Quote of the Day

You Shall know the truth and the truth shall  make you... odd.

-Flannery O'Conner







I saw this quote on another blog (on the blog of a Jewish woman) and I thought how true it is...as much to them as to us.

   I have known for a long time how our beliefs set us apart from all mainstream faiths but I didn't realize just how much it set us apart from some Jewish people too.  I understood how different we were from Christianity now that we have begun to understand that the OT is as much for us today as it ever was at any time in history.  And I have felt the sadness when people who we loved looked at us like deer in head lights when we shared the things we had learned with them...thinking they would leap with joy at the revelations.  But, what I did not understand was how the Jewish community views those of us who have left mainstream Christianity because of a desire to apply the whole word of God to our lives...Many Jewish people see us as misfits too because we do not fit the accepted norms of either faith.  It seems to me that they have had the first half  (OT) of the book and the gentiles (the Goim/gentiles) have claimed the second half (NT) and there is a vast river in between that apparently is there to keep us apart.  I no longer believe that is how it will remain in the end.  I believe two (Old Test./New Test.) are created to be one, thus, the example of the union of Adam and Eve and the example of the two sticks that become one in Abba's hand.  Why?  Because that's the business Abba is in, making two into ONE or maybe this is more clear...Abba places two parts together that make something whole...but it wouldn't have been whole without both parts...get it?  Remember He is ONE...(Gettin' off track, sorry.)

I have often heard how the Jewish people have long felt themselves as "strangers" or outsiders.  People without a place to call home, outcasts.   I have begun to understand how we too really have become "strangers", people who have no "earthly place" to call home, no place we fit because of how we believe.

The thought that has kept going through my head today is the general message given to the Jewish people during the Passover, given to them I believe, to remind them that when they felt they could remain exclusive...not to forget that they too were once a people without a place of their own.  He told them:

Exo 12:48  And when a stranger shall sojourn with thee, and will keep the passover to the LORD, let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near and keep it; and he shall be as one that is born in the land: for no uncircumcised person shall eat thereof. 
Exo 12:49  One law shall be to him that is homeborn, and unto the stranger that sojourneth among you. 


Abba has made provision for those of us who desire to come in and partake in His Torah as long as we agree to abide by His ways in faith and because of that,  He reminds those who were already in His house to remember what it was like to be a stranger and not to treat people as such, He said:

Exo 22:21  Thou shalt neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. 

Exo 23:9  Also thou shalt not oppress a stranger: for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. 

Lev 19:34  But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God. 

Anywho...if you don't know by now, the truth does set you free but freedom doesn't usually make you blend in with the crowd...in fact, often there isn't a crowd anywhere around you.  


Thank you Abba for the eyes and hearts that you are opening as you bring your promises to pass to restore your house out of all tongues and nations.  Amein


Just mt thoughts.