The thousands of freed Hebrew slaves have been in the desert for months. It has been a time of testing.  The people complained on missing the luscious food of Egypt; they complained about lack of water, it was a dry and barren land, and it was boring!

But each time God had supplied their needs.  Moses goes up and down the mountain where he receives the various commands, rules, and instructions from God.  Now it’s time for something even greater.

In the last few chapters of Exodus, the Lord commands Moses to build a tent, called a tabernacle.  It isn’t just any tent but built to specific requirements and instructions that Moses received from God.  It travels with them as they make their way back to the land that their forefathers left 400 years ago.

This tent was to provide a dwelling place for God to meet with the priests . A place to interact with humanity. It was a place of worship.  It was a creative act! .

Why did God need a special place of worship?  Why did He need a specific dwelling place?  Isn’t God everywhere and why did He instruct Moses on building this moveable worship tent?

As I studied these last few chapters of Exodus I also did a bit of research.  I found one particular study which impressed me and which I will share with you. 

The message of the tabernacle is a reminder of the Creation account that we read in Genesis.  The universe had become disordered. The Divine Presence is not with His creation as before. So God provides a model of the Creation where He can now meet with the representative of Humankind, in the person of the Priesthood. 

The tabernacle now becomes a repeat of the Gensis story. ”And God said……..Let there be light.”  There were candlesticks which provided light in the tabernacle.

The Garden of Eden was a meeting place where God  interacted with the first humans.  Adam and Eve lost contact with God due to their disobedience but now God has restored some of the contact. 

When God drove Adam and Eve from the Garden, He placed Cherubim guarding the entrance.  In the tabernacle He had Moses put Cherubim as guardians over the Ark! “And there I will meet with you, and I will speak with you from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim which are on the Ark of Testimony…….” Exodus 25:22)

Finally at the conclusion of the building of the tabernacle, the Torah says, “And Moses finished the work” (Ex 40:33)

When our Messiah comes on the scene the tabernacle has been replaced by the Temple which was destroyed in 70 AD by the Romans. 

But wait, the Lord did once again “tabernacle” with us in the form of the Messiah!

“And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying…..Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with the, and they shall be His people.  God himself will be with them and be their God. And God will wipe away ever tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying.  There shall be no more pain for the former things have passed away.  (Rev. 21:2-4)

                                    A new Creation Awaits Us!!

“In the third month after the children of Israel went forth from the land of Egypt, on the same day they came to the Desert of Sinai and camped there. Israel camped before the mountain and Moses went up to God (Exod. 19:1-2

After the great crossing of the Sea, the Hebrews have arrived at Mt Sinai.  It is a holy mountain where God reveals Himself to Israel.  Thunder and lightning flashes and a thick cloud hiding its summit as Moses ascends to receive the Lord’s commandments.

This great mountain is in the midst of the desert.  The people are encamped in the desert opposite the mountain. 

Having lived in the desert I can vouch for the its barrenness.   We find scorpions, snakes, a thirsty land.  However, this desert becomes a sacred place where God interacts with His people.  But there are lessons to be learned.  

Leaving Egypt even with its bondage, brought complaints among the people.  Here they are in a barren wilderness.  They have left the flesh pots of Egypt and its dozens of deities but at least they had food to eat and water to quench their thirst.  Now they must rely on this God to supply their needs. 

Egypt is like America and the developed world.  Our abundance deludes us into thinking we really don’t depend on God.  We can supply ourselves with everything we want or desire. 

The earliest life of Messiah opens in the desert.  After His encounter with John the Baptizer, Yeshua goes into the desert to be tempted.  After the temptation He is ready to go back to the villages and towns of Israel, but he continually returns to the desert to seek God and pray (Mark1:35, 45; Luke 5:16)

We too have our own desert experiences.  We find that we are vulnerable, dependent, profoundly in need of God.  In our desert, we encounter spiritual thirst and hunger, sickness, estrangement from family and friends, and our ultimate inability to meet these needs for ourselves, thereby making ourselves dependent on God.

However, despite the fears of being in our desert, God does not leave us.  God does not lead us into the desert to feel forsaken, but to live in freedom from the false Gods that we have created in our life. 

The desert experience is an essential transition in the life of a Believer.  Without it, there will be no encounter with a Holy God.  Our transition from Egypt to Sinai, separates us from the old ways and brings us into a complete realization that we can no longer supply our deepest needs.

Without the realities of discipline, trials, and preparation we cannot become a completed and devoted follower of the very One who created us.  We have come to understand that we can no longer be a singular person but one who seeks something far greater in life.   

May the lessons of our desert experiences bring us closer to finding our true selves and who we are meant to be.

                             Learn the lessons of the desert.

The Lord said to Moses, “Why do you cry to me?  Tell the people of Israel to go forward, lift up your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it, that the people of Israel may go through the sea on dry ground. (Exodus 14:15,16)

The Tenth Plague brought the ultimate release of the Hebrew slaves from their Egyptian overlords.  It took death itself to convince the Pharaoh that the God of the Hebrews was invincible and above the gods of Egypt and of Pharaoh himself, who was considered a god!

Many of you have not seen this movie,” The Ten Commandments” filmed in 1956. It was a memorable movie for those who have seen it.

The Parting of the Red Sea……..(actually the Sea of Reeds) is perhaps one of the best know miracles recorded in the Torah.  We can just picture the movie version…… when Charlton Heston as Moses, raising his staff and telling the Hebrews…..”Be still and see the power of the Lord!” Who can forget it?

When Moses raised his staff a strong east wind blew, and the sea parted, allowing the Hebrews to walk through on dry land.  When the Egyptian pursuers attempted to follow, the water came crashing down, drowning them in its churning depths. Pharaoh watched in horror as his charioteers drowned before his eyes.

Moses and all Israel sang praises to God when they realized the miracle of the crossing and how God had saved them. The Song of the Sea is written down in Exodus chapter 15. It is too long to quote but verse 2 is especially meaningful. “The Lord is my strength and my song. And He has become my salvation.”

In Psalm 47, the psalmist encourages each of us to “Sing praises to God… sing praises!”  This is more than just picking up our hymnals and singing someone else’s song.  Perhaps we should each create new songs of worship and praise.  It will be ours alone and a gift of our worship. No one need hear it.  Take a verse and sing it!  Good voices aren’t required!

God doesn’t need another one of the same old songs.  He doesn’t want us to be exactly like the next guy.  God has already heard that song….He wants each to write our own new song.

What’s the difference between noise and music? Noise is a sound that can be unpleasant. Music is a multitude of sounds coming together to create something beautiful and purposeful.  Our job is to turn our lives into unique, beautiful melodies.  We need to take everything in our lives, the high notes, the low notes, the keys that only we can reach, and our unique voice, and use them to create a purposeful and beautiful life. 

As we grow and change, we improve our melody.  It becomes more complex as we master new notes.  Our song must always be new and renewed. 

 Everyone of God’s creations, from trees and flowers to animals and people, sings a unique song that only our Creator can hear.
 

                Your song and mine is our own unique life~   

Exodus 12:3…(Moses) Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying, “On the tenth of this month they are each one to take a lamb for themselves, A according to the father’s households, a lamb for each household.”

The instructions were simple and straight forward.  On the first day of the month, every family was to select an unblemished lamb.  On the fourteenth day of the month, they were to slaughter it and smear its blood on the doorposts of their houses.  The blood would be a sign. God promised to pass over the houses marked with blood.  It would become a symbol.  Blood represents a life that was to protect them from the final plague which in turn would free them from the slavery of the Egyptians.

The Hebrew for “pass over” is pasach.  We translate the pasach as “Passover.”

The pasach lamb was a sacrifice, but it was not a sacrifice for sin.  We are not told anything about sin, confession, or atonement.  Not every kind of animal sacrifice was meant for taking away sin.  The blood of the Passover lamb was meant as a sign for God. 

Did God really need a sign”? Didn’t He know which houses belonged to the Hebrews: why did He need them to mark their houses with blood?

It is similar when we tell our children how to protect themselves in an emergency.  We teach them the necessary precautions which might someday save their life.

God therefore wanted to familiarize His people with the concepts of sacrifice and blood atonement.  If it was just a matter of making a mark on the houses, it would not have been necessary to use an unblemished lamb (one that is fit for sacrifice) or even to use blood at all.  The ritual of the lamb’s blood at Passover provided Israel with a marvelous object lesson and to prepare all of us for understanding the atoning work of Yeshua. 

The Passover lamb was the avenue of escape that God provided for His people in Egypt from the devastating tenth plague.  It wasn’t just for the Jews. If the Egyptians had done the same, they would have been spared.

The sacrificial death of Jeshua is our the avenue of escape that God has provided to spare us from condemnation and death.  One need not be Jewish to benefit; one only needs to be under the blood of Jeshua.

                               Why did Yeshua’s bones remain unbroken on the cross?

“When they saw that He (Jeshua) was already dead, they did not break His legs” (John 19:32-33)

It was Friday and both the weekly Sabbath, and the Sabbath of Passover began that night at sunset.  The Jewish leadership was concerned that the three crucified men should not be left hanging overnight.  Instead, the corpse must be taken down and buried that same day. 

The Roman soldiers therefore broke the legs of the two on the cross, but Jeshua was already dead.  None of his bones were broken.  So, what does this have to do with the first Passover? 

Most writings in the New Testament (The Apostolic Writings) relates back to the Hebrew Scriptures or Old Testament.  “These things came to pass to fulfill the Scripture…. “Not a bone of him shall be broken” (John 19:36).  Here John is alluding to “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of all of them.  He keeps all his bones, not one of them is broken. (Psalm 34:19-20)

In writing this blog, I want to impress upon you that when you humbly and devotedly take the Lord’s Supper or Communion remember that it is a Jewish ritual.  Our Lord was a Jew and in his final meal with His apostles He Himself became the Passover meal.  He provided them and us with the greatest gift of salvation which unfolds in the story of the Exodus.  Just as the Passover lamb needed to be unblemished and flawless, we need a sinless substitute to take our place in judgment.  Just as the blood markings protected everyone in the house, we too need to take shelter under the spilled blood of the Messiah.   

                As the old hymn says………..”There is power in the blood!”

                               The Pharaoh Syndrome vs The Moses Effect

Genesis 7:14. Then the Lord said to Moses, “Pharaohs heart is hardened ; he will refuse to let the people go.”

                                   So, what is the Pharaoh Syndrome?

In the Exodus saga, the Hebrew slaves were seeking liberty from the Egyptians. This new Pharaoh either knew nothing about Joseph or didn’t care.  He had a large group of minority workmen to help with his various building projects and he wasn’t interested in freeing this huge population of people.

The Scriptures describe this Pharaoh as ……” hardened of heart!”  What does it mean to have a hard heart?  After the various plagues, he knew that his actions were self -destructive and bringing ruin to his country.  He even fleetingly agreed to stop the madness.  But he couldn’t finalize the change. His heart wouldn’t allow his recognition to translate into his behavior.     

When suddenly we realize that something in our life isn’t working, we resolve to do better. 

That sounds good, except if the resolution doesn’t materialize in our actual behavior or actions then nothing is really changing!  We may be trying to outsmart ourselves into thinking that perhaps a change will happen evidentially. We might just be fooling ourselves.

        Pharaoh’s heart remained hardened.  His actions didn’t change.

The Exodus Struggle

The Hebrews seeking liberty from the enslaving Egyptians is also a personal narrative.  It depicts my/your continuous struggle for freedom from our personal “Egypts”.    We might be enslaved to something: our fears; our struggles; our self-doubt, our anxieties……..the list goes on!

So whence comes our salvation?

                                            Here comes Moses!

Moses is described in scripture and tradition as a man of total commitment.  Brillant as he was, he didn’t guide his life by intellect alone.   He felt a deep and profound relationship with the Divine, and that’s what guided his behavior. 

Mobilizing our inner Moses means selflessly committing ourselves to our highest image, the vision of who God wants us to be.  It means mobilizing our ourselves to create a different image.  A selfless commitment.  It means a change in the way we do things!

Thus, a conflict between the Pharaoh Syndrome and the Moses Effect!

So, the next time you resolve to change your behavior, see it as part of your commitment to God. It is always the right time to pursue justice, to feed the poor, to take care of strangers, to pay your employees on time, to act with respect in all manner of relationships. It might involve forgiving a person who has wronged you; taking care of someone that you really don’t like; helping the less fortunate; being there for someone who just needs a listening ear; being on call when you would rather watch TV.  

 See these commitments as an exercise in your relationship with your Creator. See it the very reason for you to be welcomed into His Love and that expression of His love for you as expressed in your love toward others.  See if excuses block your way!!

                                        Make way for the Moses Effect!

(Read Luke 15:1-4, 8,11)

15 Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. ² But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”³ Then Jesus told them this parable: ⁴ “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? ⁵ And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders ⁶ and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ ⁷ I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.

 “Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins^[a] and loses one. Doesn’t she light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? ⁹ And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.’ ¹⁰ In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. ¹² The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them… (The other brother stayed at home! He saw himself as the righteous one)

In response to the grumblings of the religious leaders over these unrepentant sinners the Lord told three parables.  Luke says he told them “this” parable as if there was only one and yet all three are related.  Each one deals with repentance in some way. 

Jeshua tells these three stories: a story about a sheep lost in the wilderness, a story about a coin lost at home, and story about two brothers, a younger brother who was separated from his father in a foreign land and an older brother who was separated from his father even being at home.  These three stories actually function as one parable intended to make a poignant point to the religious leaders.

Lost is Lost! The sheep and the younger brother went astray in the wilderness (far from home) the coin and the older brother were lost even though they were in the home!

By failing to rejoice with Yeshua over the return of wayward sinners, the religious leaders failed to understand that salvation is a gift of grace, thereby proving they were no less lost than the coin and the older brother. 

I like to think that perhaps Nicodemus (the Pharisee who came to see the Master at night….
John 3) was among those Pharisees hearing and listening to His words.  Jeshua was teaching them that rules and regulations do not bring salvation.  True repentance is a matter of the heart and not an outward show of one’s good deeds or doing a “religion”.

Just attending worship services, repeating religious phrases, doing all the “right things” is not repentance.  Seeing themselves as sinners and in need of repentance is what Jeshua is telling these righteous minded men. Jeshua also wants us to acknowledge that we are all sinners in need of daily grace.  Our Father wants us to come to him in humility and seeking forgiveness.

You and I might just be that lost coin, the lost sheep or the son who left home, or we might see ourselves more like the other brother who felt he deserved the Father’s praise because he did everything the “right way.” 

As you read these parables of teaching, make them applicable for you.  See yourself in what Jeshua is telling His disciples. 

May we seek him with humility in our hearts and repentance in our souls. 

                                Grace is our gift from the One who loves us.

Isaiah 5:20   “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.”

We all agree that our world is in turmoil..  The words of Isaiah seem especially true today.

However, the 1^st century world was in chaos as well.  Rome had taken over the land and the Jewish way of living was being corrupted.  Thousands died at the hands of the Roman conquerors.  In 70 AD the whole of Jerusalem was looted and burned. 

The early disciples of Jeshua must have worried and wondered.  They knew He had the answer to what was coming in the future. These early followers experienced the evil which was all around them.  They must have inquired of the Lord as to how could evil and good co-exist at the same time??
                                He told them this parable.  (Matthew 13:23-30)

“The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field.  But while the men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away.  Now when the stalk spouted and produced grain, then the weeds also appeared.
The slaves said to him, “Do you want us to go out and gather them up?   No, he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them. ³⁰ Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time, I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’’

Some of you say that this pertains to the future kingdom when He makes all things new.  However, this very parable can apply today.  It helps us understand the situation we are living in.  We must accept the reality that evil is inseparably intertwined with the good.  We might long to put a comfortable distance between good and bad, but this is not an option available to us.  Instead, we are offered assurance that God will sort it all out with perfect justice in the end.

 When we look at our world, we see both the good and the bad.  Some like to see only one or the other. “Humanity is basically good!” Or the opposite direction: “We are a generation of spoilt narcissists!”  Neither picture is complete.  We have plenty of both good and bad in uncomfortable and contradictory juxtaposition.

Jeshua did not retreat from evil doers.  He hangs out with prostitutes and sinners as well as the “brood of vipers” of the suffocating religious establishment.  He holds his ground and maintains his stance whoever He encounters.  There is no doing away with people.  That comes later.   

God made it possible for good and evil to co-exist.  Its our choice of choosing.  Real love must be voluntary, and volition requires freedom.  Freedom must necessarily leave the door open, and evil enters the scene. 

As of now we are moving inevitably towards harvest time.  And with the harvest comes the winnowing! 

                        Stay with the wheat!  The harvest is coming!

Everyone wants to be happy.  If only I were more successful, had a Jaguar series E, more respected or if my health were better, I know I would be happy!  Or so I think.  We tend to see happiness as a result of our circumstances and not a feeling within us. 

I found the word happiness comes from the Middle English word “hap”. As in happenstance or haphazard, implying random chance or luck.  If you were lucky enough to be born into ideal circumstances, you have everything to make you happy.  Is that really true?

I have come to believe, though, that happiness is a state of mind and not a state of being.  It’s a way of thinking which is something that we can consciously direct, as opposed to a state of being that results from a specific set of circumstances outside our control. 

It isn’t luck or happenstance that ensures our attainment of happiness; rather, it is the way we think about and process the circumstances we encounter.

This simple idea has huge implications.  It means that we achieve the happiness we seek by adjusting the focus of our thoughts.  That all sounds so simple but we know that life isn’t simple.  It’s complicated and bad things do happen to us and those we love.  Now what to do? 

I wish I had a neat/ pat answer for the problems we encounter.  However, just perhaps, we might find something worthy in our experiences.  Perhaps we can still be happy and find something positive for which we can find a bit of happiness. 

Saying this involves thankfulness as well.  However, if we view happiness as a thought, then we must make a conscious effort to think positively when problems arise in our lives. 

True satisfaction in life comes not from having the things we want, but enjoying the things we have!  For in life the only things we truly have are the things that we appreciate!

Perhaps the key component to happiness is our ability to live fully in this moment, erasing, at least temporarily, any painful thoughts about the past or anxious thoughts relating to the future.  Now is where true happiness is found.  If we are fearful of the future, then we are always restless and discontented. 

But how can we possibly react to bad experiences in exactly the same way as we respond to the experiences that are good or bring us joy?   

If we connect to our Creator, then perhaps we might see that He allows things in our life which are part of His grand design for us.  Remember that scripture tells us “He chastens those whom He Loves!”  That’s a difficult concept.

A friend of mine in El Paso. (BJ by name!) sent me this and I feel it fits in nicely with true happiness. 

“It is my prayer that your eagerness to do good works will become very contagious – because through serving, you have come to realize that:

LIFE IS BETTER WHEN YOU ARE HAPPY, BUT LIFE IS BEST WHEN OTHER PEOPLE ARE HAPPY BECAUSE OF YOU!!”

                                 May we all say   Amen!!

                                           Have We Got Pure Heart?

As I write this, looking out the window, there are lovely displays of Santas, and angels, and snowmen.  Of course, I’m describing December with Christmas scenes, gift giving, family feasting and most people being kind! 

As I was reading through the Gospels, I came across the story of our Master, telling His followers, “Blessed are the Pure in Heart, for they will see God.”  What does that mean?  We all want to see God (not just a baby in the manger) but seeing God.  Is that even possible?  How can that be?  What did Jeshua really mean?  What is being Pure In Heart?

When attending church or wherever you worship, do you feel as though something is missing?  We all want to feel more spiritual.  Sometimes we feel as though God isn’t really interested in us.  Our quality time with Him seems a perfunctory thing.  Our prayers reaching only the ceiling.  It’s almost like a marriage that’s gone cold.  We have drifted apart.

In the days of Jeshua, the Pharisees were obsessed with ritual purity.  It’s into this context that Yeshua spoke saying, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”  This takes purity to a whole new level.  He isn’t talking about the physical state of being clean or unclean.  He is speaking about a pure heart.  Where do we get this pure heart?

Heart in the Hebrew context also means your Thinker, not your Feeler.  What you are thinking about others is as important as what you do.   

With this thought in mind the Lord tells what sins of the heart defile a person.  In Matthew 15:18-20 we read………“But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart and this defiles a person.  For out of the heart comes evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.” 

‘Blessed are the Pure in heart, for they will see God. Whoever has seen me has seen the Father“
(John 24:9 )

Again, it’s a heart thing.  We can obtain that pure heart by the spiritual transformation of our hope in who Yeshua really is.  We pray in His name.  Not because we deserve what we pray for but because He is the righteous One and prays on our behalf. 

When Jeshua encountered the leper, He asked him, “What do you want?” The Leper did not say,” I want to be healed” He said, “I want to be clean.” 

So, we must say, “Master, I want to be clean.  Cleanse my heart.”

“Create in me a clean heart, Oh God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me with a willing spirit.”  (Psalm 51:10-12)

                        May you and I receive that blessing of a pure heart!

                                             Your Retirement Plan

This time of year puts a strain on your bank accounts.  We enjoy the gift giving but then comes tax season.  Time to rethink our retirement plans also.

When Joseph was promoted to be an advisor to Pharaoh, the Pharaoh was impressed with the dreams and predictions of this young non-Egyptian. In fact, this Joseph was a former prisoner!  Now with a completely new job in the kingdom, he was the chief financial advisor. 

Joseph explained to Pharaoh that his dreams were warnings from God.  Seven years of abundance followed by seven years of drought.  The solution was to lay up storehouses during the seven years of plenty so that there would be sufficient food in the coming years of famine. 

Pharaoh was so impressed with Joseph’s wisdom that he made him minister over Egypt, second only to Pharaoh himself.  Joseph oversaw the building of store houses in which the abundant grain of Egypt… seven years of plenty, was stored.

What about our storehouses?  Do we have a plan? What is our retirement plan?

Life is uncertain, and it is only prudent to lay up savings and provisions.  In Proverbs we read, “In the house of the wise are stores of choice food and oil, but a foolish man devours all he has (21:20) Contrary to the advice of Joseph, modern society promotes a lifestyle of squandering all available wealth, overspending, and relying on credit.  Though we live in affluent times, few people have the wisdom to lay up savings for leaner times ahead. 

However, Jeshua (Jesus) told his disciples to lay up treasure in heaven instead of on earth. This does not mean that we are not to be prudent and wise with the money we have been given. Yes, we must be careful with our saving and spending. However………………………………………….!!!

            “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.  But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. “
  (Matt6:19-21)

Our lives on earth can be compared to the seven years of plenty.  We have an abundance of opportunities to do good to others, to repent and practice righteousness, and to give charity to the needy.  Do what we can to help others.

However, these golden years of opportunity are limited.  Whether in seven days, seven years or seventy years, the opportunity to lay up treasure in heaven will vanish.  After we die, our opportunities to do good deeds are gone. 

The world says, “You can’t take it with you.”  The Messiah says that you can!

Jeshua teaches that “you can take it with you” by giving to a worthy charity and investing your time and resources into the things of the kingdom of heaven.  You are storing up your good works in heaven.  When you arrive in the next life, you will be rewarded for your acts of kindness and piety. 

Joseph encouraged all of Egypt to lay up stores and provisions for the lean years to come.  So too we should be storing up our resources in heaven for the years to come!

                                       Now, that’s a good retirement plan!!!