The Spirit

What is the Spirit of Christmas?

Today some kids and adults understand that Y’shua was not born on December 25th, but that was around the time another celebration was taking place millennia ago. It was that celebration that was the sole reason for the church to invent a competing Christian celebration–in other words, it was church marketing. The celebration that the church was so upset with was the pagan worship of the winter solstice. There is no true indications that Y’shua was born during this time period, but that really did not matter to the church leaders at that time. What mattered to the church at that time is exactly what matters to the churches today, and that is their enrollment. The marketing mantra that has sustained the church since its inception has never changed–an empty seat is an empty soul.

Christianity has veered so far from what Y’shua Messiah created two-thousand years ago there is no resemblance. One was designed to establish individual relationships between God and humankind, the other mandates group think and conformation of worldly doctrine. One was based on the Love of God, the other on the fear. One encouraged a break from worldly traditions, the other added to them. One tells us to follow no one, but Y’shua Messiah; the other states that same premise while operating under the typical worldly hierarchy.

Should we be surprised at what has become of the spirit of Christmas? Not if we consider that its origins had nothing to do with God or the Blessed Holy Spirit. Today there are those who are attempting to bring God’s Spirit back into the holiday. However, they have not considered that God’s Spirit has never been in this holiday. And as we watch where this holiday is going it makes good sense that God’s Spirit stay clear.

Giving God a special day in His honor seems trite to say the least considering that His request is for anyone wishing to honor Him surrender everything over to Him and completely follow Him with every breath that we take. Are not all things God’s?

Bigger Than You

What most of us seldom consider is how intensely complex spiritual life is. Take for example just one hypothetical family and then multiply their elaborate personal inter-connectedness to the globe. To keep this as simple as possible we will assume that everyone in this imaginary family believes in God to one extent or the other. The mother is the matriarch of the entire family, and she is extremely saint-like. The father believes in God, but does not have a true relationship with Y’shua. The three siblings are as follows: The oldest is twenty, female, in college and still living at home, she has a personal relationship with Y’shua, “on her own terms”. The next oldest sibling is sixteen, male, has an understanding of what is required to have a personal relationship with God, and at times has attempted to start one, but the world keeps pulling him back. The youngest is Twelve, female, and she has yet to be convinced that one can have a personal relationship with God.

Now that you have met the family lets setup the situation. The mother has asked God that her family will all become believers and have great relationships with God. That is her utmost desire other than to just serve God. The father and oldest daughter have separately asked God that He provide the family with financial security. The twelve-year-old wants God to make her family happy and stop the parents from arguing. The young boy wants a car and to become a great soccer player.

Certainly, at some point the father and oldest daughter will base their total commitment on whether God has provided financial security to the family or not, never considering that there are any number of reasons that God would not provide the family with financial security. The same can be said for the physical health of the family. Just because one is not healthy does not mean that he/she is not being taken care of by God. The same is true with material goods, whether one has or does not has nothing to do with their relationship with God.

Ever thought about why some people seem to have financial freedom and some do not, or how some people have such healthy lives throughout their family and others do not? Has it ever seemed to you that life just is not fair? We desperately need to begin to understand God outside of the context of this world and what we have been taught to think of as empty and full.

Most certainly you have felt that way at least once or twice in your life, it is normal human nature. However, maybe there is some design in what appears to us to be random chance. What if, God knows what is needed in each of our lives  every single moment, whether we need a challenge or a blessing. Because each can bring a different task into our lives at different times and for different reasons.

The first thing we must consider in every prayer is the Will of God. Because His priorities are not quite the same as ours. God desires for everyone to have a personal relationship with Him that will last forever. We want coffee and a massage. Just look at how Y’shua Messiah taught us how we should pray. In the Gospels of Saint Luke (11:1-4) and Saint Matthew (6:8-13) we can clearly see that our God’s Will is considered before our desires, and that all we should consider as truly necessary is the needs of the present-day. This prayer that Y’shua Messiah details for us is simple for purpose, that we are to Trust our God to provide for our daily needs.

When god deals with each of our lives individually He must do that with collective reasoning because not one of us is an island, and whatever affects our life affects other lives connected to our own. Whatever God does He does it with a single priority and purpose–Salvation. Although, coffee and a massage does sound great, there is just something about living forever with God that sounds much better.

So in the imaginary family, as in our own, God will continue to provide for our daily needs as He leads us into our place in Eternity, and all we have to do is Trust Him to do just that. It is that Trust that will provide us everything we need, and it is that Trust that is behind all the interactions between God and His people.

Is Someone There?

For the very, very few who occasionally read this blog we have not abandon you, but as we have stated from the beginning, we would only post what we felt very sure was in accordance with the Blessed Holy Spirit’s teachings. We have written numerous drafts in the past two weeks that have yet to be “approved” so to speak, by the Lord; and there are those that were “eaten” by the program while we were writing it–those we considered were rejected by the Blessed Holy Spirit. So just as we will not post without sincere peace from the Blessed Holy Spirit, we will not discontinue this blog without extreme direction from the Lord. Therefore, never think that just because we have not posted in the typical two to three-day time span, that we have quit.

We here at Cepher live, or at least diligently attempt to live, on a day by day basis with our undivided attention on Y’shua Messiah through His GPS gift He gave to us all–the Blessed Holy Spirit. The more we relinquish our attentions, control, and life, over to God the more we see His wonderfully, gentle guidance in our life; and the more we see that Guidance in our life, the more we trust Him for further Guidance. This is a process just as everything else in life is a process that we so often take for granted, and we seldom stop to consider how long things take to develop in our everyday affairs. It is difficult, if not impossible, to think of something significant that we have learned that did not take some time to develop into what it now is in our life.

How many times did God’s hand keep you from harm? How many times did God’s Love direct you into just the right place? How many lives have contacted yours that have been a great blessing in one way or another? For all the various reasons why a human being becomes far more reflective in her/his later years, the objective is the same. That contemplation provides a time when the soul develops ears, and it is at that time when some of the most insightful theories, philosophies, and changes manifest. Coincidence?

It is also a time when a human being begins to realize all the coincidences that are her/his life. Because as we are growing up we seldom, if ever, stop to think; that if the tire had not gone flat …?

That is what it all comes down to–chance or God. Some will consider chance for all things, and some will see God in all things. If the Spirit of God is in your soul you will see God in all things, eventually. If you do not have the Spirit of God in your soul you will consider life by chance. However, just because you do not seem to have the Spirit of God in your soul today, that does not rule out the chance that you will have the Spirit of God in your soul tomorrow.

Rebellion Nation

We live in a most rebellious state, which is our state of mind. It is not new, in fact we come from the most rebellious genetic material on the planet. What is new is the extent, the degree to which we are willing to rebel. We are willing to lose our future just to have what we call life today. Without any real analytical thought we are willing to throw away a chance of eternal bliss for a chance of temporary pleasure. Why?

Trust! Actually, the lack of trust is what has caused this massive disobedient rebellion to transform this entire nation into a boiling cauldron of hate and despair waiting for the exact rise in temperature needed for a boil over. We are living in a steam cooker today and we do not even realize that at any moment the pressure is going to blow the lid off the pot. The past few posts have all been dealing with the same issues because it is these issues that are heavy on our hearts and we need desperately to deal with them before they become life changing circumstances.

Right now is the time to take the bull by the horns, so to speak, and make it our priority to establish a personal trusting relationship with our Creator while we can still make that choice. I know what it is like to wait too long and end up in a position where that decision is made for you by the circumstances that have come into place from bad choices made at a time of rebellion. Sometimes that is the only way for some of us to get right with God, that is only because we have refused to heed God’s pleading as we continued down a road of rebellion for the sake of refusal, and nothing else.

Life is what we make of it, and when we live in total rebellion we should expect total frustration for as long as we rebel. Our Creator knows exactly what our future holds for each of us and God is not about to allow our rebellion to jeopardize that future. God has all the time in the world to wait for us to quit fighting, and the sooner we learn to Trust our Fatherly God, the sooner we will learn what God has in store for our life.

Half full or half empty is a very simple matter of opinion. However, for some people there is no water, no glass, no hope. If you are not one of those people, be thankful, be hopeful, and become helpful to those who could really use a helping hand. We can change the world one person at a time if we would just begin with our self.

Trust

What is Trust?

Little by little the citizens of the USA have lost trust in their government, national and local. They have also lost trust in  Corporate America, neighborhoods, churches, Doctors, and little by little we have lost trust in each other. So it is not surprising that few people today have complete trust in God. Unfortunately, trust is an absolute necessity in a relationship with our Creator. Without trust we cannot expect to follow God. Trust in God has always been the main factor in following our God. Without Trust in God Abraham would not have been able to father this Belief. Without Trust in God King David could have never even faced the challenges he faced to allow this Belief to grow. Without Trust in God none of the Prophets would have been able to guide this Belief, and without Trust in God we cannot carry on this Belief.

Unfortunately, Trust is not something this generation is very experienced with, we have had to grow up in an era when Trust was something no one could afford to take a chance with. Therefore, we simply learned to be self-reliant to the extreme so we could have better control of the uncontrollable. Life became so chaotic that even the slightest bit of control, real or imagined, was better than the alternative. So we abandoned Trust altogether in hopes of some sense of security in controlling our own destiny. However, the cost has been horrendous, especially for our children. Our tiny bit of security cost them theirs.

Today, we are realizing just how wrong we were in trading Trust for temporary, and fake, security. Now we must attempt to Trust a God that few of us know and even less of us understand, and yet those are major factors in Trust. To know and understand our God is essential in learning to Trust Him, and that takes time. This is a process that we must go through in hopes of ever obtaining true security and peace here on earth, and in time we will not only learn what Trust is, but also how to Trust in something other than ourselves.

Sabbath

How important is the Sabbath?

Isaiah 58:13-14

Does it matter if we keep the Sabbath holy?

Ezekiel 20:12

How many believers follow these directives? How many even know them? In reality, as with all of God’s directives, this request to save one day each week for God’s honor is more for our benefit than God’s, and yet we find ways to ignore it. What God is asking with this directive is for us to simply take one day out of seven and make it a day for rest and recuperation in the Lord. A day for us to reorganize our life more in the direction of God. How many of us do this?

The day a believer discovers how important obedience to our God is in regards to our very existence, is the day when he or she becomes a follower of God. The difference between a follower and a believer is their knowledge of what their portion is, what is it they are required  do. The knowledge, that to follow God requires us to know the Word of God and discipline our self  to obey that Word. It does not take strength, ability, or even intelligence; it simply takes willingness. The desire on our part to follow God’s Word–His example–is the only thing we must do to follow God.

However, that desire–our will– is naturally contrary to following anything that is not easily processed in the brain from the five senses. God’s Word does not initially use our five senses when communicating with us. Initial contact with God’s Word must come to our sixth sense, which requires Faith. First we need to believe, and after that we need to be obedient to that Faith. Of course it is not easy to obey God, it is not easy for us humans to obey anyone! When you consider the ramifications of not following God’s Word, it become much easier to obey. Try it!

Leviticus 26:2-4

The Birth Of God!

What is Christmas, but a farce of lies and manipulations. Is it any wonder why the holidays are becoming such a burden?  We say it is in remembrance of the birth of Y’shua, and yet we all know that He was not born anywhere near the month of December. We say it is for God’s honor, although we do everything contrary to God in our celebration. We lie to our kids about a Santa that does not exist, we spend money until we are in debt up to our nose, we drink alcoholic beverages until we cannot or should not drive home, we compete with our neighbors to see who can light up the street the most, and we claim that it is all for God’s Son who was beaten to a bloody pulp, ridiculed, spit upon, nailed to a cross and left hanging for half a day until He died.

He died, so we can continue to mock His name for our pleasure during a holiday we made to trick others into turning their pagan celebrations into ours. What a shame. How could we have gotten it so wrong? We live in such a world of deception how could we ever expect to truly serve God by sharing Him with others when we have yet to discover who God really is to us? How can we possibly expect our children to find a God that we have yet to find ourselves?

We must be the ones who stop this madness if it is ever going to be changed. No Messiah is coming to fix this mess for us; He already has! Our Remedy is standing at the door, knocking (and if it were possible, His knuckles would be getting very sore by now). It is now or never for this generation, soon it will be too late for us, and that means our children will become the next generation pretending to know God, while they put Him under a Christmas tree.

At Cepher, we do not wish to continue this pattern of deceit and vagary. We want to find the very same Messiah that raised Lazarus from the dead. He has been trying to raise us from the dead, but we have refused to come out of the cave. No longer will we remain in the cave wondering why it just keeps getting colder, wetter, and more depressing here in the dark. All the while we can see that Light at the cave’s opening, so we are going to walk towards it until we get to the open arms of our Messiah.

We hope you will do the same, however if you do not, we will never stop praying that you will.

Glory to God in the Highest!       Blessed is the birth of our King!

Hello, Diary?

DEAR DIARY,  WHAT THE HECK !!!!!!!!!! It has been 5 months since my commercial was made and the spot has come out BUT I’m not in the spot!!!!!!
Seems they cut me out ! ?
My wife’s job situation has not gotten any better.
My backs still hurts like heck and we have some family issues that are bugging me bad!
However I’m am sitting here watching fall leaves float to the ground in the brightest of colors and praising my GOD for the wonders of life.
To think that a year ago if I were in this place with all these difficulties I would have been drinking my sorrows away. BUT this year with GOD in control I am at peace and know that HE has it all worked out. Don’t get me wrong, I still at times get side ways but now only for moments. I know that I’m going to have to rake the beautiful leaves up and do those things that make up this life. BUT for now I am going to do nothing but enjoy GOD.

The Light

Can you see it?   Do you see it?   It’s right there! Right where it has always been, just one or two steps ahead. Always, just a couple steps ahead. How many times have you thought how nice it would be if you could get close enough to it to confirm that it was exactly what you had been hoping all this time that it was–Him. His Light. The Light of God, the Light of the world. Ever wonder why you cannot seem to get any closer? We have.

What if, The Light is so overwhelming that anyone who looked upon it without protection would not be able to live through it? What if, our God is so overwhelming to mortals that we must first assume the cloak of righteousness in order to not be overwhelmed in God’s presence? What if, that was one of the reasons the Body of Y’shua was used to dampen the glory of our God? Have you read what happened to Moses in God’s presence? Let’s read it together:

Exodus 33:17-23

Do you see the God you serve?

Maybe we were placed on earth to grow into the beings that we need to become through patience and obedience, in order to be in God’s presence with true serenity. You remember what happened to Moses in his encounter with God from a distance while receiving the Ten Commandments; Moses aged somewhat. In each of his encounters with God he had been on this earth for over eighty years, and we seem to think that we should encounter God in ten, forty, sixty years. Maybe we are too impatient. Maybe we do not appreciate the Glory and Grandeur of our God. Maybe we have not taken the time to discover who is our God.

Maybe that is the sole reason why we are on earth–to discover how awesome our God truly is.

Maybe, when we finally meet God we will discover that it really was a good thing that we were not allowed any closer to the Light than where we were, due to the fact that our glory was not a match to His at the time. Maybe the glory we need comes from the glory we are able to see in our God, and that vision comes in time and circumstance.

Do you see the Light?

Hopeless

What have we done?

We have passed our children through the fire and we do not even seem to care. It is impossible not to notice, they’re blood is all over the streets–and on our hands. They’re like dancer painted out to hide the scars, pretending to be joyful while slowly falling to their addictions that we have bought for them to be their baby-sitters.

Have you ever spent the time to truly listen to the songs they listen to? If you did you would see that their dreams are dead, no more truth in happily ever after. They are too smart for the hypocrisy that we lay down as lifestyle. So they are forced to make their own way in a world that is not conducive to subtle individuality, but insists on hedonistic outlandishness, if one wishes to leave the pod. If one is going to make their own way it must be so far from anything recognizable that no one will mistake it for anything other than what it really is–a massive cry for help.

Soon there will be no child left behind. Only soulless adults in the bodies of infants looking through eyes darkened from the blackness that fills their imagination at a world that we have condemned, and only they will be left to take the next generation into the nether world of the future. Make no mistake, they will leave us behind, and rightfully so. Because we participated in the creation of these miracles from Heaven, while in the rapture of the pleasure we were seeking at the time without ever giving a second thought to the responsibilities that would come forth requiring our undivided attention in order to assure every possible opportunity for these little miracles of creation to become the true pall-bearers of the future we have left them.

Our government spends more on making war than making peace. Some of the biggest selling toys are video games involving war and killing. Our economy rewards those who make it to the top with compensation that kings do not even deserve, no matter what they did to get there,i.e., sell drugs, take drugs, defraud others, cheat, steal lie; sell your body, moral and ethics. These are just a few things that our children watch us, and their role-models, participate in to get to the top. We teach them that getting caught committing a crime is the crime, and if you do not get caught–to the victor go the spoils.

Our children learn early that few make it to the top, but it is the top that you want to shoot for, and if you crush those in the middle on your way up, it is their fault for being in the middle–where everyone knows, no one belongs. Our children also learn that there is a pill for every scenario imaginable, that anything that takes time to do is not worth doing. Because, everyone knows technology’s sole purpose on earth is to add time to each day by making all things quick and easy.

Whether you think so or not, this is the legacy that we are leaving our children, and because of it they are on fire. There is no pain worse than burning, and that is all these kids know, everything they do is motivated by that pain. So every time we make another deal, sell another product, buy another thing, or do something else that tends to aggrandize this way of life; we are simply lighting another match.