THE HEART OF GOD: ONE MORE

     Deut 28: 12 –14  The Lord will open the heavens, the storehouse of his bounty, to send rain on your land in season and to bless all the work of your hands. You will lend to many nations but will borrow from none. 13 The Lord will make you the head, not the tail. If you pay attention to the commands of the Lord your God that I give you this day and carefully follow them, you will always be at the top, never at the bottom.
    According to Jewish tradition, it was and is believed that as wonderful as the Torah is, in order to create a more clear code of life, more was needed to give them halakhah ("going," or "path"), to govern regular life. These halakhot (plural) were passed on through the generations, with the earliest rabbis gathering and transmitting the laws learned from earlier sages.
    Around the year 200 C.E., Rabbi Judah the Patriarch, worked with the Romans to publish the first major Jewish work following the Bible, a study book of rabbinic law called the Mishnah (literally, teaching or repeating).  Several centuries later, the rabbinic sages whose work was eventually compiled in the documents which we call Talmud, analyzed each halakhah in the Mishnah. 
    All that to say, according to Talmud, if you save one life – you save the world.  I love that concept!  It focuses on that fact that an individual, including you and even me, is infinitely important.  Every life has tremendous value.  It would be good if murderers, terrorists, and pro-abortionists felt that way.
   The one life concept is a condition of the heart.  As we go to save the life of one person to save the world, we realize there is ONE MORE person we have to reach to save the world.  It’s clear – many lives have been saved, but many in the world suffer unnecessarily. 
    The path or “going” is based on the value of one individual; Jesus. He is “The Truth, the Light, and the Way. It’s super interesting that like the Talmud, it’s been said that if you were the only one here on earth, Jesus still would have come and died for you. The heart of God: you save one life – you save the world.
   Thus, why keep getting better, speaking your truth louder, and saving more lives even though you’re busy already? Because Jesus showed great love and affection for individuals in the process of getting there. GO SAVE ONE MORE FOR JESUS!

With God, all things are possible,

Dr. Ben