Why We Strive to Be Torah Observant

Someone on one of my email lists asked this question:

Could you please explain to me why you think it is necessary to observe Old Testament laws in light of the New Covenant and New Testament Scriptures?

This is my response:

It’s a hard thing to explain. I don’t believe keeping the law is necessary for salvation. That is because the only thing necessary for salvation is to accept Jesus Christ as my personal savior.

As a result of loving and accepting Jesus as my Savior and loving my Father and Creator, I choose to obey them to the best of my ability.

If you keep my commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. John 15:10

If you love me, keep my commandments. John 14:15

Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says, “I know Him” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him. He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked. 1 John 2:3-6

We choose to walk as He walked. We choose to do what Jesus did. Jesus did not look for an excuse to disobey His Father. He was obedient and followed the law and commandments. Jesus did not celebrate Christmas or Easter or any other pagan holiday disguised as a Christian one. He kept the days that His Father commanded us to keep throughout our generations. (Leviticus 23 shows us that these are God’s feasts, not the Jews’ feasts.) I can’t figure out why I would want to use some replacement holiday instead of celebrating the joyous feasts that God has blessed us with.

We just celebrated Yom Teruah yesterday (Lev 23:23-25) – a day that God has not yet fulfilled the meaning of. It was such a joyous day. We worshipped and praised together with dance and song and musical instruments (Psalm 150). We ate yummy food together. We made a loud noise as we are commanded to do. (The kids loved it. They could yell and blow trumpets over and over again without us stopping them, because God commanded us to make a loud noise. :) We’re not quite sure why that is commanded. But someday God will show us and, in the meantime, we just walk in obedience.

And it shall be that whichever of the families of the earth do not come up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, on them there will be no rain . Zech 14:17

People kept the appointed times in the past. We will be expected to keep them in the future. There is no place in the Bible that says we should no longer keep the appointed times that God commanded us to keep throughout our generations (that means ‘forever’, people!). So, why would I not keep them now? Again, I prefer to keep God’s days than counterfeit days. They are an incredible blessing to our family and we anticipate them for months before they arrive

God asks us to not to worship Him the way the pagans worship their God. Yet people use pagan holidays disguised as Christian holidays to worship Him all the time. I would not be pleased if my husband came to me and said, “I am so excited to celebrate your birthday. But, I have decided to celebrate it on my ex-girlfriend’s birthday. It seems like a good day and we always had some really good traditions for her birthday celebration. So, I will take those traditions and use them to honor you and show I love you.” I most certainly would NOT feel loved or honored by that. Christmas is the same thing. The day was originally used to worship the pagan God Nimrod. That is easily found in any encyclopedia. Because of that, we choose not to celebrate Christmas or Easter. (And, because nowhere in the Bible are we told to celebrate Jesus’ birth. It doesn’t even tell us when He was born. If God wanted us to celebrate Jesus’ birth, He would have told us when it was and asked us to celebrate it.)

I am always learning and growing by honoring Him the way He has asked me to in His Word. I don’t have any need or desire to add extra days that He hasn’t requested. We choose to honor Him the way He has asked us to honor Him.

We choose to follow all of the 10 commandments simply because He asked us to. We don’t leave any out for the sake of convenience or for any other reason. We strive to follow all of them, including the Sabbath (sunset Friday to sunset Saturday as He commanded us) because He made it for us. And He said to them, "The Sabbath was made for man , and not man for the Sabbath.” Mark 2:27-28 God made the Sabbath for us! It is His gift to us! Why would I not accept a gift from God!? I think that would be crazy!!!

We choose to follow the laws of clean and unclean meats because God put them in His Word for us. He knows how He made us and He knows how he made those animals. As a result, He knows what is best for us to eat. Research shows that the meats Our Creator has labeled as unclean are unhealthy for us to eat. It’s not surprising to me that He knew that before men did J

I follow other laws in the Bible that people don’t typically follow. I don’t need to go into details. Suffice it to say, I obey Him because I love Him. Simple as that.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t follow any of these laws perfectly – not by a long shot! I fall short every single day, just like everyone else. As a result of falling short, which is ‘sin’, plain and simple, I need the sacrifice of my Savior. So, His sacrifice is very important to me. Without it, I would suffer eternal death, but because He is my Savior, I can live with Him forever. HalleluYah!!

Missi who, along with her family, is excitedly looking forward to Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) and Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles) - 8 glorious days of celebrating His millennial rule!!! HalleluYah!