Many times Believers say that they are being blessed and see fruit or are happy in their choices and make their judgment of a certain situation-choices of lifestyles, etc… based on that criteria…

However, the fruit, the blessings and our happiness are not our measure. Our measure is the commandments and the narrow way that is higher than ours.

Isaiah 55
1 “All you who are thirsty, come to the water! You without money, come, buy, and eat! Yes, come! Buy wine and milk without money – it’s free! 2 Why spend money for what isn’t food, your wages for what doesn’t satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and you will eat well, you will enjoy the fat of the land. 3 Open your ears, and come to me; listen well, and you will live – I will make an everlasting covenant with you, the grace I assured David. 4 I have given him as a witness to the peoples, a leader and lawgiver for the peoples. 5 You will summon a nation you do not know, and a nation that doesn’t know you will run to you, for the sake of YHVH your God, the Set Apart One of Isra’el, who will glorify you.” 6 Seek YHVH while he is available, call on him while he is still nearby.

7 Let the [sinful] person abandon his way and the evil person his thoughts; let him return to YHVH, and he will have mercy on him; let him return to our Elohim, for he will freely forgive.

8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not my ways,” says YHVH. 9 “As high as the sky is above the earth are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

10 For just as rain and snow fall from the sky and do not return there, but water the earth, causing it to bud and produce, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater; 11 so is my word that goes out from my mouth – it will not return to me unfulfilled; but it will accomplish what I intend, and cause to succeed what I sent it to do.” 12 Yes, you will go out with joy, you will be led forth in peace. As you come, the mountains and hills will burst out into song, and all the trees in the countryside will clap their hands. 13 Cypresses will grow in place of thorns, myrtles will grow instead of briars. This will bring fame to YHVH as an eternal, imperishable sign.

Shalom friends!

Thank you for joining me for Shabbat Shalom! Praise. If you would like to read others’ thoughts, praises this week, please follow the links below. If you would like to join us for Shabbat Shalom! Praise, we welcome you! We welcome you to participate. You can read about the meme HERE. Please leave a comment with your direct link on this post. Please use the icon, linked back to Walking Therein, in your own Shabbat Shalom! Praise.

I can honestly say that this is truly a place where there is No Greater Joy. Teach your children the truth, Mommas. Hold up the standard in your home, and when you sin, repent and turn from your wicked way. Ask, seek and obey when you are shown the sin in your life, for it is a loving Father who corrects his children and won’t leave you in your sinful state.

Live what you believe. Stand up for what is in Scripture, and when others disagree and revile you, count it all joy. It will help you grow, strengthen your resolve to walk, draw you closer to Messiah, and after all the tears, you will come out a purer, more-refined Believer.

And your children will see you are real. And it will not return to you void.

May you have peace in your home~

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Purify my heart
Let me be as gold and precious silver
Purify my heart
Let me be as gold, pure gold

Refiner’s fire
My heart’s one desire
Is to be holy
Set apart for you Yah
I choose to be holy
Set apart for you my Master
Ready to do your will
Refiner’s Fire/Brian Doerksen /1990 Mercy/Vineyard Publishing

I have heard this – sang this – in church so many, many times. It is truly a great song and a great desire for a Believer. It has great depth and includes important things we should all pursue to understand and gain knowledge of. As a home school mom, I can see a lesson here. Some vocabulary words come to mind. Some thought-provoking discussions for younger and older believers to strengthen their understanding and perception of who they are and who the Father is. A most important question to answer:

How should they then live their lives?

To Think About

These words seem clear, but are they? What is this refiner’s fire? What is his will as we are put through the fire as a refining? Seriously, do we understand this fire? Do we know what this purging and refining is? Do we know what the word holy means? Are we really willing to be set apart for him? Set apart from whom? The world? What about other Believers who are not set apart? Are we willing to be completely set apart from what everyone else looks like, speaks like, behaves like? Or just those habits we consider sinful? What about what the Refiner thinks? What about HIS plans and HIS instructions and teachings?

Malachi 3
1 “Look! I am sending my messenger to clear the way before me; and the Master, whom you seek, will suddenly come to his temple. Yes, the messenger of the covenant, in whom you take such delight – look! Here he comes,” says ADONAI-Tzva’ot(YHVH of Hosts). 2 But who is able to endure the day when he comes? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire, like the soapmaker’s lye.
3 He will sit, testing and purifying the silver; he will purify the sons of Levi, refining them like gold and silver, so that they can bring offerings to YHVH uprightly. 4 Then the offering of Y’hudah and Yerushalayim will be pleasing to YHVH, as it was in the days of old, as in years gone by. 5 “Then I will approach you for judgment; and I will be quick to witness against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers; against those who take advantage of wage-earners, widows and orphans; against those who rob the foreigner of his rights and don’t fear me,” says YHVH-Tzva’ot.

6 “But because I, YHVH, do not change, you sons of Ya’akov will not be destroyed. 7 Since the days of your forefathers you have turned from my laws and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you,” says YHVH-Tzva’ot.

“But you ask, ‘In respect to what are we supposed to return?’ 8 Can a person rob Yah? Yet you rob me. But you ask, ‘How have we robbed you?’ In tenths and voluntary contributions. 9 A curse is on you, on your whole nation, because you rob me. 10 Bring the whole tenth into the storehouse, so that there will be food in my house, and put me to the test,” says YHVH-Tzva’ot. “See if I won’t open for you the floodgates of heaven and pour out for you a blessing far beyond your needs. 11 For your sakes I will forbid the devourer to destroy the yield from your soil; and your vine will not lose its fruit before harvest-time,” says YHVH-Tzva’ot. 12 “All nations will call you happy, for you will be a land of delights,” says YHVH-Tzva’ot. 13 “You have spoken strongly against me,” says YHVH. “Yet you say, ‘How have we spoken against you?’ 14 By saying, ‘There is no point in serving God. What good is it to obey his orders or to walk about as mourners before YHVH-Tzva’ot? 15 We consider the arrogant happy; also evildoers prosper; they put Elohim to the test; nevertheless, they escape.’” 16 Then those who feared YHVH spoke together; and YHVH listened and heard. A record book was written in his presence for those who feared YHVH and had respect for his Name. 17 “They will be mine,” says YHVH-Tzva’ot, “on the day when I compose my own special treasure. I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him. 18 Then once again you will see the difference between the righteous and the wicked, between the person who serves Yah and one that doesn’t serve him.

To Discern and Act On

What is his will? What are his words? What are we to do? Don’t skip over the important stuff and make this about ‘tithing’. This is about returning to Yah. This is about my ways versus his ways. This is about my making my own Laws and his Torah instruction.

Let us not be clanging cymbals and whitewashed sepulchers. Let us not walk in our own ways, but align our choices with scripture. Let us refine each other as iron sharpens iron. I have a good friend who is set apart. Her very words cause me to think about my life and how I live, what I say, what I think. She is very open and honest about her own sins and failures. She does not exalt herself or her family, but you will find them joyful and proclaiming the Father and his love and victories. I want to be like her. I want to be like the Father.

Let us not cling to what we want, who we want to be. Let’s not “let it all hang out” and be cool, but let’s BE SET APART from those worldly examples. Showing people who he is does not require us to be like them. Quite the opposite, showing people who the One True God of Israel is requires us to be like him and his Son, our Messiah, so that they will know he is set apart for them. For, even if you might find him hanging at the local bar ministering to people, you would not find him swinging to the latest hit, just going out for drinks. You would find him about his Father’s business. And so must we be: Set apart and about the Father’s business.

So, sing that song again. Think about the words. Do you really want to be purified? Do you really want to be as gold? Do you really want to be set apart? It was too much for the rich young ruler. Yehoshua said, “No one is good except one (YHVH). If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.” But he did keep the commandments, but he couldn’t give up all. He walked away from the Messiah, grieved at hearing this, for he could not give up what was necessary. (Luke 18, Matt. 19)

Shalom!

Thank you for joining me for Shabbat Shalom! Praise. If you would like to read others’ thoughts, praises this week, please follow the links below. If you would like to join us for Shabbat Shalom! Praise, we welcome you! We welcome you to participate. You can read about the meme HERE. Sign the Linky with your direct link on this post. Please use the icon, linked back to Walking Therein, in your own Shabbat Shalom! Praise.

Scriptures are taken from The Complete Jewish Bible, though I have restored Yah’s sacred name within the text.

Thinking Eric was in on the computer at midnight last night, I called to him,

“ERIC!!”
Unexpectedly, he answered from my bedroom.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Reading my Bible.”

Wow. I was not expecting that. What a joy to hear!!

I am now hearing him read Exodus 45 to Isaac and Caleb. He called them into our room, they grabbed some pretzels and ranch dressing, and they are having “boy time”.

Just what a Momma wants to hear! Boy, that does my heart good.

May you be blessed today!

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Psalm 137:5
“If I forget you, Yerushalayim [Jerusalem], may my right hand wither away! “

Wow. One’s “right hand” is their life. If we forget Jerusalem, may we lose the means to make “our life”, which, so aptly pointed out to me in discussion with Jocelyn, only YHVH can restore. What an important thing it is to YHVH that we not forget Jerusalem. His Holy and set apart city. The place where Messiah returns to and reigns from.

Jerusalem is in the heart of our God-Elohim.  We must “determine ourselves to go to Jerusalem” and Yahushua did on his road to the cross. It is Yah’s heart.

Psalms 137:6
May my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth if I fail to remember you, if I fail to count Yerushalayim the greatest of all my joys.

And very important words in these last days:

Psalms 147:2
ADONAI is rebuilding Yerushalayim, gathering the dispersed of Isra’el.

May you have a joyful and blessed Shabbat!

Thank you for joining me for Saturday Psalm & Praise. If you would like to read others’ thoughts, Psalms and Praises this week, please follow the links below.  If you would like to join us for Saturday Psalm & Praise, we welcome you! We welcome you to participate. You can read about the meme HERE. Sign the Linky with your direct link on this post. Please use the icon, linked back to Walking Therein, in your own Saturday Psalm and Praise.