Last year, two weeks from today, I wrote a post called “The Josef Code“.  It was about a crop circle that formed at that time, and what it meant.  So you don’t have to ‘find’ it on my sidebar, I’ll cut/paste the pertinent information from it real quickly, here:

Imagine this round crop circle represents the world and all the spiritual layers within it.  The ‘squiggle’ outside of it is those not of the world.  It says ‘Jo[s]f’ – the ‘s is from the top curve to the bottom curve.  If Egypt is symbolic of the world, then Joseph is symbolic of those not of this world (John 18:36).  Joseph took an oath of the children of Israel, saying: ‘God will surely remember you, and ye shall carry up my bones from hence.’  That OT event was a shadow of a future event, of the dead in Yehovah whose ‘bones shall be carried up hence’.  In other words, Yehovah’s holy plan to raise the dead at the rapture is being illustrated, here. 

Okay, now fast forward to this year, last Wednesday, specifically.  Another crop circle was formed, and again we see the letters JO[S]F on the outside of it.  Here’s a picture… and yeah, it really surprised me, too.

Everyone was screaming that it was man-made, that it’s a fake, that it’s a ‘Jesus Omega cult’ warning, and a lot of other stuff.  People do NOT like when religion (well, modern practiced religion) shows up in crop circles.  But it was that Josef code that got me.  I bookmarked the picture, hoping to come back in a few days and see what comments were generated.  ((Yeah, THAT should be fun, right?))

But Yehovah got me up at 2am that same morning to write this.  No waiting for man’s explanations, just a post about what this is.  So here it is:  The circle at the bottom is earth.  The cross is salvation via Messiah.  The heart… self-explanatory, don’t you agree?  The little ‘you are here’ symbols (reminiscent of Mapquest) aren’t teardrops like I thought, they’re people… you are here.  Three is numerically a united front… we have two groups, both rising out of the earth by way of salvation per Messiah.  The first group are the dead in Christ, the second group are the living Messiah-followers.

For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.   1 Thess 4:16-17

In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.  John 14:2-3

NoTe:  This is a four-part series I wrote for a lady I met at a garage sale, who wanted to know more about why I left Christianity and became a Messianic Jew.  I tried to keep it easy to understand, but there’s quite a bit to it… hence four parts.  Some friends asked me to share it here, so here it is.

Good Morning!

Don’t worry, this is not gonna go on forever!  In fact, this is likely the last letter in my little series.  I say that because… well, in #1 do you remember when I said Yehovah has numbers He favors?  That show up again and again?  Well, FOUR letters would be the the numerical value of  ‘love’. 

And since I’ve ya here, I have to show you something else that changed my life.  We heard Josh MacDowell once, and he asked what ‘LOVE’s definition was… and nobody knew.  Then he pointed us to Mark 12:31.  We’re to LOVE (which means ‘to nurture, or help grow’), and we are to do it with our HEART (relational), SOUL (spiritual), MIND (intellectual), and STRENGTH (physical).  He said Messiah modeled this in Luke 2:52 for us:  “Yeshua increased in WISDOM (intellectual) and STATURE (physical), in favor with YEHOVAH (spiritual) and MAN (relational). 

You see the four in a deck of cards:

Spades: physical         Hearts: relational
Diamonds: wisdom     Clubs: (clover/trinity = spiritual)

NoTe:  This is a four-part series I wrote for a lady I met at a garage sale, who wanted to know more about why I left Christianity and became a Messianic Jew.  I tried to keep it easy to understand, but there’s quite a bit to it… hence four parts.  Some friends asked me to share it here, so here it is.

Back Again!  I’m trying to keep this in small(ish) chunks, because it is a LOT.  But there’s a lot to cover, too! 

When we left off, Yeshua’s disciples went out to take the Messiah-improved Judaism to the world.  Problem was, the world already had its own gods, and didn’t like being told Messiah is the only way.  It was the time of the Romans, and they hated the Messianics so much, that they lit them on fire and used them as street lamps.  Messianics lived in the catacombs (caves) in fear… they didn’t want to be kindling or lion food.  After a few decades of that, Constantine came to rule Rome, and he had a deal for the Yeshua-lovers:  We stop lighting you on fire if you accept our pagan practices into your beliefs.  HUGE no-no for the believers: scripture says “Be ye not unequally yolked with unbelievers, for what fellowship hath light with darkness?” (2 Corinth. 6:14). 

But the Messianic Jews were whupped, and gave in.  The Roman Sun-god, Mithras, had his feast day December 25th, and the Romans loved that and their other celebrations, so the Jews dropped the Biblical feasts for the pagan ones.  Just the mission-minded Messsianic Jews, mind you.   The Orthodox ones back home that never accepted Yeshua and kept to themselves still kept Torah.  But this new generation of Yeshua followers became ‘Catholic’, which means ‘the world’.  They figured Hanukkah was close enough… it could mix with Mithras and instead of it being the Sun God’s birthday, it’d become the Son-of-God’s birthday.  Now officially ‘Jesus’, because Rome didn’t like Judaism, and Jesus wasn’t a Jewish name.  So that’s what was encouraged.

Easter is the feast day of Ishtar, who was a Babylonian queen, married to Nimrod.  Remember him?  He built the Tower of Babel.  Eastern legend says that when he died, he became a god, and Ishtar had a son via immaculate conception (human mom, god for the dad).  Sound familiar?  The son was killed by a wild boar, which is why christians eat ham on Easter.  Ishtar mourned him 40 days – that’s where Lent is from.  And she declared herself fertility goddess; bunnies, eggs, and chicks are symbols to honor her.  And this abomination is the mess christianity holds up before Yehovah.  No wonder He spews it from His mouth (Rev 3:16)

But after all, Pesach/Passover comes around about the same time as Easter, right?  But the council in Rome made an edict… never will Easter and Passover land on the same day.  They didn’t want their gods’ days to be tainted with Judaism.  And to this day, Easter will never be on the same day as Passover.  But the Messianics figured, ‘As long as we’re once again able to be about the Great Commission…!’  And that was the end of the Messianics… and the start of Christianity.  And I grew up in that, thinking that it was right, that it was the Truth. 

Worse, the Romans (Julius Caesar, specifically) went to Babylon and moved the ancient pagan religion to Rome, just before Constantine made the deal.  Caesar took the role of Babylonian high priest (he liked power, and wanted to be Pontifus Maximus).  It was later given to the Pope, after the collapse of the Roman Empire.  So ‘Mystery Babylon’ (Rev. 17:5) that the Bible is so set against is actually Roman/Babylonian mixed in with Judaism to make Christianity!

Revelation is a tough book to understand, but chapters 2 and 3 are ‘letters’ to churches.  What you may not know is that those churches are actually a timeline from Messiah to the end times:

Now it’s not all terrible news.  People within Christianity serve a huge purpose.  You see, Israel (Orthodox Judaism) doesn’t have/do missions.  They believe Yehovah chose them, and the rest of the nations are simply not a part of that.  Now if a Gentile wanted to serve God and keep Torah, they could join the Jewish community/nation, and become of Yehovah’s people.  But the Jews weren’t/aren’t gonna go out there and bring Gentiles in.  So they have no missionaries.  It’s Christianity that fulfilled God’s will of bringing the Torah and scriptures to the world.  Just like it’s Judaism that fulfilled God’s will of keeping unadulterated Truth alive throughout the generations.  It’s all a part of the big plan!

And Christianity may be Satan’s mix of pagan and Truth, but it’s so close, that the Spirit easily can bring Christians that one baby step closer, returning them to Truth and the Jewish roots.  It’s a movement that’s growing and faster and bigger, every day.  He certainly did it with me! 

By the way, Messianic Judaism is NOT Jews for Jesus.  Jews for Jesus are Jews that convert from Judaism to Christianity.  Messianic Judaism is neither of those.  It’s something entirely different… and exactly on the mark.

And NOW we can talk about Torah Observance, feasts, and more fun and interesting things.

Next Time!

NoTe:  This is a four-part series I wrote for a lady I met at a garage sale, who wanted to know more about why I left Christianity and became a Messianic Jew.  I tried to keep it easy to understand, but there’s quite a bit to it… hence four parts.  Some friends asked me to share it here, so here it is.

Hello again!

Didn’t mean to cut out on you, but it got late and I had to put the hubbie to bed.  Shall we get back to it?

In my last letter, we asked the question, “Is the sacrificial blood Yehovah required in Torah to cover sin still required?”  And if you ask any pastor or devout christian, they will tell you, ‘No, Jesus put an end to that.’  The problem with that answer is that it a) puts Yeshua in the place where He’s ended the Law and He Himself said that He didn’t do that [Matt 5:17].  It also b) makes Yehovah a liar, because He says over and over in the Old Testament that His laws and statutes are a lasting ordinance unto ALL generations.

I found out that Messiah didn’t end the sacrificial system; He completed it by becoming our once-for-all payment.  The key is that it’s still relevant – what He did on Calvary.  Why?  Because we’re still sinning and Yehovah still requires atonement via blood.  The difference is that we don’t have to cover it – Messiah did/does that for us.

That’s how Paul can say we are no longer ‘under’ the Law. (Galatians 3:25)  Yeshua freed us from that sacrificial obligation.  Paul goes on to add, “Do we then void out the Law thru faith in Yeshua?  God forbid!  Instead we establish the Law!”  (Romans 3:31)  And of course the Hebrew word for ‘The Law’ is… Torah!!

Here’s something else utterly untrue from the church:  you know that song, “What can wash away my sin?  Nothing but the blood of Jee-zus?“  COMPLETELY against scripture.  Blood is not the only thing He shed for us!  When the Roman soldier pierced Messiah’s side, blood AND water flowed out. (John 19:34)  This is HUGE, because if the Law is valid until Heaven and Earth pass away, then what Messiah did was cover our sacrificial need with His blood, and our purification needs with His water!  No church ever taught me this, and it’s… enormous!  They sing, ‘Nothing but the blood’ and that’s a lie!

So if they lied and told me Messiah made the Law irrelevant anymore, and they lied and said ‘nothing but the blood’… what else had they been feeding me for thirty years that was wrong?!

Actually, it’d be the very next rebuttal: “The Old Testament laws are for the Jews, not us – we’re christians.”  Which goes against what I just quoted in Romans 3:31 about how we establish the Law!  It goes against Messiah Yeshua when He said, “If you love Me, keep My commandments.”  (John 14:15)  And more?  Check out Romans 2:29.  Paul says believers are Jews!  Those who align themselves under Yehovah Adonai are Jews.  Always have been – even in Torah (first five books of the Bible).  Whenever someone not Jewish (the world for them is ‘goyim’) follow Yehovah and pledge to love/obey Him, they are under God’s mandate to keep to the Law.  And this is the thing:

Jews keep Torah (Obey/works),
                     but reject Messiah (Faith/trust).
Christians threw off Torah (Obey/works),
                     but have Yeshua as Messiah (Faith/trust).

BOTH are wrong!  Jews cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven without a saving faith in Messiah.  Christians cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven if they do not keep His commandments – because Trust in Messiah without Obedience to Torah, is dead.  (James 2:17)  Paul says, “God forbid we don’t keep Torah and end up sinning because of a false belief that grace is all we need!” (Romans 7:6-12).  We must have both faith AND works.

We sing ‘Trust and Obey’ from a pew, and don’t live it.  Christians frown at Jews for their rejection of Messiah, while Jews frown at Christians for rejecting Torah.  Meanwhile, all of the New Testament says you need trust AND obedience; faith AND works – for faith without works is as dead as works without Messiah.

That’s where Messianic Judaism comes in.  Just as the disciples were moved by the Holy Spirit to leave Orthodox Judaism to be Messianic Jews, there is now a renewed call to Messianic Judaism: this time, to leave Christianity – the other side of the spectrum – to find Truth.  Have you ever seen the Messianic Seal?  It was found on things in Israel shortly after the time of Christ.  I’ll post it on the side, here, for you.  It’s the Menorah – symbol of Judaism, and the Fish – symbol of Messiah Yeshua.  Their middle makes the Star of David:  True Israel.  Isn’t that awesome?  Faith and works.  Messiah and Torah.

Christianity says these things are too complicated to teach from a pulpit, but when I was in church, all I ever heard was people wistful for more meat, for deeper Truth.  The problem is that this scares pastors.  It asks for more from people, and they’re afraid people will walk if they’re given things to be held accountable for.  But this is exactly what they SHOULD be telling people.  There are whole congregations that believe in Messiah who think they’re going to Heaven without Torah observance – people who don’t even know call Messiah by His own name.  Something is HUGELY wrong, here!

Another church lie is Sabbath vs. Sunday.  If not one jot or tittle departs from God’s Law until the end, why do churches not keep the sabbath?  Yeshua said He was the ‘Lord of the Sabbath’ (Mark 2:28), not that He moved it!  The church says that Sunday is ‘The Lord’s Day’ – Messiah says He’s the Lord of the Sabbath, NOT Sunday.  The church says it’s because the followers of Messiah met on Sunday.  They did!  Do you know why?  Because they kept the Sabbath and went to Synagogue on Saturday.  But they got together the next day (Sunday) to discuss what they heard in the Torah readings, and how Messiah fit it!  For the other Jews, Torah is like watching a 3-D movie with no 3-D glasses.  When Yeshua covered the disciples’ sins, they got Torah in 3-D and met to talk about what they were seeing in scripture that didn’t have definition before!  The church is wrong, again!

More tomorrow…!

NoTe:  This is a four-part series I wrote for a lady I met at a garage sale, who wanted to know more about why I left Christianity and became a Messianic Jew.  I tried to keep it easy to understand, but there’s quite a bit to it… hence four parts.  Some friends asked me to share it here, so here it is.

My name is Anna, and I’m the lady who came over a night last week with my husband and 5 children, and we ended up talking about christianity and why my family had to change their beliefs.  It’s such a lot of information, you asked me to write to you about it… so I am!

The other night I confused you because I called Messiah “Yeshua” instead of ‘Jesus’.  I think this this is the first place to start.  Messiah was born a Jew, lived among Jews, spoke the language of Jews, and had a Jewish name.  ‘Yeshua’ means “God is Salvation”, and in our English it would be Joshua.  It was a very common, average name in those time.  But then, Yeshua was a very average-looking Jew, or so historians tell us… which is how He could disappear into the crowd so many times in the Gospels. 

Yes, the New Testament was written in Aramic, to reach as many people across the region as possible.  But christians who claim Yeshua spoke it as His language are very much mistaken, Hebrew was His tongue, and Yeshua was His name.  For example, my name is Anna.  In Ireland, that would be Nancy.  Do you think someone who called me Nancy could claim a close relationship to me?  I would say, “You don’t even know my name – what I go by!”  When I realized this, I had to stop calling Him the Greek name, ‘Jesus’.  I figure that is a small gesture to make to be closer to my Lord.

I learned some interesting things at that time.  Did you know that each letter in Hebrew has a number meaning, and that Yehovah has some favorite numbers?  For example, twelve… it’s ‘Wholeness’.  Twelve tribes make up the whole of Israel.  Twelve disciples made up the whole spectrum of Yeshua’s followers.  Or three – three is ‘Unity’.  Father-Son-Spirit.  Peter-James-John.  Shadrach-Meshach-Abednigo.  Ham-Shem-Japeth.  Like that. 

Ya-Shu-Ah… Not the two-syllable ‘Jesus’.
Ye-Ho-Vah… Not the christian replacement, Yahweh.

I don’t know, but that’s amazing to me!  I watch for His numbers.  Forty is testing/trial, because it’s four (love) times ten (humanity)… so forty is refining love unto humanity by trial.  Isn’t that awesome?

Seven is Yehovah’s favorite, though.  Seven days of Creation.  Seven colors in the rainbow.  Seven notes in music.  Seven feasts given for us to celebrate, laid out in Leviticus 23.  Ah… the feasts!  We talked about those.  But hang on, because we’re not there, yet.  I don’t want to get to the deep end too quickly.

Yeshua was King of the Jews, and His followers kept Torah (Acts 18:21, for example).  When they took up the job of ‘go ye therefore and teach all nations‘, they took Judaism out there… but a fulfilled Judaism.  Messiah brought Torah (The Law) to full-fillment.  He said, “I did not come to bring an end to Torah, but to bring full meaning to it” (Matt 5:17).  The christian church, all my life, taught that when Messiah made the scene, it was ‘out with the old, and in with the new’.  That’s NOT what Yeshua said!  It’s not how He or the disciples lived, either.  He said, “Not one jot or tittle will depart from the Torah until Heaven and Earth pass away.”  (Matt 5:18) 

Here’s where it gets serious.  Yeshua said, “If you love Me, keep My commandments.”  When He said that, the New Testament was not yet written.  So what commandments/laws do you think He was referring to?  Torah… what He brought full-ness to!  Worse, James said, “Faith without works is dead.”  (James 2:17) and “You believe there is one God: you do well – the demons also believe, and tremble.”  (James 2:19)  More than once, demons that Messiah cast out called Him the ‘Son of God’, believing who and what He was.  Belief is not enough – we need the other side of the coin to go with it – Obedience.  What are we to obey?  God’s Law – Torah!  Does the christian church teach that?  ((No.))

The next part gets even stickier.  Because the church’s answer is: ‘If you say we should keep Torah, then why aren’t you killing sheep as offering?  Messiah replaced that!’  My answer is, “No, He didn’t.”  Because if not one jot or tittle depart from the Law (Torah) until Heaven and earth pass away, it would make Him a liar.  Do we still need sacrificial blood to cover our sins?  YES!  Torah demands it… Yehovah demands it.   Messiah didn’t change or replace that – He just took over the job as the sacrifice.  In other words, if He died on the cross for our sins: past-present-future, then He’s still serving as the sacrifice.  His blood is in action – it covers sin today.  He didn’t stop God’s demand for atonement, He just became the *better* payment.  I know that’s hard to get our heads around, but it’s Truth that the church teaches the opposite about.

I better stop here.  More tomorrow!

NoTe:  In Michigan, the day after Labor Day is always the first day of public school.  So in poking fun of that (and them), I thought I would post this lapbook that I made months and months ago (that I wrote but hadn’t posted, as I hadn’t taken pictures of it).  We’re not in school right now (it’s our Feast time)… but here it is, in honor of everyone else hitting the books after today!  Besides, this has been waiting to be posted, the fruits of my ‘labor’, hahahaha!!!!  ((((ahem.))))

Free Medieval Lapbook

So we’ve in the Middle Ages in “An Island Story” for our World History lessons.  (As opposed to Ancient History – ‘Story of the World’ – or American History – ‘History of America’… which, yeah, is a lot of history, but there’s a LOT of history out there!).  Anyhow… I need to do something for our Book of Centuries about the Middle Ages.  And that means gathering resources that are free.  These are all on-line printables available at no charge, to be put into a lapbook!

But first, when is the Medieval period?  Most say that it lasted from 500AD to 1500AD.  That’s too long of a period for the notebook, and frankly, I think things changed a lot during that time… too much to lump it all together.  So here’s what I’m seeing:

This is going to help IMMENSELY when we get into composers, architecture, artists, clothing, and more.  Of course there are probably sub-groups – like surrealism and post-modernism – that I haven’t included, but you get the idea.  And that really helps me to get things into perspective better.  Because saying that the ‘medieval’ period is from 500AD to 1500AD… that’s just not even going to work.  It’s painting with too broad a brush, spreading a generalization across centuries, IMHO.  So by breaking it down, it has a better place in our book, and things seem a little more concise and logical.  And my Medieval/Middle Ages segment slides right into our Book of Centuries this way!

And now for the free .pdf links for you:

There are more booklets at HomeschoolShare, but I didn’t care for the others… feel free to browse, though. 

And of course I have pictures of the finished product (well… semi-finished.  They’re not colored and there’s a spot for anything I might’ve missed… which I’m suspecting I have done.)

Aiyeeee… that sounds terrible.  But let’s face it… they were fun while they lasted.  ((LoL!!))

       
  The Seventies                                        The Eighties     
 (Who can resist Pooh?)                   (Anna’s third grade picture)

The Nineties
(High school Drama Club… posing for a friend).

The… 2000s
(Anna’s acting ‘head shot’…)

It’s actually been quite the busy week.  Oh, Monday and Tuesday were my ‘drag days’, but Wednesday I got my oomph back, and started catching up on the stuff I’d let slide.  Brian was in Detroit all day Wednesday with his boss, at some seminar thing. 

And then Thursday was a visitation we had to go to.  And yes, I’m lazy and am going to cut/paste what I wrote at FB about it:  At his work, Brian and Rick are the daytime CNC crew. Joe and Keith are the night shift CNC crew. Joe is 50-ish, unmarried, no kids, and has spent the past decade or so taking care of his mother (diabetes, dementia, alzhiemers, etc) while his sister works days, and she while he works nights.

This is a kewl video of the whole trail, and while we’d taken a part of it before, long ago when we lived further up north, it wasn’t completed at that time.  It’s been 10 years since we’d ridden our bikes up that way, and so much has changed!  The trail is 9 miles long, and I figured we could do it with no problem.  Mostly because we did the Kent Trail South and the Paul Henry Thornapple Trail earlier this summer, and they’re just flat railroad beds that have been paved. This was kind of a psychotic ride – a LOT of up, up, up… and ZOOOOOOOOM! down around sharp curves and under bridges and thru the tunnels and such. The video doesn’t do it justice, seriously.  It kicked my booty!

The fun started on the way up there.  We took the alternative route, because the expressway on Friday night of Labor Day weekend?  Um, no.  And we ended up riding behind this for quite a good deal of the way:

Yes, I took pictures thru the windshield – I couldn’t help it!  And yes, he’s got a straw hat, a blue ‘Amish’ shirt, and suspenders on.  He can’t be Amish, though – they don’t drive.  They were cute, watching thru the back window.  He kept scootching her closer, LoL!! 

We kept stopping along the way, because of all the critters we got to see.  There were kids swimming in the river under Jackson’s Landing, then we saw the Mama deer with two babies, then the Blue Heron, right up within 10 feet of us under a railroad tressel bridge!  Then there was this HUGE turtle out on a rock in the middle of the river, and Brian saw a woodchuck sit up in the grasses, but it darted away before I got it’s picture.  I also got a shot of a fuzzy black/white cat in the grass, but it didn’t turn out so well.

Baby Owen is the cart behind me, and Lydia rides in the back, to be sure Owen doesn’t throw anything out of the cart (it’s a trick of his), so they didn’t make the picture, but there are the guys on the trail.  And it was definitely a fun ride.

The ‘oops’ we made was in stopping halfway and having supper at McD’s (Brian talked me out of the picnic thing, for time constraint purposes).  If I had it to do over, we would’ve finished the trail in the last of the daylight, then gone to eat, but… hindsight is 20/20, and all that.  Anyhow, when we came out, the sunset was just GORGEOUS.

We hit sunset just as we went into the grasslands behind Meijer, and I was getting pelted in the head by bugs, Lydia was giggling like crazy, cuz I was all “Ptttt! Ptttt! Pttt!” every time one hit me in the mouth. But we saw three more deer as we went back into the grasslands, and with the sunset off to the west, and this amazing sun ray display to the south… oh, wanna see that, too?

Isn’t that amazing?  I’m glad we hit it at twilight, the colors were just breathtaking.  And as we came out of the grasslands, we accidentally missed the wetlands and took a residential shortcut… but I am NOT complaining. Because by then the sun was gone, and it was dark.  Swamp after dark?  NO. Thank. You.  As it was, it was kind of spooky in the woods, because it’s even darker in there.  You know me – Miss Girl Scout (“always prepared”)… I had my LED flashlight in my purse, so I rode up front and lit the way, and we biked the last two miles by flashlight!  Talk about an adventure.

Brian says he wants to do it again by daylight. I… may need some convincing.  The  kids loved it, but it’s the up, up, up that had me hot n’ sticky and not in a good way. ROFL!!  We had flavored water to re-hydrate on the way home, and got to see the blue moon – it was way beautiful.  In fact, here’s the picture I took from our yard: