TEACHING OF YESHUA MOSHIACH --- PART 8

Yeshua Expects to Deny Ourselves in Following Him:
[Yeshua said to the crowd: if any of you wants to be My follower, you must put aside your selfish ambition, shoulder your cross daily and follow Me.] -- Luke 9:23. People are willing to pay a high price for something they value. Is it any surprise that Yeshua would demand this much commitment from His followers? There are at least three conditions that must be met by people who want to follow Yeshua. We must be willing to deny self, to take up our crosses and to follow Him. Anything less is superficial lip service.

Yeshua Expects us to Imitate Him:
Believers follow their Adonai by imitating His life and obeying His Commands. To take up the cross meant to carry your own cross to the place where you would be killed. Many Galileans had been killed that way by the Romans. Applied to the disciples, it meant to identify completely with Moshiach’s message, even if it meant death. We must deny our selfish desires to use our time and money our own way and to choose our own direction in life without regard to Moshiach. Following Moshiach is costly now, but in the long run, it is well worth the pain and effort.

Yeshua Expects the Investment of Our Lives in His Service:
If this present life is most important to you, you will do everything you can to protect it. You will not want to do anything that might endanger your safety, health or comfort. By contrast, if following Yeshua is most important, you may find yourself in unsafe, unhealthy and uncomfortable places. You will risk death, but you will not fear it because you know that Yeshua will raise you to eternal life. Nothing material can compensate for the loss of eternal life. Yeshua’s disciples are not to use their lives on earth for their own pleasure; they should spend their lives serving YHVH and people.

Yeshua Expects us to Repent of Our Sins:
[The people of Nineveh too, will rise up against this generation on judgment day and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah. And now someone greater than Jonah is here-and you refuse to repent.] -- Luke 11:32. The cruel, warlike men of Nineveh, capital of Assyria, repented when Jonah preached to them; and Jonah did not even care about them. The pagan queen of the South (Sheba) praised the YHVH of Israel when she heard Solomon’s wisdom and Solomon was full of faults. By contrast Yeshua, the perfect Son of YHVH, had come to people that He loved dearly; but they rejected Him. Thus YHVH’S chosen people made themselves more liable to judgment than either a notoriously wicked nation or a powerful pagan queen. Compare -- Luke 10:12-15, where Yeshua says the evil cities of Sodom, Tyre and Sidon will be judged less harshly than the cities in Judea and Galilee that rejected Yeshua’s message.

Yeshua Expects us to Act Upon the Knowledge We Have:
The Ninevites and the queen of the South had turned to YHVH with far less evidence than Yeshua was giving His listeners; and far less than we have today. We have eyewitness reports of the risen Yeshua, the continuing power of Ruach HaKodesh unleashed at Pentecost, easy access to the Bible and knowledge of two thousand years of Moshiach’s acts through His Church. With the knowledge and insight available to us, our response to Moshiach ought to be even more complete and wholehearted.

Yeshua Expects us to Identify With His Death:
[I myself no longer live, but Moshiach lives in me. So I live my life in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of YHVH, who loved me and gave Himself for me.] -- Galatians 2:20. How have we been crucified with Moshiach? Legally, YHVH looks at us as if we had died with Moshiach. Because our sins died with Him, we are no longer condemned -- Colossians 2:13-15. Relationally, we have become one with Moshiach and His experiences are ours. Our believer’s life began when, in unity with Him, we died to our old life -- see Romans 6:5-11. In our daily life, we must regularly crucify sinful desires that keep us from following Moshiach. This too is a kind of dying with Him -- Luke 9:23-25.

Yeshua Expect us to Live For Him:
The focus of believers is not dying, but living. Because we have been crucified with Moshiach, we have also been raised with Him -- Romans 6:5. Legally, we have been reconciled with YHVH -- 2 Corinthians 5:19 and are free to grow into Moshiach’s likeness -- Romans 8:29. And in our daily life, we have Moshiach’s resurrection power as we continue to fight sin -- Ephesians 1:19-20. We are no longer alone, for Moshiach lives in us; He is our power for living and our hope for the future -- Colossians 1:27.

Yeshua Expects us to Adopt a Servant’s Attitude:
[Your attitude should be the same that Yeshua Moshiach had]. -- Philippians 2:5. Yeshua Moshiach was humble, willing to give up His rights in order to obey YHVH and serve people. Like Moshiach, we should have a servant’s attitude, serving out of love for YHVH and for others, not out of guilt or fear. Remember, you can choose your attitude. You can approach life expecting to be served or you can look for opportunities to serve others. -- See Mark 10:45 for more on Moshiach’s attitude of servant hood.

Yeshua Expects Our Lives to be Marked by His Humility:
Often people excuse selfishness, pride or evil by claiming their rights. They think, I can cheat on this test; after all I deserve to pass this class or I can spend all this money on myself; I worked hard for it or I can get an abortion; I have a right to control my own body. But as believers, we should have a different attitude, one that enables us to lay aside our rights in order to serve others. If we say we follow Moshiach, we must also say we want to live as He lived. We should develop His attitude of humility as we serve, even when we are not likely to get recognition for our efforts. Are you selfishly clinging to your rights or are you willing to serve?