Dear Readers, I am reprinting a letter I sent to a young man who emailed me with several questions pertaining to the Jewish people, Christians and what it means to worship God. It includes Bible references I encourage you to take the time to read. This post is longer than usual, but I wanted to print it as a whole so you can use it as a study guide or teaching aid. You can break it up into sections yourself to keep it bite-size. Enjoy & God bless!
Dearest Joshua,
The God of Israel, Jesus, does indeed have all authority, meaning, He is equal in power to God the Father, but He is not God the Father. He is still the Son. These ideas must be clear, because Jesus taught people to worship God.
It is like a king who gives his son, the prince, his signet ring. The prince now possesses all the power and authority of his father, but he is not his father.
Paul writes in the Book of Hebrews that in New Testament times, we are allowed to worship Jesus, but not as God the Father. These distinctions are important for those of us seeking perfect understanding of God’s Word, which Jesus told us we can achieve!
READ Luke 6:40, Matthew 10:25
The idea of “worship” is to bow down mentally (not physically) meaning, you are allowing the person you are bowing down to, to influence your thinking. You lower yourself mentally, which is also the meaning of humility.
Jesus lowered himself to God by allowing God’s Word (the Old Testament writings) to form the basis of his thinking. Jesus gave up his right to think his own thoughts! Jesus taught his followers that his teachings did not belong to him, but that they belonged to God.
READ John 7:16
Jesus taught that a person can pretend to worship God by bowing down physically, yet a person’s heart (which is their brain) can still be far from God, thus proving that bowing down physically means nothing. It is bowing down mentally that it is important.
READ Isaiah 29:13, Matthew 23:27-28, Luke 18:9-14
This is why we must work hard each day at “taking every thought captive into the obedience of Christ” because Christ would not allow any thought other than God’s Word to live inside his brain! If we work as hard to obey God as we do for a paycheck, we can heal ourselves of anything that plagues us!
READ 2 Corinthians 10:5
In Old Testament times, the Jewish people “worshipped” God by keeping the commandments of God. Since the devil has the ability to influence human beings through their own thought process, which is how the devil influenced Eve to break the commandment of God, and how the devil tried to seduce Jesus into worshipping him, then keeping the commandments of God is the basis of worshipping God. When a person does not keep the commandments of God, they are worshipping the devil by default and it does not matter if they know it or not. Jesus said it this way, You cannot serve two masters. You are either serving God or you are serving the devil, period.
READ Exodus 20:1-6, Matthew 6:24
The prophets in the Old Testament were constantly warning and scolding the Israelites for allowing the “thinking” of the heathen nations to influence them, which led to them breaking the commandments of God by engaging in all sorts of heathen practices, which is the basis of spiritual fornication – interacting with another god other than the God of Israel.
In New Testament times, we see that the Jewish people and Gentiles (Christians) must worship God the same way: which means, keeping His commandments. Nothing has changed EXCEPT the ritual part of the law which was nailed to Jesus’ cross because He fulfilled the sacrificial portion of the law.
READ Colossians 2:14
There has never been “one way” for the Jewish people and “one way” for the Christians – there is only “one” God and He has “one” law. The entire reason God raised up the Jewish nation was to make them a nation of priests to teach the Gentiles about God. Jesus said it this way, Salvation is of the Jews.
Have the Jewish people always been an obedient nation? No! (But neither have Christians.)
Have the Jewish people been punished for breaking the commandments of God? Yes! (And so will Christians.)
Did God replace the Jewish prophets with Gentile prophets! Never! (But Roman Christianity did.)
For so has the Lord commanded us (Jewish apostles), saying, I have set you to be a light of the Gentiles, that you should be for salvation unto the ends of the earth. ~Acts 13:47
If you read Acts chapter 15, you will see that the Jewish apostles gave the Gentile Christians four commandments to keep, proving that Christians must indeed keep the commandments of God in New Testament times and Jesus did not give Christians a free-for-all spiritual playground, which is what many Christians believe! These are blind Christians being taught by blind guides…
The reason I have spent time connecting the “worship of God” to the “commandments of God” is, this is the only way people in Old Testament and New Testament times can worship God!
READ John 4:21-24
Now what is another name for Jesus? The Word of God!
And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God. ~Revelation 19:13
This means the Jewish people have always had the Word of God with them, who is Jesus! And it does not matter if they know it! Did you know that the “church” began in the wilderness with Moses and not in New Testament times?
READ Acts 7:38
Remember, when Jesus is alive on the earth, the New Testament does not exist. It is written many years after Jesus died on the cross. This means the entire basis of His teachings stem from the Old Testament writings – nothing else. It is these Old Testament writings that form the foundation of the New Testament writings, or create the backdrop for what is being “played out” on the stage in New Testament times.
The problem for many Christians is that they have been taught that there is dividing line between the Old and New Testaments and that the Old Testament is “done away with” in New Testament times. This is a huge error! If you throw out the Old Testament, you throw out the teachings of Jesus and the entire mind of Christ! You throw out the covenants, the promises, the statutes, the judgments and all the prophecies! Again, the only part of the law “done away with” in New Testament times deals with rituals and animal sacrifices because Christ is the “end of the law” in this regard because He was the final sacrifice for sin. The rest of the law stands until the end of time.
READ Matthew 5:17-20
According to the prophecy of Jeremiah, the “new testament” period is a time when human beings will have the Word of God written on their hearts, which means written inside their brains!
READ Jeremiah 31:33-34
This is how everyone born after the cross will bow down to Jesus! He is living inside very human being as their conscience! When people listen to the “little voice” inside them and do what He says, they are bowing down to Jesus! This means they are allowing His instructions to guide them and not their own ideas or thoughts. However, because satan influences human beings through their own thought process, human beings cannot be sure of the “voice” speaking to them, which is why God has preserved the Bible!
The Bible is the only way to “filter” your thoughts and identify the “voice” you believe is speaking to you, by making sure it lines up with the Bible. However, this gets complicated by the fact that the devil knows the Bible and has used it to create an entire religious system filled with false doctrines. This is the reason people need to be “saved” from Christianity! It is filled with lies and liars who masquerade as ministers of righteousness.
READ 2 Corinthians 11:13-15
The reason Elijah decided to publish his teachings is to help people who are searching for truth – people who have been lied to by a religious system that God is going to judge severely – a system that teaches people idolatry and heathen practices that would have mortified Jesus!
The best advice I have for you is, study the Bible on your own and forget everything Christianity has taught you. While there is some truth within it, it is mixed with lies and difficult to untangle. It is better to study the Bible on your own and let the Holy Spirit guide you into all truth, which is His job.
READ John 16:13
In closing, remember this:
When Jewish people keep the commandments of God, they are bowing down to Jesus! When Christians keep the commandments of God, they are bowing down to Jesus! When Non-Jewish and Non-Christian people listen to their conscience, they are bowing down to Jesus!
For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: Which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another; ~Romans 2:14-15
When a person does not keep the commandments of God, or learn the truth about God, or learn the truth about Christ, or develop the ability to discern the voices speaking in their heads, it is impossible for them to worship God. This keeps them weak, powerless and on the path of evil, no matter how good the evil looks. The devil knows the secret which is why we are engulfed in a world of deception, especially where religion is concerned, and why our nation’s one-mindedness has been broken in the name of tolerance, and why if it were possible, the very elect of God would be deceived.
READ Matthew 7:21-23, Matthew 24:24
Joshua, I know this a lot of information to digest. I pray that it helps you, comforts you, and strengthens you for the good fight of faith.
With love,
Oh Sister, you are so blessed. What a profound teaching. It just flowed into my whole being. It is straight talk that cannot be denied; learning the TRUTH ABOUT GOD.
Amen, sister!!!