The
first word in Yeshua’s first message was TESHUVAH:
From that time
Jesus began to preach and to say,
“TESHUVAH,
for the Kingdom of Heaven is here!”
(Matthew 4:17)
TESHUVAH
English
translators translate the words above as -- “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!” Today people think
of “repent” a ritual that is done as part of “being saved,” or “a prayer that
is prayed after committing a sin.” That is not what “TESHUVAH” meant to Yeshua
or his Jewish audience. They knew that Yeshua was “teaching a way life.”
God
created to humans to be creatures just above the animals and below Him – creatures with an Earth soul and His image.
Humans are also creatures with a freewill. That means humans do things like
animals and things like God. Like animals we must do things like eat, drink, find
shelter, reproduce, etc. to survive. We also do things like cooperate,
communicate, create, etc., things that no other creatures are capable of doing.
At the extremes humans have the potentialities
acting like wild predatory animals that
instinctively kill and harm any creatures
that cross their paths or do extraordinary
acts of selfless courage to help and save lives on the other side of the world.
But
humans must be taught how to “do things like God.” The first step is learning
that God uses a standard to measure His actions, the TOV Standard. For an action to measure “TOV” it must be “beautiful and pleasing to God’s eyes.”
● Actions that are TOV are actions that protect
lives, make lives more functional and increase the quality of life.
● TOV actions are like acts shepherds do to guard
and take care of the flock.
All
humans are empowered by virtue of being created as humans to do acts of TOV.
When God “blessed” the first two
humans He created, He empowered them to reveal His image by doing acts of TOV. He
created humans to be His Co-Shepherds on the Earth for all living things, including
their fellow humans. God’s Co-Shepherds are guardians and caretakers of His
flock.
Shepherding is a divine attribute and potentiality that
exists in every person.
But
humans have an Earth soul and have the power to “reveal the image of an animal”
through their actions in ways that harm other people. In the Bible those
actions are called “sins” and “transgressions.”
● All transgression and sin are the natural and
inevitable consequence of human's straying from God’s way of life.
● TESHUVAH
is the way God created for humans to “return to His way of life.”
● TESHUVAH
is a “perquisite for divine forgiveness.”
TESHUVAH is a process that
requires the following:
1. experience
genuine remorse for the sin committed
2. cease
doing the sin
3. restore
or repair the damage done to the person harmed by the sin
4. return
to God’s path of living according to His instructions
It
is important to understand that “a sin is
a matter between two parties in which one who does not fulfill his obligations
in relation to another.” Sin is viewed as a stain on a person, not an
intrinsic quality of a human. Creatures created in the image of God do acts
that fail to measure TOV and become “stained” by sinning. Doing TESHUVAH repairs the damage and cleanses the stain of sin, so
that person and return to God’s path and community.
In
some cases, “repairing” damages done
by the sin is beyond a human’s capacity – murder,
physically or psychologically returning the other person to what they were
before the sin. There are also times that a person sins and is unaware of
what they have done to adversely affect other humans and who those people are. In
those cases, the sinner is instructed to do acts of TZEDAQAH – these are like a shepherd would do when he became of
members of the flock needing help and unable to meet their most basic needs – food, water, shelter, medical attention, security,
comfort, guidance, etc.
TESHUVAH
is not a ritual – it is a way of life! “Repentance”
is not praying a prayer to be saved or to receive forgiveness from God after adversely
affecting and harming someone else.
God does not
forgive sins humans commit against other humans until after TESHUVAH had been
completed and the person sinned against forgives the sinner. Let me repeat
this very important statement:
God DOES NOT
FORGIVE sins humans commit against other humans until after TESHUVAH had been
completed and the person sinned against forgives the sinner.
It
is a fact that humans are imperfect creatures. God knows it. God created us to
be exactly what we are – creatures above
animals and below Him. The normal course of life of humans includes straying
from God’s path, doing TESHUVAH, returning to God’s path, straying from God’s path,
doing TESHUVAH, returning to God’s path, straying from God’s path, doing
TESHUVAH, returning to God’s path, etc. The goal, just like with learning every
other human skill, is for us to become
better and better at “staying on God’s path” as we mature.
There
will be times when someone else strays and their actions affect your life in
adverse ways, and other times that you stray and affect their lives in adverse
ways. The followers of Yeshua were taught their roles in successfully doing
TESHUAVAH as the one committing the sin and as the one being harmed by the sin.
TESHUVAH created transparency in
relationships.
For
people that are members of Yeshua’s movement, they understood that when they
prayed that “God’s will be done on earth,”
it was their responsibility “to actively do
whatever it takes to be the answer to the prayer.” It is God’s will that
TESHUVAH be done on the Earth and they are the only ones that can do TESHUVAH
on the Earth. When they prayed, “forgive
our sins as we forgive others” they understood that “TESHUVAH was part of the process of forgiveness.”
I
wasn’t taught this as a member of the church I grew up in. I wasn’t taught this
in my education to become a minister. I taught people to pray prayers that
God would not answer, because their actions did not change and they never faced
the ones they harmed. Yeshua preached “TESHUVAH”
first because it was the first step to entering the Kingdom of Heaven – a kingdom open to every Co-Shepherd of God.
Yeshua intended
for the places where his followers gathered to be the meeting places of God’s
Co-Shepherds.
His followers are to reveal God’s Image through
their lives to their generation.
What would
happen if every Christian -- and members of every church -- in your community
understood just what TESHUVAH meant to Yeshua?
We created the Real
Yeshua Project to empower people by helping them discover what the Real Yeshua
taught.
Why? It is not “get them into heaven”
-- it is because “they are desperately
needed today right here on earth!”
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