Let’s leave the past in the past and receive those who repent as the first century believers did, as if they have been here all along.
Video with slides via Rumble below.
Audio only via Spotify below.
Let’s leave the past in the past and receive those who repent as the first century believers did, as if they have been here all along.
Jan 1 isn’t really the new year. In the Torah, the beginning of months is in the springtime, not the dead of winter. But we do live in Babylon and we will be writing the year “2023” on our checks and documents starting today. It’s unfortunate that times and law have been changed, but it is all in Yahweh’s plan to bring us to the ideal. It’s just that we are so far from the ideal today.
What shall we leave behind in 2022? What shall we focus on in 2023? These things tend to run together. Overeating or eating the wrong stuff, lack of exercise, not studying the WORD enough, all these things make the list. We will be examining ourselves in the spring so we don’t observe Pesach in an unworthy manner and we will be doing heavy repentance in the Fall for Yom Kippur, but we should always be in a state of spiritual examination and growth. We should always be putting first things first, but sometimes it’s good to remind on the very basic things.
2022 was another year of intense division here in the US. Social media divisions, political divisions, travel nightmares, economic challenges – these things put the most patient of us to the test. Discovering that most of our fears were true about social media and the government colluding to manipulate our thoughts and speech is incredibly alarming. How do we navigate all these things and not just get furious? More importantly, how do we reconcile and move forward?
Slide 2 “Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Messiah—this Yeshua whom you crucified.” Now when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brethren, what shall we do?” Peter said to them, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Yeshua the Messiah for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Ruach ha Kodesh. For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to Himself.” (Act 2:36-39)
Brothers and sisters, we have to return to the basics if we’re going to move forward. If society has any hope of returning to civility, we’re going to have to be able to forgive and forget. The past three years have been intense with division, fear, and all manner of corruption increasing. But as people repent and realize the errors of their ways, we have to accept them back and be kind. Peter’s message was to the very people who murdered Yeshua and once they realized their sin, they asked Peter what to do. Peter did not execute judgment, but received their repentant attitudes and told them to give their lives to Yeshua the Messiah through baptism. That through this they would receive forgiveness from Yahweh and Yeshua and be granted the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Ruach ha Kodesh. And this was not a one-time thing. Oh no.
Slide 3 For I am the least of the apostles, and not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed. (1Co 15:9-11)
In Acts 7, Paul was the one who held the coats of those who stoned Stephen. He went on to persecute all the first century believers, hunting them down. He locked them up from house to house. In Acts 9 it even mentions murder with Paul’s ravaging of the church of God. But Ananias was giving a message by the risen Yeshua to accept Paul so Paul could become the evangelist to the nations.
This message of repentance and subsequent reconciliation is central to the faith once delivered. We can also see that Yahweh uses chaotic situations in order to bring His chosen ones through the fire. Things keep getting worse and worse in our society but people are starting to realize their mistakes. We need to receive them as if we were receiving Paul when they turn to Yahweh and His Son. This form of reconciliation has been foundational to American life up until recently. We ultimately ended up the greatest of allies with Great Britain after the revolution. The southern states regained their statehood and rights after the civil war. We are now also the greatest of allies after severe war with Japan. The list goes on and on. That was only possible because we were a Christian nation. After other nations defeat their enemies, they destroy them utterly so that their memory isn’t even recorded. But that’s not how followers of Yeshua conduct ourselves in a grand or a small scale. We are to receive people who have repented as if they had been here all along, with the same mercy and love that Yahweh and Yeshua have shown us.
For 2023, brothers and sisters, let’s pray for more people to realize the ways of the world are not going to be profitable. As more and more repent, let’s put first things first and follow the example of the first century believers. For it is Yahweh’s desire that all come to repentance, is it not?