I had a week of revelation in my life. I traveled up to Northern Idaho to spend Passover with some friends of ours. It was amazing to do a truly biblical passover, we roasted a goat whole, put the blood on the door posts the whole nine yards! Not at all like the Passover Seders I have attended in the past, no long boring rabbinical bleh, we ate with our coats on and our staffs in hand (sure some of us had ski poles in hand, LOL) but we did our very best to follow Yahweh's instructions in the Torah, and I feel so wonderful about it.
Now I am left with a wondering about how I allowed myself to get so entrenched in the Rabbinical Customs in the first place, lets see, first it is what most of us do when we learn about and try to follow Torah and the Hebrew roots of our faith I like to call it jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire.. Most of us do it when we are trying to learn about Torah and have been raised indoctrinated and clinging to an inaccurate ideal of "Jesus" and the teaching that we were all taught growing up that the 'Law' is done away with.
First Jesus' actual name was Y'shua (or Yeshua or Yahshua the spelling varies in English as it is a Hebrew name), he was a Jew, and he followed Torah to the letter, he was perfect, sinless.... and Kosher ;) He would never have taught against Torah, because it says very clearly in the Bible that if he sinned then he was not the Messiah, and teaching people to go against God's instruction was the greatest sin. BTW Torah means instruction and is translated as Law.
The confusion comes in around 379 a.d. When the Roman Emperor Constantine decided to merge his pagan worship with Messianic Belief. He was sick and tired of all fighting that was taking place between the 2 factions, like what day is the Sabbath? Pagans say Sunday (the venerable day of the sun).. and the early Believers worshiped the actual Shabbat which has always been on Saturday, ever since Yahweh created the heavens and the earth.
It is important to remember that Constantine was an extreme anti-Semite, and when he merged the 2 religions he wanted all things 'Jewish' outta there. The only problem is that the things Constantine go rid of were not Jewish things, they were His things, God's. Like his feasts and festivals, his Sabbath, and many other things that were deemed Jewish, since Yahweh was always the God of the Hebrews (Jews), until Y'shua, He made it possible for the Torah of Yahweh to be brought to the Gentiles and the bible says that if we believe in Him then we are grafted into Israel, adopted. And the Bible makes it clear the adopted children have the same rights if not more then the original offspring.
So, I feel no need to call myself Jew or Hebrew, even though I live as Torah says and follow Yahweh and Y'shua, I am Israel not a Jew, so I call myself Messianic and I am a true believer. My eyes were opened the day that I shed all the pagan customs and holidays, did the research and decided to go with God. I pray that all who have faith in the One true God will do the same research and find the Hebrew roots of your faith... I feel Him daily and I know He is in control....
May Yahweh bless you and keep you, may He make His face to shine upon you and give you Shalom!
