Post by R' Y'hoshua Moshe on May 2, 2004 20:29:06 GMT -8
I was not raised with a Jewish heritage, although my mother’s last name is Schuster which I found is a Jewish last name. When I recently asked her about this she did not deny it, but asked “if I was Jewish would I still believe in Jesus?”. At any rate, I was raised Roman Catholic by my parents whom are now divorced. I really didn’t learn much about the truth while being raised in the Roman Catholic church.
In fact, by the end of eighth grade I had tried marijuana for the first time. I took my parents car while they were gone and drove around while I was under age…One time I actually got pulled over by the police. When I went to high school my friends were people who were into drugs, and the party lifestyle. My friends, and I were chased by the police not a few times. I actually went to juvenile detention for a night one time, after I was caught by police, and tried to escape to no avail. I was no doubt on the wrong path, and one that was leading to destruction. During this time I did have a belief in God that basically allowed me to do whatever I wanted (even the devils believe).
During my teenage years I prayed that G’d would deliver to me my wife, and that if he would do this...I would be his soldier, and servant. I know, this is a selfish prayer…what can I say, I was a heathen! But, when I was eighteen years old I met my wife Nessa while I was working at Gold’s Gym in Spokane, Wa. She was just a member at the time, but later she became an employee there as well. Nessa was a believer in Messiah at the time, and attended a Four Square Pentecostal Church….and she started taking me there. She had also bought me a Bible.
Nessa challenged me on a few scriptural issues that I was apposed to. So, I picked up my new Bible and started to read the Gospels to prove her wrong. I thought I knew what the Bible said because I attended “Religion” class at my Catholic school. After reading the Gospels it was as if the Spirit of Elohim witnessed to my spirit that it was true, and I prayed to my Heavenly Father right there, and then. To Him I acknowledged faith in His son, and the gospel of the Kingdom. I acknowledged that I was indeed a sinner in need of Him, and His redemption. I established Him as the authority in my life from that day on. I believe this was when I received the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit). Nessa, and I knew each other for about a year before we got married.
During this time I had an abnormal spiritual hunger for His word, and I devoured it (which I still do)! I sought out other like-minded men in the church that we were attending, and I started to attend a Saturday morning men’s fellowship/Bible study. After about two years of attending this men’s group I started to help co-lead this group. I found the first few years of attending this group spiritually fruitful. I grew in leaps, and bounds with Adonai. I had accountability, and brothers to sharpen me in Adonai’s word. It was one of my main highlights of my week.
Around the same time, I had met a few guys whom were old friends of my wife that were “
observant believers in Messiah”. I was absolutely against what they believed, and thought they were in total bondage to legalism. My wife, and I went to a few of their meetings, and I had met with their teacher whom I tried to convince was on the wrong path. I had written close to a twenty-page study supposedly refuting their beliefs. You see…I believed at the time the false teaching that Messiah did away with His Father’s Law/.
At any rate, I was invited to go to a Passover Seder at Pastor Rick’s house (their teacher) in which Adonai used to show me the truth of His. Through that Passover Seder the gospel came alive in a way that I had never seen it before. Suddenly the Old Testament was making a little more sense. This was my beginning in regards to based faith in Yeshua The Messiah. After the Seder I still did not believe that YHVH’s was for believers in Messiah today, but this experience planted some important seeds that sprouted with much fruit later on. I got to a point in my walk with God that I prayed honestly to know the truth in regards to His whatever it was. This was kind of scary because I was opening my heart to the possibility that I had been deceived in thinking that His was irrelevant.
Through all of this my hunger for His word grew even more, and Adonai started to show me the fallacies in my arguments against based faith in Messiah. I read the Bible from front to back time, and time, and time again. Through this God showed me beyond a shadow of a doubt that based faith in Yeshua The Messiah was His good, and perfect will, and that sadly…I had been deceived along with a multitude of others. It was like a veil had been lifted over my reading of the scriptures, and everything seemed so clear. I couldn’t understand how I could have missed the truth as I had read through the whole Bible on numerous occasions. I destroyed my study trying to refute based faith in Messiah, and started to write studies refuting what I had previously believed. I also started to keep our Heavenly Father’s fourth commandment (Shabbat/Sabbath), which was a key in my walk with Adonai, and started to fellowship with the congregation that I had so zealously opposed. This was an enormous blessing, and God greatly increased my family’s peace, and understanding of God, and His will for our life.
Of course during all of this I continued to attend the original men’s fellowship/Bible study that I first attended from the beginning of my walk, and which I was then co-leading every Saturday morning. But, I started teaching based faith in Messiah to the men. This made the other co-leader very nervous because he believed what I formerly did in regards to Messiah, and His Father’s Law/. I did this for a couple years, and several men whom were already believers started to keep Sabbath, and some of the other Feasts. When this starting to happen, I believe the co-leader was threatened, and he and another member of the group invited me to a meeting. In the meeting, they informed me that if I continued to teach based faith in Yeshua The Messiah…I could no longer teach, and would not be welcome in the small men’s study/fellowship any longer. I had one last meeting with this group, explained my position, and that I was given the option of stop teaching based faith, or I would be asked to leave. So, that was my last time in that group. I still keep in contact with several of the men that attended that men’s fellowship. And, one of them attended this year’s Pesach Seder!
I am now one of the directors of a based Messianic Fellowship in Spokane, Wa. and am serving YHVH my Elohim with my whole heart, soul, strength, and in spirit, and truth! I am constantly being sanctified with each passing day to the glory of The King Of Kings! Blessed be He!! Baruch HaShem Adonai!!! So you see, Adonai honored my prayer, and used my wife to deliver me to the Truth, and to Messiah!
I am not worthy…I have been bought with a precious, and costly price. I now live a life of love, and obedience…yet not I but Messiah in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
B’Shem Yeshua HaMashiach,
Reuel
In fact, by the end of eighth grade I had tried marijuana for the first time. I took my parents car while they were gone and drove around while I was under age…One time I actually got pulled over by the police. When I went to high school my friends were people who were into drugs, and the party lifestyle. My friends, and I were chased by the police not a few times. I actually went to juvenile detention for a night one time, after I was caught by police, and tried to escape to no avail. I was no doubt on the wrong path, and one that was leading to destruction. During this time I did have a belief in God that basically allowed me to do whatever I wanted (even the devils believe).
During my teenage years I prayed that G’d would deliver to me my wife, and that if he would do this...I would be his soldier, and servant. I know, this is a selfish prayer…what can I say, I was a heathen! But, when I was eighteen years old I met my wife Nessa while I was working at Gold’s Gym in Spokane, Wa. She was just a member at the time, but later she became an employee there as well. Nessa was a believer in Messiah at the time, and attended a Four Square Pentecostal Church….and she started taking me there. She had also bought me a Bible.
Nessa challenged me on a few scriptural issues that I was apposed to. So, I picked up my new Bible and started to read the Gospels to prove her wrong. I thought I knew what the Bible said because I attended “Religion” class at my Catholic school. After reading the Gospels it was as if the Spirit of Elohim witnessed to my spirit that it was true, and I prayed to my Heavenly Father right there, and then. To Him I acknowledged faith in His son, and the gospel of the Kingdom. I acknowledged that I was indeed a sinner in need of Him, and His redemption. I established Him as the authority in my life from that day on. I believe this was when I received the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit). Nessa, and I knew each other for about a year before we got married.
During this time I had an abnormal spiritual hunger for His word, and I devoured it (which I still do)! I sought out other like-minded men in the church that we were attending, and I started to attend a Saturday morning men’s fellowship/Bible study. After about two years of attending this men’s group I started to help co-lead this group. I found the first few years of attending this group spiritually fruitful. I grew in leaps, and bounds with Adonai. I had accountability, and brothers to sharpen me in Adonai’s word. It was one of my main highlights of my week.
Around the same time, I had met a few guys whom were old friends of my wife that were “
observant believers in Messiah”. I was absolutely against what they believed, and thought they were in total bondage to legalism. My wife, and I went to a few of their meetings, and I had met with their teacher whom I tried to convince was on the wrong path. I had written close to a twenty-page study supposedly refuting their beliefs. You see…I believed at the time the false teaching that Messiah did away with His Father’s Law/. At any rate, I was invited to go to a Passover Seder at Pastor Rick’s house (their teacher) in which Adonai used to show me the truth of His
. Through that Passover Seder the gospel came alive in a way that I had never seen it before. Suddenly the Old Testament was making a little more sense. This was my beginning in regards to based faith in Yeshua The Messiah. After the Seder I still did not believe that YHVH’s was for believers in Messiah today, but this experience planted some important seeds that sprouted with much fruit later on. I got to a point in my walk with God that I prayed honestly to know the truth in regards to His whatever it was. This was kind of scary because I was opening my heart to the possibility that I had been deceived in thinking that His was irrelevant. Through all of this my hunger for His word grew even more, and Adonai started to show me the fallacies in my arguments against
based faith in Messiah. I read the Bible from front to back time, and time, and time again. Through this God showed me beyond a shadow of a doubt that based faith in Yeshua The Messiah was His good, and perfect will, and that sadly…I had been deceived along with a multitude of others. It was like a veil had been lifted over my reading of the scriptures, and everything seemed so clear. I couldn’t understand how I could have missed the truth as I had read through the whole Bible on numerous occasions. I destroyed my study trying to refute based faith in Messiah, and started to write studies refuting what I had previously believed. I also started to keep our Heavenly Father’s fourth commandment (Shabbat/Sabbath), which was a key in my walk with Adonai, and started to fellowship with the congregation that I had so zealously opposed. This was an enormous blessing, and God greatly increased my family’s peace, and understanding of God, and His will for our life. Of course during all of this I continued to attend the original men’s fellowship/Bible study that I first attended from the beginning of my walk, and which I was then co-leading every Saturday morning. But, I started teaching
based faith in Messiah to the men. This made the other co-leader very nervous because he believed what I formerly did in regards to Messiah, and His Father’s Law/. I did this for a couple years, and several men whom were already believers started to keep Sabbath, and some of the other Feasts. When this starting to happen, I believe the co-leader was threatened, and he and another member of the group invited me to a meeting. In the meeting, they informed me that if I continued to teach based faith in Yeshua The Messiah…I could no longer teach, and would not be welcome in the small men’s study/fellowship any longer. I had one last meeting with this group, explained my position, and that I was given the option of stop teaching based faith, or I would be asked to leave. So, that was my last time in that group. I still keep in contact with several of the men that attended that men’s fellowship. And, one of them attended this year’s Pesach Seder!I am now one of the directors of a
based Messianic Fellowship in Spokane, Wa. and am serving YHVH my Elohim with my whole heart, soul, strength, and in spirit, and truth! I am constantly being sanctified with each passing day to the glory of The King Of Kings! Blessed be He!! Baruch HaShem Adonai!!! So you see, Adonai honored my prayer, and used my wife to deliver me to the Truth, and to Messiah!I am not worthy…I have been bought with a precious, and costly price. I now live a life of love, and obedience…yet not I but Messiah in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
B’Shem Yeshua HaMashiach,
Reuel
