I don’t tell anybody what to do.

I tell people what I do, and why I think it’s a good idea.  For instance, I sometimes call myself a Messianic Gentile, but more and more I simply call myself a Believer, for I walk in the Way of Nazarene Judaism of the 1^st Century to the extent that the Acts 15 Decree requires of me as fully discussed in the Brit Chadashah…the New Testament.  I am not Jewish in my observance of any of the requirements I find in the Bible, but neither am I entirely Christian in thought or practice, though I trust in the same Messiah.  Christendom is a Greco-Roman construct made from the ruins of the apostolic faith of Nazarene Judaism, and I do not think as most Christians say that they think in their creeds and statements of faith about YHVH or Yeshua or the Ruach haKodesh.

Why?  Well, I don’t agree with what most Denominational  Christian Churches mandate because their faith statements and creeds are to a degree against Nazarene Judaic thought and belief.  I cannot do what each particular church might want me to, because when they speak about anything that isn’t straight out of the Scriptures or the Apostolic Writings, I feel as if I missed the point of what they were trying to say.

Denominational Christian Churches generally require unanimity of thought and action to belong to their assemblies. I often cringe at the Christian Churches oft stated devotion to Yeshua because I do not see their words translating into daily action, and wonder if what their leaders say ever penetrates to the minds of their congregants, or ever causes anyone to think differently or change their behavior.  Blessedly, the Holy Spirit works within all assemblies, Christian or Jewish and those of us that are somewhere in between, and draws the Believers there forward into the narrow path that Yeshua wanted for all of us.

There are at least 40,000 various denominations of Protestant, Reform and Catholic Churches. There are Baptists, Anabaptists, Methodists, Quakers, Plymouth Brethren, Anglicans, Presbyterians, Calvinists, Mennonites, the Amish, Lutherans, Reform, Roman Catholic, Russian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, Alexandrian Rite, Ethiopian Catholic, Eritrean Catholic, Antiochene Rite, Syriac Catholic, Armenian Rite, Armenian Catholic, Chaldean Rite, Syro-Malabar Catholic, Chaldean Catholic, Byzantine Rite, Ukrainian Greek Catholic, Melkite Greek Catholic, Romanian Greek Catholic, Ruthenian Greek Catholic, Hungarian Greek Catholic, Slovak Greek Catholic, Italo-Greek Catholic, Italo-Albanian Catholic, Belarusian Greek Catholic, Byzantine Catholic Church of Croatia and Serbia, and then there are the offshoot religions neither Protestant nor Catholic such as the Seventh Day Adventists, Mormons, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Christian Scientists, or the many Churches of Christ, ad infinitum.

There are hundreds of variations on Christianity I haven’t mentioned.  About all that they really agree on is that they worship Jesus Christ, and that he is the Son of G-d, on whom their eventual salvation rests.  Unfortunately, the ideas of their Jesus do not always match up with other people’s ideas of him, which is why there are so many denominations splitting over matters of procedure, belief, and custom that have nothing to do with what we owe to G-d or to one another, nor what the Bible says about him.  I do not go by what men say is right belief and right action, but study the Bible to answer these questions for myself.  Everything else in Churches, Synagogues and Assemblies is merely from men’s tradition, and though all of that knowledge informs me and enriches my understanding of what is in the Scriptures, I do not follow those traditions.

You see, I don’t worship Yeshua ben Elohim.  I worship YHVH Tsava’ot… the Lord of Hosts and no one else.  I give my duty, and my love and allegiance to Yeshua, and I consider him my Rabbi as well as the person I would most like to be like, if only I knew how to be like him.  I know that when Yeshua returns to this planet that he will be King of Kings and Prince of Peace, and I will be his subject and his younger sibling, working for him at his command, or doing whatever he wants me to do in the way he wants me to do it.  I know that Yeshua holds all authority and power of G-d as his regent, or in modern parlance, with full power of attorney, but Yeshua is not the Father, but the Son, and thus not all of G-d…but he is Divine in Soul, infilled with the Ruach haKodesh, as well as being very specially human.

I have no problem with the idea of falling on my face before him one day in an attitude of worship, because Yeshua is so above me in existence, being without sin, and being my Redeemer, and the sole Anointed representative of YHVH on earth that it doesn’t trouble me to acknowledge his superiority, nor do I mind bowing to his Kingship, but I don’t worship him as Creator.  Yeshua is that part of Adonai Elohim that G-d created things through, but he is not the entire Creator, and should not be prayed to nor worshiped.  Praying in his name while trusting in his righteousness is not worship, but merely following his decree to ask for what I wish from Abba in his name, and by his righteousness, because Abba gave him the right to tell me what to do, and I have no other righteousness to claim the attention of the Father.

Why do I not worship Yeshua?  Because Yeshua worshiped YHVH, and obeyed him…even though he was G-d’s Son in a non-physical highly complicated metaphysical way, and was born into a human body that was taken from Miriam’s DNA, and corrected to be not of our fallen nature.  Yeshua prayed to Abba for help and relief and comfort and guidance, and for the nurturing comfort that Yeshua being away from the Father would feel, as if he had been amputated, and set adrift on his own.  I think that YHVH and Yeshua share the same soul, but not the same mind or talents, since Yeshua has been always a part of G-d, as well as a human individual.  They do not seem to me to be identical in person or nature, nor can they be said to somehow blur together into ‘one’ person. But they are both one in nature, Father in the Son, and Son in the Father, and the Ruach haKodesh coming from the Father into the Son, and yet though holding the two together, also has a mind of his own, and feelings to be hurt if we do not pay attention to him when he is speaking to us.

The Ruach haKodesh…the Holy Spirit…is different from both YHVH and Yeshua with the role of joining together Yeshua to YHVH, and to empower those whom YHVH wishes to empower.  The Ruach haKodesh joins Believers in YHVH through Yeshua to YHVH and to Yeshua, and to a degree to one another. There is also a permanent piece of the Ruach haKodesh in all Believers in Yeshua that is a kind of earnest money deposit, or down payment on our salvation in Yeshua, that begins the heart change that will be completed when Yeshua returns, and Believers are made to be like Yeshua in his resurrected state, no longer mortal, and no longer of a sinful nature.

YHVH is said by some to be somehow completely present in Yeshua, God in human form, yet Yeshua has his own human identity as well as having been pre-existent to this universe, yet still not having been the entire Creator.  How do we understand him? Yeshua is by his own statements ‘in Abba, and Abba is in him’, but that does not make them interchangeable…or exactly the same complex being.  It gives them slightly different personalities, but so alike are Father and Son that one cannot tell them apart…and perhaps they never are really apart. It does make Yeshua of divine essence, but not the Creator, or at least not all of him, because there was still the Father in heaven for Yeshua to return to.  I know that a few people in the Apostolic Writings who knew Yeshua worshiped him after his Resurrection, but at that point Yeshua was beyond human understanding, resurrected into a new mixed form of humanity and divinity blended together, but I tend to see that prostration of themselves before the Master as a reverent valuing of his position as Mashiach…the representative of G-d, so not praying to him, or worshiping him as Creator, but praying in his name as Goel, because by being my Redeemer, it is Yeshua who gives me access to the Father.

Those Believers in YHVH who recognize Mashiach Yeshua are in touch with and guided by the Holy Spirit.  Christians, however, have a tendency to complicate how they speak about Yeshua ha Mashiach, because when described as being a ‘trinity’, they seem to speak of the Creator/Father, Mashiach/Son and Ruach haKodesh/Comforter as a kind of interchangeable being, which does not match up with what is plain in the Scriptures yet at one and the same time seem to be talking about 3 separate but equal gods in their statements of faith.  That is polytheistic, not monotheistic, not to mention confusing, whether they mean it that way or not.  Consequently, a good deal of the time I don’t recognize the god/gods that those people in Christendom worship as the G-d I worship, but that may simply be a matter of terminology and description.

I understand what they are talking about, and I understand that they are attempting to provide a uniform description of Adonai as Father, Son and Holy Spirit to their followers, but Greco-Roman mysticism and Christian theory added to psychology, philosophic interpretation of Judaic texts, and of course personal inclination as well as individual understanding of the godhead seem to have very little to do with the Jewish man spoken of in the Bible.  In fact, it is all these churches rejection of who Yeshua was when he was on the planet that troubles me.  It makes me wish to stand apart from the ideas of these other people who have inherited their viewpoint and concept of Yeshua from centuries of Church manipulation of the data according to Greco-Roman thought and philosophy, when the Bible is a Jewish document, written from a Hebraic understanding given to them by YHVH.  Israelites became Israelites by doing as G-d commanded, and if we Gentile Believers are not beginning to understand what G-d wants of us, we are something wrong.

I look at the Scriptures, and read how G-d interacted with man from the beginning, and I notice how direct Adonai is about what he wants. Understanding of the Creator by man is not always what is desired… obedience is.  Fortunately, Abba seems to be intent on instructing mankind in a mode of living that works well for everyone, even those that do not believe in his existence, and Adonai asks for trust in him, not understanding of him.  And since he always follows through on what he promises, I do trust him…even when it doesn’t feel good.

Western Civilization for all of its drawbacks has developed into a tolerant mindset – too tolerant, and incorrectly derived from the Teachings of Yeshua who was speaking to Jews who already had a uniform body of laws and customs that protected them from the onslaughts of modern philosophy.  They too were struggling with violence, idolatry, and perversion that they brought with them from Egypt, and encountered more of as they progressed in their wanderings.  Over the millennium the world has pounded away at the mindset YHVH was at pains to develop in the Israelites, but what is left of G-d’s teachings are written down for safe keeping in the Tanakh and the New Covenant Scriptures.

It does not follow automatically, however, that you can read the Scriptures and the Apostolic Writings and immediately understand what is taught there, because it is the Word of G-d written down as a story of YHVH’s creation of this universe, and what he did as he created it, including the earth’s history, and G-d’s dealings with man, man’s history, and accomplishment, of prophecy, and the dangers of disobeying the person who Created you.  The Scriptures are not a formalized or complete explanation of YHVH.  You can begin, as I did, by following what is simply expressed in the Scriptures in a simple way, and if you do not assume that there is any one way that is the only way to properly do what is discussed and taught therein, you can actually begin to live as Abba desires.  If you also communicate with G-d about what he desires of you, asking him to teach you and change you, he is most happy to give you understanding, inspiration and knowledge as you study his directions for life.  And with the Ruach haKodesh working in you when you receive Yeshua as your Savior, you get the enablement called grace that makes obedience possible and desirable.

The problem I see in most people who sincerely wish to be close to YHVH, and attempt to get that closeness through the one sure way to obtain it…Yeshua haMashiach, is that they believe that they must do it perfectly the first time out.   They attempt each little step of ‘The Way’ with the assumption, or even the instruction by their spiritual mentors that they too can be perfect in the things that Yeshua taught the Apostles even though they are not instructed from birth in basic Judaism of the 1^st Century.  Yet 21st Century Judaism can also get in the way as well of right action for beginners, since there is just as much tradition added to the commandments in the 21^st Century versions of Judaism to consider as there are in all of the versions of 21^st Century Christianity, while the mix of Christianity and Judaism in the Messianic and Hebraic Assemblies can be very confusing, since no one is simply going to the Scriptures, and reading what is there.

I have seen this overwhelming desire in myself…the desire to be perfect as Yeshua was perfect, but without his special circumstances, without YHVH being in me, and without the full indwelling of the Ruach haKodesh.  I received that desire as a command on what I had to do at the initial Bible Class in my first visit to a church when I was 7 years old.  I was told, as many people have been taught in a church Bible School, or Catechism class, or Shul, or Yeshiva that I had to be perfect, ‘as my Father in Heaven was perfect’.  It was unfortunate in my case that the Bible Teacher had a vividly colored drawing of Dante’s Inferno on a chalk board as a reference tool, and threatened us all with ‘burning in hell’ if we did not become perfect.  I only went back a few times over the years, drawn by YHVH despite my dislike of the churches, was baptized at the age of 15, then immediately strayed into the dark pastures of the occult.  G-d preserved me from the darkness I strayed into, but the terror of my constant imperfection persisted in me for a very long time.

It was only as I really dug into the history of the ‘Church’ and their beliefs and teachings and how those ideas developed, then delved also into Judaism, and their beliefs and teachings…not all of which is backed by Scripture except in the most limited sense…that I began to understand what it was that Yeshua had been talking about when he spoke against the traditions of man.  All that Sha’ul and Yochanan and Kephas and Jacob had been passing on to all who would listen was not about how you explained YHVH to Gentiles, but how to get Gentiles to do the minimal things they needed to do to be in G-d’s good graces, and how to enable the Jews to return to haderekh’ shel ‘elokiym…the Way of YHVH without emulating everything that was being done around them by the Sadducees, the Essenes and the Pharisees when it was not in the Scriptures, however valuable the rules about the commandments were in protecting and teaching Judaism.

So what do I do?  I follow the decree of the Jerusalem Church in Acts 15, but that’s because I am not a Jew…yet.  I do make certain assumptions about what the Jerusalem decree contained…that as Jews, the Apostles expected the Gentiles coming into Messianic Belief to follow the laws of the country where they lived, all of whom had rules about marriage, and interpersonal relationships like not killing people, or stealing.  But as disciples of Yeshua, Gentiles also needed to comply with some Jewish fellowship issues and to avoid idolatry, because the Gentiles were and are being grafted into Israel, gradually taking on the Way of Nazarene Judaism, and essentially becoming what is called ‘ger toshav’ a ‘resident alien’ or hazar b’tokh’ hasha’ar, the ‘stranger within the gate’, yet without necessarily becoming a member of the Jewish Nation as a traditional convert would be.

Acts 15:19-29 (CJB) 
¹⁹ “Therefore, my opinion is that we should not put obstacles in the way of the Goyim who are turning to God.
²⁰ Instead, we should write them a letter telling them to abstain from things polluted by idols, from fornication, from what is strangled and from blood.
²¹ For from the earliest times, Moshe has had in every city those who proclaim him, with his words being read in the synagogues every Shabbat.”
²² Then the emissaries and the elders, together with the whole Messianic community, decided to select men from among themselves to send to Antioch with Sha’ul and Bar-Nabba. They sent Y’hudah, called Bar-Sabba, and Sila, both leading men among the brothers,
²³ with the following letter:  From: The emissaries and the elders, your brothers To: The brothers from among the Gentiles throughout Antioch, Syria and Cilicia:  Greetings!
²⁴ We have heard that some people went out from among us without our authorization, and that they have upset you with their talk, unsettling your minds.
²⁵ So we have decided unanimously to select men and send them to you with our dear friends Bar-Nabba and Sha’ul,
²⁶ who have dedicated their lives to upholding the name of our Lord, Yeshua the Messiah.
²⁷ So we have sent Y’hudah and Sila, and they will confirm in person what we are writing.
²⁸ For it seemed good to the Ruach HaKodesh and to us not to lay any heavier burden on you than the following requirements:
²⁹ to abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from fornication. If you keep yourselves from these, you will be doing the right thing.  Shalom!

The Acts 15 decree by the Jerusalem Council is easy to follow if you are looking for excuses not to obey G-d’s desires to love him and love one another because there is no command to follow regarding the Torah except to listen to the five books of Moses being read every Shabbat in the Synagogue, and that was a statement of fact of what everyone already did. Having studied the Torah, the Noahide Laws that are binding on all of mankind, and the Acts 15 decree, I have found as a follower of Yeshua that it is really the Ten Commandments that are at the heart of Nazarene Judaism because they make up what is described in the Brit Chadashah what is called ‘Loving G-d, and Loving one another’.

Christians tell me they are not bound to follow any commandment given to the Jews because they are not under the Mosaic Covenant, but if they read everything that is taught in the New Testament they will find that there are more laws there than were given to the Israelites to keep them a separate people, and all of them are concerned with keeping the Ten Commandments.

Yeshua was always saying, “Why do you say you love me, and do not do as I say?” Yeshua wanted only a few things, all of which are already in the Torah.  He was asked, “What are the greatest commandments?”  He replied, “Though shalt love the Lord thy G-d with all thy heart, thy soul and thy strength and thy neighbor as thyself.”

Mark 12:28-31 (CJB) 
²⁸ one of the Torah-teachers came up and heard them engaged in this discussion. Seeing that Yeshua answered them well, he asked him, “Which is the most important mitzvah of them all?”
²⁹  Yeshua answered, “The most important is,  ‘Sh’ma Yisra’el, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai echad [Hear, O Isra’el, the LORD our God, the LORD is one],
³⁰  and you are to love Adonai your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your understanding and with all your strength.’
³¹ The second is this:  ‘You are to love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other mitzvah greater than these.”

A mitzvah, for Christianity’s entire claim otherwise, is not always a commandment, any more than they are laws in the Western sense of the word.  A law is a civic duty, and is laid down as a matter of arranging a civilization, just as Abba did with the Israelites in the desert after they came out of Egypt.  In Judaism there are Commandments of G-d, that when performed are Mitzva’ot.  Not all of the 613 Mitzva’ot are required of every person, despite Western understanding or rather, misunderstanding of the matter.  Some of them are moral instruction, others are civic or organizational in nature, and many are derived from Temple related activities, such as the instructions about Ritual Cleanliness, or Sacrificial regulations.

What Christians term the LAW, and LEGALISM are the halachah (traditions) set up around the 613 Mitzva’ot to ensure they are kept by everyone in a specific Jewish community to maintain Jewish Identity, and to maintain a high level of Torah observance that it is hoped will keep all adult members of the community in obedience to G-d.  For instance, on Shabbat, I do not light candles in advance of the sunset in a ceremonial way, to make sure that everyone is dressed, and sitting down to table well before the sunset in the sky is noticed.  I wait for the stars to come out as the Bible says to do.  They come out and are seen where I live in the So Cal Mountains…so very similar to Israel, and thus show most of the time in the clear, breezy skies a lot of the time very close what is called Nautical Sunset by WeatherUnderground.com.  I blow a shofar to announce the Sabbath has come, and because I live in the country, no one yells at me for it.  I have music, I Bless the Bread and Wine, remember Yeshua as I partake of it, and then have a leisurely dinner, talk to G-d, and enjoy myself.  It’s really nice, because the phone is turned off, and though my computer is on, it is to watch a few good Rabbis’ teach for the evening, as I have no one to celebrate the Sabbath with in my remote home.

According to Chabad.org, a Mitzvah is:

The simple meaning of the word mitzvah is command. It appears in various forms with that meaning about 300 times in the Five Books of Moses. The Talmud1 mentions that the Jewish People were given 613 mitzvot at Sinai, and numerous codes—most notably, Maimonides’ Sefer Hamitzvot —provide detailed listings. Examples include such diverse acts as having children, declaring G‑d’s oneness, resting on the seventh day, not eating pork, wrapping tefillin on the arm and head, building a Temple in Jerusalem, appointing a king, obeying the sages and providing an interest-free loan. See our Mitzvah Minutes for some practical examples of mitzvot.

In common usage, a mitzvah often means “a good deed”—as in “Do a mitzvah and help Mrs. Goldstein with her packages.” This usage is quite old—the Jerusalem Talmud commonly refers to any charitable act as “the mitzvah.”

Loving G-d and loving your neighbor and loving yourself are covered to a degree by obeying the 10 Commandments.  Adding the Acts 15 rules about not eating things sacrificed to idols, eating blood, or strangled animals, and not fornicating spiritually or physically is pretty easy to understand and to accomplish in order to be in fellowship with Nazarene Jews. Adding on the instructions for Messianic Believers…which is the ‘Torah’ of the Apostolic Writings, and you are doing a good deal more than just following the Ten Commandments.

So I found myself doing a short list of simple things that are not hard after some practice, but not because they are commanded of me, a Gentile, but because I love Yeshua, and I love my Creator, and I love the Holy Spirit.  I want to do what they want of me, and they want me to be like Yeshua.  I don’t need to do, and perhaps should not do those things that are Jewish by culture, but I should do everything I can do that Yeshua did that is not of Jewish culture.

If I want to add on the culture because I am marrying a Messianic Jew or already married to one, I might wish to convert fully to Messianic Judaism, but the writer of the Book of Hebrews taught against that, as picking up the Mosaic Covenant is no light matter…you can lose your soul over it by merely breaking one commandment, for by converting in the face of Yeshua, you are turning your back on him, and no longer have the grace you had through your trust in him, but are now trying for salvation on your own.

Jews who are Messianic have the Covenant already, and need Yeshua to save them from their inability to keep their covenant perfectly, so adding on what is not yours by birth is a matter for G-d to decide.  Being a dedicated Proselyte to Messianic Judaism is better…one does all that the Orthodox Messianic Jews do that you wish to do, with all the traditions that do not conflict with the written Torah, and you will be very practiced in pleasing G-d long before a incorrupt immortal body with the Torah written into the heart and mind is raised and changed for you at Yeshua’s return.

I worship YHVH alone; make no statues to worship, and bow down to no idols, even if they are conceptual, and not physical.  For instance, I don’t worship money.  I like money, and having money is fun, and provides a lot of comforts, and can do a lot of good.  I have also known it to do harm in my life, and in other people’s lives I have touched with it, so I avoid getting to attached to personal wealth or belongings, even though I enjoy all the stuff that G-d has given me, and I thank him for it…frequently.

I keep Shabbat to the extent I know how to, because Adonai instituted it in the creation of the world, and valued it, and it does me great good…to rest from work, and to honor G-d’s wishes that I rest one day of seven, for it G-d who delights in the Sabbath even more than we do.  I do keep Shabbat on the seventh day of the week because Abba rested on the seventh day of Creation, but that’s it…no Jewish rules about the Sabbath because I am not Jewish. If you do a word search of the Tanakh on Shabbat, and read what is said there, it’s pretty simple to do, so I wonder why people don’t wish to do it.  I do not work from Friday Sunset to Saturday Sunset, I do not carry heavy things, or buy and sell, and I do not strike a match or rub sticks together to create fire, and I cook all my food for the day ahead of time.  I admit it is not easy to learn to think from Sunset to Sunset when you are used to a Western calendar and clock, and it is difficult at first to learn to get all your food prepared ahead of the Sabbath, but now that I have learned, it is a joy to sit down to wine and bread at Sunset on Friday, and relax.

I honored my parents to the best of my ability, and loved them too, and now that they are gone, and despite the fact that my parents were not always a joy to me, I wish I had done it better.

I don’t murder, steal, commit adultery, or covet what others have…not any more, not after I realized that YHVH Tsava’ot meant what he said, and that Yeshua was very desirous of me doing these simple things.  I still want to murder people, particularly politicians and other bad guys, but I repent of it as soon as I realize the thought, as the wish to do something can translate into action.

I don’t steal because I no longer want to profit unjustifiably any more…and that is because it is what I want to do in order to be more like Yeshua.  I don’t perjure myself by swearing falsely, commit adultery, nor fornicate, but I do stomp on my thoughts if they stray in that direction because the wish to do something can lead me astray.

And I do keep the Feast days on the Judaic Calendar in a simplistic way, because they are Sabbaths…additional days of rest, and also prophetic of Yeshua’s earthly ministry.  Yeshua was our representative Passover; our perfection without sin represented by the Feast of Unleavened Bread; our offering of First Fruits as the first of all humans to be resurrected into Eternal life; and the giver of the gift of the Ruach haKodesh on Shavuot…the Feast of Weeks.

One day soon, there will be a Feast of Trumpets announcing Yeshua’s return, and a Day of Repentance on Yom Kippur when the still un-Believing Jews that remain alive on the earth will repent of not understanding that Yeshua was their Messiah the first time he showed up on the planet.  Then as Mashiach haMelech, Yeshua will rule as King of Kings in Jerusalem tabernacled among us once again during the Feast of Booths and after in the Millennium.

I also follow Yeshua’s commandment to love other people as he loved us, although I don’t do it well.  I am still learning.  In my view, that is simple in theory, but not in practice.  I try to do what I can, as I can, to help those that believe in Yeshua, and to forward the discipling of the nations (particularly Israel), so that they will learn to know Yeshua.  Mostly that comes down to helping those I can as I can, and forgiving those that hurt me.  Neither is always easy, and forgiving people takes a lot of practice, but I keep practicing.

So what is that I do?  Not all that much, and not much that you probably do not do, or could do easily, once you realized the need to love and obey our Creator as Yeshua instructed us to. The list I have made for myself as the minimum I need to do to the best of my ability is not required of me, or of any Gentile.  But almost anyone would agree that once you take the ‘have to’ out of the equation, and add in the want to of wishing to please G-d, that the beginner’s list I recommend below is a reasonable summary of what is written in the Scriptures that can be good for a Gentile Believer in Yeshua to do when they begin walking after the Master as his disciple.

• Love YHVH above all else, even your life
• Do not make idols to worship physically or in your mind.
• Do not bow down to other people’s idols, real or abstract
• Rest on Shabbat, including the Appointed Times of G-d
• Honor your parents
• Do not murder
• Do not steal
• Do not commit adultery
• Do not swear falsely
• Do not covet other people’s stuff.
• Don’t eat meat sacrificed to Idols
• Don’t eat blood
• Don’t eat strangled animals
• Don’t fornicate, physically or spiritually.
• Love your neighbor by helping others as you can.
• Forgive one another as YHVH forgives you through Yeshua.
• Study the Torah
• Pray in thankfulness for yourself and for others

I don’t find any of the above mitzva’ot difficult to do mostly because I am not paranoid about being perfect at it, and I allow the Grace of G-d that is available to me make up for my deficiencies.  Yeshua has already paid the debt owning to G-d and Man that I have sinned against to cover me from judgment over my sheer broken humanity, and the stupid things I do.  There are also other good deeds that I try to do that are not in the list above, but these are the important ones in my view…the ones that Yeshua spoke of, and that all the Apostles wrote about and taught.  I know I can’t be perfect, because I am not in a perfected body yet, and my human nature automatically gets in the way, but I want to begin now, and not wait for the perfected body that I will have when Yeshua returns.

I do try, however, with the help of the Ruach haKodesh to get better at it day by day, and in the meantime, I know that Abba is pleased with me for continuing to make a stab at it every day, and doing teshuvah – repenting of my faults, and praying for forgiveness and resolving to do better – when I blow it, as I do frequently. How do I know Abba is pleased with me?  Because he helps me by having the Ruach haKodesh make my obedience an easy, more and more natural thing to do.  I ask him to change me into what he wants me to be, and he does change me, and I like the result.

Do I want you to do what I do?  Sure, because I would have an easier life in not battling your lawlessness, and I know in the long run you would be happier, but it is not for me to decide.  G-d gave you choice and free will, and with every action you make, with every thought and with every decision you are deciding whether to follow in Yeshua’s footsteps or not.

Is any of what I recommend required for Gentiles? Or Jews?  Yes, in love of G-d and in love of one another, but not for salvation.  The salvation is a gift, a new beginning in Yeshua.  After you have salvation though, you need to begin to walk in love…and my short list above is a good place to start as you study the Scriptures, and talk to Abba about what you should do to walk in Yeshua’s footsteps.

1. • http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/1438516/jewish/Mitzvah.htm