From Parasha: Nitzavim

 

Never Will I Leave You

Tags:  repentance, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur

"Be strong and courageous. ... He will not fail you or forsake you" (Deuteronomy 31:6). The High Holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are primarily about our relationship with God as individuals and as a common people. These are appointed times for reconciling with one another and with our Father in Heaven. If we take the opportunity to turn to God in sincere repentance in the name of His Son, He will receive us....
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Circumcise Your Heart

Tags:  circumcision, heart, inner nature, pride, repentance, stubbornness, uncircumcised

Moreover the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live. (Deuteronomy 30:6)...
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United We Stand

Tags:  congregation, distinctions, one body, oneness, presence of God, unity

When a congregation stands together before God, it is more than a room full of individuals. By standing together to revere God, the congregation expresses itself as a single body....
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The Greatness of Repentance

Tags:  confession, forgiveness, presence of God, repentance

A person should repent every day. No one is so holy and righteous that he does not need to repent. Neither is any person so lowly and sinful that he cannot repent....
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Choose Life

“Obviously no one can keep the whole Torah. No one is perfect. Therefore, we should not try to keep the Torah because it is too difficult.” Moses must have foreseen our faulty logic. Therefore he insists in no uncertain terms that “this commandment which I command you today is not too difficult for you, nor is it out of reach” (Deuteronomy 30:11). The Apostle John agrees saying, “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome” (1 John 5:3). It’s not about being perfect, it’s about loving God....
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Circumcision of Messiah

Tags:  repentance

Judaism explains that when Messiah comes, God will circumcise our hearts by removing the evil inclination. In the scriptures, a circumcised heart is idiomatic for having a repentant heart, suppliant to the will of God. For example, in Deuteronomy 10:16, Moses commanded the people, “Circumcise your heart, and stiffen your neck no longer.” The prophet Jeremiah tells Israel to repent from evil deeds, saying, “Circumcise yourselves to the LORD and remove the foreskins of your heart.” (Jeremiah 4:4) During these last before the high holidays, the season of repentance, we should beseech God to circumcise our hearts, removing our stubbornness and inspiring us to repent....
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They Forsook the Torah

The Torah commands us to choose life, and Messiah is life. His is a life of obedience, and as such, it too is a choice. We can choose to hear the commands of God and walk in obedience, or we can choose to turn away and walk after the vanity of our own hearts. Even disciples must make a choice. One is the path of Messiah, the other is the path of Judas. One is life; one is death. Choose life....
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The Secret Things

When we attempt to take possession of the secret things of the LORD, we find that they slip through our hands and leave us fractured and divided. There is no forum for unity when unity depends upon defining the indefinable....
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