God does not love you based on your obedience, but his love for you will lead you to obedience… It is only after accepting that you are accepted despite yourself — despite your inherent inability to please God, despite your incurably sick heart, despite your disobedience, sin, and so on — it is only then that earnest, Spirit-enabled obedience may spontaneously arise within your heart. In that sense “obedience” is like falling in love with someone. It is your love that moves you to act and to express your heart, and were you prevented from doing so, you would undoubtedly grieve over your loss… Therefore the “law of the Spirit of Life in Messiah” is first of all empowered by God’s grace and love. We walk by faith, hope, and love – these three. And this explains why the very first step of teshuvah (repentance) is to love God: Shema! Ve’ahavta et Adonai… The first work of faith is to believe in the miracle that God’s love is “for-you-love…”
If you still find yourself operating from a sense of God’s conditional acceptance, you will undoubtedly need to repeat the same sins over and over until your heart is finally convinced of its incurably wretched state. You must first be utterly sick of yourself to believe in the miracle of God’s deliverance. Only after this does the good news of the gospel find its opportunity to speak…
Was Jesus (Yeshua) really born on December 25th, as the Western Christian Tradition maintains, or does the careful study of Scripture allow us to infer a different time for His advent here on earth? Two cases can be reasonably made: one case for a Tishri (Sukkot) birth, and the other for the traditional late December (or early January) date. As I hope you will see, the crux of the arguments both for and against the late December dating of the birth of Yeshua depend upon when we think Zechariah (John the Baptist’s father) was in the Temple when he was visited by the angel Gabriel…
Regarding the birth of Messiah it is written in our Scriptures: “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the dominion shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called: ‘the Wonderful Counselor (פֶּלֶא יוֹעֵץ), the Mighty God (אֵל גִּבּוֹר), the Father of Eternity (אֲבִיעַד), the Prince of Peace'” (Isa. 9:6). “Unto us a child is born” – this is the first advent – when the Messiah would be rejected, suffer, and die for our sins; and “unto us a son is given” – this is the second advent – when the Messiah will reign as David’s greater regent in the kingdom promised to Zion.
Reflecting on the role of suffering in the heart of faith, Dietrich Bonhoeffer once wrote: “Here is the decisive difference between Christianity and all religions. Man’s religiosity makes him look in his distress to the power of God in the world: God is the deus ex machina. The Bible directs man to God’s powerlessness and suffering: only a suffering God can help” (Letters and Papers from Prison). Bonhoeffer’s comment alludes to the difference between an “Elohim” (אֱלהִים) conception of God as the omnipotent power and Judge of reality, and the “YHVH” (יהוה) conception of God as the compassion Source and Breath of life – the Suffering God who empties himself to partake of our condition – to know our pain, to bear our sorrows, to heal us from the sickness of spiritual death, and to touch us in the loneliness of our exile… The Spirit enables us to “groan” in compassion, directing us away from the impulse to “kill the pain” to accept it as part of our lament and need for connection with God.
The 
Though the whole earth is filled with the miracles and glory of the LORD, we must choose to see, to open our hearts, and to become God’s partners in calling forth goodness and truth. God is the Source of all Light and truth, and therefore we first turn to receive his radiance within our heart. As Yeshua said, “Let your light so shine before others, that they may see your good works and glorify your heavenly Father” (Matt. 5:16).
“God is Light; in Him there is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). Yeshua said: “I am come a light into the world, that whoever believes in me should not abide in darkness” (John 12:46). The ultimate message of 
It has been said that the Greek mindset regards what is beautiful as what is good, whereas theHebraic mindset regards what is good as what is beautiful. The difference is one of orientation. Doing our duty before God, in other words, is what is truly beautiful, not merely appreciating the appearance of symmetry, order, and so on. This explains why moral discipline (i.e., musar, מוּסָר) is so prominent in Hebrew wisdom literature. True beauty cannot exist apart from moral truth.