I Stand Corrected

I've shared my testimony in having said the sinner's prayer as a child in Jesus' name, but to be honest, there was no evidence in my life, that Jesus was the name above all names.  As a young adult, Christianity seemed to be a maze of trying to live right, but being very careful about where I shared my true questions regarding matters of faith.  The name of Jesus did prevent me from attending synagogue in those days, so I church hopped.  The following sentence is not about others in the church, I'm saying this about myself.  It seemed to me, I had to actually be a hypocrite and pretend everything was fine, to be a good Christian.  Everything was not fine and pastors got terribly standoffish when it came to certain questions, like the "change" of Sabbath and sorting through the the laws.  Which ones still stood and which ones were nailed to the cross?  Trying to understand the trinity was another matter entirely.  At some point, I actually gave up my search for a time.  I knew a great deal of Scripture and continued to sporadically read my Bible, especially when I discovered I was on the Jehovah's Witness Saturday morning route.  

By the time I fell to my knees in the upper room of my home, in my mid-thirties, I knew for a fact, I'd heard the voice of YHWH twice before.  The first time, it was His call upon my life, as a young person.  The second was down in my kitchen just a few weeks prior to hearing His voice in the upper room of my home.  I recognized His voice that third time, and immediately bowed to His Voice.  When He asked if I was ready to lay down everything I thought I knew, I had no idea what that meant, but I said, "Yes!"  I was filled with His Spirit at that moment and I have no idea how long that "moment" lasted . . . but His Spirit has stayed with me since that moment, over 20 years ago. Fortunately, my Saturday mornings with the Jehovah's Witnesses had already let me know, the KJV had replaced the Hebrew letters spoken to Moses from the burning bush.  In just a couple of months from that upper room experience, I'd learned Messiah's real name and realized it's in the Hebrew Scriptures!   As it turns out, with the Spirit of Adonai in my life, I was even less welcome in the local gatherings.  Oh, I was a novelty and curiosity for a time, but once the brass tacks of living like the disciples had, came up, the rebuttals and rebuking began.

Since I had been introduced to Scripture as a child, I came to the Bible in the name of Jesus, so I tried very hard to "accommodate" those in the church by using both Jesus and Y'hshuwah as I spoke, but as I sought Abba, the Jesus name just fell away, and to be honest, it just didn't seem to hold the power the promoters claimed.  It wasn't long until YHWH brought someone into my life to set me straight.  This was a man a little older than myself.  He'd come out of the Roman Catholic Church and he was devout in his walk as well as articulate in the reasons he left.  He was kind and it was clear he chose his words carefully, which made the qualifying statement piercing.  When someone of faith qualifies their pending statement with, "I say this in love . . ." A correction is sure to follow.  The particular incident in which this was said to me still stands out all these years later.  Some very valuable information followed those qualifying words.

His words were clear and rather sharp.  He asked why I would use the terms, Y'hshuwah and Jesus, as if they are interchangeable when I've been shown the truth.  At first I wasn't sure how to answer that question or if I even dared answer it.  I didn't know if it was rhetorical or just where he was going, but he soon showed his direction.  He said, "I came out of the Catholic church, I know the history.  Jesus is relatively new to Christendom, as "Js" are new to English, but Christ is not Greek or Latin for Moshiach.  Constantine renamed the Roman idols.  Roman Catholic Christianity was a political religion established to expand his power, and years later, the Protestants really didn't protest much."  He then continued in telling me to use Y'hshuwah and Jesus interchangeably is confusion.  As a matter of fact, as the conversation continued, he actually used the "H" word to describe someone that claims to believe something while saying something else.

Truth be told, I was aware of the dissatisfied Christians leaving the church, so I just figured him to be another dissatisfied customer.  Besides, he'd called me a hypocrite!  I thanked him for his information.  That word he used, Christendom; was the same word the Jehovah's Witnesses used in referencing Christianity.  The term seemed to imply a separation from that labeled belief.  I was still hopeful that following Messiah was just a matter of bringing the Hebrew roots back into Christianity, but I was wrong.  As it turns out, the gentleman had his facts straight.  Constantine had indeed established a religion for his empire, mixing and mingling the Roman pagan customs with the Gospel, and Paul's letters, while making a clear separation and distancing from Judaism altogether.  The name Jesus came much later in history, so it was clear, Messiah's mother and the followers who actually knew him did not call him Jesus.

Upon realizing this late coming "J," I then turned my focus to the term "Christ."  The gentleman had also given a very straightforward disparaging report regarding that word, and once again he was proven correct.  The Hebrew word מָשִׁיחַ transliterated in English:  Moshiach, in Greek: Μεσσίας, Aramaic:  משיחא, and in Latin:  Messias, and of course the English word:  Messiah  You'll notice they all begin with the letter "M."  There is a direct translation in all these languages, even Arabic, which I didn't include, to the Hebrew term מָשִׁיחַ.  

Then of course there is Immanuel in Hebrew or Emmanual in the Greek.
 Therefore ADONAI himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.  Isaiah 7:14
Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, G-d with us.  Matthew 1:23