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The Beginning |
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NOTE: Unless otherwise stated, NO endorsement by this ministry is expressed or implied by linking to other web sites. If a link is provided that takes you off of the Rose of Sharon Women's Ministry web site, then it is merely for reference and additional information ONLY. By linking to another page elsewhere, I'm NOT advocating subsequent doctrine or theology of that individual or organization, as being accurate or accepted by this ministry.
Where to begin...that was an important question that I pondered and sought His help with. "At the beginning is a good place". So, that is what we shall do -- We will start at the beginning, but perhaps not the beginning of that which you have in mind -- I would like to start at the beginning, of your second birth!
My dear visitor, do you recall the feeling that you had when you first came to know our wonderful Saviour? I do! I was so incredibly happy! I was full of joy, peace, wonder, excitement, and longing...a longing to share with other Christians. But most importantly, I wanted to tell others so that they could feel this way too! Oh, the great wonder of being born anew in the saving grace of our precious Lord!! And I can recall something else of great importance..."questions".
Oh how I did have questions! For myself, being born again at 34 years of age, there were many years behind me of having learned all of that which mankind teaches as "truth". Now I sought His truth with all my heart; What do I do now? Just Who is Almighty God? What is He really like? What can I do to please Him? -- There were many more questions, especially personal ones, covering every aspect of my life ranging from relationships, to how I was dressed.
Perhaps you experienced something similar? What I would like to bring to your recollection is the fact that you wanted more than anything to please your new Heavenly Father and bring glory to our Lord Jesus Christ. You wanted to seek the ways of the Lord and dwell there. I believe that these experiences are very similar to all who are born again in the Lord.
So what does all of this have to do with where a person is now in their personal relationship with God? Everything! One's joy in the Lord should only continue to grow, not diminish. One's search for the Truth and wisdom of the Lord should only continue to grow, not diminish. No matter how busy we are or what comes in life, our first priority is always the things of God...absolutely nothing else of this earth will last or matter when it comes to eternity.
I have heard the phrase, "He who has the most toys wins". So I have wondered -- wins "what"? Where are those "toys" going to be when we leave this earth? Where will all of our "precious possessions" be when we leave this physical life? What good will they have done? The only thing of this life -- which the Lord has graciously given us -- that holds any meaning, are those things which are done for Him.
Yes, we must survive while we are here and most of us will have families that we need to care for. But what are we REALLY teaching them? What is it that we are showing them through our daily example? And what about our peers? Perhaps you are a young lady who is here reading. Just what is it that you want your friends to see in YOU? And what is it that we would want most for our friends and families? And most importantly, what can we do about it? These questions have already been answered...for He has already given them to us!
As stated on the opening page, many things have been said and written in regard to "A Virtuous Woman" and what that represents. Yet it all falls VERY short. In fact, I have yet to see anything written or hear anything spoken that even comes close to TRUE Christianity in general. Key elements are overlooked, left out, or totally misinterpreted. I had many questions in my early walk with the Lord, and it seemed that the more I read and studied God's word and then asked questions of others, the more questions I ended up with!
There are so many things which I could see as being very wrong, and things which the Holy Spirit was telling me were wrong. Do you ever have questions? Do you ever wonder -- "why"? One of the first questions I pondered over, was why any true child of Almighty God would need any other "book", other than the instructions that He has left for us?
These are all things which I wish to share with you -- the answers -- straight from our owner's manual, the Holy Bible.
For some, perhaps at this moment you are not 100% sure of your salvation. If this is true, please take a few moments to
click here -- and Be Sure!

Before continuing onward to the main pages, there is something very important that we must understand first -- Until the basic precepts of Almighty God are understood, until His commandments are taken to heart and those who profess to be His live by those basic instructions that He has given, nothing else that can be learned will be of any use -- and anything that I can share with you will be completely pointless. Not only this, but if those who profess to be "Christians" do not abide by every word that is written, then HOW can they even call themselves "CHRISTians"? What would they be showing the world? And how could they even begin to effectively witness the Truth, if they are not living it?!
The next few pages will take us through basic precepts that must be understood, before we can share anything else. And while this is a Bible study, you will not need your Bible (unless of course you wish to have it with you), as you will be provided with the Scriptures which are referenced to while you are here.
I realize that some of what will be covered, may already be familiar to some who will be reading, but there are those who do not know. Also, we need to be sure that we have a mutual understanding of Scripture, or nothing will make sense or be of value.
PLEASE NOTE: As stated on the opening page, if you do NOT plan to read through ALL of the following pages, then just leave this site and go on to another that will give you all of the "flowery, soft, and loving words" that you have become so accustomed to and seem to long for. You will not find anything like that here. What you will find is absolute TRUTH, "as it is written", straight from the Word of God.
So if it is indeed His Truth and wisdom that you seek, then let us begin...
Our Saviour told us:
"Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." (Matthew 5:17-18)
To completely understand what the Lord was speaking about and how it relates to us, we must understand, 100 percent, exactly WHO our Lord Jesus Christ is (I realize that most of us know this concept, but there are those who do not fully understand and need to know...please read on). Even for those of us who do understand, let us begin this part of our study with it fresh on our hearts...let's remember afresh, a very important fact about our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus...
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made." (John 1:1-3)
"For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one." (1 John 5:7)
[We note with the above Scriptures, that our Lord Jesus Christ, Yeshua in Hebrew, IS GOD, the Son, the second in the Triune. Also, we see one of the "mysteries" of Almighty God, "these three are one" -- the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost -- three, yet ONE God. To compare this to something physical that we might know and readily understand, think of water (H2O). It is made up of 2 parts Hydrogen, and one part Oxygen -- much the same as the Father and the Son, now in Heaven, and the Holy Spirit God here on earth. But together, they are One -- or, water. And in the case in which we speak, the Living Water: "Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water." (John 4:10) And in all of this, we also see that Yeshua created the heaven and the earth and all that is in them, for we are told this in the Scripture above: "without him was not any thing made that was made". So we can all see very clearly that Christ Jesus, Yeshua, is God. Now, let us look further...]
"In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not." (John 1:4-5)
["the darkness comprehended it not" -- This is very important, and I want to take a moment to make sure that we do not miss it. John explains what he means by this portion of the verse -- let's read that now...]
"He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not." (John 1:10-11)
[John confirms here what we saw above, that our Lord Yeshua made the world. John also explained that the world and its ways are darkness when seen in comparison to the pure righteousness of Almighty God. The Lord Jesus came to be with His creation for a while, to bring our salvation and the way that we can all be in Heaven for eternity -- but the world (mankind) rejected Him! We realize that there were those who saw and believed, but this number was very few. The world, His creation, "received him not". This fact is still so very important today -- Why? -- let us continue...]
Let's read, closely and prayerfully, the following Scriptures that our Lord Jesus Christ spoke while He was here on this earth:
"If ye love me, keep my commandments." (John 14:15)
"He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him." (John 14:21)
"Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings:..." (John 14:23-24a)
"If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love." (John 15:10)
Please notice the underlined text in the Scripture just above: "...even as I have kept my Father's commandments,..." The Lord tells us that even He kept the commandments...ALL of them! He plainly tells us in the Scriptures above, that IF we TRULY love Him, we will also keep His commandments -- All Of Them! There are many more verses in which the Lord speaks of this -- perhaps you may wish to read the word of God and find them.
[I wish to clarify a very important point. While our Saviour did abide by ALL of what is referenced to as The Law, we shall see later that there are key elements of the old covenant in which we are NO LONGER to abide by. When we refer to the Old Testament, we find in Jeremiah 31:31-33 that a new covenant was going to be made. While Yeshua was here on earth, He obviously had not brought to completion the work which He came to do -- man's salvation -- so it was not until AFTER our Lord's resurrection that we see the fulfillment of the promise of the new covenant. We will look at this again later but this point needs to be in our minds while we read -- let's continue...]
So what have we taken to heart thus far? That Yeshua IS God, and that it is vitally important to anyone that professes to be a CHRISTian that they KEEP HIS COMMANDMENTS -- Not now as a matter of law which is written in stone, but as a matter of our love for our Lord, written in our hearts. Our Lord Jesus tells us this many times over. So, what commandments are we to keep? His word tells us!
"And this is love, that we walk after his commandments. This is the commandment, That, as ye have heard from the beginning, ye should walk in it." (2 John 6)
"Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which ye have heard from the beginning." (1 John 2:7)
As we can plainly see above, "which ye had from the beginning", and "That, as ye have heard from the beginning, ye should walk in it", clearly tells us that we are to keep ALL of His commandments! And this is the key to everything else that you will read on this web site! Christ Jesus, Yeshua Ha' Mashiach, IS GOD! We have been left with all the instructions that we will ever need, in His Holy Word, and IF we love Him, we will keep His commandments -- ALL of them , FROM THE BEGINNING! Now, what we recall from what we have read above becomes important here, and is in reference to one of the many Scriptures that is either totally misunderstood or misinterpreted when most people use it, the one I referenced to on the opening page --
"Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." (2 Timothy 2:15)
So what are we to "divide"? -- Those things which every child of God was to observe and obey, which pertained to the
old covenant, but have now been fulfilled through our Lord in the
new covenant...while remembering that EVERYTHING else
STILL remains! The commands or laws which we are no longer to observe, are those that were fulfilled through Yeshua in Scripture, in providing for us the means of salvation and eternal life. For instance, "
tithing" is NO longer required and we obviously are not to make animal sacrifices for the atonement of our sins -- Yeshua is THE one, final, and complete sacrifice for our sins and the means for our eternal life -- nor do we have to abstain from eating certain meats as all meat has been cleansed for us to eat:
Acts 11:5-10. If we make animal sacrifices for sin offerings, or offerings in general as was done in the Old Testament (the
old covenant), then we are telling Almighty God that we do NOT believe that the Messiah has come -- we are Still Waiting, just as the Orthodox Jews are. And if we follow all "kosher" laws, then we have just called God a liar -- Think About That! -- for he has cleansed all meat and given it to us as is clearly seen in the Scripture above from the book of Acts. There are other examples as well, if we STUDY as we are instructed to do!
Here is another VERY IMPORTANT fact for you to consider...we should NOT be circumcising our male children! "WHY?" Because that was a "sign" of the OLD covenant! It was a sign between God and Abraham and Abraham's descendants, as a promise of a great blessing to come -- Yeshua! Think about that for a moment -- yes, it is recorded that Yeshua was presented on His eighth day of life on this earth for circumcision -- He had not yet provided our means of salvation and eternal life by the shedding of His life's blood and subsequent death on the cross and rising again to sit at the right hand of the Father in Heaven -- so of course He was presented for circumcision, as the promise had not been fulfilled at that point. And if this, in of itself, somehow sounds "odd" to you, I would highly recommend that you take a few minutes to view this web site: S.I.C.
PLEASE NOTE: The web site provides medical information in regard to circumcision, and as such, uses "graphic language" in some areas. While it is not a Christian site, it gives excellent historical and medical information...and I venture to say that many of you may be surprised to find the Truth, contrary to what you may have told were "the facts".
We find in Galatians 3:10a,
"For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse:" The "works" of the law, are those things which needed to be observed to show the hope of, and faith in the promise that was to come. So do you "see"? By circumcising male children when they are born, or following any other
old covenant laws that are
fulfilled through Yeshua, a curse is being made...because that is part of the old covenant and NOT to be done anymore. This should make everyone take a serious look at what they are doing -- are you telling Almighty God that you are STILL WAITING for the promise of the
Messiah?
Now, with all of that being said, let us not forget the following:
"Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever."
(Hebrews 13:8)
Dear Heavenly Father,
I come to You now in the name of Your precious Son, my Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus. I pray Father, that all who visit this web site will be able to "hear" and to "see", and that they will be drawn closer to You. And that all the dear visitors here, will come to understand the Truth, Your truth, and that their faith will be strengthened. Guide and teach the dear women who will read Your words through the power of the Holy Spirit, that they may fully realize Your will, peace, and joy. I also pray Father, that anything which could hinder their understanding be commanded to leave their presence, that all who come here have the chance to accept Your counsel. I thank You Father for the blessing of each and every visitor, and that You bless all of their endeavors for You. All these things I pray, in the name of Your only begotten Son, my Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus, Yeshua Ha' Mashiach, Son of the living and most high God. Amen, and Amen.
We are to keep even the least of His commands!
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