{"id":4303,"date":"2022-06-19T17:26:54","date_gmt":"2022-06-19T22:26:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hebrew4christians.com\/training\/?p=4303"},"modified":"2022-06-19T23:32:29","modified_gmt":"2022-06-20T04:32:29","slug":"small-in-our-eyes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hebrew4christians.com\/training\/small-in-our-eyes\/","title":{"rendered":"Small in our Eyes…"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Torah portion Shelach-Lekha<\/a> is a \u201cheavy one\u201d since it reports the \u201cSin of the Spies\u201d (i.e., chet ha\u2019meraglim:<\/em> \u05d7\u05d8\u05d0 \u05d4\u05de\u05e8\u05d2\u05dc\u05d9\u05dd) and the subsequent failure of the people to trust that the Lord would take care for them. The people\u2019s lack of bittachon<\/em> (trust) in God is the most serious sin recorded in all the Torah, even more serious than the sin of the Golden Calf (i.e., chet ha\u2019egel:<\/em> \u05d7\u05d8\u05d0 \u05d4\u05e2\u05d2\u05dc). This is confirmed by the testimony of the New Testament, which presents the fate of the Exodus generation as the dire warning of apostasy for those who claim to follow the Messiah (see Heb. 3:7-4:2).<\/p>\n

Trust, then, is the central issue, though in order to trust God, you must believe that you are valuable to Him and that He genuinely desires relationship with you… God redeemed you so you could know and love Him (Isa. 43:1). In this connection it is important to notice that the spies said, “we were in our eyes like grasshoppers” (Num. 13:33). They felt small because they had forgotten the reason for their redemption – they had forgotten how much they meant to God! Their lack of self-respect made them feel unworthy of the inheritance. The sin of the spies was not simply that they doubted they could overcome the \u201cgiants in the land,\u201d but rather that they were worthy people in God\u2019s eyes… Sadly the spies view of themselves was more real to them than God\u2019s view of them, and that is why they added, \u201cand so we were (like grasshoppers) in their eyes.\u201d From a spiritual point of view, this was profoundly tragic…<\/p>\n

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One lesson we can learn from the unbelief of the spies is that we must be careful to esteem ourselves properly. We are created be\u2019tzelem Elohim<\/em> (in the image of God), and that is the starting point for everything else revealed in the Torah. This foundational idea may be expressed as “respect precedes Torah.” Self-esteem and self-worth are very important characteristics because they enable the soul to receive the Word of God. This isn\u2019t a selfish, narcissistic type of love. If you have no self-worth, then it is likely you will believe the promises of Scripture are for other people, but not for you. You will regard yourself as an \u201coutsider\u201d or \u201calien\u201d who is without promise of inheritance. So we have to begin there, with the fact that God created you in His image and therefore you are of infinite value. You matter to God – and therefore you must respect yourself. It is no mark of holiness to shame or belittle yourself – notwithstanding your sinful nature – since you have a duty to honor yourself as one of God’s created children. Dishonoring yourself violates the central ethical commandment of the Torah: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev. 19:18).\u00a0 How can you respect others if you don\u2019t respect yourself? You will regard yourself as \u201cinsect like\u201d and will tend to view others as \u201cgigantic\u201d threats; you will act defensively and walk in fear of other people…. This is the path of a person living in a prison of fear, and it is a type of hell. Trusting in God\u2019s personal love for you presupposes that you are worthy to be loved and that there is a divine inheritance for you. This gives you real courage to go take possession of the land as its rightful heir. Trusting in God means regarding God\u2019s view of you as more real than your own. It means allowing yourself to be \u201cdrawn close\u201d so that you can be in a genuine love relationship with your Heavenly Father. “From now on, therefore, we regard no one (including ourselves) according to the flesh…” (2 Cor. 5:16).<\/p>\n

We \u201cwalk by faith, not by sight,\u201d which means we must take hold of the promise of God, even in a world that \u201cdevours its inhabitants\u201d and that is filled of seemingly invincible giants… Faith believes the possible, even in moments of testing and struggle. As Yeshua said, “All things are possible for the one who believes” (Mark 9:23).<\/p>\n

“God is able to make all grace overflow to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may overflow in every good work” (2 Cor. 9:8). May it please God our Heavenly Father to help us esteem ourselves properly so that we can receive, abide in, and walk in the reality and presence of His overflowing love.\u00a0 And may the LORD keep us all from the terrible sin of unbelief by always remembering that we infinitely matter to Him.\u00a0 Amen.<\/p>\n

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Hebrew Lesson:<\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/p>\nhttps:\/\/hebrew4christians.com\/training\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/isa41-10-jjp.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

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Isa. 41:10 Hebrew page (pdf)<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Torah portion Shelach-Lekha is a \u201cheavy one\u201d since it reports the \u201cSin of the Spies\u201d (i.e., chet ha\u2019meraglim: \u05d7\u05d8\u05d0 \u05d4\u05de\u05e8\u05d2\u05dc\u05d9\u05dd) and the subsequent failure of the people to trust that the Lord would take care for them. The people\u2019s lack of bittachon (trust) in God is the most serious sin recorded in all the Torah, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,15,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-dvar","category-hebrew-reading-practice","category-torah"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hebrew4christians.com\/training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hebrew4christians.com\/training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hebrew4christians.com\/training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hebrew4christians.com\/training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hebrew4christians.com\/training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4303"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/hebrew4christians.com\/training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4303\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4309,"href":"https:\/\/hebrew4christians.com\/training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4303\/revisions\/4309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hebrew4christians.com\/training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hebrew4christians.com\/training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hebrew4christians.com\/training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}