Today’s verse comes from John’s first letter. It’s time to confess our sins.
Continue readingOne of the most popular verses Christians use when speaking about repentance is 2 Chronicles 7:14. I’m not one to take a single verse and hang on it without knowing the context. It could be saying something else and we would be misleading people. Let’s take a look.
Continue readingThe 40 Days of Teshuvah begin on Monday night at sundown. It’s a time of reflection on our lives as believers. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “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!” (2 Corinthians 13:5).
Teshuvah is usually described as repentance. It really means to return. You can see in Paul’s words that he isn’t telling us to repent of sins and come to salvation. He’s talking to believers already. Paul is warning us that we should examine ourselves to ensure we haven’t strayed from the ways of the Father. That’s what these forty days of teshuvah are for, to prepare ourselves for His coming. His second coming. Notice that these forty days begin on the first of the sixth month (Elul) and end on the tenth of the seventh month (Tishri), the Day of Atonement. It’s the prophetic time of His return.
Throughout the Scriptures, YHWH and His Prophets continued to call His people to return to His ways. John the Baptist called the people to prepare the way for the Lord. It was a call to return to the ways of YHWH. We prepare the way for the Lord by examining ourselves and aligning with His ways. So, let’s begin.
“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”
– 2 Timothy 3:16,17
“Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Messiah Yeshua for you. 19 Do not quench the Spirit. 20 Do not despise prophecies, 21 but TEST EVERYTHING; hold fast what is good. 22 Abstain from every form of evil. 23 Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Messiah Yeshua.”
– 1 Thessalonians 5:16-23
In part 2, we learned that teshuva means to return to the paths of righteousness as written in the Torah. But what if you’ve never been taught the Torah? What if you were taught that Christians don’t need the Torah? Do we really need to do teshuva in that way?
Torah simply means instructions. The Torah is God’s instructions for how He wants us to live. What follower of God doesn’t want to live the way He designed for us? Maybe you’ve been taught that the Torah was just for the Jews and not for Gentile believers. Is it possible that God gave instructions to one group of people that He didn’t expect the rest of humanity to follow?
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Posted in Holy Days, Introduction
Tagged image, instructions, obedience, Psalms, return, righteousness, sin, Teshuva, Torah
If the Days of Teshuva sound foreign to you, that is not a surprise. Most pastors don’t preach on the subject. And if they do, they tend to associate it with Easter and the days more commonly known as Lent. That’s understandable since they are both relating to the same thing. So, why the change from Teshuva to Lent? We’ll get to that in part three.
What are the Days of Teshuva?
Continue readingComments Off on The Meaning of Teshuva
Posted in Holy Days, Introduction
Tagged Lent, part 2, paths, reconciliation, repent, return, righteousness, sin, Teshuva