Do you remember in the 1990’s and early 2000s when there were many commercials on TV about Michael Jordan and they had a very popular jingle “like Mike, I wanna be like Mike!” ?
I sure do remember because I loved basketball, often watching it, but more often playing it all the years growing up and through about 1984 then I became mostly a watcher, definitely a sports fanatic, particularly for college basketball and golf, but really any sport I had played and others as well as I was very competitive. I’m not a sports fanatic anymore as I consider it a waste of time and sports that play on YHVH’s Sabbath to be an offense waiting for judgments. But that is another story…
I can remember like it was yesterday in the early 1980s going to the gym at Minot AFB, ND every lunch time of just about every week out of the 4 years I was there and playing pickup games with all the best players like this very good friend of mine was a top player but now he’s old like me: https://www.facebook.com/trevor.tatum.39
You would see guys in the gym imitating Michael Jordan at the foul line shooting foul shots with their eyes closed or imitating closing seconds championship wins like Jordan in the 1982 NCAA Championship with 15 seconds left soars several feet above the Georgetown defenders and gets what? “Nothin’ but net!”. Those were the days because I loved Carolina basketball and I grew up only an hour’s drive from UNC in North Carolina and Tarheel basketball was ingrained in me. (I did not know that pleasure was a standing offense to YHVH but that is another story).
“Like Yeshua Messiah, I want to be like Yeshua Messiah!”
Sounds good doesn’t it?
But the reality for most of us including me is in the Christian churches we were/are not taught to be like God’s Son.
In fact, we are taught to NOT be like him…
We are taught to be partly like him but not based on the him that is “old testament” THE LAW of YHVH His Father he kept…
That is the cold, hard, factual Truth.
Because, if we hold a mirror up to Yeshua Messiah and produce his image and we are told to conform to his image then that means keeping YHVH’s 7th Day Sabbath, keeping YHVH’s Feasts and appointed times, and keeping and upholding all the LAW, commandments, statutes, ordinances, and judgments.
People come up with a multitude of theological reasons and arguments for not being exactly like “Jesus” and but those accounts will be settled in daily judgments before they die and also in The Judgment after the 7th Millennium.
In the last Christian church I attended before I escaped Christianity, there was an associate pastor who had a favorite saying and it went something like this “I’m a dirty, rotten, no good, scum of the earth sinner…” and later he extolled the theological virtues of a Christ who covered him…
I sat in that church for 2 years listening to that and every time I heard it I WINCED because I know the scriptures and according to the scriptures we are supposed to overcome our sin through keeping the commandments and sanctifying ourselves to be Holy even as YHVH is Holy and as His Son is Holy. I was in great pain every time I heard that guy confess his state and wondered to myself why he did not speak about overcoming his personal situation much. You see, I know he had the theological attitude that we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of YHVH but we are not supposed to stay in that state as we are supposed to overcome whatever the sins are, and beat our bodies, our flesh, the old man, into submission to the commandment and gain the victory. I know the theological position which says even though I sin I am covered by Messiah’s blood and though I do wrong I am not seen by God as being in a wrong sin state. I also know the years I spent taking a little pleasure in sexual sin while thinking I was doing nothing wrong and mentally justifying my actions. That is what theology is and does and how it corrupts men if even in what appears to be the slightest variances from YHVH’s LAW… But, if you are joining yourself to anything but YHVH’s Commandments, then you meet the biblical definition of a HARLOT. And I did.
AND EVERY BIT OF THEOLOGY IS AS FALSE AS BERNIE MADOFF.
It is not based on THE LAW of YHVH therefore it IS a Harlot…
Messiah says “Go and sin no more” and he was not kidding or making lite of our sinful state or taunting us as if we do not have the capability to live sin free, Righteous and Blameless. Messiah was not joking around and neither was Peter when he reminded disciples to be Holy even as YHVH is Holy. Sin is not a laughing matter! And continuing in sin which is contrary to YHVH’s LAW is ripe for a death sentence at The Judgment.
What is sin is defined by THE LAW of YHVH God. It never changes. YHVH never changes. His Son never changes. YHVH not changing is the one constant in this life we can depend on…
And we are told God’s Son conformed himself to His Father’s image:
2 Corinthians 4:4 whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of The Gospel of the glory of Messiah, who is the IMAGE of God, should shine on them.
So God’s Son conformed himself to his Father’s image and we are supposed to conform ourselves to the image of His Son even to the image of YHVH God the Father Himself:
1 Corinthians 11:7 For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man.
You see, Romans 8:29 is TRUE.
God and His Son are only returning for The Righteous who are like them, who strive to keep the Commandments of YHVH in ALL they DO. If they accidentally, unintentionally fail, then they get back up like Job, dust themselves off by applying the chosen sacrifice and build upon the Righteousness they started out to achieve. (sort of like the Frank Sinatra song…) That’s Life following YHVH…
YHVH God and His Son are not in the business of saving people who are willingly against keeping YHVH’s Commandments, like those in the false religions of Christianity or Talmudic Judaism unless they repent and get right by determining to and keeping YHVH’s Commandments!
They are not going to save people who refuse, willingly, intentionally, and theologically to KEEP YHVH’s Commandments:
Revelation 22:14-15 Blessed are those who do YHVH’s (His) commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates into the city. 15 But outside are dogs and sorcerers and sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and whoever loves and practices a lie.
There is still a little time left to repent… But not much…
Those who do not seek YHVH’s Righteousness just as Matthew 6:33 says to DO will not be raptured away to a safe place nor will they eat from the tree of life, nor will they receive salvation, nor will they inherit eternal life. They are living and practicing a LIE – some to great extent, others to lesser extent, but still a LIE because they did not seek to live YHVH’s Righteousness and conform themselves to YHVH’s IMAGE.
YHVH did not create the 7th Day Holy and give Moses His LAW which is a carbon copy of what is in heaven only to have some prodigal son come along and mess it up. No, YHVH’s Son kept His Father’s LAW all the days of his life and as 1 John 2:6 says if we are in The Son then we are to live like The Son (think exact image not some broken mirror!!!).
Can you break out of the theological mold false image you have taken on and live in the true image of God’s Son?
No matter what you may theologically think about being saved, your eternal soul depends on you keeping those Commandments of YHVH our Father!
Shalom!