How to Live

 How to live

Do you remember this song?  

Nail in my hand

From my creator

You gave me life

Now show me how to live

Source: LyricFind

Audioslave 2002

Chris Cornell Tom Morello

Seems like yesterday the news of Chris Cornell's death in May of 2017 shook the music world up.  Even if you are not aware of Groups like Soundgarden, Audio slave or Temple of the Dog and even still, if you have no idea how Chris Cornell, Chester Bennignton of Linkin Park and John Podesta are connected (yes...pizza gate White house John Podesta) we can all relate in some way, to the topic of this blog title.   

LOST SHEEP

Take a look around or browse your cell phone for just a few minutes and then ask yourself, does it appear that this world understands how to live? Does the general population seem to be following some sort of guidance on how to live their everyday lives, or do they seem to be increasingly lacking direction living life wayward doing whatever comes to mind, whenever?   Do people say YOLO anymore?  You could lose a lifetime watching Tic Tock and You Tube videos of each new generation becoming more lost than the last.  Toilet tissue shortage response to a feared pandemic? There are 128 deaths from Heroin misuse each day in just the US alone!   Who hasn’t heard about Heroin by now?  Oh yeah before you get judgmental, there is no difference between street opioids and RX opioids and yes there is an equal RX crisis.  The 500,000 people that died from 1999 to 2019 from overdosing INCLUDED RX users.   It's real out here, real sad.   

This is nothing new sadly,  In Matthew 9:36 Yeshua (Jesus) stated , “Seeing the crowds, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and downcast, like sheep without a shepherd.”   OVER 2,191 people commit suicide each day!   EACH DAY!  Are we so lost that we could provide no offer to 800,000 people a year to prevent suicide?  You can best believe any sort of basic common sense principles or living guidelines you grew up with are also quickly becoming a thing of the past under the veil of progression or tolerance.  Nowadays it's anything goes and do your own thing, just as long as everyone agrees and if you question the actions of someone else, well lets just say you may want to call 911 because you are about to get flamed in the comment section, those same people claiming tolerance won't be anymore.  Don’t believe me, pedophiles are seeking public acceptance as a sexual orientation and they are closer now to achieving that goal than ever before.  Epstein in fact did not kill himself, his girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell aka female Jeffery Epstein is still alive and NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT HER CASE or why the media collectively seems to be ignoring it as well.  This is the time we live in, if you are the sleepiest of those in our population you gotta know something ain't right even if you keep it to yourself.    

A reasonable argument against all this would be to say that there is no guidance that can be accepted collectively and yet we all must live together on this planet.   Yes, that is reasonable and still, remains a position I cannot support.   Hear me out.  If you do not believe in a higher being or in a creator you may want to move on to another topic at this point because this is a faith based post and I am a believer, there is a bias but I don’t deny it and try to explain it.  I believe as many others in the most high God, Our Elohim, our Father in heaven. Most specifically, YHWH the God of Noah and Abraham  and Moses who loved the world (all of us, Hebrew, gentile, Muslim, black, white, Asian, brown, male, female, old and young) that He gave His only brought forth son, so that everyone who believes in Him should not perish but possess everlasting life.   John 3:16 is a frequently referred to scripture for a reason. Car manufacturers give you a book to read when you buy one of their cars, God is our creator, He left us a manual for how to live our life.   Loving parents do what they can to guide their children right, YHWH is our Father, and as any loving parent he has guidance for us but it is only if we listen.  

SO GET TO THE POINT

If I were to ask how we should live, I would no doubt be bombarded with personal opinion more than straightforward direction and almost none I would be willing to believe entirely.  To get the answer, we must go to the source of it all and ask our Creator.    Someone did just that, and they recorded the answer for the historical public record  (thank you Mattithyahu!) Mattithyahu or Matthew, his English name, was an eyewitness to the question asked to Yeshua recorded in Matthew 22:36-40, “Teacher, which is the great command in the Torah?” and Yeshua said to him, “You shall love YHWH your Elohim (Almighty God) with all your heart and with all your being, and with all your mind.  This is the first and great command.  And the second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.  On these two commands hang all the Torah and the Nebiim (prophets).”  

If you recall, the Torah is more commonly understood as the first five books of Mosheh (Moses) found in the First Covenant or Old testament. The Torah has 613 commandments which include the famous Ten Commandments referred to in Exodus chapter 20,  please read it again, but it includes God's name YHWH and his repeated disdain for idolatry, how His Name is not to be misused, to work six days but keep the seventh day or sabbath holy(which is not Sunday if you were wondering, and yes once again there is a pagan origin behind Sunday worship) all which was to remember the creation of all things in God’s Honor.  It also goes on to say not to kill or commit adultery or steal or lie.   Not to keep up with the joneses, lust over your neighbors beautiful wife, his beefy butler or male servant, his cute au pair or maid or his award winning oxen , or donkey or his awesome new sailboat or whatever.  To get to the point, over all that and 601 other commandments, when asked, Yeshua confirmed the two most important to live your life by was to love God completely and to love people as yourself.  

Conclusion 

So going back to that reasonable counter argument, “there is no guidance that can be accepted collectively and yet we all must live together on this planet.”   The Word of God never fails!  It never does, it is the best life coaching book you will ever read.  God provided direct guidance on how to live and if everyone actually read it, they would see, you cannot be a follower of Yeshua and have any hate whatsoever.   Love God but then You cannot also be racist, in any way.  You cannot hate a pro abortionist, a member of the LGBTQ community or even your persecutor.   You cannot hate an unbeliever, be cruel, mean or even sarcastic if you are doing as commanded to LOVE ONE ANOTHER.   Can you honestly say you LOVE everyone?   I know I cannot,  not in my honest heart and I am working on that because I don’t want to be just a believer, I wish to be a follower of Yeshua and in 1 John 4:8 it clearly states, “The One who does not love does not know YHWH for YHWH is love.”  I got to work even harder on my emotion towards unskilled drivers, I got to work on not quickly returning the evil that people send to me.  

The bible goes on to offer so much more in guidance on how to live but it appears that the hippies were on the right track….mannnn.  Love truly is the answer so says our all knowing Elohim and creator.  None of this means embracing sin, or even agreeing with behavior contrary to God however you are commanded to deal with ALL as you would yourself.  Put yourself in their shoes and proceed.  Will you listen and let this guide your life? Don’t be anxious about anything and seek the guidance of your loving Father.     

Did you like this blog post?   Comment, share and like,  let me know what you have to work on too.   God Bless.