Shabbat Shuvah

Shabbat Shuvah, the "Sabbath of Return," is the special Shabbat between Yom Teruah and Yom Kippur which is focused on personal repentance, reflection, and spiritual renewal. 
Psalms 106:40. For this ADONAI's fury blazed up against his people, and he detested his heritage.

What was so horrendous, so vile, so abhorrent that God would detest His own children, his first born, His sons and daughters?  What was so painful that the creator of the universe could not stand to look upon His creation?  Sin!  Sin that led Israel into the same worldly lifestyle as those who lived around them.  
 
Zechariah 1:4. "Don't be like your ancestors. The earlier prophets proclaimed to them, 'ADONAI-Tzva'ot says to turn back now from your evil ways and deeds'; but they didn't listen or pay attention to me," says ADONAI.
 
Israel had caved into peer pressure and geopolitical influence, they were living and acting just like everyone else around them!  They had become just like the rest of the world.  When we gather for Shabbat T'shuva, we pursue great humility, do some soul searching, and repent. It is a period of self-examination where we deal with how we have failed ourselves, failed other people, and failed God!  It is a time of regret and remorse for the harm we have inflicted on others and within the Kingdom of God!  It seems as if we’ve been doing a lot of this, but I tell you it’s a daily process, not just Elul or the Ten Days of Awe! 
 
It is not a time of concern for self, rather is it a heartfelt crying out to God! The awakening of the soul, a stirring in oneself for the greater Kingdom of God!  This is the preparation for Yom Kippur, the Day of Purge.

While it is true that the Throne Room is accessible to us every day of the year, the Gates are still there, the enemy roams about the road to the palace waiting to strike the unwary.  Every day "Life" with all of its trappings continue to place obstacles before us on our journey into the throne room.  During the Days of Awe, the "King" is in the field, He is here, present where we are, beckoning to us, calling out to us, calling us back to Him!

Isaiah 55:6-7. Seek ADONAI while he is available, call on him while he is still nearby. 7 Let the wicked person abandon his way and the evil person his thoughts; let him return to ADONAI, and he will have mercy on him; let him return to our God, for he will freely forgive.
There are so many afflictions that prey upon believers that in reality not all are attacks of the enemy but are the result of our own disobedience.  God will heal us, but we must first be obedient to God and be willing to be healed.
 
Luke 6:46.  "Why do you call me, `Lord! Lord!' but not do what I say?
 
This rings true to every believer within the greater body!  There is a tendency to come to services every week and have a Holy encounter yet go right back to business as usual the other 6 days of the week.  Why?  Because we don't (for a myriad of reasons and excuses) do what He commands us to do. 
 
This then trickles down into every aspect of our lives.  A significant number of the cancers we are afflicted with in our society are from various vices such as smoking, excessive amounts of alcohol.  Almost (not all) all cervical cancer is the result of multiple sexual partners which results in a sexually transmitted disease, Chlamydia.  Rather than teaching our children abstinence the world wants mandatory vaccination of our daughters as young girls against Chlamydia so they can be sexually active!!  Diabetes and Heart Disease kill hundreds of thousands every year yet 70% of us are overweight!  To get the victory over diabetes we must put the fork and spoon down!  Gluttony is a major issue in America.

Ezekiel 16:49. The crimes of your sister S'dom were pride and gluttony (Siv’at root word Zalal: fulness, gluttony, vile, worthless, morally loose, live lavishly, to squander, to shake, to quake); she and her daughters were careless and complacent, so that they did nothing to help the poor and needy.

The word "glutton" conveys the sense of instability: to shake in the wind, no restraint, evil!  It manifests as a lack of a common standard of behavior, a lack of self-discipline and self-control, pleasing self regardless of any established safeguards.  Gluttony is not just overeating though that is one of the symptoms, it is excess in general regarding just about anything. We have a common phrase in our culture that we use this term: "he's a glutton for punishment".  This is someone who repeatedly places themselves in a situation that harms them either physically or spiritually.  Bad relationships, bad situations, bad habits.  

Gluttony is the result of an area of insubordination in your life.  Gluttony or disobedience in one’s life is an open door for the enemy to enter in your life.  Gluttony or Excess is more than overeating, it is catering to self.  It's allowing your flesh to have its way, it's a lack of self-control.  The time wasted on any excess is idolatry.  An idol is anything that comes between us and God, it separates you from Him.  Gluttony is codependent with and facilitated by reasoning.  Reasoning is the justification one gives for doing whatever excess they’re doing.  Yeshua was accused of being a "glutton", of being one given to loose and excessive living.

Luke 7:34. The Son of Man has come eating and drinking; and you say, `Aha! A glutton and a drunkard! A friend of tax-collectors and sinners!'

Gluttony attacks the Shalom between man and God.  It is the sin of self-indulgence not just food.  This plays out in food, hobbies, sports, TV, internet, even ministry and religion.
 
John 5:1-7. After this, there was a Judean festival; and Yeshua went up to Yerushalayim. 2 In Yerushalayim, by the Sheep Gate, is a pool called in Aramaic, Beit-Zata, in which lay a crowd of invalids -- blind, lame, crippled.  (Vs 3 not original-no angel stirring the water) 4 waiting for the water to move; 4 for at certain times an angel of ADONAI went down into the pool and disturbed the water, and whoever stepped into the water first after it was disturbed was healed of whatever disease he had. 5 One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. 6 Yeshua, seeing this man and knowing that he had been there a long time, said to him, "Do you want to be whole (hugies {hoog-ee-ace'}: One who is sound in body, to be made whole, teaching which does not deviate from the truth)?" 7 The sick man answered, "I have no one to put me in the pool when the water is disturbed; and while I'm trying to get there, someone goes in ahead of me."
 
Being healed and being made whole are two completely different concepts. The invalid here never answered the question, yet it goes straight to the heart right now in the Ten Days of Awe?  Do you want to be made whole!  I want to go deeper: hugies also means teaching which does not deviate from the truth. Many have come through our doors over the years, but they don’t want to be made whole.  Their complacent, their comfortable with their hypocrisy, they’ve reasoned with themselves that since they mention the name of Jesus, they are good.
 
Complacency and apathy won’t work anymore.  Complacency kills intimacy.  To the detriment of the greater body, many believers strive for "normalcy", the keystone of apathy and complacency."  They compare and judge themselves to others around them who are mostly secular in order to “fit in” then reason that Christmas and Easter are all good because everyone is doing it!  Yet the reality is that its apostasy. The desire to be like everyone else gives one a sense of belonging and acceptance with the secular community which is the exact opposite of what God commands. 
 
Sha'ul "Paul" rebuked the body at Corinth because they walked, "like mere men".  God does not want us "normal and complacent".  He doesn’t ask you to be accepted by the world or act like them.  He wants us to imitate and be accepted by Yeshua; to talk, walk, and act like Him!  This allows the Ruach HaKodesh, the Holy Spirit the freedom to release the fullness of God's purpose and fullness into your life. Let God define you, your priorities, and your purposes.  Yeshua didn’t come so that you could be normal and fit into society!  Yeshua came and died that you may be different! And not fit into worldly, elemental traditions and spirits:

Colossians 2:8. Watch out, so that no one will take you captive by means of philosophy and empty deceit, following human tradition which accords with the elemental spirits of the world but does not accord with the Messiah.
 
For those who have their reality and lives rooted in the traditions and spirits of the world, growth and maturity in the Lord is impossible.  Our dependency and reality must come from God, not worldly circumstances, worldly holidays, worldly religious practices, worldly surroundings, worldly people, or worldly Governments.  As a citizen of the Kingdom of God our focus and reality must be rooted in the Kingdom of God.  True T'Shuva (repentance) requires initiative by every individual, not apathy, complacency, or hypocrisy.  Hypocrisy is the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one's own behaviour does not conform.  It’s a believer who thinks or reasons that they have nothing to repent for.  It takes transparency, humility, and action to admit you’ve fallen short and perform the action necessary to remove the sin, the obstacle and come into His presence.  As the remnant did in Zechariah, people should ask God what He wants.  Most don’t because they won’t like the answer. 
 
Zechariah 7:3-5, 12.  as they inquired of the cohanim of the house of ADONAI-Tzva'ot and the prophets, "Should we go into mourning and abstain from pleasure during the fifth month, as we have been doing for all these years?" 4 It was then that this message came to me from ADONAI-Tzva'ot: 5 "Speak to all the people of the land and to the cohanim. Tell them, 'When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months throughout these seventy years, were you really fasting for me? Was it for me?

12 Yes, they made their hearts as hard as a diamond, so that they wouldn't hear the Torah and the messages that ADONAI-Tzva'ot had sent by his Spirit through the earlier prophets. This is why great anger came from ADONAI-Tzva'ot;

Do you want to be whole?  Will you receive the teaching of truth and made whole and restored before Adonai?  This can be legalistic Talmidic worship as well as Hellenistic religious practices. Will you allow yourself to be transformed into what Adonai wants?  The Prophet Joel witnessed hypocrisy in what the religious men were doing in the Temple.  They were only doing the outward things to be seen of men while their hearts were still full of wickedness.

Joe 2:12-13.  "Yet even now," says ADONAI, "turn to me with all your heart, with fasting, weeping and lamenting." 13 Tear your heart, not your garments; and turn to ADONAI your God. For he is merciful and compassionate, slow to anger, rich in grace, and willing to change his mind about disaster.
 
Amos saw the same couple with gluttony, too much self-indulgence which is exactly where America is today:
 
Amos 6:3-7.  You put off all thought of the evil day but hasten the reign of violence. 4 You lie on beds of ivory and lounge sprawled out on your couches, dining on meat from lambs in the flock and from calves fattened in stalls. 5 You make up wild songs at your parties, playing the lute and inventing other instruments - [imagining that you're] like David! 6 You drink wine by the bowlful and anoint yourselves with the finest oils, but feel no grief at the ruin of Yosef. 7 Therefore now they will be the first to go into exile with those being exiled, and the revelry of those who lounged, sprawling, will pass away.

The food we distribute at the food drives is far superior to anything I’ve seen or experienced anywhere in the Third World.  This is food that was going to be thrown away!  Our poorest people eat better than 90% of the world’s population.  We’ve become arrogant, haughty, and proud in our abundance of wealth and blessings!  Most do not believe judgment could or would be sent to America, but I tell you that very haughty thought is why God would judge us!  We must have a humble, contrite heart and actively stand against and repent of sin!
 
Adonai amazingly has given us so many witnesses to His sovereign ways and plan. Are things radically changing, are the heavens and the earth being shaken?  Absolutely!  Will things get worse!  They very well maybe!  Let us pause and search ourselves to repent that we may come before Him with clean hands and a pure heart!  
 
 
Blessings and Shalom!
 
Rabbi Eric S Carlson