Who Is God?: The Problem With Man 6r2w5p

Who Is God?

The Problem with Man

J. I. Roe

Copyright © 2021 by J. I. Roe All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below. Christian Faith Publishing, Inc. 832 Park Avenue Meadville, PA 16335 www.christianfaithpublishing.com Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

The Names of God The Unchanging God God Is Jealous for You God’s Love and Grace The Three Attributes of God The Names of Jesus Intro to Jesus Yeshua the Humble God Names of the Holy Spirit/Ruach Hakodesh Who Is the Holy Spirit How the Holy Spirit Reveals Himself to Me The Christian Exodus Qualifications of Being a Disciple The Joy of Obedience Read Your Bible

Foreword

We all know the famous painting found at the Sistine Chapel, of God and Adam for a very good reason. In the painting, we see God doing His best trying to reach out to Adam, but Adam is making a lame attempt to try and reach God. Throughout the Bible, we see this same lame attempt with mankind seeking after their own will rather than the will of God. I could even wager that most of us have this same lame attempt of trying to reach God. There weren’t very many men who have ever sought after God with all their soul, mind, heart, and strength; and only a couple of these men had the pleasure of being caught up without dying. Their names are Elijah and Enoch. Now there are many other men of the Bible and throughout our history, they had the same ion similar to those men, such as the prophets and the apostles. Men who chose to live the crucified life, men who gave up the pleasures of the flesh and this world and chose to follow God, but they are too few and far in-between. Now I understand salvation is by the grace of God through faith in what the Messiah Yeshua did for us on the cross at Calvary and in His resurrection. However, I refuse to live a life based on cherry-picked Bible verses to excuse my life of sin and selfishness. I choose to apply the whole Bible to my life so that I may be well-pleasing to my Father in heaven. The Bible calls for obedience; Christ, Himself called for it. I fully believe that to have an arm outstretched toward God with an extended finger is the life of obedience to the Scripture, to God, and so this book is written by and dedicated to those who have outstretched arms and fingers. You will find many of my own opinions and revelations expressed herein that some may not be altogether pleased about; please do not let that discourage you from finishing the book. It is a four-part book. The first three are dedicated to God and the last one is what God has done for me and how I have found pleasure in living for Him. I truly hope the reader will be blessed by this book and will be encouraged to seek God even more after reading my book. When we spend our free time seeking God instead of seeking and satisfying ourselves, we are truly satisfied. When we seek ourselves in our free time, we are only temporarily satisfied. This is the truth I have found and I hope to depart this truth to you. God bless you and keep you and cause His countenance to shine upon

you and bring you peace. Amen.

Introduction

We are first introduced to God through a different number of ways: our parents, our friends, loved ones, missionaries, pastors, teacher’s social media, there are even many books and websites that will tell us about God. God even has a wiki description. What better place is there to learn about God however than the Holy Bible? Where to begin though? I often run across this question when I tell people to read their Bible. I always give them the same answer—Genesis. For in Genesis, we get truly close to understanding the power of God, and if we study the original language, we can see the intelligent authorship of the Bible as well. The very first word of Genesis—Bereshit—translates to in the beginning, but we miss much in the translation, such as the symbology of the original language. I will name some videos to research on this later on in this book. Beyt, for instance, is the first letter of the first word of the first verse of the first book of the Bible. In my study and search for truth, I read from a book, Haggadah, which comes from the Jewish pseudepigrapha. It is not scripture and I would not entirely recommend it myself, but within the book, the author writes that God created the universe through the letter Beyt and on this, I would agree with the author just after studying the symbology of the ancient Hebrew. Let’s breakdown the spelling of the word Beyt, Beyt, Yod, Tav. The letter Beyt is symbolic of a dwelling; it can also mean the universe. Yod is the right hand of God in this instance, and Tav in the ancient language looks like a cross and the right hand of God, as we know who is Jesus. We also know from the Scripture that God created the universe through Jesus (Colossians 1:16). We can break this down further to get more detail by breaking down the spelling of each of the letters used in the word: Beyt, Yod, Dalet Tav, Vav, Lamed, and, Mem. We already know what Beyt, Yod, and Tav stand for; let’s look at the other letters. Dalet means door, path, through. Vav means man, nail, establish, etc. Lamed means to teach, shepherd, etc. and Mem means water, chaos, messiah, etc. If we put these all together, what do we get? Within these letters, I see a lot of scripture staring at me. For instance, Lamed has the shepherd staff the chaos of the waters and the door. A shepherd has to guide his sheep through the gate to get them into their pen using his staff. We see in the second verse of Genesis that

the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the deep. From the chaos, He brought order. He established creation through Jesus the Messiah. Now I get that this may seem pretty scrambled and well, my mind has a hard time piecing together the puzzle of this, but we see the puzzle put together in order through the Scripture. If that isn’t proof of authorship, I don’t know what is. Let’s move on. “In the beginning, Elohim” (Genesis 1:1). I need to stop right here in the middle of the verse so that I can explain to you just how much you can learn about God in just one small yet significant part of the first verse of Genesis chapter 1. The way this sentence is set up shows that God was there before the beginning. In other words, God already existed before our timeline was in place, before time began. This could mean that God exists outside of our time in a completely different dimension. This is even the first recording of the possibility of another dimension existing. I included the original name of God from the original text, which is “Elohim,” because it can be translated as God, which you will see later on this book in more detail. For now, my purpose is to show you that in the very beginning, we see that God is in three persons and so this book has one part for each of the three persons of God then the last part tells you how I serve God. You will also see more proof of the trinity if you study the ancient Hebrew symbology. Let’s move on… “In the beginning, God created” (Genesis 1:1). Putting a pause on yet again, sorry, but with the introduction of that one word, “created,” is rather important if you think about it. Man is often wondering about where God came from. Did man create God? If God created man, who created God? These are thoughts that we often have as created individuals. They are indeed legitimate thoughts, however, they are flawed nonetheless. This here is the problem with man, we limit God to our understanding and even twist scripture to make God make sense which is pretty illogical if you think about it. “In the beginning, God created…” God was the first one to create. We think as though God must have been created because we are limited to the thinking that everything was created, and to think otherwise is nonsense. We are somewhat rational beings, but God, however, existing separate from our dimension outside of time does not even adhere to our rationale. God’s thoughts are higher than our own. It says in the Bible, Isaiah 55:8–9 ESV, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens

are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” So to begin to understand God, we must begin to stop thinking in our traditional way of thinking and accept that there are things, like God, we will never be able to fully understand. For how can a man who is flesh truly understand God who is Spirit and even beyond? Man can barely accept the spiritual world and only some of the population will even believe in the existence of a spiritual realm. So what is the point of this, you ask. Is it still not man’s ion to understand and be with God? It is indeed a man’s ion to try to make sense of the world around them. Man is naturally inquisitive. Every created creature is inquisitive of their environment ever exploring. Man, though breaks, limits and goes beyond what animals do, risking their lives and the lives of others to understand the countless mysteries of creation in an attempt to not only find God but to be like God. Man will ask if God is all-powerful and loving, and just why did He create the devil? Why did He create the tree of knowledge that caused the fall of man? Why do bad things happen? This is what God did. Before He even created anything, He knew what had to take place to get to the outcome we see in Revelation. The Bible says He knew us before we were formed in our mother’s womb. He knew who had to be created and what had to happen to get the right outcome because no matter what, free will leads to rebellion, and rebellion against God deserves punishment. The Bible says though that He works all things out for good, God is in control. He even intervenes in our lives at times! This does not mean we don’t have the free will to choose for ourselves, because we do. We can choose to present ourselves to Him as slaves of righteousness or we can be slaves to sin that lead to death. It’s your choice. Those who are truly saved will want to present themselves as living sacrifices to God to be slaves of righteousness so that they can live lives that are wholly pleasing to God. Others will want to live lives where they please themselves, following after the lusts of this world and their reward is here on this earth, whereas the ones who give themselves to God have their reward in heaven. Now natural man will say there is no heaven and there is no hell. I would point out that many have experienced both on their deathbeds, but people discount these s because they had not experienced heaven or hell for themselves. I

say, just wait long enough and you will. That brings up another question though. Is hell an unjust punishment? Put it this way, you receive a punishment in this life that fits the crime. When you punch one of your siblings, you get a fitting punishment from proper parents. If you punch your parent, you get a completely different punishment. Now imagine the punishment you would get for punching a police officer, a judge, the president of the country. The punishment becomes more severe, right? The Bible says you are the dwelling place of God; when you sin, it is a crime against the Almighty Creator of the universe. That crime, therefore, deserves eternal punishment. You don’t just commit one sin in your lifetime though, do you? No, you continue in your sins against Almighty God. This is why He provided a way for you to not only cover your sins against Him but to altogether remove the sins so that they are forgotten. The natural man is not trying to understand God, they are trying to either prove God or be God. We can neither be God nor understand God and many would say we cannot prove God either. To such people, I would say they are mostly correct because they have closed off their minds to God. The Bible says, “The fool says in their heart there is no God.” You cannot hope to reach such people; even if God appeared before them, they would assume it was a magic trick. I’m reminded of the dwarves who sat in darkness in a book written by C. S. Lewis from his Chronicles of Narnia series. This book is for the one who seeks to learn about who God is. It is neither a book written by a scholar nor a book written by a prophet or priest or college graduate. It is merely a book, written by one who wish to share what he knew after some years of schooling and time spent alone with God, with those who would read it with an open mind and an open heart. It is recommended that you have a Bible with you or the very least, a device where you can look up Scripture. I humbly ask that you take this journey with me in understanding God as I try to comprehend such a being and explain who He is to you through my writing. This is our introduction to understanding who God is, and you must first accept that God exists without a doubt then also understand that God does not need to be created because He is the creator. Accept that He does not conform to our rationale and begin to change your rationale to accept God.

Part 1

The Father

Chapter 1

The Names of God

I cannot think of any better way to describe God other than to show you some of the many names He goes by which can be found in your Bible. Below you will find a list of His names that describe Him in so many ways.

Adonai (Lord, Master/‫)אדוני‬

From what I can find, Adonai is often switched with YHWH. It is found as a substitute for YHWH in the Complete Jewish Bible; since this name of God is so sacred to them, they found the need to replace it. Often, you will find the substitute YHWH as well and I have even run across G-D. This way, you would avoid using the name of God in vain. For this study, however, I find my use of it to not be in vain. For how can learning about God and the meaning behind His names be vain? If this offends my readers, I apologize. I give God the highest honor and respect. Know that I do not wish to offend or cause any to stumble, I merely wish to share my thoughts and the results of my study. Also, what I am finding in my research, whenever Lord appears in all caps, it is a substitute for YHWH, but if you find Lord, it is a translation for Adonai. To me, I find it very important knowing God’s names and to substitute absolutely all of His many names; for Lord or God is not giving His name the respect it deserves, for there is power in His name, and most English translations today do not give the literal translation which can lead to ignorance and misunderstandings. Every other religion out there refers to their god by their

name and by god as well or goddess. Pagans know the name of their god, but how many Christians can say they know the name of their god? I know when I was growing up, I always had to wonder and question what God’s name was, yet I knew of the names of false gods, such as Zeus. It wasn’t until my teen years that I learned the name Jehovah which may not even be the proper pronunciation of His name. One good reason for this is that J was not a real letter until a few hundred years after the death of Christ. I realize that maybe English translators did not wish for people to use God’s name in vain and so they did not translate it, at least that is my guess; meanwhile, we are left in ignorance, unless we truly dedicate ourselves to knowing God. It is like a hunt to know God which is why I am writing this book to help you with your hunt as well as my own. (After much research and study, I found that we don’t even know the correct pronunciation for YHWH/YHVH, and to best honor His name, we should use Adonai or Lord. I recommend checking out “The Living Word” on YouTube to find out more.) I would like to point out the Hebrew spelling of the word of Adonai. The Aleph, Dalit, Vav, Nun, and Yod; Aleph signifies God, Dalet signifies door, Vav signifies man, Nun is an action, and Yod is the hand or right hand of God. What action would a man do with his hand at a door? Knock! Who do we know is God in the form of man? Yeshua! In Revelation 3:20, He says He stands at the door and knocks! By not learning the symbology and numerology of the Aleph Bet, we lose the fingerprint of God from scripture. I have come across so many neat things from studying the ancient Hebrew symbology and have included some in this book for the reader to get you interested as well.

YHVH/YHWH (Lord, Adonai, Hashem/ The Name):

YHWH is the name of God. His name is composed of four Hebrew consonants (YHWH/‫ )יהוה‬which Moses revealed to his people. As the name of God was considered too holy to be spoken, the consonants YHWH were used to remind them to say “Adonai” in place of YHWH. Many Jewish Bibles will not even use

YHWH and instead, have Adonai. From what I have researched, I have found that the name YHWH appears 6,807 times in scripture and Adonai over four hundred. Roughly translated, YHWH means I am who I am. For reference, you will find it best in Exodus 3:14, “And God said to Moses, ‘I am that I am.’ And he said, ‘So you must say to the Israelites, I am sent me to you.’” Also, I have found “He who makes that which has been made” and He brings into existence whatever exists. After further study of the YHWH or Yod Heh Vav Heh, I learned that no one truly knows the correct pronunciation of these letters. They do, however, point to Christ yet again. The Yod is a hand or the right hand of God. Who stands at the right hand of God? Yeshua! Heh symbology means to behold, Vav is man or nail. The nails in His hands! He told Thomas to behold His hands! For further study, I would recommend the YouTube channel, The Living Word, and watch the video the “Name of Jesus.” It details that the name of Yeshua is the name of God and provides scripture to prove this. His name, after all, is a name above all names and that at the name of Yeshua, every knee shall bow.

Elohim (God/Gods/‫)אלוהים‬

Elohim is often meant in the plural form to describe God as well it has been used before YHWH, which translates to the Lord God. Why in plural form though? God is a Triune God; the Trinity of God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is where it can get complicated. They are separate but they are one. Elohim is first used in Genesis 1:1. Most translations translate it to God; however, I was able to find one translation that kept it quite literal, being the Orthodox Jewish Bible. “In the beginning, Elohim created hashomayim (the heavens, Himel) and Haaretz (the earth)” (Genesis 1:1). It continues to use Elohim, up until verse 24 and then it switches to G-D. Then, however, G-D talks to Himself starting in verse 26: “Let Us make man in Our image.” In verse 2, the Holy Spirit is introduced: “The earth was unformed and void, darkness was on

the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God hovered over the surface of the water.” Now I just want to make a side note for people, I have tattoos. My reason for getting them was to have an outward expression on my body to remind me of who I belong to. My tattoos, as you may have guessed, are religious. However, I have come to regret my tattoos. Just due to verse 26 where it states that we are made in God’s image. We aren’t supposed to have graven images of God, and in the Old Testament, it said not get to tattoos. It never speaks about tattoos in the New Testament though, and I was still foolish in my faith when I got mine. I just knew that “whatsoever you do, do all to the glory of God,” so I wanted my tattoos to bring glory to Him as a chance to talk to people who comment on my tattoos. Now though, I believe, that since we are made in His image, we should not alter our bodies in the slightest because how can one alter what God has made in His image? Altering your body in any way is like saying God didn’t make us perfect. Even though the world seems to define beauty quite specifically and our misgivings, we must God made us in His image; regardless of how we look, we should be content in whatever state we are in. What matters most is who we are, not what we look like on the outside. Let’s move on. There are many mysteries hidden in the original language where we can see the genius of the author of the Bible which just shows the divine nature of scripture. In just studying Genesis 1:1 in ancient Hebrew, you can see the genius of God. Now technically, we don’t get introduced to Jesus until after His birth in the New Testament. I would debate, however, that we see Yeshua Ha Mashiach in Genesis 1:1. We lost this information for the most part by trusting solely in the English translation of the Bible and even in the new Hebrew language that is derived from the Aramaic. In the ancient Hebrew text, as shown above, in the name Elohim, we see just how much we are losing from the translation. Even in the New Testament, we see Him stating that He was before time existed and knew everything about everyone. In the Book of Daniel, when Shadrach Meshach and Abednego are thrown into the furnace, the people outside saw a fourth person on the inside with the likeness of the “Son of Man” walking with the three. This fourth person is theorized to be Jesus Himself. As you will see later in this book, one of the names of Jesus is the Son of Man. As we move

through the chapters, we will get to know each Godhead of the Trinity individually. For now, let’s move on. In the Hebrew Alphabet each character has a meaning, and we can find many more meanings to go with each character. Each character also has a number assigned to it. Aleph through Yod is one through ten. Then Kaf through Qof is twenty through one hundred then Resh is two hundred, Shin three hundred, and Tav four hundred. Now, it may not seem very important to study a dead language. That would be an ignorant thing to assume, however. I have done some research into just Genesis 1:1 and have found many things that point to a highly intelligent author.

‫בראשית ברא אלוהים את השמים ואת הארץ‬

Above is the first verse of Genesis 1, the highlighted word is not a word. It is, however, God. Notice Aleph, the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and then Tav, the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Yeshua is described as the first and the last. Also, notice the symmetry within the words surrounding the highlighted word. I came upon an interesting video on YouTube called the “Hidden code of Genesis 1:1” put out by the Living Word. It details the fantastic numerology of this verse and the absolute intelligent design behind it. Other videos such as “Torah ParaShah Bereshit—Hidden Prophecies in Creation!” put out by Assembly of Called Out Believers, will show the prophecies hidden within this verse and Genesis. I would also recommend the video “Is the End of Days Prophesied in the First Word of the Bible?” by Rock Island Books. The last two videos are over an hour long but hold a vast amount of information and it is truly edifying to watch. If you have time to play video games and watch TV, you have time to learn about the mysteries of the Bible and in so doing, learn about who God is and thus build a true relationship with Him. (Notice how often Alef appears in this sentence because it can be representative of one thousand; if you check out the videos I listed above, your mind will be blown.)

In Revelation, we see that we are to calculate the mark of the beast. In Isaiah 46, it says that there was a prophecy declaring the end from the beginning. So to study Genesis 1:1 is to learn much. Lucky for me and you, these things have been explained on YouTube. It is far simpler to learn from people more educated than myself in this matter, and it is far simpler to watch the videos as well than to read about it in this book.

El Shaddai (Lord God Almighty):

In the Old Testament, El Shaddai occurs seven times. El Shaddai is first used in Genesis 17:1: “When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, ‘I am God Almighty; walk before Me and be blameless.’” “Shaddai” itself occurs forty-eight times in Scripture.

El Elyon (The Most High God):

In the Old Testament, El Elyon occurs twenty-eight times. It occurs nineteen times in Psalms. El Elyon is first used in Genesis 14:18: “Then Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine; he was the priest of God Most High.”

YHWH Nissi (The Lord My Banner):

“Moses built an altar and called it the Lord is my banner” (Exodus 17:15). This comes from when Moses was going to war with the people of Amalek. Yet it can still be true today. We have many songs where we refer to Christ as our banner.

So what is a banner? Banner: a long strip of cloth bearing a slogan or design, hung in a public place or carried in a demonstration or procession. We are God’s people, and therefore, we should make it plain and clear that we are His people to the world. We are called to be lights to the earth and the salt of the earth. Set apart from this world. If you are not ashamed of God, then make it clear to the world that He is your God. Let your banner flow in great exaltation! I just wanted to also insert here that Jesus plainly says that those who deny Him before men on earth, He will deny before His Father in heaven. We really should be outright professing Christians.

YHWH Ra’ah (The Lord My Shepherd):

“The Lord is my shepherd” (Psalm 23). We see many references in the Bible where Jesus and God are referred to as our shepherds. Makes sense, too, if you think about it. In the Middle East, shepherding was a major industry in how rich a man was, depending on the livestock he possessed.

El Olam (The Everlasting God):

“Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and His understanding no one can fathom” (Isaiah 40:28). I must say this will be talked about in the next chapter. The Everlasting God and He is everlasting because of who He is. He is eternal because He is not bound by time for He created time. How can you be bound by something you created? Well, I suppose a man can, but God cannot. Time is a dimension and God exists apart from it as well as within it. Human understanding cannot “fathom” God.

Qanna (Jealous):

I will save this for later since it gets its very own chapter. , though, that even God has emotions.

YHWH Jireh (The Lord Will Provide):

“Abraham named the place Yahweh-Yireh (which means ‘the Lord will provide’). To this day, people still use that name as a proverb: ‘On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.’” (Genesis 22:14). , God will provide for all your needs, you just need to have faith. God provides for all our needs and we see examples of it from Genesis where God clothes Adam and Eve to the time of Exodus where God fed the people manna from heaven. Don’t be afraid to call on Him to provide you your needs.

Almighty One:

“…who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty” (Revelations 1:8).

Alpha and Omega:

“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End” (Revelations 22:13). He is the Aleph and Tav, the First and the Last. I would recommend the reader research Genesis 1:1 in the original Paleo Hebrew.

Father/‫אָב‬:

In Hebrew, we see the Alef and Beyt. Alef, we know, means God or head or first, etc. Beyt means dwelling. So immediately, we see the role of the father within the symbology of the Hebrew: the head of the household, the strength of the household, the protector of the household, and the provider of the household. We know that God is our head and we are under His authority, and when we are under His authority, we have His protection. When we follow after our ways, we are no longer in His house but our own and we no longer have His protection. So we succumb to the lusts and desires of the flesh, which is why we must lead a crucified life. (See the Parable of the Prodigal Son.) God is our heavenly Father. We can find many verses in the Bible referring to Him as our Father, even in the Old Testament. He is a Father to us more so than our earthly dads. No one cares more deeply for us or loves us more than our Father in heaven. Yes, lots of dads can come close. But what dad can say they created a whole world for their sons and daughters to enjoy? What dad can rightly say they breathed life into us? What dad can say they know every hair on our head? What dad can say they knew us before we were even formed in our mother’s womb? No earthly dad can say any of those things truly. This is what leads me to the following verse. “Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven” (Matthew 23:9). Many will wonder about priests being referred to as father after reading this, I am guessing. I am not all-knowing and I have no right to judge. God judges the heart. I just know what the Bible says and I will do my best to abide by it. It is up to the reader to decide for themselves what they do with their knowledge. Moving on. Below I cited more verses from the Bible that reference Him as our Father. “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know Him” (1 John 3:1 NIV). How truly amazing it is to be called a child of God! He loves us truly as His children; our Father in heaven became a man in the flesh to suffer and die for us so that we may spend eternity

with Him! He loves us so much that He provided a way for His children to spend eternity with Him. Eternity is hard to comprehend. Our life is short and yet days can seem long. God blessed me once and brought me to heaven. I don’t very much; I the golden light surrounding me and pure happiness. So happy that I could just sit in His presence with no worry of time or need to be entertained. I then awoke and I was in space, I awoke once more and I was in bed. “My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline and do not resent his rebuke, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in”(Proverbs 3:11–12 NIV). Many people wonder why we suffer and go through hard times, they are still ignorant and learning. Those trials are what make us who we are. It is up to us to work with the Blacksmith and bend to His will so that we come out the way He wants us to come out. If we go against Him and go our way, we have a risk of being thrown out like scrap metal. So if you are going through hard times, figure out what impurity in your life God our Blacksmith is trying to beat out of you then let Him do it. It is when you are not going through trials that you may want to be concerned about because maybe, just maybe, the Blacksmith put you into the scrap pile. If this is your fear like it is mine, then reexamine yourself, search out your sin, and go to war with yourself. Resist the urges of the flesh and meditate in the Word of God.

Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? (Matthew 6:26 NIV)

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! (Matthew 7:7–11 NIV)

The last two go hand in hand. God cares for us as if we were His children because indeed, we are. I have worked in the mental health field with kids and adults alike. I came across many cases where the parents just flat out wanted nothing more to do with their child. God, however, never gives up on you. His love never fails, never gives up, and never runs out on us. As long as we repent our sins and turn away from them and turn toward righteousness, God will be there to lift us again. Romans 6 says it perfectly, we are no longer slaves to sin but slaves to righteousness. As you can see, nothing can compare to our God. There is no other god that can be described in such ways. All these names can only give you a small glimpse into who God is, however, so please keep reading in this book. I have attempted to explain to you as much as humanly possible on who God is so that you can attempt to understand who God is. No book written by man can truly give you a complete understanding of who God is, however.

Chapter 2

The Unchanging God

Many Christians and even nonbelievers alike think that the God of the Old Testament is different from the God of the New Testament. They see the one of the Old Testament being full of wrath and vengeance while the God of the New Testament is full of love and grace. I must it, before I started reading the Bible regularly, I, too, thought that God changed from the Old Testament to the New Testament. Then I started reading my Bible more and listening to the NLT Chronological Bible through Audible on my way to work every day, and I began to see that the God of the Old Testament is just the same as the God of the New Testament. Your first clue to seeing that He is unchanging is in His name, I am. He is the Great I am. To me, that name speaks profoundly that He doesn’t change simply because He does not need to change for He is perfect. We are the ones who are imperfect and need to change, not God. While listening and reading the Bible, I would come across times in the Old Testament where God would show mercy, comion, and love. The first example of this, I feel, is after Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge. God could have killed them right then and there for sinning. He didn’t, however, and many scholars theorize that He even sacrificed a couple of lambs to cover their sin and to clothe them in lamb’s skin. There are countless other examples where God spared people in the Bible and instead found a way to allow them to live while at the same time, fulfilling justice. For example, when Moses was atop the mountain of God, the people of Israel grew tired of waiting on Moses and demanded Aaron to make for them a god. So Aaron made them a golden calf and they all began worshiping the calf. God wanted to destroy them and create Israel from Moses. Moses, however, reminded God of His promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (I think, God was testing Moses). So instead, Moses and the Levites killed several thousand out of

the millions, who my guess wouldn’t repent of their sins. This was not only an example of the wrath of God but the love of God. The Psalms provide many examples of the wrath and love of God. That’s the thing about God, really, He is a loving yet He is also a just God. Even in the New Testament, you will find verses where His justice comes through. Jesus Himself has said in Matthew 7:22–23 ASV, “Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy by thy name, and by thy name cast out demons, and by thy name do many mighty works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.” Also, the justice of God comes through again in the same book in the words of Jesus in Matthew 13:41–42 NKJV: “The Son of Man will send out His angels and they will gather out of His Kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness, and will cast them into the furnace of fire, there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.” So I must warn my brethren to examine yourselves and see what sins in your life you are ignoring or saying that can no longer be considered a sin. I would go so far as to say, masturbation is a sin. Yes, homosexuality is a sin too. Then you have other hidden sins such as laziness, greed, envy, lust, gluttony, anger, and pride. The only thing different for us from the Old Testament to the New Testament is that God made a way for us so that we are no longer required to offer up sacrifices to Him to cover our sins because He became our sacrifice by taking on the form of a man and taking our sin upon Himself and dying on the cross. God’s justice was fulfilled with the sacrifice of Jesus. In the Old Testament, they had a high priest that they would bring their sacrifices to, to have their sins forgiven. Granted many times, the people went astray and worshiped other gods and God would put them through hard times because of it, which is where we see His justice come through and so we assume He changed from Old to New. Really though, what happened was the people would no longer bring their sacrifices to the high priest or even a priest. They would sacrifice to the false gods instead, perhaps because it was more convenient. We are a race that looks for convenience after all. It was due to the people’s lack of ing to sacrifice to God and offer up incense that God put plans into place for there to be a messiah who would take on the sins of the world. God loves His people so much that He became their sacrificial lamb.

So now our high priest is Jesus Christ the Messiah. He is our intermediator with God who pleads our case with God. We have to go to Him with our sins and beg for forgiveness and try to change and try to stop living in sin. When we sin knowingly, there is never a sacrifice for intentional sin. The only way for intentional sin to be forgiven is with true repentance. We need to learn to hate the sin we commit and refuse to keep committing that sin. If you find that you are entrapped by a besetting sin, I suggest changing what you watch and listen to, this is talked about in Part 4. We see, too, that sacrifice and incense became no longer pleasing to God (see Hebrews 10:6). One has to wonder why wouldn’t it be pleasing to God anymore since He ordained it? I believe it was even mentioned in the Old Testament. I honestly believe it was because the offerings became monotonous to the people and so their hearts were not in it. They were not truly repentant of their sins and looking to change and work for perfection. The animals, therefore, were nothing but a waste and so it displeased God. He provided another way we get to know Him, in the form of flesh to be a sacrifice for our sins, so that we may be saved by grace through faith alone (see Romans 10:9). This does not mean we can continue to sin so that grace may abound (see Romans, chapter 6). No, many people twist Paul’s letters to the effect that allows them to continue in their lives of sin, without changing and being formed into a new creature that is different than the man/woman they were before they met Christ. They overlook the fact that Paul also taught to uphold the law (see Romans 3:31). Paul mentions throughout Romans to uphold the laws of God for if it were not for the law, we would not know sin. Christ Himself taught obedience to the law and Him. He even encouraged us to be perfect as His Father in heaven is perfect. He said those who teach others to obey the law will be called great in the kingdom of heaven and those that do not will be called vain. People twist Paul’s letters this way and that, and Peter warned about this in his letters. We must look at the life of Paul to fully understand his letters. Paul was a Jew, his mentor was Gamliel, the grandson of Hillel, two incredibly famous Jewish rabbis who taught the law, and we will even see some of Hillel’s teaching in what Christ taught. Paul wrote in his letter to the Corinthians that he was proud they held to the customs he taught them. What customs would he have taught them besides Jewish customs and laws? This is proof the early Christians were practically

Jewish, except for their faith and belief in the Messiah. By continuing in our sin, we are not truly repentant and therefore, we cannot claim the sacrifice of Christ for ourselves since we are unrepentant. We do not obey the law to earn our salvation, we obey the law to attain perfection and be pleasing to our Father in heaven. We put off the things of this world and we don’t follow after the ways of this world and we do not imitate the world. We put to death the flesh and live in the Spirit. If we tried to earn our salvation, we go against scriptural teaching for we know, according to Scripture, that salvation is a gift and it cannot be earned. We do, however, see in Scripture that upon receiving that gift, the saved feel indebted to God and so they work to live a life that is pleasing to their Father. The Book of James says that faith without work is dead, and so our works are the obedience that bring glory that are not for ourselves to boast in but for God, so that we can boast in God and therefore, bring more converts because of our good works.

For I am the Lord, I do not change. (Malachi 3:6 NKJV)

Of old you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you will remain; they will all wear out like a garment. You will change them like a robe, and they will away, but you are the same, and your years have no end. (Psalm 102:25–27 ESV)

So as you can see, God is unchanging; He is no different from the Old Testament to the New Testament. He has remained the same and will remain the same forever, and I highly recommend you read and even listen to your Bible, so you will discover this part of God for yourself.

Chapter 3

God Is Jealous for You

Oh, the jealousy of God. You may think that jealousy is a bad thing and it most certainly is for our imperfect selves, however, for the perfect God, jealousy is something we should be glad that God feels for us because that shows how much love he has for us. Which is why I am talking about His jealousy first before I write a chapter about His love. In the ten commandments, we first see just how jealous God is for us.

You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself an idol or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God. (Exodus 20:3–5 ESV)

God’s jealousy is so profound and important to know about because His love for us is greater when we stay true to Him. Many times, Israel went astray from loving God, so God let them be taken as slaves to foreign lands and they lost their rights to the promised land for a long time. However, God will never stop loving the people of Israel because of the promise He made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We see also that God inclines His ear and listens to those who are righteous (see 1 Peter 3:12). We see the jealousy of God arise in the New Testament, too, in a few occasions. We are told to separate ourselves from the things of this world. Throughout the Bible, you will find examples of this. Even in Proverbs, Solomon warns about the pleasures of this world and the dangers it brings. The one verse that speaks to me most about this is 1 John 2:15 ESV: “Do not love the world or the things in

the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” Wow, just wow. That alone should scare most Christians these days straight. So many people these days love so many things about the world and sports is a big thing; not playing sports, no, that’s keeping active and keeping the body healthy as well as companionship. No, I’m talking about watching sports and the culture behind it. Sadly, we have fallen into so many of the practices of the world’s culture that we take large chunks of our time out of our lives to spend in the culture of the world. From this verse, we see that God is not only jealous for us but we should be jealous for Him! For starters, I was raised in a Christian home and yet, I was sent to the world to be educated by the world and to learn the customs of the world and to partake in those customs as well. By this, I mean I was public schooled my whole childhood. I struggled with belief in God as a part of it too. My mom was a stayat-home mom, so we could have easily been homeschooled since my father was the sole source of income. Today, we often see young ones leave the faith and public school is a big part of that. I also want to touch on the calendar we go by, a calendar that was influenced first by a pagan emperor known as Constantine, who was also an anti-Semite according to some. Many people do not know this because we were not taught this. I did not find out until I was in my adult years. Constantine had an issue, he had pagans and Christians within his kingdom. As you can imagine, they were not getting along too well. So Constantine created a calendar where everyone could be satisfied. We see proof of this in the names of the days as well as the names of the months. Freya day became Friday, Thor day became Thursday, Sunday when they worshipped the sun god. So on and so forth. It is very easy to find this information out for yourself online. Constantine went so far as to mix pagan holy days where they worshipped their false gods and goddesses and made them into Christian holidays with some of the same symbolism. Holidays like Easter, for example. Oh, but Easter is mentioned in the Bible! I’m sorry, but it is not mentioned in the Bible; it is simply a misinterpretation. The correct translation is over. Easter was a holy day for the goddess Ishtar. She was a fertility goddess and her symbolism included rabbits and eggs. Christians never learn these things because most consider it taboo. That’s fine, but now that I learned it, I want to share it so that more Christians can stop living in ignorance and stop participating in pagan practices and going along with

pagan symbolism. It is of the world to do such things. though, God judges the heart. I would also recommend you to investigate the origins of Christmas which came from the pagan holy day, Saturnalia. Don’t dilute your faith with pagan tradition. The true Christmas story is the Messiah was born during the feast of tabernacles. God chose to tabernacle with men during this feast. It fits the pattern God tends to use. I will go in-depth a little more later on in the book in Part 2. I would again recommend researching this.

Chapter 4

God’s Love and Grace

But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. (Ephesians 2:4–5 NIV)

For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly ions and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in this present age. (Titus 2:11–12 NIV)

The love of God and the grace we receive… Just the thought of it brings peace of mind. Before we get too caught up in the love and grace, let us first look at Romans 6 KJV: “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid! How shall we, who are dead to sin, live any longer therein?” Now that that is out of the way, let us discuss the love of God, but where to start? What better place than John 3:16 KJV: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him, shall not perish but have everlasting life.” Now I’ve seen some Facebook articles about the language of the Bible being confusing to some and that the word begotten may confuse some people, so here is the definition: Something is begotten when it’s been generated by procreation —in other words, it’s been fathered. A somewhat old-fashioned adjective, begotten is the past participle of the verb beget, which means to father or produce an offspring. The word begotten is appropriate per the in Matthew where Mary became pregnant by the Holy Spirit (see Matthew 1:18).

Now let’s go deeper into the love of God from that verse. While reading the New Testament, we find that Jesus was not just the only Son of God but was God made flesh. God became man! Yes, we see in the Old Testament several instances where God walked the earth with men, like Adam and Enoch, even possibly, a couple of others. It has been theorized by scholars that these instances were Jesus. It is very hard to wrap our heads around any of this, which is why we have faith in the truth of the Scripture. Now I have done Bible studies myself and have taken courses at schools and colleges, but I am, by no means, a scholar, let alone worthy of being a teacher according to the standard of the world. I do not have any type of degree. Back on subject though, God lowering Himself from His highest heavens to become a man. Not only that; He was born in a stable in the food trough a.k.a. manger. He grew up as a stonemason and yet, because He was God, His knowledge was profound to even priests as a young boy! He never became an official king, instead He was simply a teacher without the schooling to become one as far as we know. He wasn’t a Sadducee or a Pharisee, He was just who He was. (Some believe He was indeed a Pharisee, according to tradition, and some of His teachings come from rabbis known by some Jewish scholars today. We even see some proof of Him being a Pharisee by getting up and teaching in synagogues, and His disciples immediately stopping what they were doing to follow after Him.) It was His knowledge and wisdom that drew people to Him, His power to heal as well. Then He sacrificed Himself, taking the sin of the world upon Himself, just so that we may be saved by His Grace! God, the one true God, became a man then taught thousands of people, fed thousands of people, healed people, raised people from the dead, then became the sacrifice for the world so that we may be saved from our sins! How amazing is the love of God that He would do this for us? How on earth could we ever repay Him? He saved our lives for all eternity! What have any of us done for Him in return? I’m guessing not nearly enough. We go about our days and He is barely a second thought in most of our heads. This is where His Grace comes into play. He knows we are not perfect, our free will and sinful nature keeps us from it which, by the way, is another example of His love. In giving us free will, it makes our love for Him even better because it is from our free will of choosing Him over anything and anyone else. Love that is given freely is true love. A greater love is a love that sacrifices yourself for a friend. We are called to deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow Him.

Grace saved us; our faith should prove our salvation by denying ourselves to do His will. His grace now is greater than all our sin. “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, who walks not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit” (Romans 8). A lot of people will leave out that second part of this verse: “…who walks not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.” Many teachers and even pastors will only ever mention the first part of that verse. It is, after all, the first part of that verse that I already knew without needing to look it up. So what is walking in the flesh? Well, this should be obvious if you read your Bible and are also in touch with yourself to where you know your sin. I will use myself as an example; I am a lazy person by nature. I lack the motivation to do anything besides lounge around. I am also a glutton; I hate being hungry and I love food and I will often overeat. I have several more sinful natures that I won’t go into detail, but when I walk in the flesh rather than in the spirit, I succumb to these desires of the flesh rather than attempting to overcome them and resisting them and instead, do the opposite of what my flesh wants. So in my case, walking in the Spirit would mean eating only enough or getting up out of my chair and cleaning my room, cleaning my house, taking my dogs for a walk, etc. One large part of walking in the flesh these days is living a sexually immoral life. Many men, including myself, struggle with this and yes, even women can struggle with this. Sexual immorality has become a large part of the world’s culture and has been a device of the devil to lead us away from God. The things they show on TV and even in commercials have become atrocious. Women dressed in lingerie in commercials where children can easily watch and see. Women today are dressing in revealing clothes, even Christian women. They are going along with the culture of the world, being led astray, becoming a stumbling block for others. We, as Christians, need to get back to basics and separate ourselves from the world and the things of this world. Let us start walking in the spirit and turn away from our fleshly desires.

For sin shall no longer be your master because you are not under the law, but under grace. (Romans 6:14 NIV)

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. (Romans 3:23– 24 NIV)

There are many more verses I can put up, however, I am going to end this chapter with the chapter of love. So that when people ask you what love is, you can show them this chapter:

If I speak in the tongues of men and angels, but have not to love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:1–13 ESV)

Chapter 5

The Three Attributes of God

Most Christians should know these three attributes of God already, which I will go over in this chapter. However, I did not learn them until I was fifteen, doing bible studies with a man of God. The three attributes of God which I will discuss are very important to know about if you wish to know more about God and to begin to understand Him. The first attribute I will discuss is omnipotence or all-powerful. This is the most important attribute of the three because without this one, then the other two wouldn’t make much sense as you will find out. For how can a god who is not all-powerful be all-knowing or be everywhere at the same time? If you didn’t figure it out yet, those were the other two attributes of God which I will discuss. You will not find the following words to describe God’s attribute in Scripture, however, after each attribute, I have listed known verses in the Bible which describe each one.

Omnipotent, all-powerful: Genesis 1:1–3, 17:1; Exodus 6:1–3, 6–7; Job 33:4, 42:2; Isaiah 40:15, 26, 28; Jeremiah 32:17–19; Ezekekiel 10:4–5; Joel 1:14–15; Psalm 33:6, 9, 91:1, 115:3, 139:13–16; Matthew 19:26; Luke 1:37; II Corinthians 6:16–18; Hebrew 1:3; Revelations 1:8, 4:8, 11:15–17, 15:2–4; 19:11–21; 21:22. You also have one of God’s names which are used often: El Shaddai or Lord God Almighty (see Chapter 1). Omniscience, all-knowing: Psalm 139:1–4, 147:4–5; Proverbs 15:3, 11; Isaac 46:10; Matthew 6:1–18, 10:28–30; Revelation 6–19 Omnipresent, everywhere all the time: I Kings 8:22, 27; Psalm 139:1–12; Jeremiah 23:23–24, 32:19; Proverbs 15:3; Isaac 57:15; Matthew 18:20, 28:20; Acts 17:27, 28, Ephesians 4:6; Hebrew 4:13

Humans love to think of themselves as knowing just about everything and anything and still discovering and creating more, and yet we don’t know anything about the unseen, let alone being able to fully understand God. The very knowledge we hold today, we know to be incomplete and inadequate, which is why we continue to research and study. Our knowledge of the cosmos, of earth, of life, etc. is ever-changing and often the cause of debate. We don’t even understand ancient cultures and how they achieved building the ancient structures we come across in archeology. We will even argue with each other about the age of the earth. Then when we try to understand God, we come up with such silly questions when we find out what God’s attributes are. For example, a popular question I run across is “If God is all-powerful, can He create a rock that even He cannot lift?” The answer to that should be blatantly obvious to the person who even asks it, for if God is all-powerful, then of course, He can’t. He can do anything, create anything, and even destroy anything if He so chooses. The knowledge of God is one thing. The understanding of God is on a whole larger and deeper scale that no one can begin to fathom. As I said before and as I will say again and again, we are humans and we cannot hope to fully understand God. He does not conform to our standards. Humans have such a superiority complex that they make up their knowledge for their current predicament to make sense so that they will not have to believe in something that they cannot see, let alone comprehend. That is all it is, isn’t it? We have a superiority complex, the belief that we are at the top of the food chain. Is it a belief though or more of a hope? Mankind hopes there is no God because if there is one, then they were wrong the whole time, and yet, if you look at it, the existence of God is the only logical solution, that is if you go deep enough. It is hard for me to explain really, it is up to the reader to dwell upon and for God to reveal. Once we know there is a God, we seek to understand Him because we must know and understand everything about what we know! Now, there is the dilemma! We can never fully understand God because our thinking is limited to what we know and see and can reproduce! Then we try to understand life since

all life came from God. We make telescopes that observe the heavens! We make microscopes that observe atoms. Yet we still don’t know, do we? We only think we know. So we move on to bigger and more dangerous things without caring about the lives we have to sacrifice to understand life or God. Today, we have cloning, bioengineering, the search for antimatter (CERN, look it up). Isn’t it all just man’s search for God from a logical perspective? Humans are such an imperfect species. If you wish to begin to understand God, as I said before, you must remove yourself from your standard way of thinking, from the standard way of thinking within the confines of the laws of this world. Not manmade laws for the government but the laws of nature itself. God is all-powerful, able to do what is impossible for us to do. God is allknowing, knows what we are thinking, feeling, knows the secrets of the universe. He knows everything; he knows the future, knows the past, knows the present. God is everywhere all the time, from the highest of heights to the depths of hell, God is present. Never attempt to limit who God is by your simple-minded understanding of who He is or how things are. , you’re only human and humans have been contradicting themselves since the search for truth began. God though has never once contradicted Himself (only those who lack understanding and don’t study the Bible thoroughly believe it contradicts itself). No one truly knows anything. The world is just how the individual perceives it. Everyone sees things differently from everyone else. Sure, they may have some common ground, but no one sees absolutely everything the same as everyone else. You can attempt, like me, to help people see what you see and teach people what you know, but that is only planting seeds. It is up to God to continue to water that seed. This is basically what I am doing for my readers. God has revealed much to me for which I am grateful. As I continue to write this book, I get to see more and more glimpses of Him. I get closer to Him with each word I write. I realize not many of you will understand this book, just like not that many people can understand the Bible. They say the Bible is a storybook full of fiction or that certain ages were simply parables and not historical. They rework the

Scripture so that it suits their human understanding. They ignore some parts of the Scripture because it no longer applies today. When something new is found today that they don’t understand or that goes against what they think they know, they just either claim they never found it or they change it to suit them or they change what they know entirely and begin anew. If I can convince you of anything, please, I wish to convince you to research the Bible. Many people have attempted to discredit the Bible in so many ways and yet it has remained with us throughout time. Thousands upon thousands of years, the Bible has withstood the test of time. Here is one thing I learned about the Bible, monks have transcribed it from older scrolls in such painstaking measures that if they messed up once, they would throw it away. They had a special pen even for the name of God. If you do not trust your translation, find more older translations and compare them to the ones we have today. Learn Hebrew and Greek and read it in the original language. You may also want to learn Aramaic for this as well. It is something I wish my mind could accomplish, yet I am not sure if it will ever happen. I have often dreamed of creating a translation myself. But it would be too much for me to do. I will tell you the Bible is true and even though it was written by men, it was influenced by the Spirit. The Spirit is not a liar. The first time I heard God’s voice was when I was around sixteen and I doubted it and thought to myself that maybe God was a liar. In that instant, I heard His voice for the first time and quite clearly, “I do not lie!” He sounded quite upset, by the way. Take the Bible at face value, please. Do not attempt to change it to suit your understanding is all I am saying, and six days of creation means six days. Okay, so with this, I will come to a close on Part 1. Yes, we went off subject a few times, but I feel that it was necessary and I was writing as I felt led to write. One cannot truly understand Him. I attempted to describe our Father in heaven as best I could in this part. I hope I have inspired you to read the Bible for yourself to start to understand Him yourself because you really should. Do not just read the Bible once either because just as you find something new every time you reread or rewatch something, you find out even more every time you read the Bible. One thing I learned was that you should make it your goal to read the Bible every day, once a year, starting in Genesis and ending in Revelation. Or you can find your own Bible reading chart that will take you

through the entire Bible in a year. I highly recommend it because it will take you to new heights and will bring you blessings year-round.

Part 2

The Son

Chapter 6

The Names of Jesus

Advocate: “My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One” (1 John 2:1). Author and Perfecter of Our Faith: “Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author, and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrew 12:2). Bread of Life: “Then Jesus declared, ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty’” (John 6:35). Beloved Son of God: “And behold, a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased’” (Matthew 3:17). Bridegroom: “And Jesus said to them, ‘Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast’” (Matthew 9:15). Chief Cornerstone: “The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone” (Psalm 118:22). Deliverer: “And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come” (1 Thessalonians 1:10). Faithful and True: “I saw heaven standing open and there, before me, was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice, he judges and wages war” (Revelation 19:11).

Good Shepherd: “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep” (John 10:11). Great High Priest: “Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession” (Hebrew 4:14). Head of the Church: “And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church” (Ephesians 1:22). Holy Servant: “…and grant that Your bond-servants may speak Your word with all confidence, while You extend Your hand to heal, and signs and wonders take place through the name of Your holy servant Jesus” (Acts 4:29–30). I Am: “Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am’” (John 8:58). Immanuel: “…She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel, which means ‘God with us’” (Isaiah 7:14). Indescribable Gift: “Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift” (2 Corinthians 9:15). Judge: “…He is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead” (Acts 10:42). King of Kings: “These will wage war against the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, because He is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those who are with Him are the called and chosen and faithful” (Revelation 17:14). Lamb of God: “The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, ‘Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!’” (John 1:29) Light of the World: “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12). Lion of the Tribe of Judah: “Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals” (Revelation 5:5).

Lord of All: “For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:9–11). Mediator: “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5). Messiah: “We have found the Messiah (that is, the Christ)” (John 1:41). Mighty One: “Then you will know that I, the Lord, am your Savior, your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob” (Isaiah 60:16). Redeemer: “And as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last, He will take His stand on the earth” (Job 19:25). Risen Lord: “…that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3–4). Rock: “For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ” (1 Corinthians 10:4). Savior: “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:11). Son of Man: “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10). Son of the Most High: “He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David” (Luke 1:32). Supreme Creator Over All: “By Him, all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him, all things hold together” (Colossians 1:16–17). Resurrection and the Life: “Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die’” (John 11:25).

The Door: “I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture” (John 10:9). The Way: “Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me’” (John 14:6). The Word: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). True Vine: “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser” (John 15:1). Truth: “And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32). Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace: “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on His shoulders. And He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6). Yeshua—Salvation: Many wish to assume that Yeshua is short for Joshua/Yehoshua: God is Salvation. I do not think this is true. Yeshua was His full name. Immanuel means God with us. Yeshua was God and He was our Salvation. To name Him Yehoshua would have been kind of redundant, don’t you think? He was God and our Salvation. His name pretty much hinted at who He was!

Chapter 7

Intro to Jesus

So I want to take time to get into the psychology of Jesus. Not sure if I am saying that right. Right, so in Isaiah 53:1, “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows…” We all know that His love was so profound we can barely lift a finger to it. Yet we often forget what He had to go through as a man. In Luke, we catch a glimpse at 22:44, “And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.” When the gospels mention Him going to check on His disciples who were supposed to pray and wait for Him while He prayed, He became upset that they fell asleep. He not only suffered physically for us, He suffered emotionally and mentally. Yes, He was God, but we must that He was also a man. Men have tendencies to hide their emotions. I believe we should not only connect with Christ on a spiritual level but also at an emotional level. How else can we understand God? Being a broken man myself and being able to psychoanalyze myself, even though I do not have proper schooling for it; I do have experience in mental health and have learned plenty about my psyche. So now I often wonder if someone can psychoanalyze God. I ionately believe we can, to a point; to me, it is the best way to get to know the personal side of God and therefore, we can better understand Him and better serve Him. A good servant always looks for ways to please his master. As you have read in the previous chapters, describing who God is, you can get a hint at the emotional side of God. Now there may be those who say and think that this is not an appropriate topic for us to talk about because who can understand God. Truthfully, we could never fully understand God, let alone anyone else because we have enough difficulties understanding ourselves. However, to say that God doesn’t have emotions because He does not need them

is lacking in understanding of the Bible and even themselves. We must that God made us in His image. He gave us emotions, so therefore, He has them as well. A good servant understands His master and can predict what His master wants before being asked. This servant knows the emotions His master goes through, depending on the circumstance. We see an angry God, a jealous God, and a loving God. We even see a happy God and a proud Father. “This is my Beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” Jesus was a man of sorrow and shame, the Bible clearly states this. I’m not sure about any of my readers, but I have a hard time connecting with people, let alone God, on an emotional level because well, I’m too self-involved. I am getting better though. Yes, I have a love for others and my God. Yet like others, I am trying to change myself for the better and at the same time, help my readers change as well. Jesus suffered greatly because of me and you. He died for me and you. How can you and I go on wasting our lives away, playing video games, watching movies, television shows, sports when there are people in the world suffering and dying? Jesus died to save our lives. If we accepted Him as our Savior and Lord, then we need to that He is our Lord, our Master and we are, therefore, His servants. I have given up video games myself and most TV shows and movies. I apply the verse that says to focus on that which is good, pure, and just. Since giving up such things, I have experienced joy and peace in God. I still have struggled with sin, but I am getting stronger, and for me to get stronger, I had to change my focus onto God and off myself. This is the narrow path, the path to being perfect as God is perfect, the path to imitating Christ. How many of us can say that we are being good servants, doing the work and will of our Master, following the commands He gave us? People ask, “What is the meaning of life?” I have the answer, and I received the answer from the Holy Spirit. The answer is go and make disciples, help those who are less fortunate. Feed those who are hungry. Clothe those who are naked. Visit those who are in prison. Mature Christians love God above themselves, their families, above the world. They put away the things of this world and abandon their lives and devote themselves entirely to God and His work. They spread the gospel from shore to shore to every corner of the globe. They lose their lives for God’s sake, they are

persecuted for Christ’s sake. They are mocked for their beliefs, but they continue doing the work of the Father, regardless. A side note on the emotions of God: I am unsure how many of my readers may have spent time with God and just began crying, not because they were sad or happy but simply were crying. I had this experience myself once while I was at the Feast of Tabernacles with my church (which, by the way, is around the time of the Yeshua’s actual birthday) and I was fasting. I felt led to go hang out in the sanctuary and sit at the foot of the podium where a cross is upon the podium, so I was at the foot of the cross you could say. I was in prayer and I began singing praises to Him. Suddenly, I began crying. I was neither happy nor sad but crying nontheless. I believe I was experiencing the emotions of God Himself. This world is in a sad state with so many awful things happening all the time. I wouldn’t be surprised if God isn’t sad at the state of the world right now, crying over it. Yet I imagine, He was also happy to have seen my devotion to Him and allowed me to experience Him at that moment. I have experienced God many times; they have either left me sitting in quiet happiness or sad unworthiness, but never before have I experienced God like that.

Chapter 8

Yeshua the Humble God

How great an example of humility and humbleness we have in Yeshua HaMashiach! Picture this, God the Creator of everything, the All-Powerful becoming a lowly human. He was a king, descended from human kings even! He had command over angels. He had great power He used to heal the sick. He was God. He became a man, and not just any man but born to a stonemason and a virgin mother inside of basically a barn or cave, and his crib was a feeding trough. As a man, He had no place to call home even though He was God and King. No, instead He wandered around the land of Israel, moving from house to house, eating fresh from the fields. He went to the people when He could have stayed in a great house like a king and have had the people come to Him! The above paragraph gave me a revelation to the synonymous life of the tabernacle of God during the exodus to the life of Yeshua during his ministry. Yeshua didn’t have a place to lay His head. He told Peter, “The foxes have their holes and the birds have their nests but Son of Man does not have a place to lay His head.” As I mentioned in Part 1, Yeshua was born during the Feast of Tabernacles to show that God tabernacle with men during that feast following His pattern. The tabernacle would wander the desert with the people of Israel and when it was in the land of Israel, it would still wander throughout the land. When David sought to make a temple for it, God pretty much said human hands cannot create a temple worthy enough. Then Solomon built a glorious temple with specifications received from God. Yeshua is our ark of the new covenant in a way, and the similarities from the Old to the New Testament are profound indeed. We see that God is a god of patterns. Our King and our God Jesus the Son was humble indeed, even when He was spat upon and beaten to be completely unrecognizable as a human, laughed at, and mocked. He took it all inside. He could have had the angels rescue him at

any moment! He could have told the earth to open up and swallow the wicked! No, instead while he was up on that cross, He said something so profound and amazing, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they are doing.” How amazing is that? As humans, we tend to feel entitled. Even here in the US, we have a right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We are the true embodiment of what entitled humans look like. You don’t believe me? Go visit a third world country. We should learn from the example Jesus gave us through the life He lived! I find it truly disgusting when I see the entitlement of kids and adults these days. God chose to suffer as a man, die as a man, and remain truly humble throughout His life as a man. I can truly understand Peter’s feelings when He heard Jesus tell him about what must happen. It had to happen, though sadly, because we are such a wicked species. We hold little regard for this planet which is God’s garden that He gave us to tend. We barely hold any regard for the true value of life. We are indeed a cruel species, most definitely the cruelest on the planet. What other species devise tortures and wars for profit and gain? We are indeed wicked people. I am disgusted by the world today. I know nothing will truly change until our Savior returns and es judgment. Even Christians today have fallen far from the time of the apostolic church. We need to go back to the ways of the Bible. Take the lives of the righteous men in the Bible as an example of how to live our own lives. Jesus was perfect, yes, but even Enoch walked with God, so why can’t we? The world has become a distraction for Christians indeed, providing all sorts of worldly things that take our attention away from God and His work. Instead of feeding the hungry, we are feeding ourselves and our families. Instead of helping the sick, we are helping ourselves and our families. When did the work of God take second place and not even second place? Many people call themselves Christians but sadly, only a few will enter Kingdom. Faith without works is dead.

What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. (James 2:14–

17 NKJV)

Jesus gave us a mission to save the sheep who are lost. There are so many sheep with a shepherd who is leading the sheep to the pit instead of paradise. “Unless you forsake all that you have you cannot be my disciple.” Christians have become so materialistic. The materialistic Christians need to open their Bibles and see the truth. Read it and be convicted to the point we are actively changing ourselves into the image of Christ. We are supposed to be the lights of the world! Be in the world and not of it! Stop our flag worship and worshiping the state, the politicians, the celebrities. If they have our love, then we do not love God. We are in the land, yes, and we must obey the laws of the land as long as they don’t go against what the Bible tells us to do. Putting our hand over our heart while we are pledging our loyalty to a piece of cloth that represents this nation is idolatry! We can pray for our rulers and we can be good citizens, but we will not worship the corrupt, and how corrupt the government has become! Yet some still choose to remain blind to it! So many presidents go to Moloch’s Grove every year with so many rich and other celebrities to worship false gods. Yes, even your precious Reagan! They do supposedly mock human sacrifices there every year, but with how evil this world is and what escapes the public’s eye, it would not surprise me if they were not mock human sacrifices but real. After all, we have real human sacrifice in the public eye called abortion! If you get angry over someone burning the flag, you have too much love for it! If you cry when a celebrity dies, you have too much love for them! You didn’t even know them or what they were like in their private lives! It is sad when someone dies, but how many people die each year? Do you cry for every person who dies that year? No, because they were not in the public eye! Jesus even tells you to leave your family behind and follow Him! Please, for the sake of your eternal souls, please stop your idol worship! Instead of crying over this nation long lost to the deceiver and trying to force our moral laws upon this nation, shouldn’t we instead be reaching the hearts of the people? The church is full of hypocrisy—they do not practice what they preach! How many people would be reached if every church had a food truck for a ministry that fed the homeless or the hungry? How many people would be reached if the church

opened a clinic to care for the sick? Why do these megachurch pastors need to be earning six- to seven-figure salaries? Why can’t they put that money into such ministries? The church has bought into the term “Worry about yourself.” It is the duty of the church to worry about the world and minister unto the world! Teaching their congregation to minister to people and to help the widow! Humble yourselves before God, give up all that you have and help the poor, leave your dad and your mom, and follow the ways of Jesus the Messiah. Read your Bible, pay attention to the words of Christ, pay attention to the life of Christ and the lives of His apostles. Follow their example. If you are in debt, get out of it first then go and be a true disciple of God. Having the world follow the laws of God when you barely follow His laws yourself and you seek to take away their free will given to them by God? Did God not say He gave them over to their abase natures in Romans 1:26? How can the world who is at enmity with God follow His laws? Illogical! We cannot reach their hearts through changing laws that do nothing more than cause division. A. W. Tozer touched on this subject in his book, The Crucified Life.

Part 3

The Holy Spirit

Chapter 9

Names of the Holy Spirit/Ruach Hakodesh

The Spirit of Life (Romans 8:2) The Spirit of Grace (Hebrews 10:29) The Spirit of Prophecy (Revelation 19:10) The Spirit of Truth (John 14:17, 15:26) The Spirit of Holiness (Romans 1:4) The Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation (Ephesians 1:17) The Spirit of Justice or Judgment (Isaiah 28:6) The Spirit of Fire or Burning (Isaiah 4:4) The Spirit of Glory (1 Peter 4:14) The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord (Isaiah 61:1) The Spirit of the Lord (Isaiah 11:2; Acts 5:9) The Spirit of God (Genesis 1:2; 1 Corinthians 2:11; Job 33:4) The Spirit of the Living God (2 Corinthians 3:3) The “Spirit of your Father” (Matthew 10:20) Breath of the Almighty (Job 33:4)

Comforter (John 14:16, John 14:26, 15:26) Eternal Spirit (Hebrews 9:14) Free Spirit (Psalms 51:12) God (Acts 5:3–4) Good Spirit (Nehemiah 9:20; Psalms 143:10) Holy Spirit (Psalms 51:11; Luke 11:13; Ephesians 1:13, 4:30) Power of the Highest (Luke 1:35) The Spirit (Matthew 4:1; John 3:6; 1 Timothy 4:1) The Lord (1 Thessalonians 3:5)

Out of fear of blaspheming the Holy Spirit and my wanting to hold the Holy Spirit is great reverence. I will not, in any way, attempt to describe the Holy Spirit beyond what I posted above, which is directly from the Holy Scriptures. I suggest the reader do the same. Blaspheming the Holy Spirit is the only unforgivable sin one can do according to Jesus Himself. So please, readers, this:

Therefore I say unto you, Every sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven. And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him; but whosoever shall speak against the Holy Spirit, it shall be forgiven him, neither in this world nor in that which is to come. (Matthew 12:31–32 ASV)

Chapter 10

Who Is the Holy Spirit

First things first, you need to succumb to the Holy Spirit and honor Him and ask Him into your life and give you an understanding of the Scripture and Him before you can even begin to hope to understand Him, let alone the Scripture. The Holy Spirit is the author of the written Word known as the Holy Bible, so it is only right that before we begin our daily Bible reading, to pray and Honor the Spirit and ask to receive His revelation as we read the book He wrote. The Holy Spirit is another part of the Godhead. One whom you must never blaspheme for He is truly pure and perfect and holy. He is the one who moved on the surface of the water in the beginning. “In the beginning, Elohim created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters” (Genesis 1:1–2). Now again, the Holy Spirit is God, Elohim, as I explained in previous chapters, which means Gods, to show that God is three persons in one. We see here in Genesis 1:2 that the Spirit moved over the water. The Holy Spirit to me is the one who brought form to the earth and the one who brought life to the earth as well. He is the breath and power of God. The Holy Spirit is our helper: “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you” (John 14:26 ESV). The Holy Spirit helps us to the promises of God and the commands of God. He convicts us when we sin to help us to repent and turn from our sin and get back on the path of righteousness. The Holy Spirit is that still small voice within our thoughts that tells us right from wrong. It is more than our conscience, however, that would be limiting the Holy Spirit to human understanding. I will do my best to explain to you who the Holy Spirit is and how He reveals Himself to me and talks to me daily.

Chapter 11

How the Holy Spirit Reveals Himself to Me

Now before I begin, I want to make sure that you know that just because He reveals Himself to me in one way, does not necessarily mean He will reveal Himself to you in the same way. He has His mysterious ways and knows how to reach the individual in a way that they will understand. For me, it started with revelation through watching anime, He would plant a thought in my head and then that thought would pop up again in listening to a sermon on the radio, on my way home from work. I feel it is important to share that I had to give up my love of the world’s music and begin listening to music that is pleasing to God and focused on Him and not on myself. This included Christian music that is mixed with music that is from the world, for example, Christian pop or rock. My co-workers would warn other co-workers who would take a ride with me that all I listened to was Christian music. I got on this path after a long search for truth and researching worldly things and forbidden knowledge, such as the power of the pineal gland and how the ancient civilizations had known of its importance. This search led me to the knowledge of the importance of sounds, vibrations, and frequencies. This knowledge reminded me of what I learned in Bible school, which was of a story of a missionary who was in Africa with his teenage sons listening to Christian rock music and the witch doctor asked why they were playing music that stirred up evil spirits. The witch doctor thought of these Christians as hypocrites, playing the devil’s music! (It is important to note that Christians are not supposed to imitate the world and look like hypocrites, and when we do, it is time to change that part of our lives as part of denying ourselves and imitating Christ.) So I saw that Christian music, that which was of God, was more pleasing to listen to and would even protect me in my dreams. I even noticed that I was no longer suffering from depression or suicidal thoughts. I have not even had a cold

or flu. I was still holding other parts of my life back from God though, but the Spirit was at work in me. I could feel His pull to give up more of my life to God. I would try to read the Bible, but I would get distracted and couldn’t focus. Then one day, I visited a Christian brother of mine and he recommended me to Audible and I would be able to get a free thirty-day trial and he recommended the NLT Chronological Bible for me so that I could get it free. I grabbed this opportunity immediately and on my way to work every day, I would listen to the Bible. After work, I would listen to the sermon on the radio, and I would go home, sit, and play video games and watch anime. I still struggled with my sin. As the months went past, I kept my subscription to Audible and ed Christian book after Christian book, wanting to grow further and become stronger in faith. The sermons on the radio inspired me; they kept talking about things that were always on my thoughts, going right along with my life. I recognized it was God speaking to me. I ed C. S. Lewis books first and really enjoyed Mere Christianity. I then came across an author I hadn’t heard of before, but the title of the book, I couldn’t ignore. The Crucified Life by A. W. Tozer. This title shook me to the core; this was what my spirit was longing for. The book was enriching. I even began to watch sermons on YouTube. One sermon, in particular, was “Taking Control of Our Thoughts” by Dr. Charles Stanley put up by In Touch Ministries. That was all I needed. I found the secret truth I was looking for, and it went along with what I knew already. I wanted and still want to live my life similar to how Yeshua Ha-Mashiach lived His life and His disciples as well. I knew what I had to do. I had to give up my idols—video games, TV, movies, anything that was a distraction that was keeping my focus off God. Once I had done that, I started to live in a joy I had not ever known. I kept struggling, sure, but I continued in my perseverance for perfection that Yeshua told us to do, “Be perfect as Your Father in heaven is perfect.” I am not perfect, but every time I repent—truly repent—I can pick up that robe of perfection and try again in battling temptations. Ever since I have begun this path, the Holy Spirit has been talking to me, leading me, telling me to do what is right and what’s not right in most cases. I see things that upset the old me, my flesh, and my flesh immediately wants to say something that wouldn’t be an example of Christ, and there it was, the Holy Spirit said, “See, you shouldn’t say that.” that old saying, “If you

can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all”? I am certain that the first person who said that received that revelation from the Holy Spirit. After all, it coincides with Scripture observance. “Blessing and cursing should not come out the same mouth.” I was driving to work one day, in my Bible reading, I was listening to Revelations, if I right, when suddenly, the Holy Spirit gave me a revelation—the Christian life is synonymous with the Exodus. How profound that was to me and how true it was as well. I have often been tempted to write an entire book or sermon off that, but I see now that it belongs in this book but on the next chapter. So you see, I had to submit myself in wanting to grow and learn more about God before I could even start hearing the Holy Spirit. If you are willing to change and you are tired of failing in your life seeking after your ways and not getting anywhere, I would recommend you submit yourself to Him and ask Him what there is in your life that you need to change so that you may be more pleasing to Him. Ask Him to continue your spiritual growth.

Part 4

Following Yeshua

Chapter 12

The Christian Exodus

As I stated in Chapter 11, the Holy Spirit revealed to me how the Christian life is synonymous with Exodus. In this chapter, I will do my best to make it clear and show the similarities as best I can. To start with, we see that the Israeli people were slaves in Egypt. Now to bring this to a more modern perspective. The world and the flesh are Egypt. We start our life in and of the world, following the desires of the flesh enslaved to it. Let’s call Satan Pharaoh and we will call Yeshua Moses and anyone who may have first introduced you to Yeshua Aaron, the brother of Moses. Now, some leave Egypt right away after hearing the good news of the gospel and they began their escape from Egypt. Some hear the gospel and believe it but choose to remain in Egypt but will leave and make sacrifices weekly or a few times a year on special holidays. Some hear the gospel and accept it and say they don’t need to leave Egypt at all. Others hear the gospel and say it’s fake news. We are going to focus on the first group, the ones who heard the good news of the gospel and began packing their bags and left Egypt. Notice I said packing their bags. They were bringing their baggage along, they didn’t trust Yeshua fully yet to take care of their needs and they couldn’t yet die to their desires and the gods of Egypt. So Yeshua, instead of bringing them to the promised land immediately, has them wander the desert and learn from suffering because being unequally yoked brings suffering. Suffering isn’t always a bad thing, though with it, comes endurance, strength, and eventually, relief (if we learn to be equally yoked with Christ). The amount of suffering I had to endure in my life is nowhere near what a lot of people have had to endure, but we each have our trials and tribulations suited for us to help us grow and learn. Know that gold goes through a purification process where it is put through the furnace and impurities are taken out. We see it throughout the Scriptures, in the parable of the sower, the parable to the true vine, vinedresser, potter, farmer. Those who

don’t conform to His image and don’t abide in Him are cut off and thrown into the fire. So it is important how we deal with our suffering and how we learn to grow from it. If we keep fighting against the yoke and if we fail to abide in the vine and bear fruit, we will be cut off and thrown into the fire at the time of the harvest. We see that the people of Israel would grumble against God while wandering the desert and blame Him for their misfortune and think it’s better if they had remained in Egypt. I was lucky enough to be raised in a Christian home, so my time of blaming God happened when I was quite young. A quick rundown of my desert wanderings: my mom ran away from my dad with me and my brother in tow; they divorced, I rebelled against her, I went into residential homes, I resubmitted my life to God. I went back home to my mom. That’s a very quick rundown of a short period of maybe ten years of my life after I accepted Christ as my Savior. To me, at age five to fifteen, He was just someone to blame for my life. The people of Israel then came to their promised land and were disheartened by the giants they saw. By the way, they still had all their gods from Egypt. They didn’t trust God enough to take care of them and help them slay the giants. I went to Bible school at age nineteen, after high school. I still had parts of the world in my life. I thought I was ready for the promised lands, but the Lord knew better than me. I was still in the desert with my idols from Egypt. I knew what was the right way to live, but I wasn’t ready to live it. I, however, was selfrighteous a bit after Bible school. God brought me low indeed so that he could work on me. Before the people of Israel could enter the promised land, they were told to leave behind their idols that they had brought with them from Egypt. As you read previously, I had to give up my own idols. Now I am battling my giants that are of the flesh. Do not think you can successfully battle your giants while you still have idols and distractions in your life that keep you from focusing on God. You will continue to lose your battles with your giants and with your flesh until you get rid of those distractions. So what are distractions? The world and things of the world are distractions, anything that takes your focus off of God and onto yourself. These things can range anywhere from music, video games, television shows, movies, books, friends, social media, the internet, and technology. These things provide

temporary satisfaction and happiness. They take your attention off of God and onto yourself to make yourself feel good. The Bible says to do all to the glory of God and to focus on what is good, pure, and holy. Can you watch your favorite shows or movies to the glory of God? Do those shows, music, movies, or books have sin happening in them, such as sexual immorality? Watching those types of shows is not giving God glory in all you do nor it is focusing on what is good, pure, and holy. Jesus says the narrow road is difficult, and to be His disciple, you must deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Him. He gave several qualifications on several instances where He said that “Unless you…you cannot be my disciple.” As Christians, we should be paying very close attention to those verses because we are technically His disciples and if we are not abiding by those, I fear we may hear the dreaded. “Depart from me, I never knew you, you who practice lawlessness.” Now it is important to note that I am not saying you can’t listen to music, you can’t watch shows or movies or read books or hang out with friends. I am not your father nor God. You have free will, you can do what you want to do. You can also do these things in a manner that is pleasing to God that brings God glory. I am merely saying you should be wise in all that you do, and be sure that in what you do, you are careful to put God first and that you acknowledge Him in everything. I am saying model your life after the life of Christ and the apostles. The Bible is not just a great read but it is deeper than that. It is a guidebook; it gives a peek into how to properly live your life. It is a guidebook on how to be a disciple of Jesus. Several times in Scripture, Jesus said that “unless you…you cannot be my disciple.” One thing I have learned is that when you seek diligently after God and seek His will for your life and you continue to deny self and learn more about God and His ways, dedicating your time to Him and reading Christian books and watching videos about Him and about the Bible, you gain a joy like no other. You find peace and joy like no other. “Praise YHWH. How joyful are those that fear Adonai and delight in obeying His commands” (Psalm 112:1). See also Psalms 1. The joy and peace is indeed something to have within you! I used to be a pessimist! I used to suffer from depression and suicidal thoughts and attempts! God has been changing me! God should come first in your life. You should love God above all else and all others,

including yourself. If God does not come first, you will have a hard time hearing the Holy Spirit.

Object lesson:

Matthew 14:28–31. Here, we see Jesus walking on water during a storm. Peter calls out to Him and asks Jesus to beckon to Him and Jesus tells him to come. In our lives, without Jesus, we are in that storm, scared, depressed, lonely, not knowing what’s going on or what to expect. Then we see a light, a person who is unbothered by the storm. We say hey, we want what you have, to be calm and just walking through this storm as if it wasn’t there. They learn the gospel and focus their attention on Jesus and begin walking on water. The waves rose and fell around Peter, crashing against his legs, and he became distracted and lost heart and instead of looking at and keeping his eyes on Jesus, he looked to the world about him and so he fell into the water. The moment we take our eyes off Jesus and shift our focus away from Him and become distracted by the world, we fall into sin. Peter had to call out to Jesus to save him, just like we have to call out to Jesus to forgive us and help us begin anew again. Jesus pulls Peter out of the water and puts him safely in the boat and tells the storm to cease. If you keep your focus on Jesus, then you will not sink.

Chapter 13

Qualifications of Being a Disciple

All throughout the Scripture, we can see that those who followed after the ways of God died to self. Yeshua HaMashiach (Jesus the Messiah) gave us many commandments that guide us to denying ourselves and then the apostles in their letters gave us even more guidance in more detail about how we can deny ourselves. Not only that, we also know that “all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16). So we could go back to the Old Testament and include those scriptures. After all, Paul was talking about those scriptures when he wrote 2 Timothy. In the New Testament, Yeshua gave specific qualifications to be His disciple and one of them was obeying His commands! We know Yeshua is God, and therefore, all the commands of God must be obeyed to be considered worthy of being a disciple of Yeshua HaMashiach. Yeshua tells us to be perfect as His Father in heaven is perfect. To be perfect, we must serve Him with all our heart, all our soul, all our mind, all our strength. He should always be on our mind, so that whatever we do, we seek to do all to the glory of God and not to the glory of ourselves so that we should boast in ourselves. No, we should boast in God, and if we are honored for our work due to doing the glory of God, that honor we bestow upon God since He is the one that taught us to do it for Him.

If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his own father, mother, wife, children, brothers, and sisters—and yes, even his own life—he cannot be My disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and follow Me cannot be My disciple… So in the same way, whoever does not renounce all that he has, cannot be My disciple. (Luke 14:26, 27, 33)

Whoever loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. (Matthew 10:37–39)

And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. (Matthew 22:37)

Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. (Matthew 6:25–34)

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18–20)

No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and self. (Matthew 6:24)

So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples.” (John 8:31)

If you love me, you will keep my commandments. (John 14:15)

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. (John 13:34–35)

The verses included are just but an introduction to discipleship. A true disciple of Christ will read and study the Bible which is our handbook and will go on to apply it to their daily living. For if a person who loves the Lord obey His commands, then we should know every one of His commands to obey. This is the narrow and difficult road Yeshua was speaking about, this is the cross of denying self that we must bear that is talked about in Scripture. This is how to be a follower of the way, which is what the original disciples of Christ called themselves in the AD first century. I would hope that most Christians would seek to have a faith like that of the apostles and disciples of the first century. Apostasy soon followed after in the second and third century which has continued its growth and the fungus has spread throughout the church today. It is time to remove the dross for the kingdom of heaven is at hand for we are coming up on the two thousandth anniversary of the death of our Lord and Savior in this twenty-first century. In the next chapter, you will learn about removing dross.

Chapter 14

The Joy of Obedience

In previous chapter, you learned what it takes to be a disciple of Yeshua HaMashiach (Jesus the Messiah). I am sure it was a hard chapter to read. Many would rush to the legalistic sounds of it. I assure you though it is far from legalistic. As I have stated before in this book, legalism entails earning your salvation through obeying the law and doing good works and you cannot earn salvation. No, the previous chapter is basically how you prove you are truly saved and how much you love God. It teaches you the path of dying to yourself. This chapter is devoted to the joy that comes after death, the joy that one has in obeying the commands of God.

Happy are they who do not walk in the advice of the wicked, or stand in the way of sinners, or sat in the seat of scoffers. But their delight is in the law of Adonai, and on His law they meditate day and night. They will be like a tree planted over streams of water, producing its fruit during its season. Its leaf never droops—but in all they do, they succeed… For Adonai knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked leads to ruin. (Psalm 1:1–3, 6)

Psalm 119 is one of the best Psalms and ages in the whole Bible that can truly express the full joy of what it is to obey God, and so I have included it. It was, after all, my inspiration for this chapter and the previous one. Upon listening to it and reading it and then writing it into this book, I can truly say that what is written in this psalm is the desire I have within myself or at least a desire to have the same desire, and I would hope the same for any who call themselves Christian.

How happy are those whose ways are blameless, who walk according to the law of Adonai. Happy are those who keep His statutes and seek Him with all their heart, they do nothing wrong but walk only in His ways. You have instructed us to diligently/carefully keep your commandments. If only my actions were steadfast to observe Your decrees! Then I would not be ashamed when I consider all Your commands. I will praise You with an upright heart as I learn Your righteous laws. I will obey Your decrees; please do not give up on me! (Psalm 119:1–8)

(I can honestly say that God will never give up on you. As long as your heart’s desire is God, He will continue to work on you and reveal Himself to you. Ever since I left Bible school and traveled around, moving from job to job, I have seen the guiding hand of God directing my paths. I could not see it at the time, no, but as I look back, I see His hand. Even in the darkest moments of my life after Bible school where I became more worldly and stopped attending church and stopped reading my Bible, God still found a way to reach out to me and call me back to Him.)

How can a young person stay on the path of purity? By living according to Your word. I seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from Your commands. I have hidden Your word in my heart that I might not sin against You. Praise be to You, Adonai; teach me Your decrees. With my lips I recount all the laws that come from Your mouth. I rejoice in following Your statutes as one rejoices in great riches. I meditate on Your commandments and reflect on Your ways. I delight in Your decrees; I will not neglect Your word. (Psalm 119:9–16)

(The battle for purity is indeed that—a battle! I would recommend watching “Taking Control of our Thoughts” by Dr Charles Stanley on YouTube. I have discussed this a little bit within this book. You cannot hope to battle such a giant while you are living a life that is of the world. The things you take in define what your temptations will be. The things you watch, read, and listen to. When you find your delight in the law of God and meditate upon His word instead of the things of this world, you will find that your battles are much easier won.)

Be good to Your servant while I live, that I may obey Your word. Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in Your law. I am a stranger on earth; do not hide Your commands from me. My soul is consumed with longing for your laws at all times. You rebuke the arrogant, those who wander away from obeying Your commands are cursed. Remove from me their scorn and contempt, for I keep your laws. Though rulers sit together and slander me, Your servant will meditate on Your decrees. I find pleasure in Your laws; they provide me with wise advice. (Psalm 119:17–24)

(We are indeed strangers on this earth. We see this in the New Testament several times. We are not citizens of earth but of heaven, we are to be in the world and not of the world. The true Christian is a spiritual being while those who are still of the world and seek after the pleasures of the world are considered to be carnal Christians. The latter would be hard-pressed to understand this book, let alone the Bible.)

I am laid low in the dust; preserve my life according to Your word. I gave an of my ways and You answered me; teach me Your decrees. Help me to understand the way of Your commandments, that I may meditate on Your wonderful deeds. My soul is weary with sadness; strengthen me according to Your word. Remove from me the way of lying; be gracious to me and teach me Your law. I have chosen the way of faithfulness; I have set my heart on Your laws. I hold fast to Your statutes, Adonai; do not let me be ashamed. I run in the path of Your commands, for You have broadened my understanding. (Psalm 119:25–32)

(When we seek to obey the laws of God and look to please Him, He gives us a better understanding of the Scripture. You can’t just read the Bible and think you understand what it says automatically; no, you will have a better chance of understanding the Bible when you obey God’s commands and work to live a life that is pleasing to Him. For when you do, you will have the presence of the Holy Spirit with you, and He will help you understand the book He wrote and even be

able to better understand God.)

Teach me, Lord, the way of Your decrees, that I may follow it to the end. Give me understanding and I will obey Your laws, I will put them into practice with all my heart. Guide me in the way of Your commands, for that is where my joy is found. Give me an longing for Your laws rathan a love for material gain. Turn my eyes away from worthless things; preserve my life according to Your word. Fulfill Your promise to Your servant, so that You may be feared. Help me to leave behind my shameful ways; for your laws are good. How I long for Your commandments! In Your righteousness preserve my life. (Psalm 119:33–40)

(This part of of Psalm 119 would be a great thing to pray every night and every morning. Indeed, it is my hope that God will help us put His laws into practice with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, so that we can truly serve Him and be lights for Him in this dark world.)

Adonai, give me Your unfailing love, the salvation that You promised me, then I can answer anyone who taunts me, for I trust in Your word. Never take Your word of truth from my mouth, for I have put my hope in Your laws. I will always obey Your law, forever and ever. I will walk about in freedom for I have sought out Your precepts. I will speak of Your statutes before kings and will not be put to shame, for I delight in Your commands because I love them. I reach out for Your commands, which I love, that I may meditate on Your decrees. (Psalm 119:41–48)

(We now have that promise of salvation! He has already given it to us! How much more so are we now able to walk about in freedom and speak to the whole world about His salvation which is Christ and His statutes? Even if we are in prison, we can walk about freely and gladly proclaiming the good news to all who would hear!)

Your word to Your servant, for You have given me hope. My comfort in my suffering is this: Your promise preserves my life. The arrogant mock me unmercifully, but I do not turn from Your law. I , Lord, Your ancient laws, and I find comfort in them. Indignation grips me because of the wicked, who have forsaken Your law. Your decrees are the theme of my song wherever I lodge. I Your name at night, Adonai, so that I may keep Your law. This has been my practice: I obey Your precepts. (Psalm 119:49–56)

(Indignation grips me because of the wicked who have rejected the laws of God, how true is this? The world is in turmoil and suffering because the wicked would seek to do their own will and satisfy their own selfish desires than to do what is good and obey the laws of God. How can people who read the Bible think that it is bad? If people obeyed the laws of God, there would be no injustices; there would be peace and prosperity! It is why I long for the return of Christ because it is only then that we can have true peace and justice in the whole earth.)

You are my portion, Lord; I have promised to obey Your words. I have sought Your face with all my heart; be gracious to me according to Your promise. I have considered the direction of my life, and I turned to follow your laws. I will hasten and not delay to obey Your commands. Though the wicked bind me with ropes, I will not forget Your law. At midnight I rise to give You thanks for Your righteous laws. I am a friend to all who fear You, to all who follow Your commandments. The earth is filled with Your love, Lord; teach me Your decrees. (Psalm 119:57–64)

(If you haven’t yet considered the direction your life is going—I had to consider the way my life was going on several occasions and turn toward Jesus—I would suggest to always look at the way your life is going and keep turning toward Jesus. The road will only get more and more narrow. You will find that it will become more smooth because it is the same path tread by the saints before us and by Christ before them and by the prophets of old. It starts off full of rocks, ditches, and mountains to climb over and valleys to go through, but as we near the end, it becomes easy as a habit.)

Do good to Your servant according to Your word, Lord. Teach me knowledge and good judgment, for I trust Your commands. I used to go astray until you disciplined me, but now I obey Your word. You are good, and what You do is good; teach me Your decrees. Though the arrogant have smeared me with lies, I keep Your commandments with all my heart. Their hearts are callous and unfeeling, but I delight in Your law. It was good for me to suffer for I learned how to obey your laws. Your instruction is more precious to me than any amount of wealth. (Psalm 119:65–72)

(The suffering in your life could be proof of your lawless lifestyle. God only disciplines His children, we know this from Scripture; for example, in Proverbs 3:12, “The Lord disciplines those He loves.” We know from John 3:16 that God loves the whole world. I would argue mental illnesses, such as depression, are a result of a sinful lifestyle. I suffered with depression from age four to thirty-one and had many suicide attempts. Once I started giving up the things of the world, I stopped having depression and suicidal thoughts. We are also not supposed to hate being disciplined either, according to many scriptures, for it brings about obedience to God and that brings about peace, joy, and happiness which is far more valuable than wealth and material things.)

Your hands made me and formed me; now give me the sense to follow Your commands. May those who fear You rejoice when they see me, for I have put my hope in Your word. I know, Lord, that Your laws are righteous, you disciplined me because I needed it. May Your unfailing love be my comfort, according to Your promise to Your servant. Let Your comion come to me that I may live, for Your law is my delight. May the arrogant be put to shame for wronging me without cause; but I will meditate on Your commandments. Let me be united with all who fear You and understand your laws. May I wholeheartedly follow Your decrees, that I may not be ashamed. (Psalm 119:73–80)

(Verse 79 has indeed been a wish of mine. I have found a church that is as close to this verse as I can get. I hope to find many other like individuals though for

the church is small and, well, I am single. If I am to be single though, so be it for my delight is in God and I do wish to be unequally yoked to even a Christian woman who may be a believer but not a follower. I hope though that the church will grow and more will come to be like-minded. You can ask me about my church if you wish.)

Oh, how I love Your laws! I dwell on them all day long. Your commands are always with me and make me wiser than my enemies. I have more insight than all my teachers, for I am always thinking on Your laws. I have more understanding than the elders, for I obey Your commandments. I have kept my feet from every evil path so that I might obey Your word. I have not departed from Your laws, for You have taught me well. How sweet are Your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! I gain understanding from Your commandments; therefore I hate every wrong path. (Psalm 119:97–104)

(Jesus commanded us that when we go and make disciples, we are to teach them to obey His commands and to baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Baptism is part of obedience to Him. We are even to train a child up in the way they should go. All new disciples are like little children, and we should be training them up in the way they should go, teaching them obedience to Scripture and not allowing them to dictate what is taught in the pulpit as they do now. They don’t want to be disciplined, they don’t want to feel ashamed of their lifestyle choice. In order to keep them coming to church, the church has to teach obedience, but instead, has moved on to preaching a prosperity gospel and has gone into apostasy.)

Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path. I have taken an oath and confirmed it, that I will follow Your righteous laws. I have suffered much; preserve my life, Lord, according to Your word. Adonai, accept the willing praise of my mouth, and teach me Your laws. Though I constantly take my life in my hands, I will not forget Your law. The wicked have set a snare for me, but I have not strayed from Your commandments. Your laws are my treasure forever; they are the joy of my heart. My heart is set on keeping Your decrees to the very

end. (Psalm 119:105–112)

(We see here that the Word of God is indeed meant to be a guidebook for our lives. We have even made it into a song: “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and light unto my path.” It is meant to be followed and applied to our lives and not rejected and thrown away, so we may live as we please. We are no longer the creature we were when were in our treses of sin. Once we became Christians and have been baptized into the death of Christ, we have been set free from the bondage of sin and have been made alive in bondage to righteousness. We sing the song, “I Surrender All,” yet how often do you go home and not surrender your time to God and just live your normal day-to-day life without proclaiming the gospel or obeying the laws of God? Your singing does not honor God if you don’t keep the words you keep singing; you are lying to God in those songs you sing! Just as He was not pleased with the sacrifices and incense that the priests offered up, so, too, He is not pleased with the praises you sing if you do not mean and live the words that you sing! Do not be double-minded.)

I hate double-minded people, but I love your law. You are my refuge and my shield; Your word is my source of hope. Get out of my life you evildoers, for I intend to keep the commands of my God! Adonai, sustain me according to Your promise, and I will live; don’t let my hopes be crushed. Uphold me, and I will be delivered; I will always have regard for Your decrees. You reject all who stray from Your decrees, for their delusions come to nothing. All the wicked of the earth You discard like dross; therefore I love your statutes. My flesh trembles in fear of You; I stand in awe of your laws. (Psalm 119:113–120)

(Dross is what is at the top of metal when it is molten. God has been referred to refining us as gold. To get the gold to be at its purest, it must be put through fire and become molten, so that all the impurities will be at the top and the impurities (dross) is then scooped out and thrown away. What is left is pure gold. We would do well to remove the dross from our lives and to begin seeking to live our lives holy, set apart from the world, as we are meant to. Christians are called to be a holy priesthood of believers, and those who seek to live a righteous life will

actually be allowed to see God. I am not sure about any of you, but I know that for myself, I want to meet my Creator face to face and be able to worship at His feet.)

Your statutes are wonderful; therefore I obey them. The unfolding of Your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple. I open my mouth and pant, longing for Your commands. Turn to me and have mercy on me, as You always do to those who love Your name. Direct my footsteps according to Your word; let no sin rule over me. Redeem me from human oppression, that I may obey Your commandments. Make Your face shine on Your servant and teach me Your decrees. Streams of tears flow from my eyes, for Your law is not obeyed. (Psalm 119:129–136)

(“As the deer panteth for water so my soul thirst for Thee” [Psalm 42:1]. When I read verse 131 here, it made me think of a dog drooling over its food, waiting for the master to feed it. Psalm 42 also came to mind. To think that one can attain such a longing for commandments. I have run across many people these days— usually Calvinists—that harp on me adding commandments. I retort, “Where have I added anything to the Scripture?” They are never able to answer. I do not add to the commandments, I only call for obedience to the entirety of Scripture for the whole Bible is a book of commandments. Love fullfills all of them for if you truly love God, you would obey His commandments!)

Chapter 15

Read Your Bible

I will end this book with this chapter. I received revelation from the Holy Spirit once, regarding reading the Bible and I want to share it with you. In my church, we are taught to receive communion in the right spirit, and in reverence for as often as we do it is in remembrance of the sacrifice that Yeshua made for us on the cross at Calvary and in remembrance of the last supper. We should receive His flesh with reverence. In the same way, we should read the Word in reverence. During a Bible reading I was doing for my followers on TikTok, I was skimming through Hebrews to find something worth sharing on my feed. Soon after, I received from the Holy Spirit to do a Bible study on a few verses and that lead me to do a Bible study on more verses. The second Bible study is the one I want to focus on. In John chapter 1, we see the Word is God, the written word, the law is God and was made flesh. Yeshua said it is written that man shall not live by bread alone but by the Word of God. Yeshua is the Word. Yeshua says that He is the Bread of Life. He also says to Abide in Him and He will Abide in us. We should spend our spare time abiding in scripture achieving a deeper understanding of it and in doing so His word will not depart from us. We should read the Word of God in the same reverence we receive holy communion. Submitting ourselves before God, becoming clean, and asking the Holy Spirit to be our guide in reading the Word, and to help us write what we read on our minds and hearts for a constant remembrance to convict us and to change us into the image of God, so that we can always be ready to give an answer and to uplift those who are weaker in the faith. I cannot stress enough how important it is to read your Bible daily and throughout the day. If you are doing nothing else during the day, read Christian books and the Bible instead of playing video games, watching TV and movies, instead of focusing on yourself. You will grow so much closer to God in doing so and so much stronger in your

faith. We don’t need the distractions of this life and the world; we only need God. When we focus on Him first, all else comes after. God bless you all. Authors I recommend to grow your faith:

God A. W. Tozer C. S. Lewis Charles Spurgeon

Preachers I recommend:

Billy Graham Irwin Lutzer Charles Stanley John MacArthur

About the Author

The author was born to a Baptist family in 1987. His family, like most, had some difficulties getting along, but God directed his path, eventually leading him to study at a three-year Bible school in a small town in New Hampshire. He spent his three years studying the Bible and developing his relationship with God. Upon leaving Bible school, the author soon attended a Bible college for only one semester due to family sickness and feeling the guiding hand of God, leading him to take care of his family. After making friends and learning much about himself and the world as well as the apostasy of the Christian church, God began leading the author to change his life and submit himself more to God so that the author would live the crucified life. It was once the author had begun making changes that his life began changing for the better and began receiving more blessings and revelations from God, and the author felt the need to share what he learned.