Reflections on Shabat, 10th May 2024

 

  The photo shows three happy young people with a master's degree diploma. They are smiling at life and have a great unknown future ahead of them.


  I got this topic in a dream, in the morning already on May 5. so that I was then in a pastoral situation where a young woman asked very seriously: "How important is self-development?"

  She meant the spiritual development of oneself, but I started to think about the topic more broadly, because today's societies based on competition in Western countries set demands on everyone that have not existed before. The competition starts at an early age, even in such a way that talented children are taught to play the violin even from the age of 3. The question arises: "Will a small child be forcibly robbed of his safe childhood?"

  The answer to the second question is: "We will be usurped if he is forced to study too early!" That is, a child who should still be able to live freely in children's own games and enjoy them. Of course, it is right to teach a child the right manners around people from an early age, so that he adapts to teamwork, is not a danger to others and gets to enjoy his childhood. I am glad that I myself was able to live such a free childhood.

  Next, I focus on the mandatory continuous development of knowledge and skills of modern people, due to rapid and sometimes large changes in our working life and living environment. After that, I focus on a person's self-initiated spiritual development, which is much freer than that. For believers in Adonai Yeshua, it is much more important than achieving a worldly academic grade!

Mandatory self-development of people

  I worked in computer-aided design for most of my working life. In the early years of my working life in the early 1970s, I still planned and drew with pens and markers on plastic paper, and the work stress was much less. Later, when I moved as a consultant for computer-aided design in the passenger car industry in Gothenburg, Sweden, at the head office of the Volvo Passenger Car Factory, the level of demands and continuous self-education began to increase the stress level. I had to pray a lot!

  At that time, I had an additional problem with poor language skills and the fact that I had no basic training in the passenger car industry. I should have been fluent in the automotive technical vocabulary in English, German and even French, not to mention Swedish. Already at that time, 1985, the motto in the design and development fields was continuous self-development. I could only speak Swedish and English poorly. I only knew the basics of German. Fortunately, I knew where to get help for all of life's problems: By praying for help from Adonai Yeshua!

  The same thing happened when I moved to Finland in the early 1990s, as the only technical designer in a plastics company with about 100 employees. Adding to the stress was the fact that there was no one there who could inspect the 3-D models of the automotive industry I had designed, to spot any errors before using them to make expensive molds. If I had made mistakes, they would have been too expensive for a small company and I would have been fired, as my predecessor there had been. Even the whole company could have went bankrupt if we had loosed our main customer. In that firm, I often had to resort to the help of the Most High with prayers. Sometimes I closed the door of my workroom and went on my face on the floor to pray. I also experienced supernatural help from Adonai Yeshua immediately after the prayer!

  The latest statistics show that people's mental health has increased to a rare extent in all age groups, and the most among young people. The pressure from requirements regarding studies in our society and requirements in working life has caused that young people no longer dare to get married like before. It has already led, and in the coming years even more, to a decrease in the working-age population. It leads to a decrease in tax revenues and forces taxation to be tightened. In addition, Finland is so badly over-indebted that the social safety nets of our welfare society are tearing apart because of that alone. At the same time, the level of education and job requirements and the workload of the working population are increasing!

  I firmly believe that the cause of all the misery that is already happening is the main devil himself! He knows that he has only a short time to torment mankind, because after that he will be cast into the spirit prison, the abyss, for 1000 years. We are entering that era soon. Let's read Revelation 12:12
>>Therefore rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them. Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and of the sea! For the Devil has come down to you! He is filled with terrible anger, for he knows that he only has a little time!<<

  What is the best medicine for this very stressful time? Quick application for our Savior's help! Let's read the verses in Matt. 11:28-30
>>28 Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke on you and learn from me, because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy to bear, and my load is not hard to carry.<< 

A surprise warning by an angel!

  In the early 1970s, I heard from a young woman who was exceptionally wise that she had already been accepted to the University of Helsinki to study Finnish law. When she was going to the first lecture and was about to leave her overcoat in a separate student's own wardrobe, the following happened:

  When she opened the wardrobe door, she was almost blinded, because a very bright angel in white clothes looked her straight in the eyes and said in a soothing voice: "Peace for you young woman, if you want to know the Truth, then don't start studying Finnish Law!"

  She immediately put on an overcoat, and that was the end of her studies at the University of Helsinki. I thought about it thoroughly and came to the same conclusion as that angel's warning, because the Finnish Law was then only a little based on the Bible and only slightly on the New Testament. Since then it has deteriorated a lot more, unfortunately.

For all those without an academic final degree

  If you haven't achieved such a position and you haven't even completed a high school diploma, it doesn't make you any worse as a person before your Creator, even if your lower income level and your general esteem in the eyes of people label you as such.

 There is a special promise for you in the Bible: 1. Cor. 2:6-8

>>6 Now we do speak wisdom among the mature, but not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are perishing. 7 Instead we speak the wisdom of Elohim, hidden in a mystery, that Elohim determined before the ages for our glory. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood it. If they had known it, they would not have crucified the Adonai of glory.<<

  The following promise also belongs just to you: 1. Cor. 2:9-10
>>9 But just as it is written, "Things that no eye has seen, or ear heard, or mind imagined, are the things Elohim has prepared for those who love him." 10 Elohim has revealed these to us by the Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of Elohim.<<

Voluntary spiritual self-development

  Before this current competitive society, life was much freer and people were able to develop themselves quite peacefully in order to learn the skills of their secular profession and to gain a deeper understanding of religious matters. Nowadays, it is especially important to read the Bible daily with prayer, to think about the meaning of what you read for that particular day and to try to put what you have learned into practice! Let's peacefully build each one internally in the spirit to become a member of the royal priesthood and worthy to enter the glory of heaven! For this we need rebirth from the power of the Holy Spirit and the Word, constant praying in the Holy Spirit and the fellowship of believers, not to mention the act of repentance!

  It is very wise that we do not aspire to such clerical jobs for which we do not have sufficient prerequisites based on education, work experience and natural gifts. After all, it can happen that we get elected and get into such huge problems, which I myself got into a few times. As a result, I then became such a brain damage patient, but luckily I know my heavenly Chief Physician Adonai Yeshua intimately! Hallelujah!

  Two things came to mind from the computer era: Windows PC restore point and, if necessary, resetting the device to factory settings, if the device has gone as messed up as an old cabinet clock and it sings false time like a cuckoo clock. I have had to go to a restore point on the PC a few times and at least once to factory settings.

  Then I lost at least several updates that had to be downloaded again and I also lost files, unless I had moved them to e.g. a memory stick. An external cloud server was not yet available at the time, or if it was, it cost too much, at least for me, who have always been frugal when it comes to money.

  As for PC's point of return, it is a good example that we believers in Yeshua must return again and again to the place given to us from heaven: to the cross of Calvary to look at our suffering and loving Savior who assures us, “This I have done for you! Everything has already been filled in for you!"

  With regard to 'resetting the PC to factory settings', spiritually speaking, the following wonderful opportunity corresponds to all human beings who have strayed far from their Creator and sunk in their sins: Come to Adonai Yeshua just as you are and you will have the opportunity to be born into a completely new spiritual creation! We therefore read verses 2 Cor. 5:17-20

>>17 So then, if anyone is in HaMashiach, he is a new creation; what is old has passed away - look, what is new has come! 18 And all these things are from Elohim who reconciled us to himself through HaMashiach, and who has given us the ministry of reconciliation.

19 In other words, in HaMashiach Elohim was reconciling the world to himself, not counting people's trespasses against them, and he has given us the message of reconciliation.

20 Therefore we are ambassadors for HaMashiach, as though Elohim were making His plea through us. We plead with you on HaMashiach's behalf, "Be reconciled to Elohim!"<< 


Songs suitable for the topic

Didn't I walk on the Water

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5ZjvhAgM5Q

Welcome Holy Spirit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ch-b1VkttqQ

God Will Make a Way

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zo3fJYtS-o

Give Thanks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bk_7wUR2Wdg