Escaping Religiosity

Escaping Religiosity Talmidah Live Studies

This is a message for women who are on the outside. Women who look at our faith, and ponder and wonder if this is “real”. Is the Torah really something I should abide by as a believer in Y’shua? Are all these feast days really necessary? Is the Shabbat something I really HAVE TO do? Do I really have to eat only clean foods? Etc… This message is for the women who are on the inside. Women who look at OUR faith and are meticulous in how they live their lives. Women who scrutinize their walks diligently, and are sometimes exhausted by getting rid of all pagan remnants of their past or this culture. Women who feel like they are losing themselves trying to live according to the letter of the Torah, and yet and still feel like they are falling short of the glory of Yah. Have we gained more truth and wisdom in the Torah? Have we moved closer in relationship with the Most High? Or have we become bogged down with a new way of life? Have we become haughty in our faith? Have we become oppressive towards others? In this lesson, religiosity will apply to all these and more incorrect relationships with the Torah, and the Messianic Hebrew faith as a whole.

services and soaked up all the messages. Some came sad – they really enjoyed shopping on Saturdays, they had a hard time giving up certain foods, their children were upset about missing out on the Halloween trick or treating… Some came anxious – they were so afraid of breaking the Shabbat – can I cook? Can I warm up food? If I have an electric stove, can I use it on Shabbat – since it’s not fire? Can I drive? Some were afraid of wearing different blends of fabrics, if they should give away their leaven around Passover time to food shelters or throw it away, how does this Hebrew calendar work because I encounter people celebrating the holy days at all kinds of different times, how do you pronounce the Most High’s name? All these do’s and don’ts made this new walk seem so easy to “mess up”. The ones who came so joyously quickly ran out of steam. After one Torah cycle, they couldn’t believe we read it again the next year! The ones who came sad left because they wanted to enjoy the lifestyle they were so used to. The ones who were anxious just gave up on being “righteous”. You see, if you go back to Church, there’s a new message every Sunday, you don’t have to worry about all these laws that make you sad, and you don’t have any anxiety over messing up any of the commandments. Why bother with all this Torah stuff?

The Revolving Door Effect

Torah – A Means or a Result

I have been in the Faith for half of my life Earth side. I have seen many people come and go. Some came enthusiastically! They were so thankful to come into the Torah! Every Shabbat, they came to

When the Torah is looked at from a purely physical point of view, when it is reduced to a LIST, then it becomes a religion. It becomes a procedure or recipe – the means by which we become holy.

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But the Torah is not a means, it is a result! When we keep Torah to become something, or to attain something, it quickly turns into its own thing. But when we keep the Torah because there’s an internal force driving us to be pleasing to the Most High, now that is when we are keeping it with the right motivation. It’s more than religion, it’s who we are. The 3 Dimensions of the New Covenant And I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean; from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes, and ye shall keep Mine ordinances, and do them. Ezekiel 36:25-27, JPS YHWH says He will cleanse us from the uncleanness of the idolatry we have been immersed in. He does this cleansing three dimensionally. He will wash us with water… He will do a heart transplant, as Moreh Adoniyahu puts it, and take out the stony heart that was in us and put a NEW heart in us. And he will put a NEW Spirit in us. What does this mean? Dimension 1 – External - Sprinkle Clean Water Upon You… It is important to recognize the language used here in several ways. 1. Sprinkling is a Priestly/sacrificial term. When the priests offered sacrifices, they would sprinkle blood or water (with the ashes of the red heifer). You can see this if you look at the rituals of the sin offering (Leviticus 5:9), the offerings on the Day of 2 | Derek Echad Talmidah www.DerekEchad.com

Atonement (Leviticus 16), or how the ashes of the red heifer were used (Numbers 19:13). The cleansing of the leper involved sprinkling blood and water from the wings of a pigeon, and also sprinkling of the holy oil (Leviticus 14). 2. Sprinkling denotes cleansing – or transformation from an unclean state (Tamei) to a clean state (Tahor). 3. Sprinkling can only cover the external surface. It is the outward man that is cleansed here. Dimension 2 – Internal - Put a New Heart in You… Our physical heart holds a central and defining function in us – it is literally our life! In fact, the heart and circulatory system are the first system to develop in us in the womb. Since you were around 22 days old, your heart has been beating – it is not only evidence that you are alive, but it is the method by which nutrients and oxygen – i.e. LIFE is distributed throughout your body! Take away your heart, and you take away your life. Extrapolating to the Spiritual, the heart (in Hebrew Lev) is the thing that characterizes our essence – who we are. It is the seat of our intelligence, the mind, the will, our innermost natures and self… And if it is carnal, then we are carnal. YHWH says that He will remove our carnal heart, and replace it with a Spiritual Heart – a heart that will beat for HIM. Dimension 3 – Transcendence/Exhale Breath – Internal to the External – Put a New Spirit in You… When we have been cleansed on the outside… when our heart has been swapped to now have one that beats for YHWH… Now we are at a point where we have to actually live our lives outwardly. How do we live? Do we live our lives by looking at a list and trying to do it? Or is there another force within us that CAUSES US to act a certain way. What is internal transcends to the external.

When children are raised well, it’s like winding up a clock. You expect that when you release the winding mechanism, the clock will tick away in its intended fashion. Sometimes, children that are raised well go off into the world as soon as they leave the protection of their parents’ households. This is because they were only able to function under the tutelage and heavy scrutiny and RULES of their parents. They go off course because they haven’t internalized the raising to the point that it becomes who they are! Their character. Their identity is tied to it. When how they are raised is who they are internally, it’s like the air they breathe – The outside world can’t change them, but rather they enact change upon the world. It’s a flowing process, what’s inside them is actually animated and lived out.

Y’shua HaMoshiach teaches us that the foundational principles of the Torah is to Love YHWH with all your heart and to Love your neighbor as yourself. When you love something, a bond is made within your heart. You have a desire for it, you have an appetite for it. If loving YHWH with all of our heart and loving our neighbor as ourselves is the greatest of the commandments, what does that show us for the purpose of the Torah?

And this is the proper relationship we should have with the Torah. We keep it because the Ruach within us is actually motivating us to keep it.

The purpose of the Torah is to show us HOW to love YHWH with all our hearts, and HOW to love our neighbor as ourselves. If the purpose of the Torah is to show us HOW to love YHWH and our neighbors as ourselves, then the reason WHY it does this is because it is the ESSENCE of the character of the Most High in human terminology. Again, Moreh Adoniyahu has taught on this extensively in Midrash. The Torah shows how YHWH would live on earth in human terms – how to worship Him, how to live a holy life, how to live in a holy community, how to treat Him, how to treat the Land, etc. YHWH would keep Shabbat – In fact HE KEPT IT in creation week! YHWH would make a separation of meats – In fact he makes a separation of meats for His altar. YHWH would make a separation between the clean and the unclean. And this is why we do all these things – because He said to be Holy (Set apart/Kadash) because HE IS HOLY.

Escaping Religiosity – Making it Real

Our Perspective of Ourselves and this World

In order to escape religiosity, we MUST have a proper relationship with the Torah. We MUST keep it because the Ruach is motivating us to do so, not because we have a desire to “put on holiness”. Putting on holiness is on the outward level. It may be to feel good about ourselves. It may be seeking the Most High with a misconception. It may be seeking him mentally. But whatever the motivation is, we will always end up in religiosity if we do not keep the Torah from the inside out.

So, let’s say we come through Y’shua. We receive this message. We receive the Ruach HaKodesh and the cleansing. Now, how do we view OURSELVES? How do we view the WORLD?

YHWH puts His Spirit in us so that it becomes that driving force that maintains the cleanness that He has established. If we are a clock, it maintains our time. If we are children, it keeps us in the path in which we have been raised. And since we are His People, it keeps us doing the “things” YHWH likes, and it keeps us from doing the things he doesn’t like. In other words, it causes us to continue to do His Torah.

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Religiosity would cause us to view ourselves as some high and lofty people. It would have us to look down upon those who haven’t yet awakened out of darkness. We will have angry faces in regards to pagan holiday greetings, we will be quick to point out every error and blemish of people who go to

church on Sunday and ignore Shabbat. I am not saying that we should support these things, but I’m saying that our ATTITUDE should not be one of haughtiness, but one of compassion. Jonah was called to bring condemnation upon Nineveh for their transgressions. He did not want to go because he understood that YHWH is a compassionate Elohim! He knew that if these people heard this word he had, and repented, that YHWH would forgive. Our attitudes must be one of tenderness to those who are on the outside. Not to join in with their error, but to make our faith be desirable because of the LOVE that we have and show to our Elohim and to those around us! Balance How do we find balance? How do we find balance? How do we find BALANCE!!! It’s a slippery slope. Can I drive on Shabbat? How far can I travel to a service? Can I warm up my dinner in the oven? Can I warm up a slice of cold pizza on the hood of my car in the sun? Can I boil a pot of coffee? Can I get married on Shabbat? Can I get a birth certificate for my child? Should I vote? How do I keep niddah? The questions, the questions — and everyone is seeking truth who ask these questions, do not get me wrong. BUT, we must find balance. We have to live in exile until the Olam Haba (the world to come). Some have opted for stringent no cooking at all rules, and found themselves fasting every Shabbat. This is something that is hard to do every week… Some people have opted to not get birth certificates for their children, only for their children to later feel like they were rejecting YHWH by going ahead and getting one to get a job. But none of these THINGS has anything to do with the actual Torah and living it out. Do you see how these things get in the way of the pure purpose of the beauty of resting and growing in YHWH on Shabbat? Or the pure purpose of returning to the Most High while in exile in a strange land that has documentation? 4 | Derek Echad Talmidah www.DerekEchad.com

We must find balance, and that has to be a work of the Spirit inside of us, and elders/teachers who assist the younger in faith coming along. Conclusion – Pure Religion All this talk of religiousness – we have to end with what James (Ya’aqov) calls “pure religion”: Pure religion and undefiled before Elohim and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world. James 1:27, KJV This sounds a lot like loving your neighbor as yourself. Putting our time, energy, and resources in building up the downtrodden, focusing on others more than ourselves. This is the heart of YHWH. The word for religion here in Greek means religious worship. This is how we worship the most high, and it begins inside. It is the air we breathe. Religiosity is all about the ego. Pure Religion and the Torah from the proper perspective is all about taking the Ruach within us, and using it to effect change in this world. To transform the darkness into light. To loose the chains of the captives. To season the earth, and shed the love of YHWH in the world. Tirtzah Lewis, Derek Echad Talmidah For questions or comments, reach me at: [email protected]

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