First Love and Ephesus

Shari Lewis was a well loved puppeteer and entertainer who loved children and life.  In the fifties and early sixties, I began my childhood television experience not with cartoons like children these days, but with a reality show featuring Shari and her little “Lambchops.” In terms of both characters and imaginary animal friends, this was my first love.  I could identify with the childlike nature of Lambchops and the way that Shari loved him and treated him with care.  I used this same approach in teaching my Granddaughter more about Yeshua (Jesus).  It is difficult these days to get a child to just sit and listen.  My time with my granddaughter is less than most.  I may see her once a year and there are times missed though we used Skype when she was oversees so that we could both see her progress in life and encourage her, and so she could see us, her grandfather and myself.  Still, I often have only a week or two to both build a relationship with Grandma and with her concept of Father YHWH.  I came equipped this past summer with Sunday School books and games.  What worked best was crafts, songs, and time with the lamb puppet or a combination of the three.  Did she learn the songs I taught or the ideas?  She got the concept of how much Her Heavenly Father loves her and the evidence was her own Made up song, “I love God, God loves me.”

I brought up this bit about Shari Lewis, because I still have a thing for not just Lambchops, but all sheep and lambs.  It was another step to understanding our relationship with Abba Father and His Son Yeshua as The Good Shepherd.

 

Love is coming…

We have been waiting for the Bridegroom.  We have been talking to Him in our prayers, seeking His face, reading about Him, learning about Him, singing about Him.  It’s a love you have never experienced in your life. Someone who takes you as you are,  He thinks you are beautiful, wonderful, funny, exciting, tender, loving, and warm.  You have seen his creativity, his availability, his responsiveness to your needs, his protective instincts, his kindness, his thoughtfulness, his generosity, his honor, his love and his willingness to suffer and die for you.  I am not talking about a husband, a spouse  who carries the same kind of baggage we do.  I am talking about someone who knows all about you and loves you anyway, because He designed you.  Yes, He is Yeshua.  He is showing us the signs of his coming.  He wants us to know, because he needs us to prepare for What is happening and what is to come.  He wants us to know that because He is just and honorable, He will fight for what is Right and His wisdom is such that no one else can win, except Him.

In Yeshua’s time there was a practice and an idiom that they used.  He gave reference to these in the Bible when he spoke of the End times or the Latter Days.  He knew exactly what he was saying.  He knew exactly what the prophets were given to put in their writings, because He is the one who spoke to them and told them what was to come.  Even in the transfiguration which several of the apostles witnessed, he conferred with Elijah and Moses about what was to come.  And in that day, the custom was to become engaged to a young woman, often of the families choosing, and an engagement would occur.  They would not be together until the young man (sometimes a man a bit older than the girl) had built and established a home for the bride on his father’s land with His father’s blessing. When the home was ready and the Father decided it was time, he would send the young man to retrieve his bride.  It was the father’s decision concerning the timing.  Hence there was a saying, “no man knows the day or hour, only the father.”

In Jewish customs as given by the Torah, feasts were celebrated  which were given by the Lord in the Torah.  When the Hebrews left the land of Egypt for the Promised Land, they were given laws, and edicts to follow.  (There were a lot of them and they needed order, being normal human beings.  Within the laws that were given, they were taught about the observance of the Sabbath, and 7 feasts that were actually a dress rehearsal for the coming of the Messiah.  What many Jews do not understand is that all things within those observances relate to Yeshua as the Messiah. The first three feasts deal with Yeshua as the Passover Lamb, the lamb without spot or blemish sacrificed for the sins of the people; the unleavened bread, no leavening or sin in the Messiah; and the first fruits where the second Adam

The Hunt for the Bride of Yeshua, who is she?

Who is she? Are you her?  Is it someone who believes in Yeshua (Jesus)? Is there more?

I am going on a hunt for the Bride, to find out what the requirements are to be this bride. Brides are supposed to be someone very special, like the Pearl of Great Price?  If you would like to come along with me as we look at who this Bride is supposed to be, what she looks like, what she is supposed to accomplish, why did He chose her?  I want to also look at the Bridegroom, who is he? Is he a messiah, an anointed one as the Muslims say, is he the Son of “God” per the Evangelical Christians or YHWH the Elohim Adonai to the Jews or Hebrews, or is he the Creator, the Word who spoke all into existence.

I had found this Psalm, this most blessed song about The King and His Bride. Psalm 45

1. My heart is overflowing with a good word:  I address my works to the Sovereign:   My tongue is the pen of a speedy writer.
2. You are more handsome than the sons of men;  Favour has been poured upon Your lips;  Therefore Elohim has barak (blessed) You forever.
3. Gird Your sword upon thigh, O Mighty One,  Your excellency and Your splendour.
4. And ride prosperously in Your splendour.  On the matter of truth and humility, righteousness;   And let Your right hand make known reverence.
5. Your arrows are sharp in the heart of the Sovereign’s enemies  Peoples fall under You.
6. Your throne, O Elohim, is forever and ever;  the sceptre of Your reign is a sceptre of straightness.
7. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness;  Therefore Elohim, Your Elohim, has anointed You With the the oil of gladness more than Your companions.
8. All Your garments are myrrh and aloes, cassia:  Out of the palaces of ivory, stringed instruments have made You glad.
9. Daughters of sovereigns are among Your precious ones;  At your right hand stands the sovereigns in gold from Ophir.
10. Listen, O daughter, and see,  And incline your ear,  And forget your own people and your father’s house:
11. And let the Sovereign delight in your loveliness;   Because He is your Adon  bow yourself to Him.
12. And the daughter of Tsor with a gift,   the rich among the people seek your favour.
13. The daughter of the Sovereign  is all esteemed within;  Her dress is embroidered with gold.
14. She is brought to the Sovereign in embroidered work;  Maidens, her companions following her,   Are brought to You.
15. They are brought with gladness and rejoicing:  they enter the Sovereign’s palace.
16. Instead of Your fathers are Your sons.  Whom You appoint princes in all the earth.
17. I cause Your Name to be remembered in all generations:  Therefore the people praise You forever and ever.

 

 

 

 

My Husband’s Bride Rapture Dream

“You and I were older, a little bit older than now,”he said.

“You got this mark on your abdomen.  It was a brown spot.

You could remove it-and it wouldn’t just re-appear .  If you scratched it, it smelled like

myrrh or honeysuckle, or lavender, or all three.  It was, we knew, the touch of an angel.

The angel ( a bright light) who had touched you told us to go a place that turned out to be a

dilapidated motel.  We drove there in a car.

“When we got there, to the motel,” he told me, “you stayed in the car and I went to the

door.  I tried the knob, but it was locked.  So I knocked and tried the knob again.  This time

it opened and there was an empty motel room inside.  I called out to ‘Mike’ and asked if he

was there. (I knew that name, for some reason.)  And then I shut the door.  I repeated the

process and the same thing happened.  So, I went back to the car.”

“You have to see this,” I told you.  “So you got out of the car and went with me. But

something different happened this time.  When we knocked and entered the room, a

bright light was there;  it was so bright, and we had this overwhelming feeling so we fell to

our knees and bowed our heads low.  It was when Jesus  (Yeshua) said, ‘welcome!’ we knew

it was Him.  We then could see Him and He wrapped His arms around us and welcomed us

Home.

The room was no longer a room, but a heavenly expanse with angels and lots of people.

And we, ourselves had no fleshly body that inhibited us, we were young again.  There was

no pain, no anxiety, no wayward thoughts of any kind, just happiness and joy and peace.

There was wheat fields of gold in front of us and the greenest grass around that , but in the

background was a  huge city.  I thought I had died and went to heaven, but then I woke

up.”