Hello

I got an email from a group of Karaite Jews in Israel that expressed the new moon was sighted on their Sunday evening, the 7th.

Being on the west coast, and in light of the 10 hour difference between Israel and Eugene, Oregon, due to our new daylight savings time, I am going to be watching at 2 pm my time (midnight in Israel) and at about 8 am Monday morning (the end of the new moon day in Israel).

As an aside I want to express that the up and down experience of watching is getting more difficult over time. While becoming more and more informed of the extreme level of evil going on behind the scenes and while seeming to increasingly long for the physical presence of Jesus, reexperiencing again and again the heart sickness of having hope deferred, all of this is truly wearing out my strength.

What I think God is lovingly "forcing" me to do, in light of the programmed stubborness of my heart to tend to not deeply trust Him, what He says is true from the scriptures, and to rest in Him with child-like trust, is to make it so that I have no other choice but to cling to Him in order to, at the very least, be able to simply function day by day. (This kind of fits a pattern of His dealings with me over the years.)

Here is the truth I am laboring to enter into rest about: When I embraced by faith what Jesus accomplished on my behalf, the scriptures say that "those who are the Lord's are one spirit with Him" (II Cor 6:17). The context of this verse is Paul exhorting the believers to not have sex with a prostitute because of the oneness that takes place. This sin is a transgression of the truth that a believer does not "need" oneness outside of God's will because they are already intimately one with Jesus.

I am not saying I become Jesus. However, I am so "one with Jesus" (24/7) that it is at the extreme that everything He is . . . is mine: His peace, His love, His joy, His patience, His longsuffering, His kindness, His goodness, His self-control, and (and this is the focus of what I am trying to rest in now) His absolute trust in the Father no matter what the circumstance.

The scriptures say that I am now "complete in Him." I lack nothing. "I can do all things (including waiting for His return while I am confused about when it is to happen) through Christ." Jesus in me is not anxious about my cluelessness.

One reason Jesus came into me and became one with me in my spirit is that there is no way I can make acceptable/righteous choices in thoughts I nurture, motives I embrace, attitudes I maintain, and behaviors I live out in and of myself. Jesus is the only being in all of creation who, in and of Himself, can always please the Father.

So what God did is crucify the old "isolated from Jesus" spirit me and create a new creation being that only has a spirit that is now one with Jesus. That is who each of us are. As new creations, we are no longer merely men (human) as Paul mentions.

However, due to being born in the "seperated from God" Adam race, and due to beginning years of living a life cut off from the spirit of Jesus, and due to the years of being clueless (even as a new creation) and choosing to live by the lie that I am still cut off from Jesus in my spirit, and due to the many times (having even known what I am trying to explain) still making choices in the unbelief that I am on my own because I don't "feel" my oneness with Jesus, that due to all of this, my current mental programming will ever so quickly "impulse" me to live by that lie. And this includes the many times I have been looking for the return of Jesus and being disappointed again and again.

I am to the point that I can't do it anymore. I think Jesus must smile and say "Well its about time my very obstinate and stubborn one".

So, moment by moment, and this is the only way it can be done, and this includes this moment I am writing this and holding my breath while watching the clock, I am choosing to "be still" as a little child leaning against its mother and resting in the reality of my oneness with Him who is perfect peace.

"The mind set on the Spirit is life and peace".

"You will keep in perfect peace the one whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You."

Will I stumble in this many times? Yes. But since Jesus is my righteousness, I am not to keep count of those times. I am to get back up and "rest again". (I just had a mental flashback of when, as a kid, I would watch a superball bounce a bunch of times.)

Sprit of God, may You reveal to each of us waiting for the return of Your Son to know Him who is already our peace, our patience, our long-suffering, our self-control.

Sincerely,

Douglas Henney