B.E.S.T. Shabbat

"If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear." And He was saying to them, "Take care what you listen to. By your standard of measure it will be measured to you; and more will be given you besides. "For whoever has, to him more shall be given; and whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him.""   Mar 4:23-25 Last chapter, we spoke about establishing our hearts in troubled times.  Yeshua instructed us not to allow our hearts to be troubled. "Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful. "  Joh 14:27 Yeshua has left us with His peace. He tells us it is not given the same way the world gives its peace. What is worldly peace based upon? IT is based on agreements. We call them peace agreements or peace accords. Worldly peace is peace in the externals. When you make this kind of peace you define the peace with agreed-upon rules and e

In my distress I called upon the LORD And cried to my God for help; He heard my voice out of His temple, and my cry for help before Him came into His ears. (Psa 18:6 NASB) In these troubled times, it is almost impossible not to find some situation that triggers us in some way to feel stress in our hearts. From the pandemic to politics to racial pain and corruption, we are being bombarded with information and changes that are stretching us in ways many of us have never experienced. Our faith is being challenged by shutdowns and being shut in and shut off, causing us to rethink and reimagine what being a Believer in a body of Messiah is really all about. At the core of all of this chaos is our heart which is where the swirling forces of light and darkness meet in a clash of titanic worldviews. It is tempting to think that what we are going through has never happened before but actually as Solomon admonishes us to remember: "That which has been is that which will be, and that which

Then he became very thirsty, and he called to the LORD and said,  "You have given this great deliverance by the hand of Your servant, and now shall I die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?"  But God split the hollow place that is in Lehi so that water came out of it. When he drank, his strength  returned,  and he revived.  Therefore  he named it  En-hakkore , which is in Lehi to this day. So he judged Israel twenty years in the days of the  Philistines.( Jdg  15:18-20 NASB)   Click here to listen to " Samson 5 " I thirst. Where have we heard that before?  After this, Jesus, knowing that all things had already been accomplished, to fulfill the Scripture, *said, "I am thirsty."   (Joh 19:28 NASB) Thirst is a primal calling from the place of life and death, the core of our marrow .   This is the first time we see Samson directly interacting with his true Father .  This is such a powerful interlude in the story that we need to camp here  f