came to earth to define Love and help us understand the meaning and purpose of life.  The fact of the matter is that the world rapidly lost what Mashiyach established.  The Christian world boasts of 33,800 "Christian" denominations in 2008 who have all but completely trashed Torah in favor of man-made religion.  Christianity has done to Y'shua what traditional Judaism has done to Torah, they used their choices to make another tower of Babel and destroy what YHWH established.

The Author and inventor of Love also defines Love.

Love is what brought Mashiyach to offer Himself for the rest of the world.  The Love of YHWH is that extravagant love and life force that glues the inhabitants of the earth together, but because of Torahlessness, the love of many has grown cold.  In many ways Torah is more unpopular among the religious than it is among the non-religious.  Mankind invents plenty of his own ideas about "god" and then calls anything and everything love rather that trust what the Word of YHWH teaches us about love. 

Those who don't know Torah only now love through the eyes of a religion or through traditions that digest Torah according to a religion about YHWH or His Mashiyach.  Our values evolve generation to generation, from universities, synagogues, churches and newspapers and television.  We've all bitten into the fruit off the tree of knowledge of good and evil, we've all been "enlightened" to one degree or another by the oldest preacher who preaches that evil things are good and good things are evil.

Humanity does not have any love of it's own, we didn't invent love, we borrow from the Author of Love.  As children we began learning what others taught us about love, then we made up our own minds about what love is and we each define love in our own unique way.  YHWH says, "as many as I love, I rebuke and chasten", Adam and Eve endured a very great rebuke and each succeeding generation has responded to that rebuke and the consequences of it. 

YHWH says "as many as I love", this is proactive Love.  YHWH applies His love by giving His people great purpose of being and He keeps His people focused in the right direction by putting boundaries to protect us and keep us from being devoured by predators, or falling off the cliff of humanism into the abyss of synthetic materialistic "love."

Love keeps us headed in the right direction as does pain.  When we break Torah our love grows cold, we return to the "drawing board" and learn about consequences.  Mankind has devised coping mechanisms to deal with his choices, we've found creative ways to sweep pain under carpets and avoid the chastening of YHWH, generation after generation we cope with our rebellion rather than go explore the love of YHWH and His Mashiyach.  When people surround you with empathy and sympathize with your rebellion and encourage you to defy the love of YHWH, you know you are in the culture of those who lived in Noah's days who called good evil, and evil good.

There are focus groups, counseling sessions, and workshops to support our rebellious natures.  Leaders are recognized and remunerated for providing warm religious fuzzies for the rebellious.  Psychiatrists and psychologists soothe rebellion and extend dysfunction into future generations.  People are blamed of having "mental disorders" if they don't accept status quo religion or the science of intellectual evolutionists who are the religious titans of the modern era.  Homosexuality is considered by many as inborn and a natural god given thing, as though YHWH created certain men to desire men more than women.  Whatever mankind lusts for, he puts the responsibility of that upon YHWH.  Why are homosexuals so adamant about being married with a State issued marriage certificate?  They want their homosexual choices to be respected by society as being equal to heterosexual marriage.  They want the world to acknowledge that YHWH who instituted heterosexual marriage also recognizes their homosexual marriages. 

But YHWH says He created male and female in His image, and the natural world bears witness to male and female within the plant and animal domains.  Homosexuals want to reverse the natural and spiritual order of life itself, proving to themselves and others that they have overruled YHWH's divine Nature.

YHWH says a man and women are to leave fathers and mothers and become one flesh.  Within the Perfection of the Word of YHWH when a couple have sex they are physically joined as becoming one flesh.  The act of joining physically is protected by Torah, and the fidelity between a man and woman is to become entrusted to each other for the bond they've made together.  YHWH's Love has a foundation in Righteousness and Justice, man's "love" is tyranny.

Love is complex, if love were to be dissected and defined we would conclude with all the attributes of YHWH as a package is Love.  Love is such a universal value that our own existence depends entirely upon love.  It is so powerful that many fear defining Love because a definition would limit love to a formula, and that's not acceptable to many folks.  It has been said, that "he that does not love does not know Elohim (God); for Elohim is love."  It may be very difficult to define love, but it's much more impossible to define the Giver of Life, the Creator YHWH.

Love is securely established through "righteous instruction", all righteous instruction nurtures Love.  The name for righteous law or righteous instruction in Hebrew is "Torah."  Torah is not only the 5 books of Moses, it is the revelation of righteous instruction within man so he can take care of himself, his wife and children, his animals, his plants and everything he has, it has been entrusted to him according to love.  Yet there is no higher form of love, covenant or law in the universe than what YHWH has revealed according to His Spirit and through His Word.  Therefore our LOVE towards YHWH is by far the greatest of all love we can give and His love towards us is the greatest love we will ever receive.

The cliché that "love is blind" of course refers to being blind to a persons negative qualities, nevertheless it is not love that is blind but our blindness about love that is bringing destruction upon the earth.  It is YHWH's people who are blind to YHWH's love for us.  We are blind if we reject YHWH's Torah and hence we are blind to Love, because Elohim is Love and if one wants to know the One True Father they must seek to know Him according to His Love, not our own interpretation of love.

The single largest universal demonstration of love has been accomplished by Mashiyach, who is Yeshua haNetzari (the sprout or Branch in Isaiah 11).  Even if a person doesn't "believe" in what Yeshua accomplished they will have a very hard time topping the list of selfless actions that demonstrate his Love of YHWH.  The list of attributes and events of Yeshua's life are very lengthy, but we all know that his love wasn't popular with the religious or the ruling class and we also know that because of what Y'shua stands for, the world came to hate him on many levels.  There is a huge amount of infamy to bear when a person chooses to follow Mashiyach, which is why there are precious few disciples in these last days.

Not only has the Christian world shunned the love that Y'shua demonstrated, they have made up a JeZeus god to replace Y'shua because in reality the carnal nature of man detests the true Mashiyach.  Most Christians are shamed by living according to the Living Torah and anyone who would dare to uphold the Word of YHWH, because Torah reveals and quantifies the Love and Faith of YHWH. 

We might not see the connection why YHWH gave the 4th commandment, "six days you shall labour, but on the Seventh day Shabbat, you shall rest", or the 3rd, "you shall make the Name of YHWH equal" (in vain).  For many who read the Scriptures these commandments are religious formulae rather than instructions on how to enter into a meaningful and personal relationship with YHWH and His Mashiyach.  The fact is that these two commandments and the other eight are universal and have everything to do with relationship and love of the Father.

YHWH owns time because He created it.  The seventh day Shabbat is a window into time eternal, for many Jews Shabbat is a day of lovemaking, why not?  we study Torah, we sing, we dance, we feast and make love because it's Shabbat!*  It is YHWH's day of rest that we enter into, without Shabbat an essential component of love is lost, the problem is that this is very difficult to explain to someone theoretically because it is something a person must personally experience.  Human instinct tells us that man needs rest and that the most important things in life don't come to us by writing checks or by plastic cards in our wallets, the fact is that we need divine rest in Him so that we can regenerate our relationship with Him and one other.  We are to live according to His heavenly schedule not our own.  Shabbat is when all the prophets and people of YHWH come before Him.  Shabbat is a Covenant between YHWH and His Creation that was given for us to remember that we are all created by the Author of time itself.

For religious folk to trash Shabbat is indicative of their traditional religious rhetoric, rather than entering into a covenant relationship with YHWH and His Mashiyach many choose a comfortable religion about Mashiyach.  As the Creation of the earth began with a dark period, so does Shabbat begin in the evening, indicating a memorial of Creation and the rest that YHWH ordained from the beginning of time. 

The Shabbat is a moral obligation between YHWH and His people.  Shabbat is defined within a universal code of law, if a person refuses to stop what they are doing they have elevated their activities above the Word of YHWH, they have diminished their love for YHWH and reduced themselves into slaves of self. 

A person wouldn't know this until they've experienced Shabbat in Mashiyach, and it is only those who have never entered Shabbat who speak against YHWH's 4th Commandment.  Imagine a family enjoying Shabbat rest and peace and eating together, singing, praying, blessing one another, but one family member prefers to go to the office to do his business and make more money or to the casino or pub to be with his or her more important friends.  Where do you go on Shabbat?

What if the whole world decided that we don't need Shabbat, and we choose another day for our own Shabbat?  This is exactly what Christianity did, it syncretized humanism into a self made religion about a God called Jesus.  Christianity today would be unrecognizable to the original followers of Y'shua, it's a different religion, it's a different world than from 2,000 years ago when Y'shua and all his followers entered into Shabbat.  Your Rabbi or Pastor will tell you that it's ok, religion has evolved, God has spoken to them... don't worry... go back to sleep... nite nite.

Love and the Commandments are equal to each other, they are one and the same.  Love supports Righteousness and Righteousness is the fullness of Love, this is what made Yeshua the Mashiyach.  He is perfect in observing Torah and as such He is perfect in Love.  The office of Mashiyach requires this, Yeshua could not have qualified as Mashiyach unless he magnified Torah into the hearts of his followers and this is exactly what he does when we truly surrender to him.

The love is blind scenario is those who say they "love" but who speak against Torah and diminish the standard of Torah, this is blindness not love.   There is a vast difference between perpetually talking about love and never getting around to loving YHWH and His Mashiyach.  So what if a whole group of people are perpetually talking about love but their real zeal is in the theology about love, in their meetings, in their long theological discourses about religion or motivational talk?

Religion is self-love, because the Love of YHWH is centered in righteousness which is doing Torah, not hearers of the word but doers are they who are being made righteous.  The fact of the matter is that if Believers were centered on Love within the Kingdom of Elohim Love would be demonstrated within community, with closeness, belonging, having everything in common, witnessing the Mighty Arm of YHWH revealed through prayer and intercession.  We would see righteous living become the standard of each Believer, rather than the adoption of the material world and Hellenistic structure and hierarchy within the community of "believers."

To do Torah as a people is to become universally aware of the Malchut (Kingdom) Elohim potential within all of mankind, because as love is demonstrated within a group of people it can be duplicated, but today Torah and Love are put at the back of the bus, the Greco Roman culture's perspective of belief, tradition, religion and knowledge are paramount for most Christians.

Another love is blind myth is that mankind is helpless, selfish, decrepit sinners who can never become righteous, this is a nasty religious denial of the truth.  Y'shua teaches that he came for the sinner to make us whole and that the sinner who continues in Torahlessness (lawlessness) is not of Mashiyach.  He will even say, "I never knew you, depart from me you doers of iniquity."  Love has taken on a completely new meaning among religious people, love is a theology taught by the precepts and commandments of men.  Y'shua says he will heal our selfishness, our propensity to break Torah, our weak flesh, but religion says you cannot be healed, you will always be a helpless sinner, you will always be dependent upon your rabbi, pastor, priest or minister to make "intercession" for you.

"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you: so continue in my love.

If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love;

 even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love.

 These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.

This is my commandment, That you love one another, as I have loved you.

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."

John 14:9-13

"Don't you know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of Elohim?

Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate,

nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards,

nor revilers, nor extortionists, shall inherit the kingdom of Elohim.  And such were some of you:

but you are washed, but you are sanctified, but you are made righteous in the name of the Master Yeshua, and by the Spirit of our Elohim".

1 Corinthians 6:9-11

YHWH be with you,

Shalom U'Vrachot,

Baruch Ben Daniel

*There is a very insignificant sect of Jews and confused Messianic Christians who call themselves Karaites (the Karaites evolved from 9th Century Iraq) who believe that Jews shouldn't have sex on Shabbat.  Karaites had a religious tradition that wouldn't allow them to have a candle or lamp burning on Shabbat for fear of breaking Torah.  It's barely worth mentioning except to add that what they have in common with the purveyors of Oral Law is they both speak evil of Y'shua as Mashiyach.  A very sad lot.