Month: April 2026

Who Am I?

Self-identity, understanding who we are and what makes us unique and valuable, seems simple, but it can be elusive. Ultimately, no one else can tell us who we are; we must discover this for ourselves, and that can take time.

At 80 years old, Moses is evidently still struggling with self-identity. Four decades earlier he’d been a rising star in the most powerful house on the planet, a man of valor, trained in all of the wisdom of Egypt, mighty in word and deed. (Ac 7:22) He was prepared and eager to deliver God’s chosen people from centuries of unjust suffering and bondage. (25) But a couple of missteps landed him in the backside of the dessert, feeding sheep, evidently married to a woman who may very well have been crushing his spirit into oblivion. (Ex 4:24-26)

When God finally confronts Moses and calls him out to fulfill his life’s purpose, his immediate response is, “Who am I?” (Ex 3:11) Moses acts as if he no longer has any idea who he is, what he is about, or why he has been born into this world; after years of what appears to be pointless suffering, he now seems blind to his life purpose and calling. He’s likely been feeling defeated, depressed, that his life has been wasted. God’s call in this context must seem surreal, too good to be true.

Yet God’s next words are profoundly healing: “Certainly, I will be with thee.” (12) When God shows up everything changes. (Ro 8:31) This is His eternal promise to all who serve Him. (He 13:5)

When we leverage our gifts and calling independently of God, we invariably serve ourselves, lose our way and get into trouble. (Jn 12:25) God’s purposes for us are all about Him, not us; we can’t rightly fulfill them without Him. (Ro 12:1-2)

Jehovah God has made each of us with His own hands (Ps 119:73), and He is ordering our steps. (Pr 16:9) The very idea of having a purpose implies we’re designed by Someone and created for His pleasure, not our own. (Re 4:11) We cannot fulfill our purpose apart from Him; we are complete only in Him (Co 2:10); in Him we have everything we need. (Ph 4:19)

What seem like wasted years, suffering from ignorantly trying to fulfill God’s will our own way, not knowing any better (1Ti 1:13), become strategic building blocks, crafting the required foundation as He remolds and reshapes us, preparing us for His mission. (Ps 23:23-24)

In Moses’ case, he not only needed all the wisdom of Egypt, he also needed to be at home out in the desert, to know it like the back of his hand. And he desperately needed to be set free of his selfishness, ego, self-will and self-confidence in order to navigate the chaos before him and effectively lead God‘s chosen people. God needed to destroy Moses and rebuild him from the ground up before He could use him, and a broken 40-year marriage was evidently the perfect chisel, as it is for many in God’s infinite wisdom. (1Co 7:28) Every child of God eventually needs a good, strong scourging (He 12:6); there’s no other way to get where we need to be, yet it’s a beautiful thing as we endure it in His grace. (11)

It’s never too late to recognize God’s hand in our lives, turn ourselves completely over to Him, with all of our baggage, wounds and scars, and begin to discover and live out our purpose, in Him and with Him and for Him. (Ro 11:36) He knows our frame, and remembers that we are dust. (Ps 103:14)

The world can’t validate us because it didn’t design us and it doesn’t know our hearts. God’s gifts and calling define who we actually are, who He has designed us to be; we must find ourselves in Him and through Him, keeping our eyes fixed on Him, the Author and Finisher of our faith. (He 12:2)

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Are There Few?

When Christ was asked, “Are there few that be saved?” (Lk 13:23), He didn’t answer directly; perhaps the question is too vague to answer meaningfully with a simple Yes or No.

The question is indeed fascinating, seeking a ball-park percentage of how many people will find ultimately eternal life. Why is this relevant? If the percentage is relatively high, say 7 or 8 out of 10, we might relax and coast a bit, thinking as long as we’re better than those around us, we’re good to go. But if the odds are 1 in 10,000 it’s another matter entirely, that’s a wake-up call to diligently make our election sure (2Pe 1:10), to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. (Php 2:12)

Christ’s reply is indeed sobering: “Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.” (Lk 13:24) The implication from the remaining context is that very few will make it to Heaven; many, thinking they have a personal relationship with Christ (25-26), will be turned away, much to their own surprise, consternation and horror. (27-28) Even many who call Christ Lord and think they’re doing great things for Him will be cast out because they didn’t do God’s will; He never knew them. (Mt 7:21-23)

Christ is warning us to diligently seek salvation, to earnestly lay hold on eternal life (1Ti 6:12) and ensure our lives reflect what accompanies salvation. (He 6:9) It’s exactly what we’d expect Him to say if the odds we’ll make it — if we’re the least bit careless or nonchalant about it — are slim to none. He’s telling us to pursue Him and eternal life as our top priority, to let nothing stand in our way. (Mt 18:8)

Does God give us any indication elsewhere in scripture that the odds any random soul is eternally safe are extremely slim? Consider the ante-diluvian population, which may very well have exceeded 100 billion at the time of the Great Flood, of which only eight souls were saved. (1Pe 3:20) The remnant of the elect is evidently so small even in this present age John tells us the whole world is immersed in wickedness. (1Jn 5:19); the percentage of the elect is evidently negligible, dust on the scale of humanity.

Could it actually be that most people will spend their entire lives and never know a single soul that’s truly going to Heaven? That even the most fervently religious may only get to meet a tiny handful of saints? Though we’re never given the precise percentage, it’s evidently like comparing .0001% with .000001%, tiny vs very tiny.

Of course, we dare not claim to know for sure who’s in or out; only God knows the heart; but we should evidently be willing to pursue Heaven all on our own if need be, not intimidated or dissuaded if no one else seems to feel the urgency, or if we aren’t getting any meaningful help from others along the way. We’re only responsible for making our own election sure. Since God Himself tells us to do so (Is 55:6-7), we can count on Him to show us the way. (He 11:6)

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The Whole Law

During the apostolic era, Christians were viewed as members of a Jewish sect, a subset of Judaism; the Twelve Apostles and their disciples were passionately Torah-observant (Ac 21:20), including the Apostle Paul. (24) As the Holy Spirit lead them to delight in Torah as the law of God (Ro 7:22), the early church remained Torah-centered; except for their love for Messiah, they looked and acted Jewish.

The distinct religion which we now call Christianity began to emerge late in the 1st century, distinguishing itself from Judaism by rejecting Torah as God’s Law. Though Christ plainly warns against this (Mt 5:17-18), and though Paul anticipates this type of apostasy (2Ti 4:3-4), desperation to escape the devastating Fiscus Judaicus, the additional tax imposed by Rome upon all Torah-keepers, beginning shortly after the destruction of the temple in 70 CE and continuing for hundreds of years, opened the door wide to deception. The relentlessly crippling financial burden — imposed simply for being Torah-observant — drove post-apostolic leadership to wrest key Pauline passages (2Pe 3:16) to decouple the burgeoning, predominantly lower-class gentile Christian population from its biblical foundation. (Ps 11:3)

Since no reasonable soul would believe all of Torah has been abolished, especially laws such as Do Not Kill, Do Not Commit Adultery, etc., key figures such as Justin Martyr and Ireneus began to arbitrarily partition Torah into moral and civil or ceremonial laws, claiming ceremonial commands were temporary shadows fulfilled by Christ and civil laws were only for Jews. They started encouraging believers to cease sabbath observance, abandon God’s feasts, ignore dietary laws, leave their children uncircumcised, etc. Conveniently, as it turns out, they began teaching precisely what suffering believers were desperately wanting to hear: how to stop being identified as Jewish and avoid debilitating taxation without renouncing their faith in Christ.

Thus the “itching ears” predicted by Paul a few decades earlier played itself out in the churches (2Ti 4:3-4), corrupting the faith and starting yet another false religion. The burdensome tax continued right up until just before this new religion, Christianity, was officially recognized as the state religion under Constantine (380 CE). Evidently, this is no coincidence, but calculated extortion and deception. In retrospect, we should expect as much; as God further reveals Himself (1Co 2:8) Satan strategically creates the clever counterfeit. (2Co 11:13-15)

Yet the trained soul perceives that dismissing parts of Torah as civil or ceremonial openly contradicts the plain teaching of Christ Himself (Mt 5:17-18) and changes the very definition of sin (1Jn 3:4), amounting to a radical departure from the faith which was once delivered onto the saints. (Ju 3) We know Torah is spiritual (Ro 7:14); it is all good if we use it lawfully. (1Ti 1:8) Rejecting this arbitrary partition of Torah collapses the entire superstructure of Christian dogma like the proverbial house of cards and exposes Christianity as a massive fraud. (Mt 7:26-27)

Even so, most Christians accept this artificial classification of Torah as a given, mentally substituting whatever definition of the law they happen to prefer in any biblical context. They instinctively dismiss the parts of Torah they despise while thinking they are respecting God’s law as a whole, and they do not even seem to realize they are doing so. (I certainly didn’t.) Pointing it out and challenging this key step might be a gamechanger for the elect: challenge them to show from scripture where and how God partitions His laws like this. When we stop doing so, Torah-relevance becomes an all-or-nothing proposition (Mt 22:40), as it should be (Is 8:20), exposing biblical objections to Torah observance as inherently inconsistent: they simply cannot stand. (2Ti 3:16-17)

The reality is that deliberately and routinely breaking any part of Torah defines one as a lawbreaker. (Ja 2:10-11) Intentional, willful disobedience is the defining characteristic of Satan and his own. (1Jn 3:8)

Yet God’s mercy towards sins of ignorance (1Ti 1:13) is evidently graciously extended to those who remain blinded by the enemy (2Co 3:14), who literally cannot see what they are doing. It is no small thing to acknowledge this level of deception and repent; it effectively amounts to following another Jesus, a very different one, evidence that the Jesus preached in Christianity since the 2nd century is not the Jesus of the Bible. The same language is used, but the actuality is quite different.

Preaching Christ as Messiah offering to save us from breaking Torah, equipping and enabling us to live in obedience to Torah (Ro 8:4), reveals who is willing to receive the true King and who is content to follow the counterfeit. (Ro 8:6) The foundation of God stands sure, having this seal: Jesus Christ knows those who are His (2Ti 2:19), and He is saving us from our breaking of Torah. (Mt 1:21)

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