“Keep pursuing shalom with everyone and the holiness without which no one will see the Lord” (Messianic Jews (Heb) 12:14). Grace and Shalom to your home. I say it and type it several times a day. I need grace because it is the only way I receive righteousness. I need shalom because that is wholeness and well-being as well as peace. I cannot be at peace if I am not whole. And being whole means health physically, mentally, and spiritually. And the only way to get shalom is through a right relationship with my body, my mind, and my God.
I cannot be at peace with others when I am at war with myself. When I started this journey, I was at war with myself. My body, my mind, and my spirit were totally out of alignment with being right. I was a mess. So, I started getting my body and my mind right. I stopped poisoning myself and started focusing on health. As my body and mind began to get healthy, I began to get right with God. And once I started to get well-being in myself, then a peace with others began.
So, I know what it was like to be at war. Prior to shalom, I was constantly at war with myself and others. I was at war because I was not whole. I was not right. I was not well.
BUT, I also now understand what it is like to be at peace. It is so very difficult to be right with God and be at war, “How blessed are those who make peace! for they will be called sons of God” (Mattityahu (Mat) 5:9). I needed to seek shalom with myself and a right relationship with Him before I could move forward and love my neighbor. And everything in my walk with Him hinges on listening to Him when He says, “‘You are to love Adonai your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.’ This is the greatest and most important mitzvah . And a second is similar to it, ‘You are to love your neighbor as yourself.’ All of the Torah and the Prophets are dependent on these two mitzvot” (Mattityahu (Mat) 22:37-40). I cannot be whole, I cannot be well, I cannot be at peace, if I am not right with Him. Something is going to need to get aligned if I am not in a right relationship with God.
How can I be right with Him and not possess the fruits of Him indwelling within me, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility, self control. Nothing in the Torah stands against such things” (Galatians (Gal) 5:22-23)? It is not possible. Folks will try to make excuses. I will try to make excuses. BUT, “You will recognize them by their fruit” (Mattityahu (Mat) 7:16). And be warned, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord!’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, only those who do what my Father in heaven wants” (Mattityahu (Mat) 7:21). “So, everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a sensible man who built his house on bedrock. The rain fell, the rivers flooded, the winds blew and beat against that house, but it didn’t collapse, because its foundation was on rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a stupid man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, the rivers flooded, the wind blew and beat against that house, and it collapsed — and its collapse was horrendous” (Mattityahu (Mat) 7:24-27)!
Seek first His Kingdom which rests on the foundation of love.
Grace and Shalom to your home. The Kingdom of God is now!
I love you. I forgive you. Have a blessed and abundant day!
