Just to be Clear

My Grandma was recently telling my parents all about the jewelry that a Jewish man in her retirement community had made for her. She told my folks that she had greeted him with "Shabbat Shalom" (Sabbath peace) as I had coached her, and he was impressed...because, as my Grandma says, "he speaks Jewish, but Dago too". She cracks me up. Anyway, in her telling the story, she shared that she told the man that she learned how to greet him "in Jewish" from her grand-daughter, "who converted". Sigh.

This at first made me grin at the misunderstanding of our faith and practice on my Grandmother's part. But I was left feeling a little sad and uneasy. I could go on and on about how we are being led to follow Jesus--Yeshua--in this walk of discipleship by none other than the Father...and how this walk would not be foreign to the Jewish Messiah that we serve. I could abandon personal conviction in order to look like every other Christian on the planet, so as to not confuse anybody. Why not ditch our Saturday Sabbath, feast days and other sorts of things that have been seen by Christendom as vestigial organs left over from the early church? These distinctives are causing the confusion, right? I guess I have thought about that. But, I simply can't do it. For lots of reasons...just can't. In one respect, because the blessings so outweigh the burden of being "different", "misunderstood" or "alone". But in another, because we are fully pursuaded of the path that we are on.*

But I simply want to be clear: only one conversion has ever taken place in my heart--that from being an enemy of God, to being one redeemed by the blood of the Lamb; who knows and follows Yeshua of Nazareth as best as I can from day to day. And who is He to me?

Well, he is my King....just to be clear.

This video that says it better than I can:

*No, we don't think that we are immune from error--do you think you are?
Didn't think so...since only humble friends, family and strangers visit here. :)