The Summary of the Torah

It has been quite a while since I have written a blog. Life has become rather hectic, filled with challenges and many onslaughts from the enemy, seeking to distract me and disrupt the shalom that is found only in Yeshua, our Sar Shalom (Prince of Peace). But despite all his attempts to create chaos around me, I am marveling at the fulfillment of the Torah I am witnessing in my own small fellowship we call David's Tent. We meet twice a month to celebrate Shabbats, to worship together, to pray together, to break bread together, and to fellowship. Sounds pretty much like the description of the early church in the book of Acts, doesn't it? The amazing thing is that I am seeing it lived out.

When one family needed to make a local move, others arrived to help. One drove a big meat truck borrowed from his company, filled with the family's belongings. Others came to unload and put everything in its place. Two people brought furniture from their own homes to fill a need. One brought blackberry bushes and strawberry plants to begin the back yard garden. This week tragedy struck in our little family. A precious husband suffered a massive stroke last Friday and is still in very critical condition in a Denver ICU. We are praying in one accord. We are sitting with his wife, just to be there. We are believing for a miracle.

Why am I sharing all this? Because through all this God is returning us to the simple Truth that Yeshua taught: the fulfillment of the Torah is LOVE. As I travel and teach among Messianic congregations, I have begun to see that simple truth disappear in favor of seeking for knowledge. When all emphasis is put on studying the Torah, seeking after the latest "cutting-edge teaching," filling our lives with CDs and DVDs from the best-known teachers, it seems that we stop seeking the Author of the Torah. And when we stop seeking Him - Yeshua, our Messiah and our God - we fall into the same trap the Pharisees fell into. We find ourselves going further and further into the teachings and traditions of men. This in turn has led many to deny Yeshua, or at least deny that He is equally God.

I have spent the last two weeks dealing with this heresy with quite a few sisters and brothers of the faith. In the process of showing them the fullness of who Yeshua (Jesus) is through the Scriptures, something became painfully obvious to me. The lie that Satan is spreading through the camp is not creative or new. It is the same old lie he fed to Adam and Eve in the Garden: "you shall not surely die; you shall become like God, knowing good and evil" (Gen. 3:5). Yes, the corrupted seed from the Tree of Good and Evil is still alive in our world today, and I am aghast at how many are swallowing it. Let us examine our hearts, beloved. Are we searching for knowledge for the sake of knowledge? Or, are we searching for knowledge in order that we might know Yeshua more deeply and intimately? Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal the motive of your heart. The apostle Paul writes, "Knowlege puffs up; but love builds up" (1 Corinthians 8:1).

Two weeks ago when I was interceding and asking God to help me turn these people back to Truth, I received an e-mail from a sister in the Church who had no idea what I was working through. She said she had just had a dream that she was walking up to a table upon which was a loaf of challah bread. She reached out to take a piece of the bread when she noticed it was full of tiny pockets. Suddenly she saw little green tree frogs climbing out of the pockets and heard a Voice yell, "Don't eat this bread!" She awoke startled and asked, "Father, what is it?" The Spirit spoke to her, "Send this dream to Kelly. It is for her."

You can imagine how powerfully this dream spoke to my heart. Father sent it through someone completely unrelated, in order to show me that the dream is a genuine warning from the Holy Spirit. I recognized the little frogs as the evil spirits that climb out of the mouths of the false prophet and the beast in Revelation 16:3. The message was crystal clear: "Do not eat the bread of demons!"

I am praying that as you read this your heart will be moved to take a deep breath of life-giving Shalom from the Holy Spirit, and purpose to return to the summary of the Torah as given to us by the One who is the Torah Incarnate: Yeshua. He said, "Love YHVH your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind; and love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the Torah and all the prophets" (Matthew 22:37-40).