December 18, 2025 • 17 mins
A lamp can light a room, but only truth can light a life. We take the story of Hanukkah’s rededication and hold it up to the lens of John 3:16—plus the often-missed verses that follow—to ask a harder question: do we really want the light, or just the comfort of a familiar glow?
If you’ve ever wondered how to reconcile tradition with transformation, or why some sins feel small while others feel beyond forgiveness, this conversation offers a clear, compassionate framework. We emphasize renewing the mind, trading comparison for conviction, and choosing trust over performance. Rituals like Hanukkah, Shabbat, and Passover become meaningful signs only when they echo a heart that yields to the Savior who came not to condemn, but to save!
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Episode Transcript
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Keith (00:00):
Hey, good morning, good evening, good afternoon,
whatever time it is that you aretuning into the podcast.
Thanks so much for tuning in.
Today we are on day five, andboy, eight days is a long time.
But no, we we are studying andjust kind of diving in again.
If you if you don't know wherethis is coming from, go check
(00:20):
the first video.
It's in the in the card or atthe end of this video.
But we're just diving in inHanukkah, experiencing and
connecting into what we've beengrafted into as Christians, as
believers in Jesus Christ.
We were grafted into a branch,right?
And and his chosen people.
This is a holiday that iscelebrated by every Orthodox Jew
(00:43):
out there, right?
And Messianic Jews alike.
Jesus Himself, who is even, youknow, celebrating the Feast of
Dedication, otherwise known asHanukkah.
And so to not, you know, coverthe story of Hanukkah again, I'm
just going to kind of get intothe word and share in this
reading that everybody elsearound the world is reading.
And they probably read itdepending upon what time you are
(01:06):
at nightfall yesterday, becausethat starts the day, but you
know, here we are either way.
Let's get it.
So we are in Numbers chapter 7,verses 36 through 47.
On the fifth day, Shamel, theson of Zershadi, the chief of
the people of Simeon, Simeon,his offering was silver plate,
whose weight was 130 shekels,one silver basin of seventy
(01:28):
shekels, according to the shekelof the sanctuary, both of them
full of fine flour mixed withoil for a grain offering, one
golden dish of ten shekels, fullof incense, one bull from the
herd, one ram, one male lamb ayear old for a burnt offering,
one male goat for a sinoffering, and for the sacrifice
of peace offerings, two oxen,five rams, five male goats, and
(01:50):
five male lambs a year old.
This was the offering of Shamil,the son of Zerashadi.
On the sixth day, Elisap, theson of Duel, the chief of the
people of Gad, his offering wasone silver plate whose weight
was a hundred and thirtyshekels, one silver basin of
seventy shekels, according tothe shekel of the sanctuary,
both of them full of fine flourwith oil for a grain offering,
(02:11):
one golden dish of ten shekels,full of incense, one bull from
the herd, one ram, one male lamba year old for a burnt offering,
one male goat for a sinoffering, and for the sacrifice
of peace offering, two oxen,five rams, five male goats, and
five male lambs a year old.
This was the offering ofElisaph, the son of Dual.
(02:31):
Again, um we see thisconsistency, right?
And so just to kind of put someframework around what I'm going
to talk about today and what Iwant us to kind of think on,
focus in on, and just kind oftake to God and take to his
word, um, is that again we seeall these different offerings.
Again, the offerings were fromeach of the twelve tribes.
(02:51):
They were dedicating this, youknow, this is Numbers is not
Hanukkah, so separate that.
This reading was how theydedicated, you know, the altar
again before the pillar of smokeand fire, before they started
their journey in the wilderness,right?
This is how they dedicated God'sholy place.
And so later on, um, you know,when Maccabees was around and
(03:15):
they had to take over the templeand they kicked out the the
Greek uh king during that time,um, they used this, the same
thought process, right, torededicate the temple of God
back to God.
Now, we know as believers inmodern day, and there's nothing
wrong with celebrating a historyof a thing, right?
(03:36):
It's it's like we haveIndependence Day in America, you
know, this rededication of thetemple and remembering a time
when the Jewish people stood upagainst, you know, idolatry and
stood up against somebody whoclaimed to be God and claimed to
be Zeus of all things, you know,it's it's it's good to reflect
and remember because it causespresent-day conviction and
(03:57):
change, right?
And so when we think about wherewe came from in America from
Independence Day, and we thinkabout you know Juneteenth, if
you will, and when when whenslaves were or were really
notified of their freedom, um,we reflect on these things, not
necessarily to take us back, butto remember and then see how we
can keep moving forward.
(04:17):
Have we really come that far,right?
And so as we're thinking aboutthis whole this whole concept of
rededication and light and thelight of the world, we have to
come to Jesus.
Now, this is probably the mostpopular verse ever, right?
John 3.16, for God so loved theworld that he gave his only
begotten son, so that whoeverbelieves in him will not perish
(04:38):
but have eternal life.
We all know that one.
We've heard it, it's beenmocked.
I I remember the 90s being inhigh school and middle school
and and and in Stone Cold SteveOffin's version of 316.
Um but most people have heardthat.
And it's and it's often used outof context.
(04:59):
But uh I want to read it onemore time, but this time kind of
go front to back and then talkabout what we're where we really
are now, right?
So John 316 says, For God soloved the world that he gave his
only and unique Son, so thateveryone who trusts in him may
have eternal life instead ofbeing utterly destroyed.
For God did not send the Soninto the world to judge the
(05:20):
world, but rather so thatthrough him the world might be
saved.
Those who trust in him are notjudged.
Those who do not trust have beenjudged already, in that they
have not trusted in the one whois God's only and unique Son.
Now this is the judgment.
The light has come into theworld, but people love the
darkness rather than the light.
(05:41):
Why?
Because their actions werewicked.
For everyone who does evilthings hates the light and
avoids it, so that his actionswon't be exposed.
But everyone who do who doeswhat is true comes to the light,
so that all may see that hisactions are accomplished through
God.
Now, this is interesting.
(06:01):
My wife and I were talkingearlier, and and she had brought
up John and just talking aboutyou know our former lives, my
former ways, and and what itlooks like when the light comes
into the world.
And she said something verypowerful and did not realize
that.
I was like, I'm gonna talk aboutthat tonight because that just
hit on a lot of differentlevels.
(06:22):
But when we think about lightingthe candles of the menorah,
right?
And we're thinking about how youknow that you have the one
candle in the middle, itrepresents the helper, it
represents the Holy Spirit inthis aspect.
And it and when we think aboutthe story, there was a cup of
oil that lasted for eight wholedays and it was only supposed to
burn out in that one night,right?
And so when we think about thislight and we think about the
(06:45):
symbolism therein, we have tothen subsequently think about
Christ.
We think about our Lord andSavior and His light coming into
the world, the whole world,right?
Now we have to address theelephant in the room, because we
can't stop at John 3.16 andsaid, For God so loved the whole
world, the end.
Therefore I'm saved.
(07:06):
Because again, if you thinkabout it, verse 18 it says,
Those who trust in him are notjudged.
Those who do not trust in himhave judged been judged already,
and that they have not trustedin the one who is God's only and
unique Son.
This is the judgment.
The light has come into theworld, but people love the
darkness rather than the light.
(07:29):
Because they don't want theirstuff exposed.
So there's this call tovulnerability in Christ that's
apparent when the light ofChrist is upon you.
When the light of this wordilluminates the sin nature in
you, right?
Paul would say that you wouldn'tknow sin if I didn't bring it up
to you.
You know, God could say back inthe Old Testament, like, hey,
(07:51):
you wouldn't know that you weredoing evil things unless I gave
you a framework to operate in.
Sin was already in the world,but I need to let you know that
the law is a valuable thing sothat you can know what you're
being saved from.
You have no purpose and hope tolike look towards Jesus if it's
just like, but I'm living a goodlife right now.
You don't realize theratchetness of your own life,
(08:14):
you know.
But the other alternative answercould be because you love the
darkness rather than the light.
Because their actions arewicked.
And when you're evil, you don'twant to be exposed.
You don't want the actions to beexposed.
And I can think of severalthings in my life that and how I
(08:35):
used to live, that I just didn'twant stuff to come out about me.
I didn't want to feel judged, Ididn't want to have, you know,
this title upon me.
But the reality is, and she sayssomething very powerful, she
said, there's like this thisform of extremism that has to
take place in a believer's lifewhen they come to know who
Yeshua the Messiah truly is,right?
(08:55):
When they accept that and thatthey have that must-receed level
of faith, when that actuallycomes upon a person, this this
transition happens.
You go from being completely,completely ratchet to completely
different.
You know, let's let's go back tothe story of the man who had
Legion, right?
And they make movies about thattoo, right, to kind of
(09:16):
over-emphasize it and make itall scary.
But this man who had manydemons, right?
When Jesus cast out Legion fromthis man and then went off into
the pigs, and the pigs took offand went into the ocean or
jumped off the cliff into theocean, the man was just
chilling, right?
He was of right mind, he was asound mind, sound speech.
Everything about him was like acomplete 180 to the point that
(09:37):
it scared people, to the pointthat that whole scenario was
scary to the people aroundJesus, around the the dude that
they had previously been chainedup.
It was it was scary because it'sjust like, whoa, that's not the
same person.
Now I use that extreme because Imean you can get the visual,
(09:58):
right?
You can see somebody who's likeslobbing at the mouth and
scratching at themselves andchained up and looking all
crazy, and then all of a suddenthey're just a normal person,
like nothing had ever happenedbefore.
Like, that's the change thatthat should happen in the body
when we accept Christ, when wereflect on that light, when his
light illuminates every area ofour lives, all the dark got to
(10:22):
go.
And a lot of us take baby stepsto get there.
A lot of us are like, uh, butand you don't want to own it.
You don't want to own that youlike that wicked thing that you
do, you don't want to own thatyou enjoy that wicked aspect of
your life because you got tounderstand this outside of the
man who was possessed by Legion,you gotta understand every
(10:43):
wicked thing to God does notseem wicked to us.
I'm saying it one more time.
Everything that's wicked to God,that's evil in his height, it
doesn't always align with oursense of morality that's been
issued to us by society.
For example, a white lie.
(11:05):
What's the harm?
Murdering children.
Obviously, that's bad.
Um, I don't know.
Being selfish, it's oftenpraised in some communities, you
know.
Um, I don't know.
Uh murdering animals for fun,that's obviously a sin, right?
So we have this, we have whatthe law says, like what American
(11:27):
law and what culture says arebad things, things that would
typically get you sent to jailor prison or give you a fine.
We'll say that those things arebad, and then everything else,
yeah, it's up for debate.
It becomes a moral issue, notnecessarily a legal issue,
right?
And so we we we view God in thesame manner while taking away
(11:49):
what his word actually says.
Because he's very black andwhite.
And so if we can move beyond howwe view our legal system and our
moral code, and then pick upGod's code and see like all the
things that they did, Moses andthem did in Numbers, right?
To dedicate this temple and howit was very specific
instructions, you know.
(12:10):
You see the people then turnback to their flesh later on
down that journey, even afterthe Maccabees, you see Israel,
modern-day Israel, turn back totheir flesh.
Even take any Christian you knowthat's been baptized, you see
them turn back to their flesh.
There's this divide that musthappen, and God will not relent
and give up on any of us tocontinue to pursue us and
(12:33):
continue to perfect us in hisname and his image and his glory
because we're witness bearers tohim.
And so I say all of that to saywe gotta we gotta cut through
this this clear, murky little,and I know that's a
contradiction, right?
But this like murky waters thatwe live in when we say like, I'm
(12:55):
good and I'm saved, but I'm onmy way to being righteous,
right?
I.e.
I'm still justifying some of thewicked things that I do in my
life.
How do we get from justificationof evil, justification of
wickedness, right?
It's it's all about renewing ourmind.
That's the only way to getthere.
(13:15):
Because you're right.
Like I can have a normalconversation with any person out
there, and we can argue over,you know, if I stole a penny, is
that bad, right?
Will God smite me?
Will lightning strike me?
All the anecdotal things, right?
Versus murder.
You know, I have family members,and that's some that's one of
the big reasons they don'tbelieve is because they can't
(13:38):
understand how somebody whocommitted murder or or or a
pedophile or, you know, think ofthe most heinous crime, somebody
who committed a mass murder,right?
Like the Vegas shooter, how canthey just simply ask for
forgiveness and still have theopportunity to go to heaven when
I've never committed murder?
Right?
And so we have to renew our mindbecause our morality, right, our
(14:02):
legal system is based off ofsociety, and that changes,
right?
And I've said this before, itwas it was okay at one point to
have slaves.
Like the moral fabric of Americasaid, yes, Keith, because you
have are melanin rich, you'renot even a whole person.
And they and they wrote thatdown, three-fourths of a law,
right?
Like three-fourths of a person,because that was a societal
(14:25):
norm.
So obviously, our morality cannever compare with God's
morality, because he's perfectand good, right?
And so as we transition and aswe as we face the light of
Christ in our lives, and itshines on every shadowy area in
our heart and in our mind, wehave to be willing to be exposed
(14:46):
to that so that we can bepurified, that we can produce
the fruit, and that we can beambassadors and truly do his
work.
And so I hope, though this waskind of intense, and we're
talking about sin andrighteousness and holiness and
legalism and all these otherthings, hopefully you were
encouraged to know that hisgrace, he doesn't show
(15:08):
favoritism.
He's not here to judge thosethat are trusting in him because
we're trusting in him for aproduct, right?
We're trusting in him to producethe fruit in our lives to
actually be changed, right?
But but those that arecontinually doing wicked, those
that are continually saying, Iwant my cake and I want to be
(15:28):
able to eat it too, I want to beable to have Jesus, but I want
to be able to have my sin at thesame time, and I don't want it
to go.
The difference is not wanting itto go.
That's what we need to pray on,that's what we need to repent
from, that's what we need tofocus up in with the Lord in our
prayer lives, right?
And ask for the Holy Spirit inthis moment to literally say,
(15:50):
God, help me to remove myfleshly desires from my past.
The darkness that I want tokeep, I submit that to you in
the name of Yeshua the Messiah.
In your name, I submit all areasof my darkness that I've been
trying to hide from you.
I've been trying to lie likeAnanias and Sophia, right?
I've been trying to keep thesehidden and thinking that I can
(16:12):
outwit you.
I want to die to those.
And we make that personal choiceto decide to die to these things
and give it away to him, then itcan be accomplished.
But only then can it beaccomplished.
So, yes, John 3.16 does say, forGod so loved the world.
But if we have to also rememberthat that's just not a free pass
(16:33):
to keep living a horrible life.
And horrible is not the Americandefinition or the Jewish
definition.
It's God's definition, right?
It's not about following lawsfor law's sake, it's not about
celebrating Hanukkah forHanukkah's sake.
Celebrating Hanukkah doesn't getyou into heaven, celebrating uh
(16:53):
Shabbat doesn't get you intoheaven, Pasak doesn't get you to
heaven.
It's faith and it's trust,right?
That's what gets you there.
It's putting your faith in theone that came to be the ultimate
sacrifice.
But this is about growing.
This is about learning, this isabout challenging yourselves and
identifying these areas that doneed to be impacted by God's
(17:16):
light.
So, until tomorrow, love y'all.
Be blessed.
Hey, good morning, good evening, good afternoon,
whatever time it is that you aretuning into the podcast.
Thanks so much for tuning in.
Today we are on day five, andboy, eight days is a long time.
But no, we we are studying andjust kind of diving in again.
If you if you don't know wherethis is coming from, go check
(00:20):
the first video.
It's in the in the card or atthe end of this video.
But we're just diving in inHanukkah, experiencing and
connecting into what we've beengrafted into as Christians, as
believers in Jesus Christ.
We were grafted into a branch,right?
And and his chosen people.
This is a holiday that iscelebrated by every Orthodox Jew
(00:43):
out there, right?
And Messianic Jews alike.
Jesus Himself, who is even, youknow, celebrating the Feast of
Dedication, otherwise known asHanukkah.
And so to not, you know, coverthe story of Hanukkah again, I'm
just going to kind of get intothe word and share in this
reading that everybody elsearound the world is reading.
And they probably read itdepending upon what time you are
(01:06):
at nightfall yesterday, becausethat starts the day, but you
know, here we are either way.
Let's get it.
So we are in Numbers chapter 7,verses 36 through 47.
On the fifth day, Shamel, theson of Zershadi, the chief of
the people of Simeon, Simeon,his offering was silver plate,
whose weight was 130 shekels,one silver basin of seventy
(01:28):
shekels, according to the shekelof the sanctuary, both of them
full of fine flour mixed withoil for a grain offering, one
golden dish of ten shekels, fullof incense, one bull from the
herd, one ram, one male lamb ayear old for a burnt offering,
one male goat for a sinoffering, and for the sacrifice
of peace offerings, two oxen,five rams, five male goats, and
(01:50):
five male lambs a year old.
This was the offering of Shamil,the son of Zerashadi.
On the sixth day, Elisap, theson of Duel, the chief of the
people of Gad, his offering wasone silver plate whose weight
was a hundred and thirtyshekels, one silver basin of
seventy shekels, according tothe shekel of the sanctuary,
both of them full of fine flourwith oil for a grain offering,
(02:11):
one golden dish of ten shekels,full of incense, one bull from
the herd, one ram, one male lamba year old for a burnt offering,
one male goat for a sinoffering, and for the sacrifice
of peace offering, two oxen,five rams, five male goats, and
five male lambs a year old.
This was the offering ofElisaph, the son of Dual.
(02:31):
Again, um we see thisconsistency, right?
And so just to kind of put someframework around what I'm going
to talk about today and what Iwant us to kind of think on,
focus in on, and just kind oftake to God and take to his
word, um, is that again we seeall these different offerings.
Again, the offerings were fromeach of the twelve tribes.
(02:51):
They were dedicating this, youknow, this is Numbers is not
Hanukkah, so separate that.
This reading was how theydedicated, you know, the altar
again before the pillar of smokeand fire, before they started
their journey in the wilderness,right?
This is how they dedicated God'sholy place.
And so later on, um, you know,when Maccabees was around and
(03:15):
they had to take over the templeand they kicked out the the
Greek uh king during that time,um, they used this, the same
thought process, right, torededicate the temple of God
back to God.
Now, we know as believers inmodern day, and there's nothing
wrong with celebrating a historyof a thing, right?
(03:36):
It's it's like we haveIndependence Day in America, you
know, this rededication of thetemple and remembering a time
when the Jewish people stood upagainst, you know, idolatry and
stood up against somebody whoclaimed to be God and claimed to
be Zeus of all things, you know,it's it's it's good to reflect
and remember because it causespresent-day conviction and
(03:57):
change, right?
And so when we think about wherewe came from in America from
Independence Day, and we thinkabout you know Juneteenth, if
you will, and when when whenslaves were or were really
notified of their freedom, um,we reflect on these things, not
necessarily to take us back, butto remember and then see how we
can keep moving forward.
(04:17):
Have we really come that far,right?
And so as we're thinking aboutthis whole this whole concept of
rededication and light and thelight of the world, we have to
come to Jesus.
Now, this is probably the mostpopular verse ever, right?
John 3.16, for God so loved theworld that he gave his only
begotten son, so that whoeverbelieves in him will not perish
(04:38):
but have eternal life.
We all know that one.
We've heard it, it's beenmocked.
I I remember the 90s being inhigh school and middle school
and and and in Stone Cold SteveOffin's version of 316.
Um but most people have heardthat.
And it's and it's often used outof context.
(04:59):
But uh I want to read it onemore time, but this time kind of
go front to back and then talkabout what we're where we really
are now, right?
So John 316 says, For God soloved the world that he gave his
only and unique Son, so thateveryone who trusts in him may
have eternal life instead ofbeing utterly destroyed.
For God did not send the Soninto the world to judge the
(05:20):
world, but rather so thatthrough him the world might be
saved.
Those who trust in him are notjudged.
Those who do not trust have beenjudged already, in that they
have not trusted in the one whois God's only and unique Son.
Now this is the judgment.
The light has come into theworld, but people love the
darkness rather than the light.
(05:41):
Why?
Because their actions werewicked.
For everyone who does evilthings hates the light and
avoids it, so that his actionswon't be exposed.
But everyone who do who doeswhat is true comes to the light,
so that all may see that hisactions are accomplished through
God.
Now, this is interesting.
(06:01):
My wife and I were talkingearlier, and and she had brought
up John and just talking aboutyou know our former lives, my
former ways, and and what itlooks like when the light comes
into the world.
And she said something verypowerful and did not realize
that.
I was like, I'm gonna talk aboutthat tonight because that just
hit on a lot of differentlevels.
(06:22):
But when we think about lightingthe candles of the menorah,
right?
And we're thinking about how youknow that you have the one
candle in the middle, itrepresents the helper, it
represents the Holy Spirit inthis aspect.
And it and when we think aboutthe story, there was a cup of
oil that lasted for eight wholedays and it was only supposed to
burn out in that one night,right?
And so when we think about thislight and we think about the
(06:45):
symbolism therein, we have tothen subsequently think about
Christ.
We think about our Lord andSavior and His light coming into
the world, the whole world,right?
Now we have to address theelephant in the room, because we
can't stop at John 3.16 andsaid, For God so loved the whole
world, the end.
Therefore I'm saved.
(07:06):
Because again, if you thinkabout it, verse 18 it says,
Those who trust in him are notjudged.
Those who do not trust in himhave judged been judged already,
and that they have not trustedin the one who is God's only and
unique Son.
This is the judgment.
The light has come into theworld, but people love the
darkness rather than the light.
(07:29):
Because they don't want theirstuff exposed.
So there's this call tovulnerability in Christ that's
apparent when the light ofChrist is upon you.
When the light of this wordilluminates the sin nature in
you, right?
Paul would say that you wouldn'tknow sin if I didn't bring it up
to you.
You know, God could say back inthe Old Testament, like, hey,
(07:51):
you wouldn't know that you weredoing evil things unless I gave
you a framework to operate in.
Sin was already in the world,but I need to let you know that
the law is a valuable thing sothat you can know what you're
being saved from.
You have no purpose and hope tolike look towards Jesus if it's
just like, but I'm living a goodlife right now.
You don't realize theratchetness of your own life,
(08:14):
you know.
But the other alternative answercould be because you love the
darkness rather than the light.
Because their actions arewicked.
And when you're evil, you don'twant to be exposed.
You don't want the actions to beexposed.
And I can think of severalthings in my life that and how I
(08:35):
used to live, that I just didn'twant stuff to come out about me.
I didn't want to feel judged, Ididn't want to have, you know,
this title upon me.
But the reality is, and she sayssomething very powerful, she
said, there's like this thisform of extremism that has to
take place in a believer's lifewhen they come to know who
Yeshua the Messiah truly is,right?
(08:55):
When they accept that and thatthey have that must-receed level
of faith, when that actuallycomes upon a person, this this
transition happens.
You go from being completely,completely ratchet to completely
different.
You know, let's let's go back tothe story of the man who had
Legion, right?
And they make movies about thattoo, right, to kind of
(09:16):
over-emphasize it and make itall scary.
But this man who had manydemons, right?
When Jesus cast out Legion fromthis man and then went off into
the pigs, and the pigs took offand went into the ocean or
jumped off the cliff into theocean, the man was just
chilling, right?
He was of right mind, he was asound mind, sound speech.
Everything about him was like acomplete 180 to the point that
(09:37):
it scared people, to the pointthat that whole scenario was
scary to the people aroundJesus, around the the dude that
they had previously been chainedup.
It was it was scary because it'sjust like, whoa, that's not the
same person.
Now I use that extreme because Imean you can get the visual,
(09:58):
right?
You can see somebody who's likeslobbing at the mouth and
scratching at themselves andchained up and looking all
crazy, and then all of a suddenthey're just a normal person,
like nothing had ever happenedbefore.
Like, that's the change thatthat should happen in the body
when we accept Christ, when wereflect on that light, when his
light illuminates every area ofour lives, all the dark got to
(10:22):
go.
And a lot of us take baby stepsto get there.
A lot of us are like, uh, butand you don't want to own it.
You don't want to own that youlike that wicked thing that you
do, you don't want to own thatyou enjoy that wicked aspect of
your life because you got tounderstand this outside of the
man who was possessed by Legion,you gotta understand every
(10:43):
wicked thing to God does notseem wicked to us.
I'm saying it one more time.
Everything that's wicked to God,that's evil in his height, it
doesn't always align with oursense of morality that's been
issued to us by society.
For example, a white lie.
(11:05):
What's the harm?
Murdering children.
Obviously, that's bad.
Um, I don't know.
Being selfish, it's oftenpraised in some communities, you
know.
Um, I don't know.
Uh murdering animals for fun,that's obviously a sin, right?
So we have this, we have whatthe law says, like what American
(11:27):
law and what culture says arebad things, things that would
typically get you sent to jailor prison or give you a fine.
We'll say that those things arebad, and then everything else,
yeah, it's up for debate.
It becomes a moral issue, notnecessarily a legal issue,
right?
And so we we we view God in thesame manner while taking away
(11:49):
what his word actually says.
Because he's very black andwhite.
And so if we can move beyond howwe view our legal system and our
moral code, and then pick upGod's code and see like all the
things that they did, Moses andthem did in Numbers, right?
To dedicate this temple and howit was very specific
instructions, you know.
(12:10):
You see the people then turnback to their flesh later on
down that journey, even afterthe Maccabees, you see Israel,
modern-day Israel, turn back totheir flesh.
Even take any Christian you knowthat's been baptized, you see
them turn back to their flesh.
There's this divide that musthappen, and God will not relent
and give up on any of us tocontinue to pursue us and
(12:33):
continue to perfect us in hisname and his image and his glory
because we're witness bearers tohim.
And so I say all of that to saywe gotta we gotta cut through
this this clear, murky little,and I know that's a
contradiction, right?
But this like murky waters thatwe live in when we say like, I'm
(12:55):
good and I'm saved, but I'm onmy way to being righteous,
right?
I.e.
I'm still justifying some of thewicked things that I do in my
life.
How do we get from justificationof evil, justification of
wickedness, right?
It's it's all about renewing ourmind.
That's the only way to getthere.
(13:15):
Because you're right.
Like I can have a normalconversation with any person out
there, and we can argue over,you know, if I stole a penny, is
that bad, right?
Will God smite me?
Will lightning strike me?
All the anecdotal things, right?
Versus murder.
You know, I have family members,and that's some that's one of
the big reasons they don'tbelieve is because they can't
(13:38):
understand how somebody whocommitted murder or or or a
pedophile or, you know, think ofthe most heinous crime, somebody
who committed a mass murder,right?
Like the Vegas shooter, how canthey just simply ask for
forgiveness and still have theopportunity to go to heaven when
I've never committed murder?
Right?
And so we have to renew our mindbecause our morality, right, our
(14:02):
legal system is based off ofsociety, and that changes,
right?
And I've said this before, itwas it was okay at one point to
have slaves.
Like the moral fabric of Americasaid, yes, Keith, because you
have are melanin rich, you'renot even a whole person.
And they and they wrote thatdown, three-fourths of a law,
right?
Like three-fourths of a person,because that was a societal
(14:25):
norm.
So obviously, our morality cannever compare with God's
morality, because he's perfectand good, right?
And so as we transition and aswe as we face the light of
Christ in our lives, and itshines on every shadowy area in
our heart and in our mind, wehave to be willing to be exposed
(14:46):
to that so that we can bepurified, that we can produce
the fruit, and that we can beambassadors and truly do his
work.
And so I hope, though this waskind of intense, and we're
talking about sin andrighteousness and holiness and
legalism and all these otherthings, hopefully you were
encouraged to know that hisgrace, he doesn't show
(15:08):
favoritism.
He's not here to judge thosethat are trusting in him because
we're trusting in him for aproduct, right?
We're trusting in him to producethe fruit in our lives to
actually be changed, right?
But but those that arecontinually doing wicked, those
that are continually saying, Iwant my cake and I want to be
(15:28):
able to eat it too, I want to beable to have Jesus, but I want
to be able to have my sin at thesame time, and I don't want it
to go.
The difference is not wanting itto go.
That's what we need to pray on,that's what we need to repent
from, that's what we need tofocus up in with the Lord in our
prayer lives, right?
And ask for the Holy Spirit inthis moment to literally say,
(15:50):
God, help me to remove myfleshly desires from my past.
The darkness that I want tokeep, I submit that to you in
the name of Yeshua the Messiah.
In your name, I submit all areasof my darkness that I've been
trying to hide from you.
I've been trying to lie likeAnanias and Sophia, right?
I've been trying to keep thesehidden and thinking that I can
(16:12):
outwit you.
I want to die to those.
And we make that personal choiceto decide to die to these things
and give it away to him, then itcan be accomplished.
But only then can it beaccomplished.
So, yes, John 3.16 does say, forGod so loved the world.
But if we have to also rememberthat that's just not a free pass
(16:33):
to keep living a horrible life.
And horrible is not the Americandefinition or the Jewish
definition.
It's God's definition, right?
It's not about following lawsfor law's sake, it's not about
celebrating Hanukkah forHanukkah's sake.
Celebrating Hanukkah doesn't getyou into heaven, celebrating uh
(16:53):
Shabbat doesn't get you intoheaven, Pasak doesn't get you to
heaven.
It's faith and it's trust,right?
That's what gets you there.
It's putting your faith in theone that came to be the ultimate
sacrifice.
But this is about growing.
This is about learning, this isabout challenging yourselves and
identifying these areas that doneed to be impacted by God's
(17:16):
light.
So, until tomorrow, love y'all.
Be blessed.
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