Did you realize that we have a choice to be “righteous” or not?

In Isaiah 54:3-17 that YHWH "created the destroyer" - However...we discover we CAN choose to be righteous; and when we do, He takes us back with open arms, as revealed in our B'rit Chadasha portion. (We invite you also to read our "Explanation of "this generation"....) Let's take a look:

Isaiah 54:7 "Briefly I abandoned you, but with great compassion I am taking you back. 8 I was angry for a moment and hid my face from you; but with everlasting grace I will have compassion on you," says ADONAI your Redeemer. 9 "For me this is like Noach's flood. Just as I swore that no flood like Noach's would ever again cover the earth, so now I swear that never again will I be angry with you or rebuke you. 10 For the mountains may leave and the hills be removed, but my grace will never leave you, and my covenant of peace will not be removed," says ADONAI, who has compassion on you. (CJB)

Note that YHWH briefly abandoned His people, but His grace will never leave us. Grace has always been around since Adam and Eve! He could have destroyed them after they chose to disobey; but instead, He allowed them to live outside the Garden. He could have wiped out the entire earth, but He allowed Noah to start the human race all over again.

As you can see, "grace" didn't start with "Jesus" and it doesn't mean we are free to do whatever we want; YHWH shows grace and mercy to HIS people - those who have made the decision to turn from sin and return to Him to walk in His Torah....He knows that we tend to stray, especially in our youth. But He assures us that He loves us and will welcome us back: Isaiah 54: 4 Don't be afraid, for you won't be ashamed; don't be discouraged, for you won't be disgraced. You will forget the shame of your youth....

Genesis 1:26-27 combined with Genesis 9:5-6 put an end to the abortion debate!

CHECK OUT THIS INTERESTING OBESERVATION ABOUT GENESIS 9:5-6, which actually puts the "abortion debate to rest!

When coupled with Genesis 1:26-27, we can see that abortion (a contemporary issue about which there are endless pro and con debates and arguments)IS MURDER! The "abortion rights" advocates keep insisting that "it's not a baby until it's born." Let's see what the BIBLE says:

Genesis 1:26 Then God said, "Let us make humankind in our image, in the likeness of ourselves; and let them rule over the fish in the sea, the birds in the air, the animals, and over all the earth, and over every crawling creature that crawls on the earth." 27 So God created humankind in his own image; in the image of God he created him: male and female he created them. 28 God blessed them: God said to them, "Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it." (CJB)

NOTE that YHWH "created humankind in his own image" (not necessarily in appearance; but rather, to reflect His Essence, "who" He is; His Divine Holiness....)

Eggs and sperm reside inside LIVING beings. They are living organisms that DO something: when activated via the sex act, they come together to create a living, breathing human being that does what? - it reflects YHWH's IMAGE!

And here is what YHWH says to those who destroy HIS Image:

Genesis 9:5 I will certainly demand an accounting for the blood of your lives: I will demand it from every animal and from every human being. I will demand from every human being an accounting for the life of his fellow human being. 6 Whoever sheds human blood, by a human being will his own blood be shed; for God made human beings in his image. (CJB)

An embryo is nourished by human blood. It GROWS inside its mother, which means it is ALIVE! (Dead organisms don't grow.) So, no matter what the "Pro-Choice" types insist: snuffing out an embryo's life is MURDER in YHWH's eyes!

Thank You, Abba, for that awesome revelation!

Sharing a strange and prophetic dream...

I BORROWED THE BELOW FROM A "MEMORY" THAT I POSTED ON FACEBOOK IN 2017 ABOUT A NIGHTMARE I HAD, CONCERNING SATAN. The reason I'm sharing it is because I "happened" to see it recently on October 7, 2025 - which was exactly eight years ago, to the day! ("October 7" was also the day Israel was attacked...) I'm still trying to figure out the significance, but the gist of it, I believe, was to reveal that, ultimately, NOTHING else matters except for YHWH/Yeshua/Torah. Please read on:

MY DREAM OF OCTOBER 7, 2017:

I’m not one to pay much attention to dreams because dreams are basically images our minds make up while we sleep. No one really knows why we dream. Sometimes, they make sense; most of the time they don’t. But some actually feel prophetic, as if they’re trying to tell us something. Well, I had one of those last night (on October 7, 2017); and it even came in two parts. It was so profound (about someone pressing very hard to get me to basically “come to the dark side”) that I actually woke up, breathless. When I drifted back to sleep, maybe 10 minutes later, it picked up, right where it left off!

I don’t recall every little detail, but the gist of it was this: It involved a present-day me entering a “magic shop” in some bustling section of a big city. (Something I would never do in real life, because I hate “magic” and all its trickery.) Anyway, the tiny shop was long and narrow, and standing in the back by a window, stood the “magician.”

He was a tall, middle-aged man with flowing, pitch-black hair, wearing some black, loose-fitting clothing (the style you see on gypsies in carnivals). Basically, he looked as though he had just stepped straight out of a Disney movie. He had an arrogant, sinister countenance that reflected pure hatred and disgust, and I immediately found myself disliking him. 

Standing next to him was his daughter (a stunning young, dark-haired woman in her late teens), also dressed like a Disney character in a black dress embroidered with eye-popping white, yellow, red, blue and green swirls and abstract designs.

Somehow, we started talking about world events, and I mentioned that I felt today’s world was totally demonic. Well, that pretty much started the proverbial “World War III,” and the duo did their best to make me realize I was too stilted to see that the world was totally normal, and I needed to “loosen up.” For a long time, they both kept trying to convince me that Satan was GOOD and in charge of the world, and I needed to join them in honoring him. Of course, I told them in no uncertain terms that that would NEVER happen!

The argument ultimately became very heated and I found myself irritated over the fact that the man and his daughter kept exchanging secret glances, as if they knew something they didn’t wish to reveal, and that it had something to do with me. Well, that kind of freaked me out and I began to make excuses to leave - but they kept blocking my way and forcing me to continue the conversation.

Weirdly, the daughter, at one point, invaded “my space” a little too much, and appeared to become sexual toward me. I quickly realized it was her attempt to get me to join them, no matter WHAT they had to do! They were on a one-way mission, and – borrowing a phrase from Star Trek – “resistance was futile.”

As gorgeous as she was, I could “feel” the evil oozing off her, and it struck me that these people were NOT who they tried so hard to portray. They weren’t “beautiful people”; they were monsters, straight from Satan; beings that had crawled out of some pit to come after me because I apparently posed a threat to them somehow.

That is when I realized this “magic shop” was just a cover for some underground something or other and, suddenly, all I wanted was OUT!

Well, the man, eyes black as coal and full of fire, blocked my way and grabbed me hard by the shoulder while growling something about me having to realize that NOBODY was able to escape Satan and his demons - not even me!

Raw fear slammed up my spine as he stood there, large and looming before me, clearly giving me only two choices: Convert and join their cause; or die.

Feeling trapped with no way out, I somehow found some intestinal fortitude, and without even thinking, I gently touched his face with my right hand and loudly proclaimed: “YAHWEH … YESHUA!” I felt – no, I KNEW - he would recognize those names; and as I uttered them, I saw a hint of fear in his eyes, and so I repeated them, a little louder: “YAHWEH … YESHUA!”

Smoke came off my fingertips as I spoke, and I felt my fingers singeing his face – yet, oddly, he remained stoic in his effort to endure the pain for as long as he could. Finally, he recoiled, then smiled sarcastically as he backed away from me with a look that indicated, “This isn’t over – not by a long shot!”

And then I woke up.

When I awoke, I felt - after all that talking we did, we had accomplished nothing; and in the end, I realized that NOTHING really matters in this life except YHWH and Yeshua...

OH MY, THE NUGGETS YOU CAN FIND IN THE BIBLE…

This is just plain self-explanatory, when you really think about it:

ROMANS 6:14. And sin will not have dominion over you; for you are not under Torah but under grace. (AENT)

FOOTNOTE: Rav Shaul is juxtaposing the observance of former religious halacha ( "the way to go" or "the way of walking") with the grace that is available in Mashiyach (Messiah); see 3:19.

ROMANS 3:19. Now we know, that whatever Torah says, it says to them who are under Torah; that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world be guilty before Elohim. 20. And so it must be that, by the deeds of Torah, no flesh is justified before him: for, by Torah, sin is known. (AENT)

FOOTNOTE: Torah sets YHWH’s boundaries as to what is good or evil behavior; therefore, this cannot and does not make Torah a bad thing, but a very good thing! Rav Shaul (Paul) returns to this precise point again in the seventh chapter.

A MINI-LESSON ON “SPIRITUAL FENCE STRADDLING”

My late husband, Bill Welker, and I used to have a sweet little Miniature Schnauzer named Dallas (whom many of you might remember!), that left this world a few years ago at the ripe ol’ age of 14.

Dallas was afraid of many things, and so, it wasn’t hard to contain him in his little postage stamp, fenced-in back yard we had back then, which consisted of just a few wires Bill had fastened onto some rebar posts.

He could have easily jumped over the short fence, but luckily for us, he was somewhat of a coward. (He also wouldn’t go near the heat vents in the house, because they were apparently too scary and weird…)

What I’m getting at is that the little fence served as a kind “Torah” for our little fur person. As long as he stayed within its boundaries, he was safe. In that yard, he was forced to remain close to the house where we could keep an eye on him through the French door.

But - had he ever escaped and run up the hill into the woods, he would have run the risk of becoming a meal for any number of predators, including a bear, a lynx, and some coyotes (all of which our security cameras had caught passing through our property at one point or another).

If he had decided to run down the hill and across the properties of two of our neighbors, he would have ended up on a fairly busy highway. He would have faced possible danger even if he had simply trotted down our driveway toward road, because many in that particular neighborhood never bothered to follow the 25 mph speed limit...

I shudder to think what would have happened if Dallas had tried to make it all the way to the freeway which was only a half mile away!

What I’m trying to illustrate is that YHWH gave us HIS Torah (Divine Instructions in Righteousness) to keep US safe in a fallen world. Unfortunately, in a world where most don't want ANY rules, MOST "believers" don't bother to follow those Instructions - because they mistakenly believe that "those Old Testament rules applied only to the Jews. (That always makes me wonder if people honestly believe that God expects only "the Jews" to be holy?)

Think about it:

Adam and Eve were safe in the Garden until they decided to break just one little rule ... and suddenly, they found themselves outside of their safe haven, in a “fallen world” where hard work, pain, sorrow, sickness and death ruled … where jealousy, greed, drunkenness, lewdness, arrogance, fornication and adultery and all manner of vileness lay in wait as the world’s population began to grow ... where most (even many believers) don't seem to know "right from wrong; nor do they care to learn...

In our “fallen world,” we aren’t guaranteed health, wealth, riches or anything else our carnal selves desire. But when we belong to YHWH/Yeshua, we have the guarantee of eternal life, along with true shalom (peace) in knowing that, no matter what else happens, HE is with us, guiding and teaching and allowing us to grow in knowledge of Him so that we CAN PREPARE for that eternal life!

The Divine Instructions serve to not only please ADONAI and place us in a closer relationship with Him; but they also make our entire earthbound existence run more smoothly, because HIS Ways are perfect! The bottom line is, if we choose to IGNORE those rules, we will be considered "lukewarm" - and you know what THAT means!

Revelation 3: 16 'So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth. (CJB)

1 John 2: 5 But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in him. 6 He who says he abides in him ought himself also to walk just as he walked. (CJB)

How did Yeshua walk? By Torah! He didn't make up new rules. He kept the original ones found in Torah; and, to this day, he expects US to do the same. It's what sets us APART from the rest of the world! Revelation reveals this:

Revelation 12: 17 "The dragon was infuriated over the woman and went off to fight the rest of her children, those who obey God's commands AND bear witness to Yeshua." (CJB)

Revelation 14: 12 "This is when perseverance is needed on the part of God's people, those who observe his commands AND exercise Yeshua's faithfulness." (CJB)

The moral of the story?

If our little Dallas doggie had dared to jump over his “Torah” fence that kept him safe, he most likely would have ended up dead - or at least, seriously hurt. 

Same thing applies to YHWH’s people: If they jump their Torah “fence” the world will close in and cause them to lose not only their “way” but very possibly, their eternal life. There will be NO "lukewarm" in Heaven!

(See Romans 1:18-32; Numbers 15: 30; Hebrews 6:4-8 and 10:26-27; 2 Peter 2: 19-21; 1 Corinthians 6: 9-10; Deuteronomy 7: 9-10, Revelation 3:16, etc.)

Time to start the new, yearly Torah cycle all over again!

IT'S TIME TO READ TORAH PORTION 1 - HALLELUYAH! I always get goosebumps whenever I read the first Torah portion because there are SO many “firsts” – including the first commands to the universe and the earth (Gen 1:1-20), to the sea life, birds and animals (Gen 1:21-25), and to mankind (Gen 1:26-30).

We also see the first Shabbat (Gen 2:1-3 when ADONAI "rested" from all the creating!), and the first warning to man (Gen 2:15-17); the first sin/disobedience (Gen 3:6-7); and the first “blame game” (Gen 3:8-13); and, of course, the first murder (Gen. 4) – because Cain experienced jealousy.

We also witness the first time man took “multiple wives” (Gen 4:19) – along with the second murder (Gen 4:23), which was a “revenge” killing. Both of those happened in the cursed line of the murderous Cain!

The line of Adam and Eve - even though they had committed the first heinous sin which echoes into our world today - remained "set apart" enough to see favor in YHWH's eyes. This is evidenced through their son, Seth (the replacement for the dead Abel), who begat Enoch ... and after that men began to call on the Name of YHWH (Genesis 4:25-26)!

Reading on, we find in the Genesis 5 genealogy that the lines of Cain and Abel are both omitted! Cain clearly fell out of favor with God and was banished from His Presence (Gen 4:16). His line went on to commit even more sins - the types of sins we see perpetrated today among the godless throngs....

Noah (who ended up starting mankind all over again because he was deemed "righteous") came from the "righteous" line of Adam and Eve (in whom YHWH had breathed His holy Breath to give them life).

As we see in Genesis 6, by the time of Noah, YHWH had already had His fill of mankind - so much so that He wanted to destroy everyone! However, instead of destroying ALL mankind, He allowed the righteous Noah and his family to live - which is the ONLY reason WE are here today...

Anyway, on my website, The Refiner's Fire, you will find a thorough outline of the first Torah portion of this new year.

If you are new to Torah, please click on this link on my website to not only get an overview of what "Torah" is all about and why it is important for ALL of God's people are to know and study it, but you will also find links to the outlines of each of the 54 weekly Torah studies.

Are you confused about whether or not Sukkot pertains to all?

In reading Leviticus 23:42, one Bible version says: "You are to live in sukkot for seven days; every citizen of Isra’el is to live in a sukkah"; while another version suggests that only "Native born Israelites" are to dwell in a sukkah. So, which is it? Only the native-born Israelites, or the rest of us who are grafted in?

Teacher, author and host of “Random Groovy Bible Facts” - Jeremy Chance Springfield, explains:

The text uses a phrase that basically means "native of Israel," being כָּל־הָאֶזְרָח בְּיִשְׂרָאֵל KOL HA'EZRACH B'YISRAEL. It literally means "all who spring up in Israel." The idea is of a plant like a sapling coming out of the ground, or the sunrise peeking up from the horizon.

This is a commandment specifically mandating Israelites to perform. A sojourner is not mandated to do so. This is specific to Israelites that they must do this. We must admit that some commandments are allowed to be done by Israelites and foreigners, but this is just making the statement that absolutely without question Israelites must do this.

That said, this is one of the commandments that will later be applied to all nations. In the Messianic Era, Zechariah 14 states that people from all nations will be expected to observe Sukkot in Israel. Therefore, the mandate will change in the future to embrace all peoples.

(Click here to reach the Random Groovy Bible Facts page.)